A picket was held outside the workplace of Amikole Maraesa on September 2nd where she sells her Amikole Shea Butter products.
Maraesa is the Board Chair of Sixth Street Community Center. She has led the scheme to dismantle the Center’s community programs and fire its longtime staff. In April, using the police, she and her corrupt board forced out Howard Brandstein, Sixth Street Co-founder and Executive Director for 35 years.
In August, she fired Alfred Robertson, Sixth Street Facilities Director for almost 25 years along with maintenance staff who are longtime block residents.
Not only has Maraesa destroyed the livelihoods of these staff but she and the four-person board have wrecked Sixth Street’s long running programs for youth, community organizing and housing justice.
Their reckless actions sabotaged $300,000 in funding for community projects including a planning grant for community land trust low-income housing.
In their power grab last February, Maraesa and her board, with no input from the staff or community, secretly changed the Center’s bylaws to reduce the required minimum number of members from 7 to 3 and eliminated the Board Advisory Committee. Prior to that, they removed Mitchel Cohen from the board who was the lone board member opposing their hostile takeover.