So, as I was saying. I was stuck in the middle of two factions. Ruben Franco’s and Jose Nicote’s. I was not part of any of there crews. My buddy was Willie Nieves, but I got the job at the behest of my boy Rafael Vega. Ralf was tight with Willie, even though I knew Willie for many years independant of him.

So after Willie asked me to stop hanging around the nineth floor, and to stop having luch with him I was alone. NYCHA is a humongus bureaucracy it has over 1500 employees. I was in charge of a small unit consisting of 15 workers, two aides one assistant and a secretary.

After about a week of Jose Nicot being on board, I was called into his office. When I walked in he point blank asked me “Who are you, and where are you from.” I introduced myself. He then asked me who I knew that led me to getting this position. I told him that I knew Willie Nieves and that it was through him and Rafael Vega that I got the job. It was then that I learned about the two factions. Jose’s assistant and boy, Eric Toro then began to talk to me about East Harlem. He told me all the people he knew and it so happened that I knew most of them to. The real issue on both Jose and Eric’s mind was how close I was to Ruben Franco and if I had his ear.

As time went by, Jose and Eric began to include me in some of thier planning sessions. Soon they were taking me out to lunch with them almost on a daily basis. Word of this got to both Willie and Ruben and I guess they felt I betrayed them. I was just doing my job and going to lucnh with my boss when asked to.

Then there was a big issue in East Harlem over the placing of a garbage dumpster. It became a very big issue. The Arch Diocese got involved as did a community based organization, which the name escapes me but that was part of Saul Alinsky’s organization. Suddenly I was in the middle of it. Since I came from East Harlem and was a member of the community planning board I was assigned the task of collecting intell fro Jose Nicote. And I did.

I found out who was behind the controversy. As it turned out, the dumpster was just an excuse. The real issue was Guiliani. So the next day I walk into work and my phone is ringing off the hook. Apparently someone had “leaked” the memo I had drafted for Jose Nicote’s eyes only to the spanish press. Now I know who it was. It was Jose himself. His boy, a certain cat named Gersin Burgos or something like that, was a reporter for El Diario. So I was a scapegoat. I had to face my friends and colleagues in East Harlem. One of the people involved with the “church” group was a colleague of mine from the community board. The newspaper article made her out to be the mastermind and it named me as the source of all the information.

Now I was labeled as a fink, and my job at NYCHA required my direct interaction and negotition with the tenant associations. These tenant organizations are then united into a huge city wide organization. The city is devided into six sections and each section elects one of its members to represent them on this city wide organzation which has the Mayor’s ear so infacto Ruben Franco’s ear. The person that represented Northern Manhattan, which includes EastHarlem, was a Barbera Barbera. This lady was a bitch on wheels and she hated me. She did everything she could to sabotage anything I was involved in.

Another, and probably the main function of my job, was giving away money to the tenant associations. The money was given away in the form of grants. This is how it worked. A community was formed, in some cases the committe was a part of the tenant association, in other cases it was an independant entity. The committe was called the “Drug Elimination Committe.” These committee’s would submit proposals for activities that were supposed to help “eliminate” drugs from within thier respective developments. The real deal was that this was pork plain and simple. The money was used for all sorts of nonsense. Barbera Barbera would submit proposals for trips to Baltimore Maryland to visit the Black’s in Wax Mueseum, or trips to other far away places and I had to fund her. Under the prior Mayor, David Dinkins, the lady that was in charge of this program was busted for decorating her office with fancy furniture and a plush soft leather sofa. That is how much money was invloved in DEP.
I was stressed out. Proposals were coming in every single day and I had to review them and fund them. If the money was not issued fast enough the tenants would complain to Ruben Franco, he had an open door policy with them, and he’d call and yell at Jose Nicote who in turn called and yelled at me. But it was all good. I had my newly accquired MSW and felt I was doing some good. After being on this job 10 months, my wife gave birth to my second daughter, Cemi. My wife is and was at the time a little connected politically to. She is a graduate of Princeton Universtiy and holds a Masters Degree in Public Policy, so it was not unusual for her to be at political events and/or cocktail paries, receptions etc. It was at one of these events that I introduced my wife to Ruben Franco and he held my one week old daughter in his arms. We all got into a lively discussion about her name because Cemi is a deity in the Taino Culture (the native indians of Puerto Rico) and Ruben Franco supposedly is a nationalist.

So I was totally devastated the next month when I was called into the personnel directors office for what I thought was going to be a raise but turned out to be mydismissal. I walked into her office, she tells me that I better sit down. She then proceeds to slide a piece of paper to me. When I pick it up and read it, it simply states effective immediately your services are no longer needed. I looked at dumbfounded and she says in a very cold, calculated way “Mr. Franco expects you to clean out your desk right away”.

I go back to my office pack up annd leave. I was pissed off. When I was finally able to talk to Ruben he told me that I should discuss this issue with my boy Willie. I told Ruben that I did not need to talk to Willie since this was an issue between him and me. He really felt uncomfortable talking to me and was trying to brush me off. So I told him that the mannly thing would have been for him to call me into his office and tell me himself that he wanted me out and not let his lackey do his dirty work. I told him that I did not appreciate the manner in which this was handled, that I did not like being slipped a piece of paper saying I had to leave right away.

I was crushed. My whole family suffered because of this. Then check this out, Jose Nicote called to over me an opportunity. So I met with him and his fucking opportunity was selling diet pills. Both Jose Nicote and Eric Toro were some fat mother fuckers, I was slim. I had no purpose selling diet pills. I told him thanks but no thanks. Then Eric tried to help me via his boy Louie Acosta. Louie worked for the New York State Housing something or other agency. He oversaw and funded housing projects. I guess the director of one of the projects was in bed with Luie so they hooked me up with an interview for a job. I went to the interview and was offered a position as a caseworker for $25,000.000 per year. I told them no and went my way.

Being a community organizor I had co-founded a youth group called Talent Unlimited. We had a small grant and this agency was to be my legacy. It was my way of making amends with society for my past wrongs. Yes I had served my time in prison and completed parole. But this was my way, it made me feel good, since as you can imagine doing time in prison does not make anyone feel good. Anyway, I was the Chairman of the Board and we were having a hard time hiring someone to run the program for the small amout of money we could offer. Who ever took the job would actually have to pay the agency instead of the other way around. My wonderful wife saw how sad and depressed I was that she suggested that I assume the Executive Directors role and that together we’d get the agency funded.

So that is what I did. Rather than take a salery I took a small stipend of $300.00 per month and using my influence and my wife’s we got a storefront. We bought computers, video equipment and I ran an after school program. Then with the kids that I recruited we set up a tv show on public access TV.

Together my kids and I would attend all the social, political and civic affairs in East Harlem. We made a name for ourselves and whenever we called for guest to interview we had no problems. We were the first group in New York City to video tape a debate between candidates for State Senator. It was a very heated campaign between Francisco Diaz a native of East Harlem, former chairman of the Community Planning Board, former District Manger, and Nelson Denis an acomplished Lawyer and graduate of Yale and Harvard Law School. Nelson Densi was painted as a carpet bagger. He had been running for the State Assembly for a while but the incombent, Angelo Del Toro was a shoe in everytime. When Del Toro died suddenly mid term, Francisco Diaz was elected to complete his term. It was a landslide, everyone thought that Franciso, a home boy, a native East Harlem guy would do right by the community. Was a disappointment he turned out to be. He turned his back on his best friend and campaign manager and hired a pretty young lady from Queens to be his assistant. We should have known then what we were in for. Francisco was chairman of the Substance Abuse Committee and was on the housing committee of the New York State Senate. I was still at NYCHA when he was first elected. I took what a stroke of luck for the community. I was in charge of drug elimination and Frankie was in the NYS Senate’s Substance Abuse Committee. I had to jump through hoops to see Frankie, his assistant did not know me and/or was told to keep me and others away. Funny, when he was running for office my wife was writting for a local newspaper and I had her do a feature story on him. We helped with a huge fundraiser for him and now I did not have easy access to him.

So, we aired our debate and Nelson Denis an articulate, Ivy League graduate and Lawyer, whom happened to have been into acting appeared like John Kennedy, while Francisco Diaz, East Harlem’s favorite son appeared like Nixon. Now I cant say that our video tapping of the only debate these two had was instrumental in getting Nelson elected, but I can say that it did not hurt him.

I turned to Nelson for assistance when I was fired from NYCHA, he offered a free legal clinic, and upon his advise I droped it. The grounds for my dismissal were that I omited a fact on my employment application. Apparently I got the exact dates wrong on a misdemeanor charge and they used that as a fact that I lied. A clause in my employment contract stated that such ommision was grounds for termination and also that I served at the pleasure of the Chairman so Ruben could fire me without cause. So I did not persue it any longer.

Nelson Denis did fund my agency. It was a small grant but it was a grant and that along with the small grant we had from the city was helping us to establish credibility and a track record.

The next thing I knew my friends, my board of directors turned on me and demanded my resignation. As I stated earlier in my blog, politics are dirty but Puerto Rican politics are the worst. My little program was successful. I was getting the agnecy known throughtout East Harlem and we had a very successful TV show. I guess that is to much for some envious poeple to handle and they turned on me. I tried to resist for as long as possible, I talked to the city funding source but the bottom line was that the board of directors were my boss. I spent 10 years developing the concept for Talent Unlimited and another 10 months as its stipened executive director. My wife had to go back to work while my daughters were still babies just so we could barely make ends meet, and now this. It was to much for me to handle. I did not realize I was in a depression.

Through another friend of mine, Elizabeth Sanchez, I got a position as a supersivor in a foster care agency. But my heart was no longer in it. I had been a supervisor in a foster care agency prior to and while I got my MSW. I did not want to do case work supervision anymore. When everything that Liz Sanchez promised me in order for me to take the job did not pan out I really began to get frustrated. In retrospect, I was in the tros of my depression, and one day I just got into a yelling match with Liz and I quite. I did not think it through, I acted on my emotions and now was once again unemployed.

To be continued.