Two Runoff Elections: Your Votes Sure Could Make a Difference, Or Is That Really So?

Tomorrow we have two runoff elections where we can vote in the race for the Office of Comptroller between City Councilmen David Yassky and John Liu, and the race for Office of Public Advocate between two-term former Public Advocate Mark Green and City Councilman Bill De Blasio.

Why the Votes “Count” So Much

It is amazing to think how much difference our votes could make. The phones in our household have been ringing off the hook. Hardly anyone votes in primary elections even though with the Democratic majority in New York City they tend to determine final outcomes in the general election. The turnout in the primaries two weeks ago was exceptionally poor with some races being determined by a matter of just hundreds of votes. We heard that there was one election where just SIX votes made the difference. Do you think that too few people show up to vote in a primary? The number goes down drastically in a primary runoff election like the one scheduled for tomorrow for the Comptroller and Public Advocate Office races.

No wonder that our phones were ringing off the hook given that our household is now verging on its fourth voter. We tend to vote in a block and we drag other people along to the polls. We also hope that our Noticing New York opinions focusing particularly on development concerns in the city can swing other votes.

Expect then that your vote tomorrow is going to count much more proportionately than in practically any other election! Too bad then that it is not clearer how much a difference your vote will make in terms of determining public policy on development.

We covered the races for these two offices before, in advance of the first primary (Monday, September 14, 2009, Our thoughts on Navigating the Voter Minefields When All the Candidates Know the Words to Mouth on Development). Now that we are down to the runoff it is time for an update.

Update on Comptroller’s Race

The update we have on the race for the Office of Comptroller is that we basically have no update. We have to refer you back to the guidance expressed in our prior post. Both candidates have been good in a number of ways on issues of development. For instance, both have said some good things respecting their opposition to the Atlantic Yards development. On the other hand, both candidates could have been even stronger in their opposition to Atlantic Yards, particularly now, particularly with the additional new giveaways by ESDC and the MTA and the report by the city’s Independent Budget Office that the proposed Nets arena will be a $220 million net loss for the city. Then there are accompanying revelations that there is little reason to expect that anything else more than the arena or anything actually benefitting the city will be built.

Liu has heroically been in the minority many times opposing Bloombergian abuses including development issues and the extension of term limits. Yassky has probably not been right as often; and additionally one reason the city is threatened by four more years of Bloombergian style development is that Yassky voted for Bloomberg’s override of term limits. We warned him he shouldn’t have voted this way. If Yassky loses it will probably be this that costs him the election.
The great thing about the runoff election is that the candidates got an extra two weeks to distinguish themselves on development issues. The disappointing thing is that we are not aware they made use of it. We are not aware of it even though ESDC’s board met and voted on Atlantic Yards on September 17th.

We admit though we could still be influenced by some strong last-minute statements on development by either candidate.

Update on Public Advocate’s Race

In the Public Advocate race we think the candidates could also have made better use of the last two weeks to address development issues.

In the case of both candidates we must hold it against them that during the “lightning round” of the last intervening debate they both said that they “support” Atlantic Yards. We think that “lightning rounds” requiring unqualified “Yes/No” answers are ridiculous and dangerous in their shallowness. On the flip side, we must give some credit to Candidate de Blasio for his statement at the ESDC meeting on September 17th. Atlantic Yards Report said that he:

. . straddled the fence, though with a larger nod to critics: “The benefits of the project, however, should not come at the expense of transparency and public review.”

De Blasio called for and declared the necessity of an updating environmental review for the recent substantial revisions to the Atlantic Yards megadevelopment that ESDC and the MTA are putting through. In all likelihood that would, as a practical matter, kill the mega-development. (See: Friday, September 18, 2009, At ESDC board meeting, new revelations of ESDC's concessions to Ratner and forceful criticisms from opponents (with video).)

We also have this to say. Some have suggested that if Mark Green gets a third term as Public Advocate, it will be a sort of swan song for him in a familiar role he has played before and he will thereafter fade away. I have also heard activists express the hope that if Green becomes Public Advocate again they might be able to sway him to see some common sense on Atlantic Yards and give up his support. Who knows?

Conversely, it is thought by almost everybody that Bill de Blasio intends to use the Public Advocates office as a stepping stone toward higher offices. This raises concerns that Mr. de Blasio will not take good positions on development when he obtains higher office. The concern is that he will be much too much under the sway of the real estate industry.

What makes this concern real is that Mr. de Blasio should have been a much stronger opponent of Atlantic Yards for years now. He has an informed constituency that opposes the project. His constituency should have been able to persuade him to take a much more principled position on the megadevelopment, including its poor design, its abuse of eminent domain and between $2-$3 billion in no-bid giveaways and a monopoly to a single developer. Furthermore, the megadevelopment has degraded significantly over the years but de Blasio has not taken advantage of such degeneration to correspondingly move away from it and roundly chastise the abuses.- - De Blasio could and should have gone a lot further to distance himself from the megadevelopment: Just this morning on the Brian Lehrer show segment on eminent domain WNYC reporter Matthew Schuerman was there to provide information about candidates’ positions was commenting how the anti-Atlantic Yards political climate has forced both de Blasio and Yassky to beef up their expressed opposition to Atlantic Yards.

Public Advocate's Appointment to the City Planning Commission: NNY Raises the Question of Commissioner Karen A. Phillips

One important way in which the Public Advocate interacts directly with New York City development is through the Public Advocate’s appointment of one of the members of the City Planning Commission. We therefore decided to raise this issue with both the Green and de Blasio campaigns and specifically to ask each of the campaigns about Karen A. Phillips, the commissioner appointed by Betsy Gottbaum, the current Public Advocate. We wanted to know if Ms. Phillips might be likely to remain in office if either candidate were elected. We also asked generally what standards and principles would be involved in determining who would represent the Public Advocate on the CPC board.

For the Green campaign we can say this. We received no response. That nonchalance certainly seems a strike against the campaign.

We were initially told by the de Blasio campaign that they would probably not comment on Commissioner Phillips specifically at this time but would, instead, give a statement of guiding principles or policy. Ultimately that was not forthcoming and we got this instead:

We are entirely focused on our campaign for the runoff and will not be making decisions regarding the City Planning Commission until after Tuesday.

We would have thought that this was the campaign for the runoff!

(Above, Ms. Phillips.)

The reason we asked about Ms. Phillips as commissioner is that she has been an excellent commissioner, bringing to the Commission what is sorely needed. We haven’t reviewed and cannot therefore vouch for every position she has taken but, for instance, her courageous dissenting position on Columbia’s proposed expansion and takeover of West Harlem abusing eminent domain was astute, principled, minutely reasoned and well documented.

Whoever is elected to the office of Public Advocate, we suggest that everyone pay attention to whether they keep Ms. Phillips in place as a commissioner, and if they don’t, pay attention to the possible haste in which they may act to replace her.

In sum, your votes tomorrow will in proportionate mathematical terms make a huge difference in terms of the election. However, we wish we could say that it is satisfyingly and correspondingly clear that voting one way or another will make an important policy difference.

We are open, though. We can be swayed by such last-minute statements we may hear from the candidates. We welcome anything they submit. And we do have a Noticing New York comment section- Or we will post an updating post if appropriate.

Good luck tomorrow. We do advocate that you vote.

Our thoughts on Navigating the Voter Minefields When All the Candidates Know the Words to Mouth on Development

This will provide our good government, good real estate development oriented, Noticing New York thoughts on who to vote for in a number of tomorrow’s most important primary elections and why: Tony Avella for Mayor. Norman Siegel for Public Advocate. John Liu (or David Yassky?) for Comptroller. Josh Skaller in the 39th City Council District. Jo Ann Simon (or Evan Thies?) for the 33rd. Tish James for the 35th. Yetta Kurland in the 3rd to defeat Christine Quinn and unseat her as speaker of the City Council.

To get to these decisions we had to wend our way through a number of voter minefields. We hope that sharing our thoughts with you will be helpful.

Real Estate Development: Do Candidates Receiving Contributions From the Industry Who Know What To Say Really Mean It?

Last week our attention was caught by what we think was an epitomizing exchange between David Weprin and Melinda Katz in the New York Times account of last week’s Comptrollers’ debate. Mr, Weprin and Ms. Katz, are among the four candidates running for Comptroller, all of whom are City Council members. The Times suggested that Mr. Weprin, trailing in a Quinnipiac University poll, seemed anxious to upend the race which is likely to involve a runoff.

In one of his many challenges in the debate, Mr. Weprin took aim at Ms. Katz. “How can you be independent of the real estate industry when your finance committee, which is on your Web site, is a who’s who in the Real Estate Board of New York?” he asked.

Ms. Katz said she had maintained her independence, but Mr. Weprin kept at her.

Ms. Katz said, “You know, David, as chair of the finance committee, I know, looking through your contributions, that we probably don’t want to have this discussion.”

Replied Mr. Weprin: “I’m willing to have the discussion.”

(See: Councilman Attacks Rivals in Final Primary Debate for Comptroller, By Kareem Fahim, September 10, 2009.)

The exchange captures how all the candidates for city office implicitly acknowledge the overriding importance to voters that public officials not be in the pocket of the real estate industry, coupled with the deep and rightful suspicion that just because politicians adopt the rhetoric of opposition doesn’t mean that they are honestly independent of the industry. Mr. Weprin certainly knows the political facts of life. He is the son of Sol Weprin, Sheldon Silver’s predecessor as Speaker of the Assembly. (In our former public agency life we used to work for Mr. Weprin’s brother and we also used to run into David frequently in the days when he was an investment banker.)

Debate In the 33rd Race Where the Candidates Were Saying the Same Things About Development

At the same time that the Comptroller’s debate was going on we were at a debate for candidates running for the City Council’s 33rd district (currently David Yassky’s seat- Yassky is one of the other candidates for Comptroller) where the principle of how essential it is to oppose the real estate industry’s political dominance was similarly much in evidence. We have written before about how all the candidates in the 33rd (and the 39th) District races oppose the current kind of rampant development by politically connected developers, citing as touchstones that all of them are opposed to Atlantic Yards and development in the Brooklyn Bridge Park. (See: City Council candidates don't support AY project, May 08, 2009 09:20AM)

A Radical Surprise Including a Description of Real Estate and Government Corruption

What surprised us in this most recent City Council debate was to discover how radically in opposition to real estate industry shenanigans candidate Steve Levin, Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s former chief of staff, presents himself as being. Early in the debate Mr. Levin went out of his way to bring up and label as “corrupt” the events whereby, as revelatory e-mails show, the Bloomberg administration connived behind the scenes to get approval for the Dock Street project. Ultimately, Speaker Christine Quinn pushed Dock Street through the City Council despite the fact that the e-mails disclosed the irredeemable taint of an invalid decision process and intentional misrepresentations for which the senior Bloomberg officials and the School Construction Authority were responsible.

Dock Street is in DUMBO and the City Councilman for the district, David Yassky who is also running for Comptroller, opposed the project as did Councilman Eric Gioia who is running for Public Advocate. Others who voted against Dock Street include Councilman Tony Avella, who is running for Mayor and Councilman John Liu the fourth and final of the candidates running for Comptroller. Ms. Katz was amongst those who overlooked the “corruption” Mr. Levin spoke of to vote for Dock Street. Mr. Levin says that, if elected, he would put an end to this kind of corruption in the City Council. We were unaware that he did anything to oppose Dock Street’s approval when it was in the offing: Apparently he didn’t, he is only a late discoverer of the crime we (and Newsweek) were writing about at the time.

Mr. Levin also portrayed himself as, like the other candidates, passionately against Atlantic Yards. We had reported about his opposition previously but his “many serious concerns” about Atlantic Yards seemed to be so awfully tempered (“I am against the use of eminent domain unless in the case of overriding public benefit resulting from that use.”) that his language was reminiscent of the mega-project’s supporters. By contrast the majority of the candidates in the race (without explanation; candidate Isaac Abraham was not there to express himself) all firmly support Develop Don’t Destroy’s more effective categorical opposition to the Ratner project rather than what has been described as the “mend it don’t end it” open-to-compromise approach of Brooklyn Speaks.

Do Degenerative Changes to Atlantic Yards Project Evoke a Radicalizing Passionate Response?

To be fair, since Mr. Levin first provided his views on Atlantic Yards by giving us the comments previously published in Noticing New York before the mega-project degenerated significantly with additional MTA giveaways and diminished the likelihood that anything except a net-loss arena will ever be built. It is now much easier to be passionately against the project. In fact, it hardly makes sense for any politician to be anything else. Everyone for instance now knows that the Independent Budget Office’s report to tally the no-bid giveaways of subsidy to Forest City Ratner at $726 million and estimate the net loss to the city at $220 million ($39.5 million in direct losses and $180.5 million in opportunity losses). The city is pretty much just handing Ratner a check for $726 million, no questions asked, with not much asked in return. (See: Thursday, September 10, 2009, The Surrounding Light Smears Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Arena.)

We have talked with people who are willing to wonder whether Mr. Levin in his heart of hearts has significant reservations about the kind of big, manipulated, city-involved, corrupt kind of real estate development he says he opposes and to hold open the possibility that his opposition is legitimate notwithstanding that Assemblyman Vito Lopez is routinely and deeply involved in exactly this kind of thing. Most recently, Lopez has been prominently involved with the Broadway Triangle site. (See: Tuesday, August 11, 2009, In the 33rd: Levin vs. everyone else, AY & Broadway Triangle, and the argument for IRV (Instant Runoff Voting).)

Lo-Pez Dispensation?

Lopez jumped into the proposed redevelopment of the immediately adjacent former Pfizer plant site right at the beginning, heavy-handedly proposing the inappropriate use of eminent domain to take the site away from Pfizer. (Pfizer Offering Williamsburg Plant Site for Affordable Housing—So, Why’s a State Assemblyman Trying to Seize It? by Eliot Brown January 15, 2008.) The ironies here two-fold: 1.) Lopez was proposing to take the site for housing but that was already the purpose for which Pfizer wanted to use the site, and 2.) Lopez was unfairly proposing to use eminent domain to achieve a private-owner to private-owner transfer that would wrest the property from Pfizer, and his ability to do so was enhanced by the infamous Supreme Court Kelo decision a case where, the shoe on the other foot, Pfizer was involved as a beneficiary of the same sort of forced transfer in the name of “economic development.”

One of the audience-submitted questions asked of Mr. Levin the night of debate was whether Mr. Levin would be independent of Mr. Lopez who was referred to in the question as the “second most powerful man in the state.” If he wasn’t, the synergistic effect of Levin attaining a City Council office could be really bad news. Mr. Levin responded with assurances that he would be independent of Assemblyman Lopez, and that the Lopez had always advised him to do the right thing.

Looking Through Doubt to Actions Taken

This then presents an ever-so typical situation. Voters know that the politicians know the principles they should enunciate about independence from the real estate industry but they wonder what the politician will actually do once in office. The best thing to do in such a case is to look at what candidates have actually done when they have had the opportunity to act. Another question asked at the debate (which we submitted) was whether candidates had submitted comment to the MTA or the Empire State Development Corporation opposing the most recent revisions to the Atlantic Yards project which pile extra inappropriate benefits onto Ratner without any quid pro quo in return. Our question also asked: “Why or why not?”

There were a number of opportunities to be involved. in this regard Even though the MTA raced with incredible speed to give these benefits to Ratner after their nature was revealed, Councilman candidate Yassky testified before the MTA to oppose them. There were two days of ESDC hearings in which people could make statements as many did, followed up by a month in which comments could be formulated and submitted. Many may predict that those comments are destined to be ignored (although that they are ignored may be a basis for litigation). For those feeling frustrated by the strong suspicions that comments will be ignored there was the opportunity to join a political rally in opposition to the megaproject held before the ESDC hearings began. Other candidates submitted comments and testimony in this process and almost all of the candidates for the 33rd District showed up at the rally in opposition. (Isaac Abraham did not.) (See: Thursday, July 30, 2009, At lightly-attended (and sometimes raucous) public hearing, dueling electeds, some déjà vu, and a “sham process for a sham project”.)

Mr. Levin did not show up or participate in any way in any of these activities, not even taking advantage of the month in which he could have submitted written comment. His excuse was that he was just very busy and wasn’t really conscious of an opportunity to fit things in. We were particularly curious about whether he would participate given that the Friday before the ESDC hearings and the opposition rally we ran into him at breakfast and reminded and encouraged him to show up. We even supplied some additional encouragement when we wrote about running into him and wondering in our post whether he would show up. (See: Wednesday, July 29, 2009, First Day of ESDC Hearings on New Sight-Unseen Version of Atlantic Yards: Some Noticing New York’s Testimony and Questions Asked.)

Notwithstanding, even the Friday morning we ran into him we suspected that Mr. Levin wasn’t going to show up or involve himself. Though we reported that he “spoke critically about the way the project had degenerated since his above statement, together with the new $100+ million package of giveaways with which the MTA recently sweetened the developer’s deal” he referred rather vaguely to probably having to knock on voters’ doors or do something else that would prevent him from showing up.

Not even submitting written comment in opposition during the month long comment period does not bespeak passionate opposition. There are billions of public dollars involved here, violations of every conceivable principle of good government and potentially great harm directed at the district Mr. Levin is hoping to represent. At one point during the debate evening Mr. Levin said that he had sent a letter to the Governor urging him to sign the proposed Public Authority Reform bill. Atlantic Yards is the current preeminent example of why that bill needs to be signed. To focus only on the abstract principles of reform while failing to directly address an immediate and concrete example of the actual wrong is dangerously abstract and distracting.

The Avella/Thompson Race for Mayor: Thompson’s Implodingly Mismatched Rhetoric and a Critical Mystery About Megadevelopments

So when politicians mouth the expected pieties about opposing sell-outs to the real estate industry and you inevitably want to know if they mean what they say we suggest that, as with Mr. Levin, you can only look at what those individuals have actually done.

The race for the Democratic nomination for Mayor between Comptroller Bill Thompson and City Councilman Tony Avella is another race where enunciated opposition to favors for big real estate developers has featured prominently while the question of what the statements of one of the two candidates actually means couldn’t be more stark. We may see that the Thompson campaign implodes, now or after the primary because its actions are so utterly at odds with its mouthing of rhetoric.

Thompson has made criticism of Bloomberg’s gifts to big real estate developers a standard part of his regular stump speech. (See: Monday, July 13, 2009, Waiting for What Thompson Will Say Specifically about Atlantic Yards.) He made it part of both his opening and closing statements in the first mayoral debate. These are the refraining words Mr. Thompson began his opening statement with (after an obligatory statement of thanks to the hosts of the debate):

For the last eight years, we’ve had a Republican mayor, Mike Bloomberg, who is focused on Wall Street, big developers, and the wealthy.

Thompson also spoke harshly in both mayoral debates criticizing the failures of the Bloomberg megadevelopments. In the second debate he was asked to list the three top failures of the Bloomberg administration and cited its failed megadevelopments. In the first debate he said this when talking about the economic failures of the administration:

Let’s look and be honest. The Bloomberg administration, as we look at the mega-projects that they’ve rolled out for growth and development: most of those have failed. Most of those aren’t moving forward. Whether it’s the stadium on the West Side, whether its Hudson Yards, whether it is places like Willets Point and Atlantic Yards. . . Those projects haven’t moved forward. There has been this over-reliance on Wall Street and it appears that they thought Wall Street would carry us forever. That didn’t happen. We need to diversify the economy of this city. I talk about smart growth and fair growth and fair growth that involves communities. . .

The above reminds us of our own criticism of Bloombergian megadevelopments. We think megadevelopments involve an inherently flawed approach, especially with projects like Atlantic Yards and Willets Point, that contain the seeds for their own inevitable failure. The problem however: It is not clear that Thompson is saying this or exactly what he is saying. Is Thompson against Bloombergian megadevelopments because they are inherently flawed or is his criticism instead that Bloomberg hasn’t pushed megadevelopments through and made them work? Because his list includes palpably flawed and unpopular projects like the West Side Stadium and Atlantic Yards it might seem that he means the former. But this is not actually clear and if he means the latter then Thompson, inconsistent with his rhetoric about not focusing on big developers, may well intend to out-Bloomberg Bloomberg in terms of blindly sinking public resources into megadevelopment.

One reason to believe that Thompson is a fan of forcing through megadevelopments such as the West Side Stadium and Willets Point is that Thompson has formally, come out in favor Atlantic Yards. Thompson was, in fact, in favor or Atlantic Yards at the outset though he has implied that the history is otherwise. Recently Thompson has come out again in favor of the Atlantic Yards megadevelopment after and despite its significant degeneration into a different and far worse project than it was in the beginning. (See: Thompson "Late Supporter" of Atlantic Yards. Says Urban Planning Not About "Developer Accommodation" 9.01.09.) By implication Thompson is necessarily favoring all the recent excessive extra giveaways from the MTA and ESDC to the developer about which he, like Mr. Levin, was silent.

In the second debate listing the three greatest failures of the Bloomberg administration Thompson listed Bloomberg’s override of term limits as the greatest failure. For the second greatest failure (about 20 minutes into the debate) this is what he said:

Megadevelopment and the failure of the megadevelopments that Mike Bloomberg has moved forward to the exclusion of small business across New York, that’s probably number two.

That’s not very elucidating, but that is what he said.

Thompson’s remarks about megadevelopment and whether he, ostensibly, favors or opposes them were so ambiguous we contacted the Thompson campaign for clarification. We asked: “What does he then believe is wrong with Bloomberg's record of megadevelopment and to what errors on the part of Bloomberg does he attribute the failures that he apparently would correct?” We received no response.

Again, let us think this through. Thompson says he is against a focus on big developers. If Thompson then opposes megadevelopments rather than promoting them how can he be in favor of the quintessentially objectionable developer-focused megadevelopment, Atlantic Yards? Consider just how many very sweet developer-focused megadevelopment-cookies Ratner is trying to take out of the cookie jar. (See: Friday, July 31, 2009, Ratner: The Little Boy Trying To Get Too Many Cookies Out of The Cookie Jar and Getting None.)

We think Thompson’s campaign is destined to implode. These inconsistences convince us of that together with Thompson’s obvious discomfort during the second debate when he was asked about pension investment scandal matters and his office’s handling of them.

Avella Sounding Like Jane Jacobs

By contrast Tony Avella’s position on megadevelopment, what was wrong with megadevelopment and what would work better is absolutely clear and un-Bloombergian.

In the first debate, NY1's Juan Manuel Benitez asked Avella about his opposition to big development:

You are a fighter against big development. After the collapse of the financial industry don’t you fear that new York City will lose its international clout if you don’t think big in terms of development and innovation?

Avella responded:

Naturally you have to do that* but I also think that there is advantage in thinking small and thinking from the bottom up. A lot of the philosophy in this city including the planning and development is all from the top down. It’s the Mayor, it’s the Department of City Planning, it’s the real estate industry that controls the agenda and Wall Street. I think we’d do much better if we did things from the bottom up and let the people work in their own neighborhoods to plan for thie own neighborhoods, for their communities. Let THEM work with the developers. I think if we did that we’ll have a much better city and you’ll find those innovative solutions come out of those discussions

(* Note that Mr. Avella and Mr. Thompson had both earlier criticized Bloomberg for not effectively handling the one big megadevelopment project that is necessarily a given, the redevelopment of Ground Zero.)

We think Mr. Avella is right. His answer is very Jane Jacobs-based. Mr. Benitez challenged Avella to defend his answer:

So you don’t have any big projects in mind? In case you are mayor of the city, you would wait for neighborhoods to come up with plans and projects?

Mr. Avella:

That’s what we do now. There’s no planning in this city. Mike Bloomberg isn’t doing planning. He reacts to the real estate industry in this city. And how many of his major projects have actually happened? We have to change the whole philosophy in this city. because the problem with what you are saying is that it comes down to money. It shouldn’t be about money. It should be about people in this city. And until we change that dynamic we ‘re always going to be in the same situation. Talk about the financial crisis: Absolutely we have to deal with this. But the way to deal with this is to strengthen small business, to bring back the manufacturing jobs which the mayor has basically undercut

Maybe it was what Mr. Avella had just said set forth above that led Mr. Thompson to make his own ensuing similar sounding remarks about failed megadevelopment.

Different Kinds of Elections: When It Is Wise to Vote For the Best candidate and When It Isn’t

After voters figure out which candidate’s deeds in office might actually comport with their campaign rhetoric they still have to figure where their votes can be effective. There are two kinds of elections going on this primary. Citywide elections will result in run-offs if no candidate receives more than 40% of the vote. City Council District primaries are decided by mere plurality.

Starting with the Easy Avella/Thompson Race: We like Avella

The primary election between Thompson and Avella is a straightforward matter for the voter: Just vote for the best candidate, or if you feel that Bloomberg is destined to win the upcoming general elections because of the hundreds of millions he is spending on the election, vote for the Democratic candidate who will send the clearest message to Bloomberg. Avella is clearly the best candidate.

Running Off to the Public Advocate Race: We Like Siegel

In citywide races with multiple candidates, the voter first must guess whether a runoff is likely. If a runoff election is expected or likely, a voter can send a clear message by voting for the candidate who is actually best. For instance, a runoff is likely in the race for Public Advocate. We think that voters should therefore vote for Norman Siegel since he is best suited for the job.

Of all the candidates for Public Advocate Mr. Siegel is the one who has essentially already started the job. The budget for the Public Advocate office has been substantially cut and Mr. Siegel is surely the best suited to be able to do a lot with a little. He already does, partly by knowing how to use the law.

One way or another this election is going to be about those who will be able to take on Bloomberg and restore a balance of power. For instance, Eric Gioia did an excellent job at the kind of thing that Public Advocate will have to do when he championed opposition to the Dock Street approvals. We think Mr. Siegel is most likely of all the candidates to be able to do that kind of job well and dependably. We note that Mr. de Blasio, like Mr. Siegel, joined in the lawsuit to challenge Bloomberg’s override of term limits. Still, for Mr. de Blasio the Office of Public Advocate is just a stepping stone to another office and the office doesn’t seem to really suit his temperament. It was not his first choice. Originally he wanted to run for Borough President.

Suitable candidates for Public Advocate (and for Comptroller) should all have shown their suitability by coming out in opposition to the Atlantic Yards and by criticizing the recent MTA giveaways. Norman Siegel did that and he has been consistently fighting eminent domain abuse. While Mr. de Blasio has expressed reservations about Atlantic Yards but as the project had grown significantly worse de Blasio has been waffling and inexcusably hiding out. Mr. de Blasio has also never opposed eminent domain abuse.

Running Off to the Comptroller Race: Liu or Yassky?

The Comptroller’s race is another race likely to go to a run-off election. Noticing New York readers worried about Bloombergian-style development and manipulation should NOT vote for Melinda Katz. Candidates Yassky and John Liu both oppose Atlantic Yards and are both likely to do well in the election. As both are able, what should be the deciding factor? It has been complained that Yassky should have opposed Atlantic Yards earlier and he likely could have been more strongly in opposition quite recently. Liu has many principled votes to his credit where he has often been heroically in the minority to oppose Christine Quinn-led Council Vote fixes. Where Liu shown commendably and Yassky behaved inexcusably was on the vote to overturn term limits. Yassky should never have supported Bloomberg’s power grab and the power garb has left the city multiple problems that will now be much harder to address.

City Council Plurality-Take-All Elections, The More is Less Equation

When it comes to City Council races, the voter has to decide on candidates based on which are likely to win the winner-take-all plurality. That regularly means forcing oneself to ignore lots of worthwhile candidates. For instance, it is not that the races for the 33rd and 39th Council Districts don’t have many exceptionally worthwhile candidates: They do, but paradoxically, the more candidates a Council District can field that truly reflect the district’s wishes and concerns, the greater the mathematical probability that, in the end, the district will not actually be represented by such an individual. “Circular firing squad” is one phrase that Norman Oder and others have used to describe this more is less proposition by which a multiplicity of good candidates cancel each other out in favor of a bad one.

In Atlantic Yards Report Norman Oder has recommended, and we agree, that the current system of plurality take-all voting should be replaced by a system like San Francisco’s instant runoff system which simulates a series of runoffs on one ballot by allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Unfortunately, that has not happened here yet so rather than voting for the best candidate voters need to vote for the best candidate likely to win. (See: Tuesday, August 11, 2009, In the 33rd: Levin vs. everyone else, AY & Broadway Triangle, and the argument for IRV (Instant Runoff Voting).)

Race in the 33rd: Jo Ann Simon- (Or Evan Thies?)

As we noted, there are serious questions about what to expect from Mr. Levin if he obtains a City Council seat. Those who would like to see someone else in office should probably then vote for either Jo Ann Simon or Evan Thies as the most likely to win. Of the two Ms. Simon is probably ahead and probably has the most critical endorsements including the New York Times. We find it odd that the two merging papers (Brooklyn Paper and Courier-Life) from the CNG chain endorsed two candidates running against Ms. Simon, Mr. Levin and Mr. Thies. The endorsement of Mr. Thies might conceivably benefit the other chain-endorsed candidate, Mr. Levin. (See: Friday, September 04, 2009, Looking at the weekly newspaper endorsements: James, Thies, Skaller, plus some contradictions.)

Race in the 39th : Josh Skaller

In the race for the 39th it is less obvious that there is a mismatched minority viewpoint candidate highly likely to win who would pose a problem for the community if they won. We think a vote for strong Atlantic Yards opponent Josh Skaller would be the voters’ best choice in this race. We recognize that Brad Lander is also likely to win and we recognize that Mr. lander has been quite eloquent in his statements opposing Atlantic Yards. Mr. Skaller is likely to do better against Mr. Lander given that in a surprise move the normally conservative pro-Atlantic Yards Courier Life has endorsed him. Of course, it is possible that if votes are split between Mr. Skaller and Mr. Lander, John Heyer may do better. John Heyer has been endorsed by the formerly more liberal but increasingly conservative, increasing pro-development Brooklyn Paper. Mr. Heyer’s views on Atlantic Yards are complex and he is the candidate who is least opposed to the extremely unpopular development.

Working Families Party: The Anti-Endorsement

One way we suggest deciding between candidates like Ms. Skaller and Mr. Lander these days is, all things being equal, (and things are not always equal) make sure you don’t vote for the candidate supported by the Working Families Party. The Working Families Party’s eagerness to broker power makes it the entity that is first to sell out a community’s interest after coaxes the community’s into reliance upon it. We think this means that a Working Family Party endorsement should be looked upon suspiciously as a likely indicator that the endorsed candidate is closer than other candidates to the conventional business-as-usual power structure.

In the races we are talking about in this post, the Working Families Party has endorsed Bill Thompson, John Liu, Bill de Blasio, Mr. Levin, Mr. Lander, Christine Quinn and Tish James. We wrote before about how the Working Families Party mentioning their endorsement of Mr. Lander told us that they endorse candidates who are opposed to Atlantic Yards even though they have unresolved conflicts of interest respecting business relationships with the developer. (See: Thursday, July 9, 2009, A Street Encounter Raises Questions About The Working Families Party, ACORN and Atlantic Yards That Seem To Lack Satisfactory Answers.)

Markowitz Anti-Endorsements

Another endorsement that might, like the Working families Party endorsement, be considered an anti-endorsement and a reason NOT to vote a candidate is an endorsement by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. Mr. Markowitz has endorsed Mr. Levin. He has also endorsed Mr. de Blasio who, before term limits were overridden, wanted to succeed Markowitz as Borough President and Mr. Markowitz has endorsed David Yassky.

Race in the 35th : Tish James

Not all rules are hard and fast, and as we indicated things are not always equal between candidates. There is no question about whom to vote for in the 35th Council District. Tish James has been endorsed by the Working Familes Party but she is one of Atlantic Yards most stalwart opponents and is the only truly qualified candidate in the race. There is something glaringly wrong with the fact that the New York Times did not endorse anyone in this race given that Ms. James ought to win and her main challenger, Ms Hunley-Adossa, is essentially on the Forest City Ratner payroll and utterly incapable of uttering a coherent thought or English sentence. Ms Hunley-Adossa also hides out, something we saw firsthand when we could not get her to respond to or answer our question about whether she had any knowledge about the level of subsidies going into the Atlantic Yards project. We asked her repeatedly but got only a stony silence. (See: Friday, August 28, 2009, Looking at the 35th District debate: Delia Hunley-Adossa surfaces (and shows why she's been inaccessible).)

Dumping Christine Quinn: One of the Most Important Races In the Primaries- The Race in the 3rd: Vote Yetta Kurland

Perhaps the most important Council race in the city is the race for 3rd Council District currently held by Christine Quinn, the current speaker of the City Council. Nothing would do more to send a message to Bloomberg about his override of term limits and his Bloombergian megadevelopment policies thant to defeat Quinn. A strong vote against Ms. Quinn could convey a powerful message even if it didn’t defeat her. Voting against Quinn should also send a message to the other members of the City Council that the balance of power between the mayor and the council needs to be restored. It would send a message that the council should not be a rubber stamp for the shenanigans of the politically connected, including the redistribution of wealth to the wealthy in Bloomberg’s megadevelopment projects. A message sent could also result in the removal of Quinn as speaker even if she is re-elected to her council seat. Let’s hope she isn’t though.

To name just a few things, Quinn in her time has been responsible for funding Atlantic Yards, the abuse of eminent domain in the Columbia expansion and at Willets Points, the corruption of the Dock Street project and the dismantling of the Coney Island amusement district and the selling off a portion of the Greenwich Village Historic District for development. She is also an impediment to an appropriate downsizing of Hudson Yards in her own district.

There are two candidates running against Quinn. We believe the one to vote for and the one who has the best chance of unseating Quinn is Yetta Kurland. It is not clear whether the other candidates is running just to set herself up for the next run while in the meantime consciously participating in vote-splitting that will impair the Quinn opposition.

Yesterday we were returning from time we had spent with a group that marched through Chelsea handing out flyers and carrying banners calling for Quinn to be dumped. As we reached the subway we happened to run into Yetta Kurland. We hope that is a good omen. She told us she was a Noticing New York fan. We were pleased. We didn’t know she was one of our readers.

We hope all of the above helps you get through tomorrow’s minefields. Good luck to us all.

(Here are the latest helpful links from Atlantic Yards Report: Monday, September 14, 2009
Thinking about the 33rd Council District (Part 1), Monday, September 14, 2009, Thinking about the 39th: why Dov Hikind causes Brad Lander to sound curiously like Charles Barkley, Monday, September 14, 2009, The Daily News's non-endorsement in the 35th District, Monday, September 14, 2009, Thinking about the 33rd Council District (Part 2): why I'm voting (gingerly) for Simon)

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?

A Lambda Night: City Political Candidates and Development (Focusing on Atlantic Yards and Dock Street)

(John C. Liu at back, candidate for comptroller listening to presntation of David Yassky, candidate for comptroler.)

This will fill in interstitially to our prior coverage about the positions on development (with Atlantic Yards getting a particularly deserved focus) of candidates running for city office and it will also provide a quick update about the activities of those currently in city office concerning the Walentas Dock Street project in DUMBO. We take the candidate endorsement meeting of Lambda Independent Democrats (LID) last Thursday night as the opportunity to do so.

Development and Urban Design Themes: Portents of Woe

The real estate development and urban design themes that come to the fore are familiar: Politicians spearheaded by the Bloomberg administration are engaging in unconscionable manipulations, and when manipulations do not work are riding roughshod to deprive communities of a say about what would be best for them. The question of term limits comes up and it must be asked, based on increasing evidence, how utterly disastrous a likely third term for the unchecked power of the Bloomberg administration will be. It portends to be disastrous for the livability of New York City’s urban design in ways we have not even begun to stretch our imaginations around.

Our Prior Coverage on Lack of Support for Atlantic Yards (Before AY Got Even Worse)

Here are links that will take you to the three-part series we initiated with concerning the City Council Races for the 33rd and 39th Council Districts:

City Council candidates don't support AY project, May 08, 2009 09:20AM

May 7, 2009, City
Council Races (33rd and 39th CDs): Candidates’ Positions on Development and
Effective Action They Would Take to Stop Atlantic Yards

As we noted in those articles all the 15 candidates we wrote about were in substantial opposition to Atlantic Yards, (wanting to take it back to the drawing board). And this was before all the very recent events which certainly substantially increase the reasons for discarding the project and starting over.

On some of the recent events see our own: Monday, June 1, 2009, Negotiating With Your Contractor: The Atlantic Yards As Kitchen Renovation Metaphor and Friday, May 29, 2009, Today’s State Senate Hearings on Atlantic Yards and Noticing New York Testimony and Atlantic Yards Report’s Friday, June 05, 2009, Gehry's design was impossible, so dropping him wasn't just cost; what do MAS and RPA say now?

We promised future focus on the races for city-wide offices; this will also serve as a jumpstart on that.

Twenty Candidates Speak

Twenty candidates running for various offices, City Council seats, Civil Court Judge and City Comptroller spoke. Development issue came up a lot, particularly Atlantic Yards. (Lambda has previously resolved that it is against Atlantic Yards even though there was an apparent effort by developer Forest City Ratner to woo support by promising gay and lesbian activists a community center in a Downtown Brooklyn building owned by the developer. They were apparently NOT co-opted. (See: Saturday, October 27, 2007, The LID vote on AY.)

It should not be surprising that Atlantic Yards, as indicated in our previous posts, was the subject of what is by now almost axiomatic attack by the candidates. Other development got the usual reactions too; candidates speaking about why the Gowanus Canal should be cleaned up by a federal superfunding approach was a favorite topic. The new kid on the development block, Dock Street, got attention because there were two dismaying City Council committee votes earlier in the day that approved it. (More on Dock Street further on.)

Bob Zuckerman was endorsed by Lambda for the 39th Council District which means that Lambda endorsed an openly gay candidate. Mr. Zuskerman’s presentation focused a fair amount on development and mentioned Atlantic Yards. (When asked about jobs remarked (beginning with a tone of careful scepticism): “One thing I should say, that I didn’t mention before, there is proposal in Brooklyn that the developers `say’ is going to bring these jobs. And I just want to say here categorically that I have always been, will continue to be, and am currently against the Atlantic Yard project.” We also noted that Josh Skaller, another candidate for the 39th and a strong opponent of Atlantic Yards received especially warm applause and that Brad Lander, also running for the 39th who has spoken eloquently against Atlantic Yards spoke with his usual eloquence hitting again upon development issue and how community participation is essential to ensuring the quality of New York neighborhoods but this time he forgot to specifically mention his opposition to Atlantic Yards.

Two Candidates For Comptroller and Three Topics: Atlantic Yards, Dock Street and Term Limits

The most interesting part of the evening were the speeches, (following one after the other) of Council Members John Liu and David Yassky, each running for the postion of Comptroller. This was where the topics of Atlantic Yards, Dock Street and term limits all came together fascinatingly.

Mr. Liu on Atlantic Yards

Here is Council Member John Liu, who is running for Comptroller, speaking on Atlantic Yards for a considerable portion of his allotted 10 minutes:

So some of the issues that Lambda has taken on that would not ordinarily be considered an LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and trangender] issue would be the whole idea of the development of Atlantic Yards. This is a development that promised the world for everybody in Brooklyn when it was first proposed. It was going to be a gargantuan. It was going to be a monstrosity. It was going to take people’s homes away. But, in return, so many jobs would be created, so many new housing units, so many economic opportunities. . And yet so many years have passed by and we still see very little, very little, even as people have lost their homes.

This is an issue that I am happy so see so many of the members of Lambda take a hold of. It is an issue, and I will be very honest, this was not something that ever came before the City Council, and so as a council member dealing with lots of development, anti-development issues in my neck of the woods, I had not paid very much close attention to this. But, of course, over the past several weeks I have been given a very quick tutorial by the likes of, you know, Lucy and Dan [i. e. Atlantic Yards opponents, the “Dan” being Daniel Goldstein] and a number of other people and so I am going to take a very serious look at this.

And the first question has to be how come it wasn’t even before the City Council at all? Why did it not go through a ULURP process? Those are questions that we have to begin with and then we have to understand what it is that has been promised and what actually has materialized? And what actually at this point has even a promise or possibility of materializing?

Those are questions that I would look at if I was elected Comptroller. I will still look at them as a member of City Council, especially when they are talking about deferring (which in our book means “cancelling”) payments to the MTA that just imposed a fare hike on all of us and is claiming extreme poverty. These are issues that don’t make sense. This is casting more doubt and question on even the viability of something like Atlantic Yards.

(On the whole these are excellent and important remarks, but we would also offer to tutor Mr. Liu more on how the original plan offered little real value. See our Jane Jacobs Report Card.)

Mr. Liu on Term Limits

Mr. Liu then made his pitch for support depicting distinctions he saw between himself and his opponent, City Council member (for the 33rd) David Yassky who was, by the end of Liu’s remarks, also in the room, and with whom Liu has a mutually acknowledged good relationship. One of the distinctions Mr. Liu spent time on was the way he had fought against the way in which Mayor Bloomberg overrode the public’s imposition of term limits. Mr. Liu said that he was actually, personally, against term limits but that he was a minority in this regard because the “vast majority of New Yorkers” put the term limits restriction “on the books.” Mr, Liu said he had therefore taken the position that if it had to be changed, it should have been done by returning to the voters for another referendum. (He was roundly applauded on this, some of the most pronounced applause that occurred during the evening.)

Mr. Liu on Development

Respecting real estate development, Mr. Liu also spoke of his participation in his own Queens community to secure several down-zonings to preserve the community and keep it intact:

The American dream was not made of situations where you have more and more and more development and crowding in more and more people and yet the very ideal of the American dream that people were coming to the neighborhood for, were coming to New York for gets lost on people.

Mr. Yassky on Dock Street (With Kudos to Mr. Liu)

Councilman Yassky spoke next. The camaraderie of his relationship with Mr. Liu was immediately in evidence as he led with his remarks by extending thanks to Mr. Liu for his City Council committee vote that day against the Dock Street project, a fight Mr. Yassky has been leading: (The proposed project is in Yassky’s district.) Mr. Yassky got loud applause when he referred Liu’s vote to “block the atrocious idea for a 17 story tower next to the Brooklyn Bridge.” A stony silence followed when Mr. Yassky went on to reveal that the effort to block the project in committee had, in fact, failed. The project is up for a vote of the full City Council on Wednesday and right now, quite appallingly, the odds are that it will be approved.

Mr. Yassky on Atlantic Yards (and the Real Estate Industry)

Like Mr. Liu, Mr. Yassky similarly featured discussion of real estate development and Atlantic Yards in his remarks. He spoke about having some success in a coordinated fight against the mayor’s effort to get 421-a real estate tax breaks for luxury housing. (Those tax breaks have hurt city revenues in the current downturn and accentuated problems we are experiencing because Bloomberg did not save for a rainy day.) Mr. Yassky talked about when he fought the previous speaker of the council (on a garbage-handling plan) he had to pay the price for his opposition when his “member items got cut and budget got cut.” After referring to the real estate industry and its lobby as the “toughest most entrenched industry in this town” Mr. Yassky turned his attention to Atlantic Yards. He had arrived late enough so that he had not heard, and was unaware of, Mr. Liu’s expression of opposition on Atlantic Yards. In his presentation Mr. Yassky said that he had been against Atlantic Yards from the beginning and said:

I am the one who pointed out that Ratner has taken $40 million of your tax dollars. You know he is still sitting on $40 million of your tax money even though he hasn’t done anything on that project. And we should get hat money back. saying that he had been against it from the beginning

(We ought to mention that total taxpayer-funded subsidies going to Ratner will be in the billions.)

You can read a more fine-point analysis of Mr. Yassky’s position on Atlantic Yards in our earlier piece on the subject. (See: Wednesday, May 6, 2009, City Council Races (33rd and 39th CDs): Candidates’ Positions on Development and Effective Action They Would Take to Stop Atlantic Yards (Part II).) Plus we can introduce some additional nuance to what we provided before. Mr. Yassky stated to us at a bloggers’ breakfast on May 19, 2009 that he has been in favor of the proposed Nets arena at the Atlantic Yards site but that (like John Heyer, candidate for the 39th CD) he is opposed to the public financing of that arena.

The opposition of Yassky and Heyer to public taxpayer financing of the arena (with real property tax intercepts and tax exempt bonds like those for Yankee Stadium or the Mets Citifield) constitutes what is, as a practical matter, opposition to the plan for the arena. It should also be noted that when, at that May 19th breakfast Yassky noted his previous support for the design for the arena had not degenerated into its current airplane hanger/plant shed look which eliminates the purportedly beneficial and once highly touted “urban room” and the opportunity to use the space for hockey games. (Heyer’s statement of conditional support for the arena sans public financing was also before the arena degenerated and went sans these original purported benefits.)

The last nuance to note: Not everyone agrees that Yassky was always, from the beginning, as opposed to Atlantic Yards as he represents. However, we have said before, that we welcome everyone to the cause, including latecomers. (We feel we were also late.) With the poor mainstream press coverage Atlantic Yards has received, there is plenty of reason people have not always been promptly aware of Atlantic Yards’ stupendous flaws.

Yassky’s Defense on His Term Limits Vote

Of course, Yassky had to defend his vote to extend term limits. He noted that he had “no doubt that the bulk of the opinion in this room is against the elimination of term limits.” He argued that he was consistent in that he thought that term limits was a bad policy no matter who was proposing it, or for or against it, or would benefit politically from it. This was essentially the same case another City Council candidate, Lew Fidler, (CD 46) made earlier during the evening (after getting hissed about his vote). (Fidler, very strong on LGBT issues, got Lambda’s endorsement.)
Mulling Principles Applicable to Term Limits Vote

We think that Liu’s postion on term limits (essentially our own) makes sense while the Yassky and Fidler postion is disingenuous. Even if you have/had a principled opposition to City Council term limits the following come into play:

1. Term limits can apply to the mayor (the executive) without applying to the City Council just the way they do in the federal system.

2. The voter’s imposition of the requirement through referendum should not have been overridden, without referendum, especially by the mayor’s secretly hatched scheme unveiled at the last minute.

3. It was unfair to change term limits in the middle of an ongoing campaign. The mayor and his insiders availed themselves of advance knowledge of the imminent change. His opposition could not.

4. There is a principle (the “Harry Truman rule”) that term limit rules should not be made to apply during the terms of incumbents to the very people who are changing the rules that will apply to themselves.

There is, of course, more, (for instance, the way the vote was manipulated in a very short space of time); but this post is not intended to be all about that term limit fiasco. We should, however, look to what the elimination of term limits has meant as it applies to the power of the wealthy Mr. Bloomberg. We can see that with what is happening with the Dock Street project.

Term Limits and Lambda Comptroller Endorsement

At the end of the evening Lambda voted to endorse Mr. Liu over Mr. Yassky. From what we understand, Mr. Yassky’s vote on term limits is likely to have factored heavily in Lambda’s decision. That, plus the fact that there was feeling that Mr. Yassky could have been more strenuously opposed to Atlantic Yards, especially earlier on, and been more reliable on certain other development issues. His support for a City Council override of the landmarking of Williamsburg’s waterfront Cass Gilbert-designed Austin, Nichols Co. warehouse has stuck with Mr. Yassky as a famous black mark. (In the end, economics saved the warehouse from the desecration it was facing.) Lastly, the endorsemnt Liu received from the Stonewall club likley had an influence.

This was the second evening Mr. Yassky and Mr. Liu appeared before Lambda to seek their endorsement. No decision on the endorsement had been made the first time, indicating the decision was not easy. Both Mr. Yassky and Mr. Liu have qualifications to be a good comptroller. Mr. Liu is an actuary which would give him insight into the pension fund management aspects. Mr. Yassky started in the City Budget Office and has recently undertaken the task of organizing and making accessible on his website critical budget data information, something which should be taken even further in the future.

Cost of the Term Limits Vote- Back To Dock Street

Mr. Yassky’s vote to extend the mayor’s term limits may have ultimately cost him the Lambda endorsement. It may have cost him and the city something more, the City Council vote on the Dock Street project which in that day’s committee votes was very lopsidedly against Mr. Yassky’s effort to block the project. The vote in the larger land use committee was 17 to 4 in favor of approving the project. (Mr. Yassky, not on either committee, could not vote.) This lopsidedness certainly disrespected Mr. Yassky, given that City Council members traditionally give a very high degree of deference to the wishes of the City Council person in whose district a project is located. The lopsided vote is very likely strong testament to the way that the mayor’s power has grown as people recognize that, given his wealth and control of resources (including those he controls as an incumbent) there seems to be virtually no means to marshal opposition to him in the mayoral race. That now seems to be translating into a perceived lack of practical means to oppose Mr. Bloomberg and the real estate industry he champions in virtually every contest.

Principled City Council Votes?

We perceive a shift. Normally, when a City Council member’s wishes with respect to a project are disregarded by other City Council members it should be for reasons of principle. Opposition to eminent domain abuse is an example, but sometimes not even that principled opposition is forthcoming: A number of City Council members expressed principled opposition to eminent domain abuse but still voted in favor of that abuse in the case of the Columbia University expansion and the destruction of Willets Point because they were respecting the wishes and votes of the Council members from those districts whose votes had ultimately been bought by the Bloomberg administration. A few City Council members voted against those plans on principle. In the case of the Dock Street project, the lopsided alignment against local Councilman Yassky was not based on principle: Quite the opposite.

And Principle Would Dictate on Dock Street. . .

Principle would dictate that almost any City Council would vote to block the project. Blocking it is in the interest of the larger city and world community by preserving the iconic views of a world and national heritage monument. The developers have tried to characterize opposition as just being about a bunch of wealthy DUMBO residents trying to preserve their own apartment views, but this is not why Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning, historian David McCullough has testified against the project or written a two-page article against it in Newsweek. More important, as Councilman Eric Gioia has said, the project should be blocked because an ongoing FOIL investigation shows that the Bloomberg administration engaged in behind-the-scenes manipulations with the School Construction Authority to put a school into the project to get it approved despite the community’s prior disapproval. By definition, those manipulations which were so clearly focused on benefitting the developer and indifferent to the public, virtually guarantee that the project will not properly serve the public and that truly deserving alternatives will be ignored.

Tish James on Dock Street

Dock Street was briefly defended at the Lambda meeting by City Council member Tish James (a Lambda member before she became a public official) who was seeking endorsement in her race. James, a stalwart and leading opponent of Atlantic Yards (as well as many other projects like the Columbia University expansion) has taken a very uncharacteristic position on Dock Street which she probably knows is unprincipled. We have said that the project’s developers, the Walentases, are much better than most developers in the city and they are providing Ms. James with support, but they should not be developing this project and the backroom deal involving the bundling of a school into the project is absolutely unacceptable. Here is Ms. James that night:

I do support the Dock Street project. I support the Dock Street project, one, because it brings affordable housing ( There’s a crisis in affordable housing. In fact, there is not enough affordable housing in DUMBO.), and two, because it will bring middle school for the district that I represent and for surrounding community. And I am confident that there will be a middle school and affordable housing because it will be included in a legal document that the speaker of the City of New York (who came out in support of it yesterday) will be drafting. So I am confident that we will get those public benefits so that is why I support it.

Her next sentence was a quick segue to mention her opposition to Atlantic Yards. For a principled stance on Dock Street Ms. James should, in fact, have been making some comparative notes about Atlantic Yards. First and foremost she should have acknowledged that Dock Street was a project where, consistent with the Bloomberg administration’s manipulations and the extraordinary flow of campaign funds, the fix was in a long time ago. Speaker Christine Quinn “ came out in support of it yesterday”? Then why was everyone else, including Borough President Markowitz, acknowledging that the fix was in long before that?

Speaker Christine Quinn “came out in support of it yesterday”? Then why was she, ahead of time, whipping so many votes for the project to get the lopsided committee votes that came out at the exact same time. Affordable housing is assured by a document that Speaker Quinn “will be drafting”? Why isn’t that document already drafted and in evidence given that the fix was in so long ago?

For the word “drafting” we, in this context, read the word “negotiating” as in Speaker Quinn will be “negotiating” the legal document that specifies what will be provided in terms of “a middle school and affordable housing.”

Who negotiates and gets to sign and enforce these legal documents, sometimes referred to as “public benefits agreements” is in itself an interesting topic that affords a lot of food for thought. Is one to presume, for instance, that Speaker Quinn gets these responsibilities in this context because she took the largest campaign contributions from the developer? (See below.) Or because she whipped all the votes to provide the benefits to the developer?

Surely, after her experience with Atlantic Yards, Ms. James recognizes manipulations and false promises and reprehensible conduct to override a community’s wishes? Surely she knows to suspect when public resources are improperly diverted into a developer’s project to create a bundling of “benefit” that presents false choices to the community?

Overall, her remarks were brief. Ms. James probably knew that among other things she could coast on her well-known opposition to Atlantic Yards. Yes, her candidacy was endorsed.

(Medhanie Estiphanos, candidate for the 35th CD running agsinst Ms. James.)

Jo Anne Simon on Dock Street

Jo Anne Simon, candidate for the 33rd City Council District, when asked about Dock Street during her presentation, emphatically said that she would have voted against the project. She said that one of the things she had made a point of in her testimony at several levels of review was that the space in the project was not going to be big enough for a properly functioning middle school as the Bloomberg administration was promising, “so it really is a deal that is not destined to be what people have been promised, and that to me is extraordinarily troubling.” Ms. Simon was also endorsed by Lamba that night for the 33rd Council District.

The DUMBO Neighborhood Association on Dock Street and Top Bloomberg Officials Implicated

After the City Council committees voted, the DUMBO Neighborhood Alliance put out a press release (Land-Use Committee Votes to ‘Sell’ Brooklyn Bridge As Evidence of Impropriety between Developer Two Trees, School Construction Authority and Mayoral Aides Mounts) that noted that the e-mails being investigated showed that the School Construction Authority’s manipulative bundling of the school into the project involved the highest members of the Bloomberg administration. Here is some of what that press release says (emphasis supplied):

. . . those who are rushing to vote rather than investigate, will have their reputation and political careers painted with the outcome. While the City Council members may not have been direct players in impropriety, they are casting votes with the full knowledge that serious and potentially criminal evidence is mounting and in need of investigation. Rather than protect the public interest by calling for a halt to Dock Street pending an investigation, they are rushing forward to curry political favors and perhaps further contributions from our city’s worst pay-to-play developers. This will not escape the long-memory of the voting public on upcoming election days.”

* * * *

What is emerging today is that the potential impropriety extends its way into the highest level of the New York City Mayor’s Office. According to the chain of emails obtained via FOIL, both Gregorio Mayers, Senior Policy Advisor to Mayor Bloomberg, and Nnenna Lynch, Senior Policy to Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber, had direct email communication with the lobbyist, attorney and Two Trees head Jed Walentas regarding the project. Emails can be obtained directly from DNA by calling 917-742-6072.

It has also recently surfaced via The New York Times that developer Two Trees has spent approximately $400,000 lobbying the elected official in City Council and other important government agencies. The two City Council members yielding the most power over the development, Land Use Committee Chairwoman Melinda R. Katz and Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, have received at least $74,250 in campaign donations from the developer according to The New York Times article, perhaps coloring their objectivity on the proposed structure. According to The New York Times, “Katz, who is running for city comptroller, has received major financial support from the real estate industry, whose interests she oversees on the Land Use Committee… And Mr. Walentas and his father, David (the principals of Two Trees), were on the finance committee for a Katz fund-raiser in June.”

Robert Lieber, the deputy mayor who replaced Daniel Doctoroff, comes up in other contexts. He is being sued by those seeking to prevent the proposed destruction of Willets Point. If Coney Island ceases to exist as an amusement area, being sold off to developers for other uses, it will be very much at his hands and the people working for him. Working on the Hudson Yards project he has said it will take decades (“Projects Whose Names None Dare Speak”).

Does Ms. Quinn Have So Much As a Comment on Smoking Gun E-Mails?

We would think that if Ms. Quinn is going to whip votes in favor of the Dock Street project she ought to have 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.

We called Speaker Quinn’s office for her comment on the e-mails. She has supplied no comment. Did she whip votes and come out in favor of the project without having an opinion on these e-mails? Despite the huge amount of attention they received in the press? That, obviously, would have been an irresponsible thing to do.

Names and Votes of City Council Committee Members: Again, Any 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. We are particularly dismayed by the Dock Street votes of certain Council Members who ought otherwise to have particularly bright futures, Jessica Lapin and Daniel Garodnick among them.

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 called up every one of the City Council members who voted on these committees to ask for their comment on the School Construction Authority e-mails. So far we have not received any comment from any member who voted in favor of the project. We will let you know if we do. Mr. Gioia obviously has made known his view that the project needed to be blocked unless adequate answers were forthcoming. Mr. Avella had already issued a press release that included the following Avella remarks:

“It is absolutely disgraceful that this project was able to pass through the committee process with relative ease despite the massive outpouring of community opposition. This development will undoubtably destroy the panoramic view of the Brooklyn bridge, which is not only a City treasure, nut a national one as well. The votes only further demonstrate that the real estate industry truly controls the land use process in the City of New York,” stated Avella.

“Recent reports in many of the City’s daily newspapers have only heightened my concerns that there may be a connection between campaign contributions by the real estate industry and the voting decisions of individual Council Members. The mere appearance of impropriety in or legislative body is shameful. These activities must be investigated and stopped before we jeopardize our democracy,” concluded Avella.

At the Lambda meeting we had a chance to personally thank Mr. Liu for his vote to block the project. Is it possible that we will never hear any comment from any of the City Council members who will willing to be whipped by Speaker Quinn into voting for this project despite the Bloomberg administration’s manipulations at the expense of public benefit?

Not Listening to Communities and Circumvention of Process

Yes, it is troubling that part of the story is that the Dock Street developer was buying the City Council approval of an unacceptable project with $74,250 in campaign contributions to Quinn and Katz, plus $400.000 in lobbying expenditures. But what is more frightening is the way that, with the demise of term limits, the growing, unchecked power of Mayor Bloomberg means that communities and their representation are now going to be irrelevant when the Bloomberg sells off more of New York City’s public realm, slating it for destruction. As candidate and Councilman John Liu said, rasing much the same concerns about Atlantic Yards: “And the first question has to be how come it wasn’t even before the City Council at all? Why did it not go through a ULURP process? Those are questions that we have to begin with. .” And the next question is, whatever the process: Is anyone going to listen?

How Much of the City Can Bloomberg Sell Off? And How Fast?

What is also clear from both the Dock Street project and the degenerating Atlantic Yards project is that the administration does not support projects, they support developers “ad hominem” and the projects get supported by manipulation irrespective of their merit, and, particularly in the case of Atlantic Yards, no matter to what level they degenerate.

In the next couple of weeks the city will be making major decisions ranging from:

1. Selling off a portion of the Greenwich Village Historic District (to subsidize St. Vincent’s)- Tuesday at the Landmark’s Preservation Commission.

2. Selling off most of the Coney Island amusement district- City Planning Commission- June 17th. (A Don't Shrink Coney! Rally will be held in the City Hall Steps Wednesday June 10, 1 p.m.- Show up 12:30 p.m. to allow time to go through security.- A parade will follw.)

3. The City Economic Development Corporation has announced condemnation proceedings against Willets Point business and property owners while Article 78 challenge is still pending in court. (This is from a media advisory from Councilman Tony Avella.) EDC has also decided to do this before negotiating with property owners and after telling many of them that negotiations will not start for more than a year.- There will be a press conference and rally in opposition Monday, June 8th at 1:30pm at the Shea Gas Station 127-48 Northern Blvd, Willets Point, Queens.

4. Giving additional substantial additional benefits to Forest City Ratner for the degenerating Atlantic Yards, including giving it more of the MTA’s assets without a proper quid pro quo.- June 24 at both the MTA and the ESDC in synchronized meetings. (Does that sound like the fix is in?)- There will ba a Community meeting on Atlantic Yards, June 9- 7 PM at Lafayette Avenue Church. 85 South Oxford Street, Ft. Greene

5. Sacrificing the iconocism of the Brooklyn Bridge for Dock Street- Next Wednesday, June 10th at the City Council.

The list is not complete and, for instance, does not include the likelihood that the mayor’s wishes will again be accommodated by diverting more public authority money into the risky financing of a private developer’s towers at the World Trade Center site (against the advice of the New York Times). If the Bloomberg administration can accomplish the sale of so much of the city is just a few weeks, think what it will be able to do unimpeded and unchecked with an entire third term. And just remember that while Bloomberg administration destroys, it does NOT build. It rightfully failed on the West Side Stadium but there is also Moynihan Station, the World Trade Center redevelopment site and the very slow pace of work at Queens West.

The Role Paterson Does Not Fulfill as Governor

We have one final thought which is to note that it is not just and always about the Bloomberg administration. It is also sometimes about Governor David Paterson. Paterson is not fulfilling his role and responsibility as governor. Further, by not taking a principled stance to deal with the corruption of Atlantic Yards, Paterson is also not doing his duty as a loyal Democrat.

We recognize that Governor Paterson has no say about what is happening with respect to the Dock Street project. That is happening entirely at the city level. But the Governor could at any time make a principled move and pull the plug on the incredible Atlantic Yards mega-boondoggle. By doing so he would ensure that Bloomberg is confronted squarely and that the issue of inappropriate development is politically engaged. Flushing out Bloomberg would almost certainly lead to a much more respectable showing by the Democrats who are trying to get traction in politically opposing Bloomberg despite his extraordinary wealth and vastly disproportionate resources. It could perhaps lead to a Democratic win. Right now, by playing along with Bloomberg, Paterson is enfeebling of the Democratic party in New York City. Might one counter that the vast majority of City Council seats will continue to be held by Democrats? Perhaps, but what good is it if we have a million City Council members who are Democrats if none of them can do anything for their communities and all the power is held by a single Republican? A single Republican who also happens (shall we say by coincidence?) to have become the richest New Yorker while in the office of mayor.

In the Bible the question is asked: “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Alternately, “lose his life.”) Sticking to politics, we would ask: What does it profit a party to populate the City Council with an overwhelming majority but to have no power and no principles? And as a voter one might then ask, what use do we have for such Democrats?