Community Board 13 Chairman Eddie Mark Accused Of Making Racist Remarks

First our own Community Board chairperson was accused of a hate crime against disabled people by a scorned rehab center operator, and now Eddie Mark, who serves as the chairperson for Brighton Beach and Coney Island’s Community Board 13, has been accused of making racist and homophobic remarks to newly-appointed Board member Rican Vargas. The New York Post is reporting that Vargas, who runs the Coney Island Dancers, held a march and launched a Facebook campaign calling for Mark to resign.

The Post described how the incident between Mark and Vargas started:

Vargas told the Post that Mark and a buddy of the board chairman allegedly made the racist comments to him during an April encounter at Tom’s Diner on the boardwalk.

“They said my events attract too many gays and blacks to Coney Island, and that I had to change it up,” said a fuming Vargas, who added that a friend who can back up his story accompanied him.

In another bizarre twist, Vargas claims he opted to finally take action only after “finding out” Mark and his minions recently called the cops to have the Dancers’ boardwalk permits pulled.

“They claim I am receiving a percentage off of the illegal vendors, as well as confining people under the boardwalk,” Vargas wrote on the Coney Island Dancers’ Facebook page. “This is ludicrous. They are implicating that I am merchandising T-shirts and this is not true.”

Vargas later clarified to the Post that he’s being wrongfully accused of actually locking people up in a shed under the boardwalk that his group controls.

Mark strongly denied Vargas’s accusations in a statement put out by his lawyer.

“Our diversity is one of our greatest strengths and one of the characteristics of this community that makes us so special. I would never try to change that – I’m part of it!” Mark said.