Red tape zaps computer classes in three Brooklyn housing projects, some 'frustrated' by outcome
Wednesday, December 22nd 2010, 4:00 AM
Popular computer classes offered at three Brooklyn housing projects have been halted because of a paperwork snafu by city officials.
Borough tech wizards Clare Chiesa and Santana Kenner taught the courses for three years in Clinton Hill, Fort Greene and Bedford-Stuyvesant developments before city Housing Authority officials pulled the plug last month.
"It's frustrating," said Chiesa, 36, a social worker who teamed up with childhood friend Kenner, 35, a computer programmer. "I just wish it might have happened in a more organized manner."
Chiesa started the free tech classes three years ago, volunteering lessons at Lafayette Gardens Houses.
As word got out, Chiesa and Kenner raised money from family and friends and then approached NYCHA officials about expanding the classes into other developments.
Housing Authority officials agreed, and gave the duo the green light to teach at Atlantic Terminal in Fort Greene and at Saratoga Square development in Bedford-Stuyvesant - but then last month, suddenly told them to stop.
"I don't know what precipitated it," said Chiesa, who's barred from teaching the courses until she signs a memo with NYCHA's legal department. "I'm sure there's good reason for it, but it was just really abrupt."
City housing officials said Chiesa is required to have a liability contract with NYCHA. But volunteers were teaching for more than a year before NYCHA officials even realized they never gave her the contract paperwork. Now, Chiesa wants to show the paperwork to a lawyer before she signs.
"I don't think it's fair, and I don't think it's right," said retired transit cop J.D. Stark, who didn't know how to turn on a computer before he started taking classes twice a week at the Lafayette Gardens community center.
"It's successful," said Stark, who has learned how to update his Facebook profile and email an old pal in Japan. "I wish [NYCHA officials] would ... see how good [the program's] doing."
A NYCHA source said it was likely officials who approved Chiesa's courses didn't know she first needed to sign a contract.
"I want to open up in new centers in different developments," said Chiesa, who found out three days after NYCHA stopped her courses she'd won a $250,000 Google grant to expand the classes. "I've made this my full-time job now, and I want to make it work."
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2010/12/22/2010-12-22_tech_class_offline_red_tape_zaps_project_sessions.html#ixzz18r6UMmCs
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