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Cobble Hill Association leader resigns ahead of vote to boot him out

Squabble Hill! Locals attempt to depose civic association leader over LICH fight
Williams New York

The civic war is over!

Long-time Cobble Hill Association honcho Roy Sloane announced his resignation from the group’s board of directors on Tuesday, after a faction of malcontented members attempted to boot him out for what they said was lousy leadership in the fight against a widely hated high-rise development planned for the former Long Island College Hospital site.

“Today, a new group of people would like to take responsibility for this development and have a more direct role in shaping our future,” Sloane said in a release. “In order to facilitate an orderly change in leadership, I have decided to tender my resignation from the board.”

Sloane — who has served as on-again, off-again president of the group for 18 years since first taking office in 1982 — came under public attack last week when the mutinous bloc announced its intention to vote him out of office next Thursday.

Sloane believes he would have survived the vote, but the fallout would have irreparably harmed the group and its campaign to save the historic ’hood from unwanted development.

“If I felt like fighting it, do I feel like I could beat it? Yeah, hands down,” he said when reached by this paper. “But to what point? You would still have this development, it wouldn’t change that, and it would chew up a lot of people involved in the whole thing.”

The now-former leader, who has been a member of the Cobble Hill Association for 35 years, said he will likely now take some time off from civic politics and the fight against the towers.

“I’m probably going to take hiatus for a while,” said Sloane. “Maybe I’ll get a puppy.”

The Cobble Hill Association will vote on a new leader at a meeting on Sept. 10, Sloane said.

Reach reporter Colin Mixson at cmixson@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4505.