CB8 Landmarks Co-Chair Jane Parshall Confesses to Conflict of Interest - then 48 Hours Later Thumbs Nose at Ethics & Wages War on Marx Brothers Place

On Monday, July 19, 2010, Community Board 8's (CB8's) Landmarks Committee Co-Chair Jane Parshall - a Public Servant appointed to the Board by NYC CM Dan Garodnick - announced publicly that because she has a conflict of interest regarding historic Marx Brothers Place she would have to recuse herself from the vote on this beloved NYC block.

With Parshall out of the mix, the 93rd Street Beautification Association's Request (RFE) - to extend the Carnegie Hill Historic District one block east - sailed through CB8's Landmarks Committee 7-0 (with Parshall's 1 abstention) following several heartfelt apologies from Committee Members for not having designated this important historic block years earlier.

Mysteriously however, within a mere 48 hours, CB8 Parshall's confessed conflict of interest had somehow evaporated into thin air: And without the slightest hint of qualm, CB8's Parshall dove right into the thick of things on Wednesday, July 21 in a very obvious attempt to derail the vote on historic Marx Brothers Place.

This was the very same vote that just 2 days prior had prompted Parshall - a Public Servant appointed to the Community Board by NYC CM Dan Garodnick - to publicly confess to a conflict of interest which ethically barred her from participation.

In what most generously might be called one of the most dramatic lapses of memory on public record CB8's Landmarks Committee Co-Chair Jane Parshall inexplicably cast aside her recorded conflict of interest and aggressively inserted herself into the matter of the Marx Brothers Place vote scheduled for a Full CB8 Board Meeting on Wednesday, July 21, 2010.

Parshall's outlandish antics and overt attempts to subvert the vote - while completely ignoring her own confessed ethics conflict - stunned the public and sent shock waves through the room. Parshall's failure to follow procedure was so egregious that it finally led CB8 Landmarks Committee Member and Co-Chair of the Defenders of the Historic Upper East Side Teri Slater to publicly read Parshall the Riot Act. A stickler for process, Slater's public tongue-lashing of Parshall, however, came after the fateful Marx Brothers Place vote - which Parshall had successfully poisoned - had already been tallied and officially recorded.

There can be no question that the July 21, 2010 full CB8 Board vote on historic Marx Brothers Place was tainted by fraud and abuse of process. So the 93rd Street Beautification Association has no choice but to call upon Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer - who oversees the workings of Community Board 8 - to do the right thing and demand that the July 21, 2010 vote on historic Marx Brothers Place be immediately vacated due to fraud.

This historic block has earned its place on the calender of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). Marx Brothers Place should not be denied a public hearing at the LPC because of the egregious irregularities perpetrated by CB8's Landmarks Committee Co-Chair Jane Parshall.

Please click on the following link now & let Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer know that the tainted vote on historic Marx Brothers Place must be immediately vacated: http://the-marx-brothers-place-report.blogspot.com/2010/08/vacate-cb8-vote-on-marx-brothers-place.html

Thanks for your continued support of historic Marx Brothers Place in NYC!