Dear Gifford Miller,

A true democracy can only exist when the people most effected by a decision are a part of the decision making process. I am writing to Urge you to stand with Community Board #1's priciples of protecting 4,000 of our local jobs, creating 70 acres of new open space and parkland, garunteeing that the rezoning will include 40% affordable housing and making sure that the height of any new building remains appropriate to our neighborhoods' feel.
I understand the traditional role of Gentrification in Manhattan to be: artists move into low income areas, help build the community up and are soon followed by more and more money until the artists are priced out of the area and the original inhabitants are ghettoized to undesirable areas. Some call this PROGRESS. But this is Brooklyn. Many of us live AND work in our neighborhood. Many of us have helped build the neighborhood up. Diversity is a key component to Strength. The diversity of our mixed-income, mixed-use, multi-cultured and extremely creative community has now taken a stronghold in the areas of Williamsburg and Greenpoint that will not be washed away by the mistitled wave of PROGRESS. In fact, we believe in progress; the progress that comes from building communities rather than breaking them, the progress that comes from celebrating and education each other through our own diversity, and the progress that comes from standing united as a group with trusted elected leaders who have our best interests in mind.
Please vote NO to the City's rezoning proposal of Williamsburg/ Greenpoint.