A Community Leader

Wils has lived downtown for more than 16 years and has been a member of the community board for almost that long. A television producer, Wils got involved in community work in the late 1980s. "My husband was getting tickets for parking his trucks on the streets and so I went to the community board to find out what I had to do," says Wils. "At that point, I started to hearing about all these building issues in Battery Park City. I was intrigued."

Wils wanted to do something for the homeless and was put in charge of a task force that spearheaded the John Heuss homeless shelter. "I thought wow, I can actually get stuff done. That is how I got hooked," she says. Over the years, Wils began to spend more and more time working on projects in the community and less time building her television business. (Among her productions were Working Women, a parenting program for Lifetime, and talk shows with Larry King and Charlie Rose.) In the late 1980's Wils worked with the Battery Park City Authority to design Rockefeller Park and Robert F. Wagner Park, and led the effort in the rezoning of Tribeca.

In 2000, encouraged by several public officials to run for Chairperson of the Community Board One, Wills was torn. If she won, it would mean committing herself entirely. In retrospect, she feels fate played its hand. "I feel that maybe I was put in that position so that when this happened I could help," she says. "I know how to get things done."

Since September 11th, Wils has stopped working in television and devotes all her time to the Board, leaving at 8 a.m. for her office across from City Hall and often not returning until 11 or 12 at night. She is charging ahead with a myriad of projects: opening the first high school in lower Manhattan (Millennium High School) and working to open a recreation facility.

Governor George Pataki appointed Wils as a Director on the 16-member Board of Directors in the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation, (LMDC) The LMDC is the body charged with rebuilding the area, defined as everything south of Houston Street. This catapulted her into the limelight and given her a direct role in deciding the future of the WTC site. The only member of the board that lives in Lower Manhattan, Wils says she is determined that the community members — residents, small businesses, and large businesses — be partners in the redevelopment.

"We want to make sure we grow as a mixed-use community with open spaces, schools, and other appropriate services," she says. The WTC site should include a memorial, parks, cultural institutions, retail as well as commercial buildings.

At the same time, Wils is mindful that the community has gained new members as a result of September 11th — the victims of the attack and their families. "These families think their loved ones' final burial ground is just a few blocks from here," says Wils. "I do think that we have to embrace them as part of our community and their families as well."

However, community members are adamant that the memorial experience not be entirely one of mourning. "They feel like they're already living among so much death and they don't want to feel like they're living in a memorial park," says Wils. "The deaths of the victims should be acknowledged, but their spirits should be celebrated with life."

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