Despite protestations to the contrary, it’s looking like Bruce Ratner is going to be a major player in the challenge to Council Member Letitia James‘ seat in the 35th District. Atlantic Yards Report, which broke the news of the campaign by Delia Hunley-Adossa earlier this month, has a post out this morning about Hunley-Adossa’s campaign treasurer Charlene Nimmons. According to AYR, Nimmons, like Hunley-Adossa, runs a small non-profit whose major purpose appears to be to funnel salaries from Bruce Ratner to the women who run them in return for their support of the Atlantic Yards project.

As with Hunley-Adossa’s Brooklyn Endeavor Experience (BEE), Nimmons’s Public Housing Communities (PHC) likely relies on the largess of developer Forest City Ratner. (Neither would confirm or deny that most funding comes from FCR, though Hunley-Adossa has acknowledged that FCR supported one program and Nimmons has cited an FCR-supported event sponsored by her organization.) If so, given the light workload of both nonprofits, the salaries Nimmons and Hunley-Adossa both draw from their nonprofits give them leave to work on the campaign–which suggests that the developer is supporting the challenge to James even without direct contributions.

In her one speech thus far, Hunley-Adossa, who owns a security company in addition to serving as the head of the 88th Precinct’s community council, tried to make her campaign about “the issues” but the Atlantic Yards project is clearly the elephant in the room.
Photo by Jonathan Barkey