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Randolph Evans%u2019 Death Not In Vain, Memory SpursAccord For 10 Points Helping Blacks, MerchantsBY PETER HALEYAfter several months of demonstrations and negotiations that began nearly a year ago with the Christmas season picketing of Fulton Street stores, a ten-point agreement by retailers and black community leaders on new social and economic programs for downtown Brooklyn was announced by local black activists.Outrage over the Thanksgiving shooting death two years ago of black teen-ager Randolph Evans by a city police officer and the officer%u2019s subsequent acquittal caused local blacks to boycott downtown merchants until answers to their economic and social demands could be secured. Two of the new programs have been named for Evans.At the press conference held Nov. 28 at Atlantic Avenue%u2019s House of Our Lord Church, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, Assemblyman A1 Vann, and Evans%u2019 mother, Anne Brannon, expressed satisfaction with the accords reached between blacks and retailers and said they will be implemented in a month.Explaining the reasons behind beginning the Fulton Street protests, Daughtry said, %u201cWe needed to develop a tactic that would not allow Randolph Evans to be killed and forgotten and by this substantial and precedent-making agreement, we%u2019ve created a fitting memorial for him.%u201dThe ten points were hammered out during eight months of negotiations between commercial and community representatives and include:%u2022 The Randolph Evans Scholarship and the Randolph Evans Community Crisis programs%u2014The $15,000 annual scholarship fund will be open to all Brooklyn high school seniors and will include provisions for 10 Christmas and 10 summer jobs for students in the program. The crisis fund will provide immediate aid for families that have been burned out of apartments, victimized by crime, and the like, and will include $80,000 foundation funding as well as an additional $26,000 for similar services;%u2022 A minority employment committee of merchants and coalition members to determine supplementary training programs and referral services to benefit both the minority and business communities;%u2022 Stepped up advertising with minority media, and business dealings with minority banks. For instance, within 30 days, retail and community leaders will meet with officials of the Freedom National and Carver Savings and Loan banks %u2014primarily controlled by minority stockholders%u2014to discuss augmenting deposits;%u2022 Creation of markets for downtown peddlers. Efforts will be made to secure designated offstreet areas in downtown Brooklyn area where peddlers can sell their goods;%u2022 A festival for minority vendors early next year;%u2022 Development of a hotel and entertainment complex in downtown Brooklyn;%u2022 Financial support from citizens and merchants for the present attempts by activist groups (such as Black Economic Survival) tobolster minority employment in construction crews;%u2022 Creation of a long-term community advisory committee made up of members from both the business and residential sectors to continue dialogue on all issues that affect them.The proposal for an entertainment and hotel complex was not included on the black activists%u2019 original agenda, but the Rev. Daughtry characterized it as fitting the accord%u2019s aim of %u201ccreating a viable community%u201d for all downtown shoppers, merchants, and residents.No merchant representatives attended the press conference, but representatives of Abraham and Straus (A & S), Martin%u2019s, Mays, and Korvettes department stores, and other businesses put out a joint press release with the community leaders. Retail spokesmen indicated that theirs was a strong commitment to the success of the social and economic plans, as evidenced by a 30-day timetable set for the implementation of most of the agreements.%u201c Some of the agreements are already underway, but there is nothing in the accords that can%u2019t be worked out in that time frame,%u201d said Robert McMillan, A&S senior vice-president. %u201c The details of these programs are being closely spelled out and once this is completed, implementation will begin.%u201dMcMillan stressed that while the press release would create some degree of %u201cnotoriety%u201d for merchant concessions to the black group, thedowntown merchants association has many awards programs in various ethnic communities that have not been publicized.%u201c There are many hundreds of grants from downtown business groups to Puerto Rican, Jewish, Chinese and other ethnic communities,%u201d McMillan said, naming the Crown Heights Jewish Council as an example.Both merchant and community spokesmen said hard work, and the mediation efforts of Deputy Mayor Basil Patterson, Borough President Howard Golden and Deputy Borough President Ed Towns were responsible for the successful agreement. The negotiations grew out of a series of discussions between merchants and the Coalition of Concerned Leaders and Citizens to Save Our Youth, which later merged with the Black United Front. The Rev. Daughtry chairs the Black United Front.The front has convinced the downtown merchant group to join them in their demands for a federal investigation of the Randolph Evans case. Robert Torsney, the policeman who slew the unarmed Evans Thanksgiving Day 1976 in an East New York housing project, was acquitted by reason of insanity and has served an 11-month term in an upstate mental institution and will have a hearing Nov. 29 in Brooklyn Supreme Court on his possible release. Black leaders are demanding that the federal government try Torsney for the violation of Evans%u2019 civil rights. A memorial service for Evans will be held at the House of the Lord Church Nov. 29.BC Head Kneller Goes;Follows Faculty No VoteLITTLE NEED: One of Brooklyn Hospital%u2019s vacant properties is tiny, unused and steadilyracking up taxes.For Sale; Brooklyn HospitalShirks Taxes On Unused LotsBY PETER HALEYDespite a plan for a multi-million dollar modernization program, Brooklyn Hospital has no plans to pay the city $9,000 in back taxes on nearby property.We%u2019re a nonprofit institution, and as such, we don%u2019t plan on paying taxes for land that we are not using,%u201d John Meyerer, hospital accounting director, said.The PHOENIX reported Nov. 23 that 11,000 Brooklyn properties were in arrears 163 million in taxes.Among the deadbeats, according to Finance Administration records as of Oct. 24, the private Fort Greene health facility owes $9,138 for 12 nearby properties%u2014leftovers from former hospital expansion plans.In 1968, when growth seemed likely for the hospital at DeKalb Avenue and Ashland Place, property around the corner to the souiiieasi%u2014on side streets Ashland, St. Felix and Fort Green places%u2014was set aside for a community health center, according to hospital Executive Director Frederick Alley. But city and state financial crises curtailed plans for aproposed, publicly funded expansion, and ten years later, the lots are up for sale, Meyerer said.The lots presently sport vest pocket parks, and the hospital has let a community group raise vegetables in a garden on the vacant land.For hospital officials, problems of owning land and not using it%u2014paying taxes and having empty lots in the immediate vicinity%u2014 remain unsolved.%u201c We%u2019ve been talking regarding the disposition of these properties,%u201d Alley said, %u201c And among our discussions is the possibility of housing coming to these lots.%u201dBut taxes have mounted and the city does not agree with the hospital%u2019s view of its tax liability.A spokesman for the city%u2019s Real Estate Department indicated that the tax exempt status for nonprofit insitutions holds only for those institutions tnat are using or preparing to use acquired real estate%u2014holding to the line that Brooklyn Hospital owes $9,156 in back taxes.Paying the taxes would increase the value of the Hospital%u2019s vacantland and thus increase the difficulty of selling the lots, according to Meyerer, a major reason the hospital hasn%u2019t paid its taxes.%u201c Why sink more money in properties that we%u2019re having a hard time selling anyways?%u201d Meyerer asked. %u201c It%u2019s like pumping a dry well.%u201dThe 138-year-old facility%u2019s $25.3 million modernization project, scheduled for completion in 1983, includes better utilization of existing buildings, and construction of a new surgical site, a labor and delivery suite, an automated centralized system for sterilizing operating equipment and a new ambulatory care facility. In addition, one wing of the hospital will be expanded to accomodate 224 of the hospital%u2019s 444 beds. These efforts are %u201cto reconstruct the buildings already on our existing campus,%u201d said Alley.m e hospital administration, meanwhile, intends to leave any construction on its local properties up to prospective buyers, officials said.After nine years at the head of Brooklyn College%u2014and a vote of no-confidence from the faculty council last spring%u2014John W. Kneller has resigned, effective June 30, 1979.The college president, 62, expressed gratitude in his letter of resignation dated Nov. 27 for the %u201cclose cooperation and loyalty of administration officials, deans, department chairmen and faculty.%u201dHowever, the Faculty Council%u2014a college legislative body governing academic affairs, according to college Public Relations Director Harold Harris%u2014prepared a lengthy report last spring criticizing presidential judgments, handling of personnel matters and other administrative actions.After two days of debate, Harris said, the 100-strong council membership, drawn from the nearly 1,000 teachers, deans and department heads of Brooklyn College voted 54 to 31 with 4 abstentions to give Kneller a vote of no confidence.The report urged %u201cappropriate action%u201d by Robert Kibbee, chancellor of the City University of New York (CUNY), and the Board of Higher Education.Kibbee responded by ordering an evaluation of Kneller and the other 18 presidents of units in the CUNY system. A team of three prominent, o u tsid e ed u ca to rsfound Kneller%u2019s performance favorable, Harris said, and the Board of Higher Education accepted the findings.Provost of Ohio%u2019s Oberlin College before taking over at Brooklyn College, which is a four-year, orsenior, institution now nearly 50 years old and the largest od CUNY%u2019s units, with an enrollment of nearly 20,000, Kneller holds a Yale degree. He has accepted a post specially created by the Board of Higher Education as University Professor of Humanities and Arts at CUNY%u2019s Hunter College and graduate center%u2014a move he views %u201c with great pleasure,%u201d according to his resignation letter, as \Published in his field, Romance languages, Kneller leaves a $47,000-a-year job that carries with it a stipend that includes a house with domestic help. Kneller said in his letter that the effective date of (his resignation, seven months off, jshould %u2018%u2018permit the Board of Higher Education to name a search committee so that the best possible choice of a new president can be made by the next academic year.%u201d Before press time, the outgoing president was unavailable for comment on the Faculty Council%u2019s role in his decision to leave. But Harris said, %u201c The problem with the faculty only developed in the last year or so. It might have been brewing for some time.%u201c But he%u2019s never had any pressures from students.%u201d Kneller who swims 700 yards a day, is known among students for jamming on a bass viol during jazz sessions, according to Harris. The nutoeinopresident thanked students especi%u00b0 ally in his letter for being %u201cmost understanding during the period of great change,%u201d beginning with his arrival at Brooklyn College in I August, 1969.%u2014K.L.P a g e *, THE PHOENIX, November 30,1978