Tenant organizers get day in court

By Miranda Kaplan
Contributing Writer

The first arguments in a lawsuit preventing the Highbridge Community Life Center and the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition from organizing tenants in six Bronx apartment buildings were heard in New York State Supreme Court on June 18.

Much of the hearing focused on the temporary restraining order (TRO), instituted in December by a Westchester judge, that bars the groups from seeing or speaking with tenants in any of the six buildings under examination. The defendants hoped that Justice Sallie Manzanet would throw out the order, but she put off any decision until later this summer.

The building landlords filed suit against the groups in November because of the groups’ efforts to organize tenants in a number of buildings where Frank Palazzolo appears to have a controlling interest—he has signed mortgage documents for dozens of Bronx buildings, including the ones in question in the lawsuit, but he insists he does not own them.

Palazzolo’s involvement with the buildings first came under scrutiny in August 2002, when a boy was killed in an electrical fire at 3569 DeKalb Ave., a badly neglected building in Norwood.

Several months later, the Highbridge Community Life Center began organizing tenants at 1030 Woodycrest Ave., which at the time had more than 100 violations. The Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition started organizing in several other Palazzolo buildings.

In court last month, plaintiff counsel Lawrence Gottlieb emphasized the need for the TRO due to the “wrongful activities perpetrated by these coalitions.” He decried the groups’ associating landlords Leonard Froio and Stephen Tobia with Frank Palazzolo, claiming that Palazzolo recently cancelled his pledge of stock in the five holding corporations – including the one that bears his name – thereby negating any official relationship between himself and the plaintiffs.

Gottlieb charged the groups with making an “unwarranted intrusion” in the landlords’ financial matters because the Coalition has met with Washington Mutual Bank officials to encourage them to enforce the “good repair” clause in the Palazzolo building mortgages. Gottlieb also charged that the Coalition and HCLC coerced tenants into signing affidavits against the landlords that they did not fully understand.

The defense argued that the TRO hampers its ability to make its case by preventing the groups from calling on tenants to testify that they voluntarily signed affidavits against their landlords and, in the case of some tenants, that they were pressured into signing an anti-organizing petition circulated by their landlords.

Recognizing that conundrum, Manzanet agreed to modify the language of the restraining order to allow the groups to visit tenants for the purpose of gathering witnesses.

Gottlieb also claimed that the number of violations in the six buildings – ranging from 19 at 2268 Washington Ave. to 172 at 1055 Grand Concourse – is relatively low and that many violations had been addressed. Nevertheless, Manzanet emphasized her intention to see the violations firsthand, stating, “I intend to visit each and every one of these buildings.”

After the arguments, Manzanet followed up on that promise by visiting 2315 Walton Ave. and 1030 Woodycrest.

While both HCLC and the Coalition admit that some repairs to the apartments appear to have been made, they insist that many were completed only in the last month. “This suit is about the day before Thanksgiving when there were more than 400 violations,” said HCLC Executive Director Edward Phelan.

Furthermore, the organizers’ counsel reiterated that the case was not just about poor building conditions. “It’s about the tenants’ right to organize,” said attorney Wendy Stryker of Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein & Selz.

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión, who visited the Woodycrest building last summer, offered his support to the groups in the form of an affidavit. “I fully support the tenants and tenant advocates who have been valiantly fighting the actions of Mr. Palazzolo,” Carrion stated. “ … While many of his tenants are living in squalid conditions without heat, hot water and with mold and falling ceilings, Mr. Palazzolo has been busy filing lawsuits in Westchester County in an attempt to bankrupt and deter tenants from exercising their constitutionally protected free speech rights.”

This article originally appeared in the Norwood News. Jill Grossman did additional reporting for this version.