Yonkers Appeals Penalty in Housing Case

As potentially bankrupting fines began to mount, the City of Yonkers asked a federal Court of Appeals on Wednesday to overturn its contempt citation for refusing to desegregate housing.

Lawyers for New York state’s fourth-largest city charged that federal Judge Leonard B. Sand had “unnecessarily created a confrontation” when he cited the city and three of its council members for contempt Tuesday and punished Yonkers with a $100 fine, doubling daily. Sand’s ruling means that, if the city remains in contempt, its entire $337-million operating budget will be wiped out after 22 days.

“This is not a situation where the use of the District Court’s ‘classic’ contempt powers is well-advised--in fact, it is unprecedented,” said Yonkers’ lawyer, Michael W. Sculnick.

Question of Well-Being

Sculnick, in papers submitted to the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, said Sand could have imposed less “vindictive” alternatives. He said Sand’s actions raise the question of whether the court is disregarding the well-being of the city at large, based solely on the refusal of the councilmen to vote for the plan to integrate Yonkers’ housing.

In a bitter session Monday, the council voted 4 to 3 to reject the judge’s desegregation order. Sand also suggested that New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo intervene in the dispute, something the governor is resisting, preferring to let the federal judicial process run its course.

At the same time, the governor is studying expanding the powers of the Yonkers Financial Control Board, created by Cuomo when the city faced bankruptcy four years ago.

“We want Yonkers to work itself out of its problems,” said a spokesman for Secretary of State Gail Shaffer, who heads the board.

“We are looking at what our obligation is there,” said Gary G. Fryer, Cuomo’s press secretary.

Less Power Than N.Y. Board

As constituted, the Yonkers board has far less power than the financial control board set up by the state to rescue New York City from its fiscal crisis in the 1970s. That board took over some key mayoral functions and even controlled tax revenues.

“I think Yonkers is typical of attitudes that existed in many areas of the South in the 1960s and early 1970s, where residents were more interested in fighting efforts to integrate communities than in complying with the law,” charged Julius Chambers, director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, who urged Wednesday that Cuomo take an active role in the Yonkers housing dispute.

“We hope the governor will get involved to help resolve the problem without a lot more of the hostility that has already developed. What is going on there (in Yonkers) promotes the Howard Beaches, and I don’t think any of us want to see that.”

(When a group of white teen-agers chased a black man to his death on a busy highway alongside the New York City community of Howard Beach, the incident drew national attention as an example of urban racial violence.)

Ruling Made in 1985

Chambers’ position was seconded by Michael H. Sussman, lawyer for the Yonkers branch of the NAACP, which in court has advocated the federal plan to build 200 units of low-income housing and 800 units of middle-income housing in white neighborhoods. Sand ruled in 1985 that the city had segregated housing and schools illegally for 40 years.

“I see the governor as having to publicly address the issue, and I don’t see him as having the courage to address the issue,” Sussman charged. “ . . . The governor has spoken all around America on family and justice, and here we are the fourth-largest city in the state and we have a deafening silence.”

Lawyers for the governor have researched what would be necessary to remove from office Yonkers councilmen who continue to defy the federal judge. They have determined that there would have to be a local court proceeding with written charges, a hearing, defense motions and, in essence, a long legal process.

The U.S. Court of Appeals was technically on vacation when Yonkers filed its motion to stay Sand’s contempt order. It was unclear whether a single judge would rule on the motion or whether several judges might be called back to hear the request for a stay.

Under Sand’s contempt ruling, the defiant councilmen must pay $500 fines each day to the federal court through Aug. 10.