Still No Comment from Speaker Quinn or Any Other of 18 City Council Members Who Put Dock Street Through Committee Last Week

The amazing thing, or the absolutely not so amazing thing (depending upon how you look at this), is that none of the 18 City Council members responsible for approving the Dock Street in committee last week have yet been willing to comment on the School Construction Authority smoking gun e-mails respecting that project. Council members Gioia and Yassky had called for a halt to the project’s approval on the basis of those e-mails which apparently have no acceptable explanation other than that the School Construction Authority, coordinating with the upper ranks of the Bloomberg administration, were improperly manipulating and making false statements to get the project approved. The e-mails also point to a misdirection of public resources to that same end, putting a school where it would not be best to put it.

As noted in our last post on the subject, Noticing New York contacted the office of Speaker Quinn who whipped votes to get the project through for the Bloomberg administration and we contacted each and every Council member who voted in favor of the project last week in City Council committees and asked them for their comment on the School Construction Authority e-mails. So far we have no comment from any of them.

As we said, we would think that if Ms. Quinn is going to whip votes in favor of the Dock Street project she ought to have at least a comment on the smoking gun e-mails that have been in the press about the mayoral level manipulations to get the project approved and give the public less than the benefits it deserves. We also think that if any City Council committee member is going to vote in favor of the project and not to block it as Councilmen Gioia and Yassky said was essential, they should have a comment on these smoking gun e-mails.

Names and Votes of City Council Committee Members: (Again, Those Voting for Project Have Had No Comment)

Here are the votes of the two committees that voted on Dock Street on Thursday. City Council members on the Land Use committee who are also on the Zoning and Franchise committee are indicated in italics. (Everyone on the latter is on the former.) For extra good measure, we have bolded the names of any of Council members who also was among the 29 members who voted to extend the mayor’s term limits.

LAND USE COMMITTEE (17-4):

Tony Avella: no
Charles Barron: no
Eric Gioia: no
John Liu: no

Maria Baez: yes
Maria Arroyo: yes
Leroy Comrie: yes
Elizabeth Crowley: yes
Inez Dickens: yes
Simcha Felder: yes
Daniel Garodnick: yes
Sara Gonzalez: yes
Vincent Ignizio: yes
Robert Jackson: yes
Melinda Katz: yes
Jessica Lappin: yes
Annabel Palma: yes
Joel Rivera: yes
Larry Seabrook: yes
Helen Sears: yes
Albert Vann: yes

ZONING AND FRANCHISES SUBCOMMITTEE (6-2):

Tony Avella: no
Eric Gioa: no

Simcha Felder: yes
Robert Jackson: yes
Melinda Katz: yes
Joel Rivera: yes
Larry Seabrook: yes
Helen Sears: yes

We have some off-the-record and not-for-attribution comment from the offices we contacted that at least some of the Council members who voted for the project under Speaker Quinn’s direction did not feel Speaker Quinn was allowing them the freedom to vote their conscience and side, as would be expected, with Mr. Yassky, the local Council member in whose district the project is. There is also apparently some distress and thinking on the part of Council members who’s votes were whipped that Speaker Quinn would whip votes for the project and then not be willing to comment on the School Construction Authority e-mails.

See our prior posts for the statements of Council members Gioia, Yassky and Avella, all of whom oppose the project.

Prior Posts:

Sunday, June 7, 2009
A Lamda Night: City Political Candidates and Development (Focusing on Atlantic Yards and Dock Street)


Wednesday, June 3, 2009
What’s Up At Dock Street, Really?