February 15,
2014
Orlando Plaza, Lorraine A.
Cortés-Vázquez
Carmen A. Pacheco, Lorraine Rodriguez-Reyes,
Anthony Diaz, Rosa Gutierrez, Maria
Elena Girone,
Louis Maldonado, Ululy Rafael Martinez
Board Members
Puerto Rican Day Parade, Inc.
Re:
Community Participation
And Requests for Input
We
wish to congratulate you on your appointment as a Board member of the
National New York Puerto
Rican Day Parade.
To give you some background on our organization’s
involvement in this issue, we first began as Puerto Ricans protesting the use
of the Puerto Rican flag on Coors’ Beer cans.
After meeting with Coors executives who personally came to our offices
and apologized for its insensitivity, we then requested the Attorney General’s
examination of the relationship between Coors and the Puerto Rican Day
parade. This began the investigation and
the ultimate removal of the prior Board.
As
representatives of various community organizations, we are sympathetic to your
mission of a beautiful, transparent, and inclusive parade which we hope to
protect from its documented prior abuses.
With
that in mind, we arrived at the following recommendations we hope will guide
you in understanding the needs of our community:
1. We would like an independent board
that holds the President of the Parade and any person who makes decisions
affecting the parade accountable to the Board;
2.
We would like a Parade more inclusive of New York City Puerto Rican
organizations, more accessible to ordinary folks from the community, and less
captive to Corporations, their floats, their slogans and their advertisements;
we understand the need for Corporate sponsorships, but not at the expense of
National identity and pride, e.g. we do not want our flag on a beer can.
3.
We do not want a community group or organization priced out of the
parade because they couldn’t afford a corporate float;
4.
We would like transparency so that the contracts and sponsorships with
the Parade Board and Executives would be available for public review and
examination;
5.
We would like the scholarship money to be accounted for and put in a
fund for public inspection immediately after the parade;
6.
We would like a parade that celebrates the history and heritage of
Puerto Ricans and New York, first and foremost.
This list is not exclusive.
Its purpose is to strengthen the desires of the community with the goals
of protecting the parade and honoring its mission.
Please contact us to discuss these goals so that we may provide
this great metropolis and the Nation with a wonderful and historic parade.
Sincerely,
Boricuas
for a Positive Image
cc: Eric Schneiderman, Attorney General
Hon. Melissa Mark-Viverito
Ramon J. Jimenez, Esq.
