JANE JACOBS ATLANTIC YARDS REPORT CARD

The following is a Jane Jacobs evaluation report card of the Atlantic Yards project. All of the criteria for the report card have been distilled from Jane Jacobs' book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" (1961). Some of the criteria involves overlaps which is quite natural since Jane Jacobs saw city systems as intricate relationships and interconnections affecting and sometimes generating each other, analogous in certain ways to human physiology and biology. Though some arguably imply or result in the others, I have broken down as many discrete principles as possible. I have not given comparative weight to the principles, but since the project scores badly across the board this does not make a difference in coming to an overall assessment. Jane Jacobs herself highlighted four main criteria (p.150, 151) which are very well known. They are all represented below and most guidance she offers is somehow related to them, but the report card does not confine itself to just those four broad principles. By extracting and using all 47 identified standards, the report card tests more deeply and more completely. It also winds up applying what are often principles Jane Jacobs integrated from other thinkers who had thought competently about the same problems she was addressing.

The four main principles Jane Jacobs herself identified as the most important points her book had to make are (in summary) that:

• There should be mixed uses and functions that ensure that people are using the outdoors on different schedules and, as much as possible, are using facilities available in common.

• Most blocks should be short and streets and opportunities to turn frequent.

• There should be a good close-grained mingling of buildings that vary in age and condition, including a good proportion of old ones.

• There should be a sufficiently dense concentration of people which should include people who are present because of residence.

This report card rates Atlantic Yards almost entirely negatively by these Jane Jacobs criteria. It could be that I failed to extract some criteria within Jane Jacobs' book that would yield a few positive assessments I missed. Arguably, I failed to apply some of these criteria as favorable to the project as I could or should. I don't think either of these things is the case but people are free to raise specific quibbles. It is also possible that some of the standards Jane Jacobs suggests be followed arguably don't make sense. Some have sought to "debunk" Jane Jacobs, but today her teachings and those of William H. Whyte are ingrained in the work of mainstream firms like Beyer Blinder Belle, the architectural firm that did the recent restoration work of Grand Central Station.

There is also the question of whether Jane Jacobs' ideas should be treated as any form of "gospel," something she herself would have questioned, though she would have readily endorsed the use of her ideas by those endeavoring to see for themselves and use common sense to reach their own conclusions. Based on things Jane Jacobs said about herself in life, I was tempted to add a standard (in line with her constant empirical questioning) that people, including Ms. Jacobs, should regard themselves as fallible and capable of mistakes. People need to know they are not God. Were this added as criteria #48 the project would not score well on it. Jane Jacobs knew that big plans tend to lead to big mistakes. It is far from clear that the megadeveloper of the Atlantic Yards project adequately comprehends his mistakes or ability to make them. In the face of this, Jane Jacobs, although believing in her own fallibility, was famous for being right when too many others had gotten it wrong.

If this report card is only so much as just mostly correct, then this megadevelopment, shiny, new and expensive, can be expected to have a severely blighting effect on Brooklyn and the city in which it is located. What it does and doesn't do should be measured against the much better alternatives open to us.

47 Criteria used and findings- (full analysis is/will be available by clicking on the links below)

1. Avoidance of Regimentation? NO

2. Avoidance of Monopolistic Centers of Real Estate? NO

3. Avoidance of Monotony? NO

4. Appropriate Density? NO

5. Uses Parks as Focal Points? NO

6. Has Intricacy of Park Design? NO

7. Parks Are Designed with Desirable Centers? NO

8. Parks Are Designed So Sun Shines Within Them? NO

9. Park Design Makes Use of "Enclosure" to Define Park Space? NO

10. Building Creates Close-grained Weave of City Fabric? NO

11. Project Will Be Developed Gradually Working with City Fabric? NO

12. Avoidance of Project’s Being Apart from Weave of City Fabric? NO

13. Project Participates in City Fluidity? NO

14. Project Creates Population Diversity? NO

15. Project Has Building-age Diversity with a Close-grained Mingling? NO

16. Will There Be a Concentrated Diversity of Use? MAYBE NOT

17. Avoidance of Harmful Parking Lots? NO

18. Improved Mass Transit Bus Service by Avoidance of One-Way Streets? MAYBE NOT

19. Avoidance of Harmful Large and Heavy Trucking Depots? MAYBE NOT?

20. Avoidance of Harmful Gas Stations? MAYBE YES/MAYBE NO

21. Avoidance of Harmful Gigantic Outdoor Advertising? NO

22. Avoidance of Enterprises and Uses Harmful Because the Scale Is Wrong? NO

23. Protection Against Self-Destruction of Diversity of Building Use? NO

24. Avoidance of "Border Vacuums"? NO

25. Convert Borders to Seams? NO

26. Allowing People to Move up the Ladder Through "Unslumming"? NO

27. Use of Empiricism and Curiosity to Determine and Work with Actual Facts and Reality? NO

28. Observes the Goal of Creating Political Access (Including the Goal of Countering Public Money Expenditures)? NO

29. Using Public Participation in Shaping Cities? NO

30. Avoidance of Cataclysmic Money? NO

31. Making Good Use of Gradual Money? NO

32. Is Eminent Domain Being Used in a Way That the Full Cost of it Is Reckoned and Paid For? NO

33. Is Eminent Domain Being Used with Restraint? NO

34. Is Eminent Domain and its Threat Being Used Only with Full and Proper Public Comprehension? NO

35. Is Eminent Domain for Greed Being Avoided? NO

36. Best Way to Subsidize Dwellings? NO

37. Avoidance of Surges of People in Limited Time Frames? NO

38. Does Project Represent Healthy Decentralization and City Economics? NO

39. Keeping Blocks Short and Creating Extra Streets to Help Do So? NO

40. Avoidance of Superblocks? NO

41. Efforts to Use Sidewalks Well? NO

42. Creating Visual Closures with Bends and Irregularities in Street Grid? NO

43. Use of Landmarks: (Which Are Not Necessarily Created by Size)? PROBABLY NO

44. Going Beyond Appearance and Pretty Pictures to Actual Function? NO

45. Keeping Artificial Architectural Exhibitionism at Bay? NO

46. Does the Project Involve Good Deployment of Available Resources? NO

47. Buildings that relate to the streets and sidewalks with stoops and windows creating a system of "eyes"and participation in a "ballet" of the streets, based on a weave of trusting relationship? N/A?

You Oughta Be in Pictures, . . On Stage, In a Book, In a Documentary

We got this solicitous request, from the Civilians, who are putting together a stage play having to do with the transformation of Brooklyn, for which they are interested in including stories about Atlantic Yards. For those out there who want to tell their Atlantic Yards stories, the Civilians want to interview you:

The Civilians want to hear from you. Brooklyn is changing fast. We are creating BROOKLYN AT EYE LEVEL a theater show inspired by interviews about the transformation of Brooklyn and the controversial Atlantic Yards Project. If you have something to say about the communities surrounding the proposed project (Downtown, Ft. Greene, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, Prospect Heights & Park Slope), we want to listen. We want to talk to long-term residents, recent arrivals, players in the Atlantic Yards story, as well as those who work or live in the area. Eager to hear from all perspectives. If you want to be interviewed send us an email with a little information about yourself to Michael Premo, Project Coordinator: Premo(at)thecivilians(dot)org. For more information: www.brooklynateyelevel.org . These interviews will be performed along with original music and dance by Urban Bush Women live at the Brooklyn Lyceum, December 4th – 7th.

To borrow a select few lines from the old Dana Suesse/Edward Heyman song.

. . .
A thought goes through my mind;
* * *
I am proud that I have you right by my side,
But I`d be satisfied
To lend you to the public to be seen!
* * *
Your voice would thrill a nation,
* * *
You’d make a great sensation
You oughta shine as brightly
As Jupiter and Mars;

A Rich Subject

A theater show featuring the subject of Atlantic Yards!

Atlantic Yards is such a rich subject to mine for material. We have always wondered about the wealth of works it will generate. That includes theatrical and artistic works.

There is already a beautifully crafted documentary on the subject, “Brooklyn Matters,” by Isabel Hill. That film does the remarkable job of explaining comprehensively in 50 minutes all the major issues concerning the Atlantic Yards megadevelopment. I invariably note that no matter how much you learn about Atlantic Yards, it fits within the framework the film provides for a solid understanding of the project. Everyone interested in today’s New York City or urban planning should see Brooklyn Matters. Certainly, that includes any responsible city politician.

It is an inexplicable shame that the Brooklyn Matters has not appeared yet on our PBS Channels 13 and 21. When a question-sans-explanation like this comes up, one must wonder about the subtle/not-so-subtle influences of Bloombergain “charitable” giving. (See: Monday, October 20, 2008, “Charity?” We Begin to Groan and the newest story on the subject in today’s New York Times, Some Award Winners Share Trait: Bloomberg’s Charity, by Michael Barbaro)

Atlantic Yards Report has demonstrated how bottomless the Atlantic Yards drama is, proving that it can be fodder for one or more fascinating in-depth articles every day for years. The malefactions of Bruce Ratner, along with complicit and sloppy politicians, certainly help by spicing up and providing central themes to the narrative. We are certain AYR’s prolific Mr. Oder has a best-selling book in him with the heft and weight of Robert A. Caro’s “The Power Broker.” We are hoping to be reading it around the time some of the politicians involved were expecting to be continuing their careers. Like “The Power Broker,” we can expect the book to be an urban planning classic read by our grandchildren. Just the way “The Power Broker” vividly brings back to life Mayor Jimmy Walker, Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia and Robert Moses himself when we read it today, we can expect that our grandchildren will be reading about billionaire Mayor Bloomberg and sidekick City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. They will no doubt be aghast.

Seedy Subject

I don’t personally hold myself to be a major player in the Atlantic Yards drama. Mainly I am an former government official whose familiarity with development and government conduct can assist by offering perspective and insight into certain Atlantic Yards shenanigans. Still, from where I stand, I see many seeds of the Atlantic Yards narrative busy growing. I’ve been interviewed for several documentaries, including student films. It also seems that there are a lot of students and young journalists writing about the subject.

What Next? You Oughta Be in Pictures

You have to wonder what else is coming. This is, after all, the same kind of material that made for a great movie like Michael Clayton. Surely there are Academy Awards to be farmed out of this material too.

What are the rumors to be heard about the works that might be forthcoming?

Let’s hold a vision of two future artistic projects succeeding in tandem. True, a really good documentary, “Brooklyn Matters,” has already been made. Next is the dramatized fact-based version of the story. There’s Steve Buscemi, a great actor and film make. And consider contributions by Rosie Perez, Michael Showalter and Michelle Williams. The production company with which Buscemi did last year’s “Interview” is Brooklyn-based and suited to this endeavor. Just imagine the great scene that occurs early on in the picture: It takes place on a golf course where Ratner snaps his cell phone shut and tells his golfing companion (a guy who owns a line of successful comic books)- “I just bought myself a basketball team!”*

* (This statement is used as a lead-in to a little explication, David Cay Johnston-style, of the freebie scam that is “stadium finance,” in this case an arena, with emphasis on what an exclusive, super-rich, secret-keeping club this is. A shorthand mention of George W. Bush is thrown in, just in case the audience needs a cue to what is going on and the side they should be taking.)

Now consider that this project is being done in tandem with another one- The documentary about the making of the dramatized movie version of the story- As part of the documentary about the making of the theatrical film, the actors assigned to play various politicians are going to want to deploy to interview those same politicians.

Scene from the documentary:

Tom Wilkinson: Yes, thank you, I am calling about my interview with Mayor Bloomberg.
Ms. Dunnin (Secretary to Mr. $B): Yes, we talked.
Tom Wilkinson: Right, I am playing Mr. Bloomberg in a new film.
Ms. Dunnin: Yes, I know we were setting that up, but we heard from Christine Quinn that the film is about the Atlantic Yards development.
Tom Wilkinson: Surely, indeed.
Ms. Dunnin: The problem is that the Mayor doesn’t think it would be appropriate to go through with the scheduled interview. He doesn’t see supporting a film about Atlantic Yards.
Tom Wilkinson: Excuse me?
Ms. Dunnin: He doesn’t see that it would be too flattering to him. Ms. Quinn is not satisfied with the way her interview went.
Tom Wilkinson: Well, if there is any problem maybe I can catch him tonight; I understand we are both going to be at the same charitable event.

For the actors who don’t get to interview and study their subject-politicians and real estate industry biggies in person, there will be scenes where they study video footage, commenting freely, (“See that long pause and then the way he pulls one side of his mouth down before he bites his lip? That’s the tell that he doesn’t believe what he is about to say.”)

Does Questionable Assertion of Attorney-client Privilege Point to Yankee Stadium Bond Taxability?

Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich has been holding congressional hearings as to whether New York City officials improperly inflated property values in order to secure more tax-exempt bonds for the construction of the new Yankee Stadium. If so, the city would have been centrally involved in making inaccurate, likely illegal, representations to the Internal Revenue Service and prospective bond purchasers in order to make “synthetic real property taxes” in the Yankee Stadium transaction appear artificially higher by a very substantial amount. The assessment for the land under Yankee Stadium leaped sixfold in a day, according to New York State Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky, from $26.8 million to $204 million (on consecutive days in 2006). See our previous piece on this: Wednesday, October 1, 2008, Safety in the Numbers You Pull out of a Hat.

Overstatement of Real Estate Values Makes Yankee Stadium Bonds Taxable

If, as it very strongly appears, the city overstated the value of the property, it can reasonably be concluded that the bonds issued for Yankee Stadium should be declared taxable; in other words they would lose their federal, state and local tipple tax-exempt status. A lot has happened with respect to the Kucinich hearings since we last wrote. What interests us a lot right now is that the city is asserting attorney-client privilege to refuse to provide the Kucinich investigation with information about the suspiciously changing land values.

Questionable Assertion of Attorney-client Privilege Points to Problem

The assertion of attorney-client privilege seems highly questionable and has us wondering. That it is being grasped at seems to point to the fact that the city had inadequate grounds for the inflated statement of property values; (that they, yes, were pulled like a rabbit out of a hat, per picture above). New York City attorney Terri Sasanow said that rather than furnishing the actual documents about the land values supposedly supporting the bonds and their tax-exempt status, the city will asset privilege because it wants merely to provide a log of the documents. So are the bonds going to be declared taxable? (For reports of the assertion of privilege see: Atlantic Yards Report, Saturday, October 25, 2008, Testy Kucinich presses city officials on “gaming” Yankee Stadium assessment; big disagreement over “smoking gun,” the New York Times, Yankees Say They Would Have Left Bronx if Pushed, by Richard Sandomir, October 24, 2008 and most recently, New York Metro, City balks over Yankee Stadium documents, by Patrick Arden, Nov 6, 2008)

Attorney-client Privilege Unlikely

Congressman Kucinich is saying that the claim of attorney-client privilege doesn’t apply to Congress. Application of the special consideration of attorney-client privilege to Congress aside, we wonder whether it would apply at all in any situation?

Is the privilege is being applied in connection with a bond counsel opinion that the bonds were being properly issued with due authority under state law; or that they were actually tax- exempt? Or is the privilege being asserted because the city approached a lawyer other than bond counsel for a land valuation opinion? One would think a legal opinion on land valuation would be unusual and that it would only be sought because the city knew its approach to the overstated valuation of the property was highly questionable to begin with.

But who is to say that the city’s assertion of attorney-client privilege is in good faith at all?

Reasons Attorney-client Privilege Wouldn’t Apply

Attorney-client privilege doesn’t extend to facts. You can’t take facts that are not privileged and magically cloak them with privilege by communicating them to an attorney. It is also questionable whether this privilege of secrecy can apply at all to the public process of issuing bonds and taxing property. When it comes to bonds, almost the reverse is true; rather than being able to conceal negative information there is a special obligation to disclose it.

Bond transactions involve a multiplicity of parties, all of whom are supposed to be privy to the central risks of the transaction. In this case, the risk of land valuation would be such a risk. Attorney-client privilege does not apply when third parties other than lawyers have been privy to the information sought to be cloaked in privilege. It is unlikely that any information relied upon by co-participants in the transaction can be privileged. The transactions involve all sorts of non-lawyer certifications and representations, such as highly detailed issuer certificates. What is not specifically in actual certificates is nevertheless backed up with, and subject to, due-diligence communications and interactions beforehand. In theory, it is doubtful that anything that was “on the table” as part of the deal, anything that was accessible to other participants in the transaction should be subject to privilege. That includes parties like the rating agencies who are supposed to ask a lot of questions and should have been asking about the land and building valuations central to support of the transaction.

Who Can Assert the Privilege?

If the privilege is being asserted in connection with one of the bond counsel opinions, it raises the question of whether the city is a proper party to assert the privilege. (Certainly the Yankees are not.) Privilege can only be asserted by the client of the attorney. It may be a badly kept secret but, strictly speaking, the bond issuer (the city or nominee issuing authority) is not the client. Bond counsel is supposed to represent the “propriety” of the bond transaction. Accordingly, people who know their stuff would tell you this means that in an instance like this, bond counsel’s duty is to the bond holders who have so far been ill-served. The bond holders will be best served going forward if their privilege is not usurped to conceal facts adverse to them and on which they now need to act.

Assertion of Privilege Raises Liability Questions for Transaction Participants

There are interesting liability questions associated with the city’s assertion of privilege. Implicating an “attorney” (has the attorney or attorneys yet been identified?) in the setting of the likely fictitious property values exposes that attorney to a claim of malpractice. Asserting the privilege is also tantamount to broadcasting an assertion that a large number of other parties to the bond transaction, such as underwriters, underwriters’ counsel, and rating agencies did not share in information they certainly should have had. If those parties did not have the information they should have had at the time of bond issuance, does that betoken liability for them?

Stalling & Obfuscation Not in Good Faith?

Of course, it is quite likely that the city neither believes that attorney-client privilege applies, nor that they will prevail in the end when asserting it. Attorney-client privilege is a quick, reliable grab when you are stalling for time to prevent disclosure. It sounds plausible and, as you can see from the above, can take a little time to sort out. (I’m sure the PR people like it a lot better than pleading the Fifth Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination.)

Is the city simply stalling for time and trying to stymie the congressional investigation? Yes, absolutely. Consider the following, as reported in the above-linked Atlantic Yards Report story: Representative Kucinich pointed out that the city had argued that his Congressional investigation should be halted simply because the city (and the Yankees) were not providing the documents they say they are, in fact, unwilling to provide. Kucinch (on October 25, 2008):

the Yankees and the city declined to testify at the Subcommittee’s hearing last month, “because they argued it was unfair to proceed before the Subcommittee could complete its investigation with the benefit of documents on the issue. No matter that the Yankees and City had withheld precisely these documents from the Subcommittee for two months.”

Fascinating! And, of course, they are still withholding those documents. So the city’s premise is that they can use attorney-client privilege to completely halt an investigation by Congress. One clear indication that attorney-client privilege simply does not apply in this situation is that we have two independent non-attorney parties, the city and the Yankees, coordinating to jointly withhold shared information and documents. (Remember, information shared with a non-attorney third party is not privileged information.)

How Weak is City’s Defense Against Bonds Being Declared Taxable?

Stalling and obfuscating with a privilege that it can’t legitimately assert indicates that the city doesn’t have a good defense against the Yankee Stadium bonds being declared taxable. For more on what it would mean to have the bonds declared taxable, see our last piece Safety in the Numbers You Pull out of a Hat. (It would put the bond holders in jeopardy for back income taxes to the federal, state and city government with the ultimate liability probably coming around through litigation to the city.)

Seeking Atlantic Yards Favors from an Already Duped IRS

There is another reason the Bloomberg administration was stalling the congressional investigation, though that reason now seems to be past-tense. The Bloomberg administration was lobbying the IRS for loophole regulations principally to permit the issuance of the same kind of bonds that already issued for the Yankee and Mets Stadiums for the proposed Atlantic Yards Nets arena. (See: Tuesday, October 21, 2008, New Treasury Department regulations would grandfather in tax-free bonds for Atlantic Yards arena.) Loophole regulations were, in fact, issued October 21, 2008.

It is brazen to be lobbying the IRS for a loophole concerning the exact sort of transaction where one has already committed the abuse of furnishing factitious facts to the IRS. The brazenness was starkly obvious as the Bloomberg administration lobbied the IRS, because Congressman Kucinich publicly requested that the IRS refrain from issuing the regulations until the IRS could proceed fully informed with all the facts that will be forthcoming as a result of his investigation. The IRS issued the regulations ahead of time anyway. Really? The loophole regulations for Atlantic Yards have been referred to, perhaps inaccurately, as “grandfathering” in nature: It is not clear that they permit something that was previously properly permitted as would be necessary to appropriately consider the regulation as “grandfathering.” (Noticing New York strongly suggests that if it turns out that any elected officials were helping the Bloomberg administration lobby the IRS for the regulations, those officials should be rooted out for appropriately severe castigation.)

Are New IRS Regulations of Value for Atlantic Yards?

It is not clear that the new loophole regulations will serve, as intended, to facilitate issuance of tax-exempt R-TFIC-PILOT bonds (pronounced “Artifice- PILOT”) for the Atlantic Yard Arena. The amount of the bonds will be limited because the regulations won’t permit the setting of fictitiously high real estate taxes. Everyone, including all prospective bond purchasers, should now be extraordinarily wary about such scenarios. There are also technical problems which mean that the Atlantic Yards arena may not qualify for the regulation’s loophole. For a discussion of one technical problem see: Thursday, October 23, 2008, When AY GPP was "released" in July 2006, was that preliminary approval?

Question of Bloombergian Competence to Handle Financial Affairs

In covering the latest New York Metro story on this yesterday, No Land Grab commented:

Aside from the fact that the deal may have cheated the federal government of future tax revenue, note that the high land valuation benefits the Yankees and the low land valuation cheats the community.

Is this why we need this Mayor more than ever to steer the City through these tough financial times?

We have previously provided analysis concluding that Bloomberg is absolutely not the mayor we need to steer us through these financial times. (See: Thursday, October 23, 2008, Bloomberg Qualified Financial Crisis Leader? He Can Learn Says Schumer! and Saturday, October 25, 2008, More Discredit of Bloomberg as Qualified Financial Crisis Leader)

The city went out on a limb to make these bonds tax-exempt with spuriously elevated real estate tax values. Given that the financial risk so casually undertaken may now put the city in the hole for millions, why was the risk undertaken? We offer two likely answers: first, the Bloomberg administration probably decided it just liked doing sports deals; the other answer is that the administration was attracted to the gimmicky Wall Street excitement of the deal. Each answer, particularly the second, is consistent with the point we made when we said that as a Wall Street crisis-insider, Bloomberg lacks perspective and is exactly the opposite of the kind of leader we need in a financial crisis.

More Wondering about Bloombergain Financial Competence

This just in: New York Times columnist Jim Dwyer is also questioning Michael R. Bloomberg’s competence to lead the city “during financial hard times.” (See: Today’s For Sports Teams, Mayors Play Ball at the City’s Expense.)

Mr. Dwyer catalogues various ways that the city under Bloomberg has been shortchanged in its dealings with the Yankees and the Mets while at the same time “Mr. Bloomberg says he has to close health clinics, shut libraries one day a week, not hire a new class of cops and raise property taxes.” Mr. Dwyer points out that this includes the piling on of an extraordinary additional $659 million or more in recently identified extra costs related to new Yankee and Mets stadiums. Dwyer observes that The Wall Street Journal reported recently that there “are signs that the air is going out of the sports industry bubble” while the originally purported (bubble) benefits of these stadium transactions were flimsy and likely hallucinated from the outset. Dwyer equates Bloomberg’s sports transaction mistakes with “the assumptions that drove Wall Street to sink trillions into financial instruments that no one actually understood but all the right people agreed were worth tons of money.” (We welcome Mr. Dwyer’s confirming insights. The inability of Michael-Financial-Whiz-Kid-Bloomberg to discern Wall Street blundering group think in advance was something we testified about at the City Council term limit hearings: Tuesday, October 21, 2008, Time to Report on the Best City Council Hearing Testimony)

Mr. Dwyer concludes:

The full reckoning on Mr. Bloomberg’s judgment about these major investments of public funds will most likely not come for a few years, long after he has run for a third term as mayor by arguing that he has been the wisest and steadiest of stewards — just the man for the city during hard financial times.

Under The Rug of Privilege

These are not Mr. Bloomberg’s past mistakes. Mr. Bloomberg, unwilling to learn from his mistakes, is dogmatically committed to pursuing, exactly the same sort of misguided course with the proposed Atlantic Yards Nets arena that he pursued with Yankee Stadium. Mr. Bloomberg is already over-privileged but one way Mr. Bloomberg apparently hopes to hold to his errant course is by sweeping his administration’s calculated misdeeds under the rug of improperly asserted attorney-client privilege.

Back In the Coney Island Saddle?

This is about new possibilities for the public vision of Coney Island’s future. We will start by talking about horses (not Coney Island’s old Steeplechase Park horses.)

Thrown from a Horse Intentionally

If you get thrown from a horse, advice is to get back in the saddle immediately. And if you ride, chance is that you will get thrown once. (Above, is an image of a joke T-shirt you sometimes see in horse circles.)

I know a story about a Long Island seaside stable where the trail guide knew how to throw people off their horses on purpose. Our guide friend claims he would regularly do so when he had the sort of wise-ass riders who, refusing to stay in line, would race ahead when he was supposed to be setting the pace for a group canter. When this happened he would lead the group to an area where there was a particular sudden sharp bend in the trail. He’d then quickly rouse the group to a canter and let the wise-acres shoot ahead. Result? The horses who knew the trail’s sharp turn would go one way; the riders flew another. I believed the guide’s story because he could show us the hole in the bushes of pressed-down grass and weeds where the wise-acres landed when they met their comeuppance.

Coney Island Community Unhorsed

I couldn’t help thinking of this story in June of this year when the New York City Economic Development Corporation held hearings on a plan essentially to end Coney Island’s history as an amusement area. (See: Friday, July 18, 2008, June 24, 2008- Hearing on Proposed Coney Island Development.) It was pretty terrible that the EDC would propose the end of Coney Island. (We have commented that the EDC proposal seems to deny that our city might be growing. As an agency that should promote growth, it seems contrarian for the EDC to want to sell off, rather than develop what should be the city’s premier amusement district.) What was worse was that the EDC had just acted, much like the trail guide of my story, to throw the Coney Island community out of the development saddle.

As many community members testified at EDC’s June 24, 2008 hearing, until a short time before that hearing the community had been participating in a long-labored, consensus-driven plan for Coney Island’s future. The community may have been making a few too many compromises in terms of giving up amusement park area for standard forms of other bland development, but those compromises were being made temperately and with restraint by the community on a considered basis. EDC abruptly substituted another plan, essentially bringing to an end the respected history of Coney as an amusement park area.

Wise-ass?

One of the great things about the Coney Island community is that is has a lot of wise-ass and outrageous characters, but it doesn’t seem that the community was being the least bit wise-ass in the way they were trying to formulate and negotiate their future. The community didn’t deserve to be thrown. The wise-ass who is not up to straightforwardly negotiating what he wants and who behaves with disregard for the community is developer Joe Sitt. EDC’s last-minute turnaround seemed designed to throw the community out of the saddle and put Joe Sitt in it. Needless to say we are suspicious of the Mayor’s EDC as being too much an extension Joe Sitt’s goals. We are also suspicions of the Coney Island Development Corporation for the same reason. We don’t believe any of the developer hype that they have become a conduit of. (The pictures of squoozed-in high-rise amusement rides that no one intends to finance clinches this.)

Municipal Art Society on a White Horse

I suspect that when all is said and done we may discover that the Coney community is scrappy enough to fend for itself. The June hearing was very well-attended and overwhelmingly negative toward what the EDC proposed. Nevertheless, it is good news that the Municipal Art Society has recently ridden in on a white horse. (See: Tuesday, November 04, 2008, As Coney plan teeters, MAS enlists international experts for whirlwind workshop.) The MAS initiative, Imagine Coney, will use a charrette process to create a new vision for Coney Island’s future. Visions have extraordinary power and Coney Island is renowned throughout the city and the world. People will be paying a lot of attention to that vision, wanting the best for Coney Island and wanting an amusement park future for the area consistent with the greatness of its history.

MAS Benefits & Resources; Eminent Domain?

MAS has significant resources it can bring to bear for which to be thankful. MAS is also likely to bring a more effective, less developer-friendly attitude to the process. MAS is often receptive to the use of eminent domain, although, as we have previously expressed, we believe that MAS needs to organize it thoughts on what are the good and the bad uses of eminent domain. (Their understanding of how badly eminent domain can be abused is unusually well-informed.) Coney Island may present one of the exceedingly rare instances where use of eminent domain is appropriate to create a redeveloped public amusement park. (Right now we have a developer buying up land zoned for amusement park use, refusing to act as if the zoning should apply.)

In “Sitt”ing Not So Pretty (Saturday, October 4, 2008) we summed it up thus:

The city has been willing to pursue eminent domain in some highly inappropriate and abusing ways. By contrast, its use in this situation to create a public park and to counter the effects of intentional blight and the unwillingness to comply with the zoning would be quite defensible. Attending a Municipal Art Society panel discussion about Coney Island, “Coney Island at the Crossroads,” I got into a conversation with city development officials and was told that the city did not want to threaten eminent domain. I was told the city prefers “friendly negotiations” with the developer. (See: Friday, September 19, 2008, the “Wednesday Evening” section of Contrivance in the service of creating blight, real blight- Listen again- REAL blight)

Results by Zoning Regulation vs Investing in the “Public Realm”

More recently we were at another MAS panel discussion, Growing Greener Cities, that reinforced another point we made about the actions being taken in Coney Island. See: Atlantic Yards Report: Monday, November 03, 2008, Overdevelopment, zoning, and the public realm (and AY).

During the evening, the well-known urban planning professor and textbook writer from Yale, Alex Garvin, suggested that we should stop using the regulation of zoning as a tool to create the things that we want in the city. (Garvin’s thinking has often been respectfully cited or paid for by NYC decision-making officials.) The alternative to regulation that Garvin advocated a number of times throughout the evening is direct investment in what Garvin referred to as the “public realm.” Quoting from the Atlantic Yards Report:

“We have an obsolete way of doing that in this city--it’s called zoning,” Garvin declared. “I defy you to tell me that by regulating”--he showed a slide of buildings on Second Avenue in Manhattan--”that that gets you a greater city, or a sustainable one.”

* * * *
Garvin thinks we must spend public money on the public realm, "the quality of life of a great city,” including streets, squares, transportation systems, schools, public buildings, and parks.

In "Sitt"ing Not So Pretty we went on to make much the same point:

Rather than avail itself of the blunt tool of eminent domain to assure that there will be the desired amusement park use, the city is proposing to do something that sounds rather preposterous to me: The city is proposing to take the same tool of zoning that it can’t (or doesn’t choose to) make work and sharpen it. Since the city can’t get Sitt to comply with the zoning to provide the amusement fare for which the area is currently zoned, the city is working on “rewriting” the zoning requirements to provide with greater specificity exactly what the city wants in the way of amusement fare. Truly though, the more significant change is actually that the `sharpened’ zoning would apply to a significantly reduced area, only 9 acres. (We have suggested that the Coney Island plan not be used in Coney Island at all: Sunday, September 28, 2008 Shorely We Jest: Needed Amusement Musing)

As Atlantic Yards Report noted (see the reference to the “ubiquitous Michael D. D. White”), we asked Professor Garvin about a number of debated developments now underway. We specifically included Coney Island and Brooklyn Bridge Park in our list. We asked about the need to invest in the public realm versus the questionable idea of achieving results in Coney through zoning regulation. (Mr. Garvin’s answer wound up focusing on a different project, a favorite proposal of his, to emphasize the superior value of public realm investment.)

The City Going Along for the Ride?

Is the city willing to go along with the MAS Imagine Coney initiative? We think the city may be getting the message. Two weeks ago it was reported that the city spent $11 million to buy one acre of the Coney Island amusement area. (City buys a key Coney parcel, by Mike McLaughlin, October 16, 2008, The Brooklyn Paper) The site was reported to include the site of the famous Wonder Wheel but the Wonder Wheel is actually just next to what was purchased.

It is probably reading too much into too little to say that the city is going along and there is more to the story.

Is City Staying on Course “Bloomberg Limited”?

Whatever course the city is on, the city was willing to throw the community out of the saddle once before. The city may have purchased an acre of land but right now the Mayor is much in need of reacquiring some of the public good will he sacrificed with unprincipled power plays to extend term limits so that he can have a third term. We have written a number of pieces on this, our latest being Remembering; Not Forgetting in Chinatown (Tuesday, November 4, 2008). Mayor Bloomberg’s maneuvering was more objectionable since it involves a deal structured to make the extension of limits particular only to Bloomberg.

Interestingly, Mayor Bloomberg was putting out a story that specifically linked the fate of Coney Island to his remaining time in office. The idea was that a Coney Island development deal had to be put to bed before the end of the Bloomberg administration or something a lot more terrible was going to befall the community. Doesn’t this seem rather absurd? We suppose that since Bloomberg might now have a third term, the bogeyman would be fended off? So people should vote for him?- Notwithstanding the purchase of a (symbolic?) acre, the city also has a long way to be dragged before it will be in the right place on Coney Island. (There are a number of pictures in this post that show how small the city was making the amusement area- Refer to the Cyclone for a size reference.)





It appears that the city is reluctant to be dragged anywhere at all. The Observer ran an article reporting that Amanda Burden, invoking her title as Planning Director of the Department of City Planning, warned the Municipal Art Society to stay out of things. (See: Burden To Municipal Art Society: Don’t Mess With City’s Coney Plans, by Eliot Brown, October 27, 2008)

Ms. Burden sent the following statement to the Observer (emphasis supplied):

As part of the public planning process, the City has engaged in scores of meetings with a wide variety of local and citywide stakeholders in shaping its current rezoning proposal for a year-round 27-acre amusement district with outdoor and enclosed amusements. We of course welcome innovative ideas for a 21st century destination that keeps and enhances Coney Island's unique edgy character and open accessibility.

However, it is imperative that the rezoning process and timeline not be jeopardized by any reconsideration of our proposed rezoning boundaries or urban design parameters. After two scoping sessions and significant public input, we expect to begin the public approval process in early 2009, which will culminate in a vote on the plan by the City Council in the summer of 2009. It is imperative that this rezoning proceed expeditiously, otherwise the Coney Island amusement area that we know and love will cease to exist. We welcome ideas about how to best design, structure and program a year-round amusement district with an open and accessible Amusement Park as its centerpiece.

We suggest that: 1.) Ms. Burden’s reference to “scores of meetings with a wide variety of local and citywide stakeholders” means little given the city’s abrupt and unilateral abandonment of the original plan towards which those meetings were working, 2.) Ms. Burden’s imperative about NOT considering in any way altering timelines, proposed rezoning boundaries or any supposed “urban design” is imperious nonsense, and 3.) Ms. Burden’s similarly imperious and rather peculiar threat that “the Coney Island amusement area that we know and love will cease to exist” unless her inflexible demands are met doesn’t make Amanda sound like someone inclined to “know or love” Coney Island. (BTW: This was a week after the City Council voted to specially extend Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s term limits- So what is the “summer of 2009" date all about?)

Selling the Public Realm: Does Bloomberg Administration Sell Out Community’s for a Price?

The city’s willingness to throw the community out of the saddle so that it could be Sitt’s seat instead is representative of something we regret we did not raise more specifically with Professor Garvin the other night. Yes, Garvin feels we should be investing more in the public realm. We agree. Moynihan Station is a sublime example of investment we should be making in the public realm. (Garvin has also previously indicated that public funds for making these public realm investments, "the peoples’ property" should be redirected from non-public realm resource-stealing projects like Atlantic Yards, "other people’s property".) A corollary to the precept that we should be investing in the public realm is that we should not be giving up the investment in the public realm that we currently have. But this is exactly what the Bloomberg administration seems disposed to do in situation after situation. Coney Island, heretofore has been example of exactly such an impulse.

In the case of Atlantic Yards we are selling off streets and avenues. The extreme and inappropriate density is another example of selling off a public realm asset (See the Atlantic Yards Report discussion of Garvin’s ideas on density). The Rudin/St. Vincent’s Hospital real estate deal is essentially selling off a section of the Greenwich Village Historic District to create a real estate subsidy with real estate developer Rudin as one of the beneficiaries. A similarly disconcerting move is now afoot with respect to reconfiguration of the South Street Seaport Historic District.

We can’t even bemoan that the city is being sold off in bits and pieces “to the highest bidder” because in so many of these divestitures there is no bidding at all.

Advice for the Community? Get Back in the Saddle and Take the Reins!

Advice for the community? Get back in the saddle. Create and publicize a strong vision that will control whatever the turns in the path or whoever is the next Mayor. Be thankful for the assistance of the Municipal Art Society, but don’t fully cede the process or the creation of the vision. As Atlantic Yards Report notes, MAS sometimes looks to be effective through compromise. It is the strength of the community’s vision that pulls the reins to the right side of any possible compromise. There are times, of course, when a truly superb vision should not be compromised.

Remembering; Not Forgetting in Chinatown

We have loved quoting New York Times city columnist Clyde Haberman in a number of posts we’ve recently written and are now thrilled by the opportunity to quote him, once again, as a roundabout way of quoting ourselves. It may be a case of great minds think alike, or as it is the current vogue to say it may be a case of a “meme” getting around in the “cultural sociosphere.” Or maybe just as we are avidly reading Haberman, perhaps he picked up an idea from what we wrote.

As we will get around to in a moment, this piece is also about what will be remembered.

Haberman’s Term Limits Columns

The big subject is term limits. Mr. Haberman has been faithfully generating a series of commentaries featuring the woeful tale of our faithless politicians, Bloomberg, Quinn and the majority of the City Council who voted to extend terms limits so as to provide Bloomberg with the billionaire’s exception that will allow him a third term.

Haberman’s columns recent term limits columns are:

The Bloomberg Test of the Democratic Process, October 2, 2008

Bloomberg’’s Gift to the People: Moi, October 6, 2008

What’s the Matter at City Hall: Democracy, the Voice of the People and All That, October 16, 2008

Back When the Mayor Loved Term Limits, October 20, 2008

Bloomberg Got What He Wanted, but at What Price? October 23, 2008

Money and Power Revised Term Limits, and It Won’t Be Forgotten, October 27, 2008

With a Pen Stroke, Bloomberg Signs a Term Limits Bill and Gains a Moniker, November 4, 2008

Haberman’s pieces offer a great opportunity to read about Bloomberg’s infatuation with himself: Haberman compares him to Snow White’s wicked queen looking in the mirror. Haberman observes with stark clarity that even those (Noticing New York included) who fault term limits are nonetheless opposed to Bloomberg’s override of the public’s two referendums because “the core issue is not whether but how the law should be changed.” Haberman points out, “It is about who in a democracy gets to alter the rules on so fundamental a matter.” Haberman torpedoes the Bloombergian hypocrisy on term limits (a 180-degree turnaround), expressing skepticism about Bloomberg’s last-minute invoking of the financial crisis as a reason to “cling” to office. He notes that, “Given Wall Street’s meltdown, this may not be the best time to argue spiritedly about how the moneyed class is a repository of wisdom.” Looking askance at freight train hearings ramming Bloomberg’s bidding through the City Council, he refers to Speaker Christine Quinn as Bloomberg’s “handmaiden” and “chief enabler.” He describes the Bloomberg paid minions in attendance (who refused to explain themselves to reporters), saying “Everything about them screamed rent-a-crowd.” Haberman deconstructs fallacious populist arguments ginned up as Bloomberg eyewash and promotion, reminding us that only 18 percent of all registered city voters voted for Mr. Bloomberg when he won office in 2001. He skewers the way that Bloomberg negotiated a personal-unto-himself-third-term exception to the term limits law, saying that “The arrangement understandably fueled a perception among many New Yorkers that this entire debate was a wholly owned subsidiary of the city’s oligarchy.”

By the time you read through the pieces, Haberman has compared Bloomberg to a despotic king, a South American dictator, and, as we will get back to in a minute, Noah Cross, the ruthlessly lethal tycoon-villain of Roman Polanski’s Chinatown. Those comparisons may seem brutal but Mr. Haberman figures that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Bloomberg expect the public’s memory for treachery to be short and that the two of them are “betting that by the next municipal elections in 2009, people will have either forgotten about this controversy or will weigh it as but one factor among many in deciding who they want in charge.”

In Chinatown You Are Supposed to Forget about it

The penultimate of Haberman’s columns, Money and Power Revised Term Limits, and It Won’t Be Forgotten, the one which compares Bloomberg to Noah Cross of Chinatown, starts out by coming back to the subject of memory with a quote from Chinatown. Some may remember we had a Noticing New York piece that thematically interwove a series of quotes from Chinatown, and in it we used the same quote to much the same effect: Wednesday, September 3, 2008 “Yeah, sure. Bad for the glass.” (Inartful Clues to New York City Government?)

“Forget it, Jake”

As Mr. Haberman says at the outset of his penultimate piece:

“Forget it, Jake” has come to mean different things to different people. It can capture disillusionment, or the futility of bucking the mighty, or a realization that you may think you know what’s going on, but you don’t, not really.

Or all of the above.

In our piece we used it to refer to the frustrating inability to reliably know things when the people in power (the Bloomberg administration) assume that realty is theirs to manufacture by selective disclosure and pronouncement. In fact, we collected several Chinatown quotes, including a fuller version of the above quote to make a point:

“You may think you know what you're dealing with, but, believe me, you don't.”

"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown". . . "Go home."

The Clues Were There to Lead Further

Indeed, we did not know what we were dealing with when we put together our piece “Yeah, sure. Bad for the glass.” (Inartful Clues to New York City Government?). We thought we were just writing about “The New York City Waterfalls” as a public art piece, about the environmental damage they were causing, about a botched environmental assessment, an over-infatuation with concept art coupled with a carelessly self-satisfied obliviousness of the public. We asked, “Does it seem that too many things seem to be just a little off?”

Even though we supposed that we were looking at clues to a mystery (What if we treated this as a mystery? Are there clues embedded here that should be catching everyone’s attention now rather than later), we did not realize what we were getting into.

Just recently we wrote about the reviews of the Waterfalls written by the students at Saint Anns’s High School: Monday, October 27, 2008, Out of the Mouths of Young Observationists: Waterfalling. Those young essayists essentially picked up on the same scent of things being off that we originally did in our original consideration, identifying among the things that were off: ego and an arrogantly blithe sort of waste.

Life can be surprisingly like the movies. A nagging, noirish sense of disquiet telling you that things are not right can cause you to keep circling back to revisit clues for what they really mean. Our first Waterfalls piece specifically dealt with our uneasy sense that the Waterfalls provided clues in need of deciphering. But we had not yet gotten to the bottom of things even as we worried about walking away without comprehending the clues before us: (Or will we be walking away like Jack Nicholson’s unwitting detective Jake Gittes murmuring “Yeah, sure. Bad for the glass,” not comprehending some major clues we have been handed?). We did not yet fully comprehended what was before us even though we had seized upon the Chinatown metaphor. We had not yet gotten to the point arrived at by Mr. Haberman in his last essay, equating the billionaire Bloomberg with Mr. Noah Cross, the ruthlessly lethal tycoon-villain of the movie.

Power with No Recognized Limits

The clues began to fall into place when Mr. Bloomberg’s self-congratulatorily gave an award to the Waterfalls. It was then that we began to examine the labyrinthian, obscure and multifarious ways that Bloomberg, himself, had channeled multiple millions of dollars into the Waterfalls in the under-reported and semi-secret adoption of the project as his own. We didn’t know that, like Chinatown’s world of the powerful the Noah Cross, his insinuated tentacles of wealth would weave beyond expectation into nearly everything. Mr. Haberman compares Bloomberg to Noah Cross because Cross “was prepared to do anything to get his way.” Similarly, he identifies Bloomberg as able and “ready to bury his opposition in dollars.”

Chinatown’s Cross is not only supremely powerful by virtue of his wealth, he is a man literally and metaphorically unwilling to recognize limits upon himself: He makes sexual conquest of his own daughter, incestuously siring his own grandchild. In our second Waterfalls piece about Bloomberg’s many-hatted roles with respect to approvals and funding of the Waterfalls, we saw symptoms of Bloomberg’s own disrespect for limits. Bloomberg’s acts extend to the apparent garnering of funds for the Waterfalls from those like Forest City Ratner. The Mayor enables Forest City Ratner to collect no-bid subsidies. He promotes Ratner’s no-bid award of the right to develop the 22-acre Atlantic Yards megadevelopment proposed to be on land wrested via eminent domain abuse from private owners. Ratner contributes to the Mayor’s charities synchronously with the approvals issuing from City Hall. . . . Metaphorically, we saw this as being little different from the Mayor’s refusing to recognize that term limits established by two voter referendums should apply to him (notwithstanding that he said those limits should apply to Mayors before and after him).

Another line from Chinatown:

Jake Gittes: He's rich! Do you understand? He thinks he can get away with anything.

Money in the Protected Shroud of Mystery Connecting Directly to Term Limit Elimination

Metaphor graduated to the reality of a direct relationship of the Mayor’s actual pursuit of term limits when Susan Freedman, the president of the Public Art Fund (the Bloomberg-assisted organization in charge of and conduit for the funding of the Waterfalls) turned up in the City Council to testify that the Mayor should be specially exempt from term limits so he can be allowed to stay in office. We were there to watch. Like Chinatown’s detective, Jake Gittes, we were astounded to see everything all connect, though Ms. Freedman never mentioned how many million of dollars she was receiving from Mr. Bloomberg. Even now the Public Art Fund, the Mayor and Bloomberg, LP are unwilling to disclose that information.

We are not going to suggest inappropriate sexual conquests to equate the Mayor with Noah Cross. Still, the Mayor’s use of “charities” to keep overlaying his power is sufficiently disconcerting in itself, especially since the Mayor contributes the financial DNA of his influencing contributions promiscuously and since, as with the funding of the Waterfalls, there is an incestuous overlapping when he directs too many sources of funding in too many ways. We are talking about private personal philanthropy + funds controlled through Office of the Mayor + contributions solicited from those with whom the City of New York and Mayor’s Office does business.

Quid Pro Quo Money

The mix of funds is not just an unseemly mix. There is persuasive evidence of quid pro quos for charitable donations. Noticing New York was forced to ask the question whether money the Ratner organization paid to Bloomberg charities in exchange for Atlantic Yards approvals were in the end funding the self-perpetuating term limits extension campaign the Mayor sprang upon the public. (See: Wednesday, October 22, 2008, Are the Atlantic Yards Land Grab and City Official Fraud Being Used to Finance Bloomberg’s Bid for Billionaire Term Limit Exceptionalism?) The suspicious circumstances and timing of one such apparent quid pro quo reported donation of between $450,000 and $1 million should convincingly persuade us to extreme concern. (See: Forest City Ratner Gives to Coney Island Carousel, Other Bloombergian Public Projects, by Matthew Schuerman, April 1, 2007).

(Let’s, BTW, acknowledge the appropriateness of the Atlantic Yards land grab being part of this Chinatown-noir mix: Those who remember the plot of Chinatown will remember that it also concerned a land grab.)

What further points convincingly to a Bloombergian quid pro quo for the Atlantic Yards end run around public process is the Mayor’s dogmatic perpetual pursuit of Atlantic Yards (an acknowledged mistake) at the expense of the public. He does so despite changing facts and a bouquet of good new reasons to abandon the folly. (See: Friday, October 24, 2008, Dog-Mat- -Icky?) At the same time that he is so suspiciously dogmatic, the Mayor has counseled that people should not be “dogmatic” with respect to term limits and that they should concentrate on the “pragmatic” rather than “ideals.”

Where do we go in a world without ideals where we allow the rich to “pragmatically” rule? We might wonder.

Those who are wealthy enough to be able to claim unrestricted power and don’t have to answer to society have special problems. Noah Cross explains, again in Chinatown:

See, Mr. Gitts, most people never have to face the fact that, at the right time and the right place, they're capable of... anything!

No Accident, Overwhelming Power Isn’t Escaped

Mr. Haberman carefully notes that he is NOT saying “that the mayor would kill, as Cross did” but the pressure Speaker Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg exerted as they played political hardball to twist arms was extreme and unprincipled. Quinn reportedly used City Council Chairmanship designations to manipulate Council member voting. Other tactics resulted in one City Council member, Darlene Mealy, vomiting twice at City Hall before announcing her decision to switch and vote for Bloomberg’s bidding (See the NY Post’s, Really Sickening Vote: Pressured Term Pol Puked Before She Cast Lot with Mike, by Sally Goldenberg and David Seifman, October 25, 2008). . . . We are getting pretty physical here. . .

. . . The movie Chinatown ends with a car crash, the female driver of the car slumped over the wheel after making an unsuccessful attempt to flee the overarching power of Noah Cross. The saga of the City Council’s vote also ended with a car crash: Councilwoman Mealy was injured, breaking her collarbone in a crash just hours after the Council vote. One might suppose that she was under extreme stress after having voted against the interests of the constituency that she represented. The Post reported that some council members said Mealy “was threatened.”

Irony of Reported Threat to Darlene Mealy

There is irony with respect to the reported nature of the threat against Mealy. Reportedly, Mealy was told she would face trouble for having once sought to allocate a $25,000 grant from her council discretionary funds for a Brooklyn block association run by her sister (the Fulton-Atlantic-Ralph-Rochester Community Association). (She never did send money to her sister’s organization because the request for that allocation was reportedly “mysteriously” pulled.) The irony is that if it was threatened that she would get in trouble for this, then she was threatened for attempting to do much the same thing that the Mayor apparently routinely succeeds in doing when he mixes publicly controlled funds into projects like the Waterfalls in which he has taken an elaborate private and personal interest.

We are not saying the potential grant of discretionary City Council district money to Mealy’s sister’s organization doesn’t present significant difficult concerns, even if both Mealy and her sister were actively involved in their community. It is precisely because we do not dismiss such concerns that we see the Mayor’s activities multiplied by many magnitudes as far more sinister.

Forgetting and Remembering in Chinatown

It is after the car crashes that Chinatown’s detective Jake Gittes is told to forget about everything and go home. The woman trying to escape in the crashed car is dead. It is quite clear that Noah Cross has not only won, but is more in control and able to exercise his ill-influence on the world than he ever was. Metaphorically, he owns the future. Jake is told to leave it there.

"Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown". . . "Go home."

Politics is often about the public forgetting about things. It has been speculated (see the Times) that Speaker Christine Quinn’s eagerness to support the Mayor’s bid for a third term likely came from her hope that with the elapse of another four years the public would be less likely to remember the trouble she recently got herself into setting up illegal slush funds to dispense money discretionarily without authorization or supervision. (It is not just Darlene Mealy and Michael Bloomberg who raise questions when they move money around.) Like Mr. Bloomberg, Quinn was moving money around with political effect using questionable charities, . . except in this case the charities were truly non-existent.

Quinn and Bloomberg and certainly a cohort among the City Council members are apparently expecting that fading memories will limit the reputational price they have to pay for their conduct. They may think the price a minor inconvenience. Haberman puts it this way:

Mr. Bloomberg knows that his reputation has taken hard blows in the fight over term limits. But he is apparently betting that the passage of time will restore whatever he may have lost in respectability.

Haberman astutely notes that Bloomberg expects that heavy expenditures that he uniquely can manage will help his recovery. (What about Quinn?) Staring with a quote from the Mayor:

“It’s expensive to get your message out,” he said on Friday with a straight face. So much for appeals from the likes of Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr., a former corporation counsel, who has urged the mayor to play by the same spending rules as other candidates to make “a fair fight” of it.

Haberman finds another choice quote from Chinatown to bolster the Mayor’s notion that he will succeed in consigning the public’s memories and anger to the dust heap. He says that Noah Cross would have counseled the Mayor to hang in for the elections with his words:

“Politicians, ugly buildings and whores, all get respectable if they last long enough.”

Political Kabuki Dance to Induce Forgetting

The choreographed dance to induce forgetfulness has already begun. The Times just reported that Speaker Quinn is standing up for the City Council against the Mayor. Does this make it sound as if Ms. Quinn is shedding her “handmaiden” and “chief enabler” role? If it does, then maybe that was a good reason for people to be telling the press that she “shouted” at mayoral aides, telling the Mayor to “back off” a plan for program changes that “infuriated several council members.” (See: In After Term Limits Vote, Tensions Rise at City Hall, by Michael Barbaro and David W. Chen, October 30, 2008.) The theme of the story was that Quinn was standing up for the Council in various ways because the Council was “still reeling from the term limits vote.” Of course, for many (not all, not the arm-twisted Mealy) the vote was a self-servingly collaborative one with cover provided by the Mayor. The article speaks in different terms about an upset Council fighting valiantly because “if we don’t fight this, the Council will be the emperor with no clothes.”

According to the information that was given to the press (supplied by Ms. Quinn’s staff?), Ms. Quinn “warned that the mayor’s plan to push for a property tax increase as early as next week could encounter resistance, especially since council members are still reeling from the term limits vote.” Later in the article Ms. Quinn reportedly “on the offensive” for the Council, scolds a member of the Mayor’s staff “for what Ms. Quinn described as an ill-timed, politically sensitive measure, according to people briefed on the meeting.” Ms. Quinn then reportedly said the Deputy Mayor she was talking to “should at the least delay the plan.” In an interview Ms. Quinn says, “I have come to believe this is not the right time for this restructuring.” Notice the implicit theme in the above that time brings the salve of forgetfulness: “as early as . . . still reeling” “ ill-timed” “should at the least delay” “this is not the right time.” It is not that something should not be done, only that time should first intervene.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg was playing the role of champion of the people by exasperatedly scolding the Board of Elections for not being ready to handle the voting on election day when the people wanted to express their will. As if we now think Bloomberg cares about the public expressing their will in a vote! Bloomberg’s expression of exasperation was equipped with a subtext message Bloomberg probably wanted to convey, that the referendum he was fighting against would have been “oh-so-difficult.” (BTW: When it comes to theatrics, Bloomberg surely thinks he does “exasperation” well. He uses it continually. It goes along with his persona of an efficient, wealthy man who has no time for nonsense and is waiting for everyone else to keep pace. Behind the scenes, as we see from the term limit maneuvering, there are a lot of Bloombergian ruses the Mayor has no interest in people catching up with him on.)

Will a Political Price in Fact Be Paid?

Politics may be about expecting the public to forget, and it may also often be about expecting the public to succumb to powerful people refusing to relinquish power. But we are willing to predict that Quinn, Bloomberg and many members of the City Council have made mistakes they won’t recover from.

It is one thing to commit acts that can recede into history. It is another to engage in acts that transform your political persona. I think that Quinn and Bloomberg have done the latter. Their acts won’t recede into memory because every day the public will see them differently from before. These defining acts will cement Quinn’s past improprieties (along with her handmaiden catering to the Mayor) to her so that to see Quinn will be to remember them. We will see in Quinn the vision of the non-reformer, a Speaker of the Council for another year, because she made a deal for people to forget and to forget again. Bloomberg will no longer be viewed as a generous, charitable man who has no need for his job. We will instead constantly remember his venal manipulation of charities in service to a revealed lust for power for power’s sake.

Other things may change too. Once upon a time Bloomberg’s popularity could perhaps be explained by the city’s previously being awash in cash due to the bubbles in the real estate market and on Wall Street. His popularity also could change a lot by election time a year from now. And nonprofit institutions and those associated with them from whom Mr. Bloomberg once successfully bought silence with his “largess”may start to behave differently now that Bloomberg’s political maneuvering is out in the open and now that the price of silence must be paid for an additional four years.

Now that we have identified who Mr. Bloomberg is in the Chinatown metaphor, let’s end with another exchange of Chinatown quotes that ask important questions that concern us about Mr. Bloomberg and his newly revealed persona:

Jake Gittes: I just want to know what you're worth. Over ten million?
Noah Cross: Oh my, yes.
Jake Gittes: Why are you doing it? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?
Noah Cross: The future, Mr. Gitts, the future.

Elections; Owning the Future

Who is going to own the future?

Yesterday the Mayor signed the term limits extension bill. The normally perfunctory bill signing hearing turned into a four-and-a-half hour marathon. Even though no one thought that the Mayor would not sign the bill given his political arms twisting and the political capital he had already expended to get it passed, City Hall filled up with citizens telling him the legislation was wrong. Noticing New York was amongst them. (True, the Mayor had a few of his supporters lined up as well.)

Many of those testifying, including Congressman Anthony Weiner (a candidate for Mayor), spoke about the irony that the Mayor was signing the bill on the day before election day, since the bill negates the results of two referendums voted upon by the public. Weiner pointed out how sparingly New York resorts to the use of referenda. City Council member Tish James, a leading opponent of the term limits extension and of Atlantic Yards, spoke of her recent travels in Pennsylvania and of the “palpable” feeling that elsewhere in the country we are ushering in a new era of reform, the opposite of what was being done in New York with the back-room maneuvering orchestrated by Bloomberg.

In his column on the subject today Haberman deals with the ironic day-before-election day timing (“no one in New York has done more to nullify votes than Mr. Bloomberg himself”), giving Bloomberg the new `moniker’ of “the Great Nullifier.” He quotes Tish James at the hearing:

Many speakers cautioned Mr. Bloomberg that nothing less than the public’s faith in government and his own legacy were on the line. Among them was Councilwoman Letitia James of Brooklyn, a leading opponent of extending term limits.

“With a stroke of the pen, Mr. Mayor, you will pre-empt democracy,” she said in a voice tinged with sadness.

Soon enough, the Great Nullifier picked up his pen and used it.

Does Mr. Bloomberg own the future?

Does Mr. Bloomberg own the future? In this time of palpable political optimism elsewhere in the country, it is interesting that Mr. Bloomberg, now a theoretical Independent (after previously being a theoretical Democrat and then a theoretical Republican), endorsed no candidate in the presidential election being held today.

Mr. Bloomberg regularly endorses political candidates. In the last presidential election he endorsed George W. Bush for a second term, and suppressed public demonstration against Mr. Bush during the Republican convention. Mr. Bush is a very different fellow from Barack Obama, who has his roots in community organizing. We can understand why Bush is more to Mr. Bloomberg’s tastes. Before he came into office Mr. Bush, like Bruce Ratner of Atlantic Yards’ Forest City Ratner, was involved in the millionaire club activity of land grabs mixed up with private sports stadium/arena that are questionably financed on the backs of the public. (See: More Money for the Very Rich: An Unsporting Pursuit? March 17, 2008)

The Atlantic Yards megadevelopment may have more to do with Bloomberg’s desire to own the future than one might have thought when Bloomberg proclaimed his goal of a third term. After the public finished speaking at the bill signing hearing, Mr. Bloomberg unfolded his arms to announce that he was going to sign the bill. In his brief statement before signing, his reasons for signing the bill included the following:

You know that I have fundamentally changed my opinion in terms of how long someone should be in office. I have not changed my opinion in terms of the value of term limits. I have made a commitment that I will appoint a charter review commission* to look at the issue of whether two or three terms is appropriate and to put on the ballot the ability for the public to either reaffirm what we have today or to change. There is no easy answer and nobody is irreplaceable, but I do think that if you take a look at the real world, of how long it takes to do things; we live in a litigious society, we live in a society where we have real democracy and lots of people have the ability to INPUT their views and approve or disapprove projects. I just think that three terms makes more sense than two. . . . I feel that this time the public should have a choice and while I still am in favor of term limits it is seriously something that everyone should think long and hard about.

* (A reference to the Bloomberg’s deal with billionaire Ronald Lauder to effectively restore two-term limits after Bloomberg is out of office.)

Bloomberg put a peculiar inflection on the word “input” when he talked about people having the ability to INPUT their views and “approve or disapprove projects.” While Bloomberg may have in his mind the notion that Atlantic Yards has taken longer than expected due to litigation, the project was forced on the public by Bloomberg and people did NOT have the opportunity to approve or disapprove it. Their “input” into the process has been primarily through litigation. Might one possibly conceive that these few tortured sentences express the Mayor’s desire for a third term to surmount litigation and push through projects like Atlantic Yards, the Columbia University expansion and the Rudin /St. Vincent’s real estate deal?

Noticing New York favors a future reclaimed and owned by the public. The Mayor has unfairly gotten a jump on advancing his goals ahead of the rest of us with his signing of the term limits bill. But as the Mayor says, we can still vote come the next election.

Come the next election, we suggest:

It’s Chinatown, Jake, you gotta remember everything.

(Picture of people waiting to testify at the term limits bill signing ceremony. We note that we caught Mr. Haberman moving through the crowd. He is wearing the camel-colored jacket.)

Still Looking for a Chance to Vote on Eminent Domain Abuse

Come election time we would like to think our votes make a difference on the issues we care about. Eminent domain abuse is one of the issues we very much care about since New York is likely the most abusing state in the nation. We would like to see reform. Critical to moving forward is having politicians who are paying attention to the issue.

The worst eminent domain abuse in New York is rooted in developer-driven transactions like the proposed Atlantic Yards megadevelopment and the Columbia University expansion. Because the same entities that drive these abusive transactions donate heavily to political campaigns (and to the questionable “charities” of Mayor Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz), politicians must consider that the political price they pay with the public by tolerating abuse outweighs the benefits of being cozy with the dark side of the real estate industry. Politicians know from polls that eminent domain abuse is extremely unpopular. The question is whether public passions on the subject keep the issue in the forefront of issues people consider important when then vote.

Control of the New York State Senate and Eminent Domain Reform

Today’s New York Times features an article about how the Republicans may lose control of the New York Senate: G.O.P. Forced to Defend State Senate After 70 Years of Dominance, by Nicholas Confessore. Not long before it folded, the New York Sun, more conscious of eminent domain abuse, ran an article, (Victorious Senate Democrats Could Target Eminent Domain, by Peter Kiefer, September 22, 2008) that said that if the Democrats take the State Senate, the Democrats could pursue eminent domain abuse reform. Essentially what State Senator Bill Perkins has begun with hearings on eminent domain abuse would be a seed that grows into actual legislated reforms.

Skepticism; Passion?

Atlantic Yards Report expressed skepticism as to how assuredly eminent domain reform would follow from Democratic dominance in the senate. See: Monday, September 22, 2008 Sun: eminent domain law reform may be possible (but don't hold your breath). Referring to the Sun article:

As the article details, however, neither Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver nor Gov. David Paterson have expressed support for changes (though Paterson did in 2005, as a State Senator).

This is even though Atlantic Yards Report quotes Senator Perkins’ opinion that the issue is a passionate one: “I don't know of too many other issues where you have such diverse and pervasive outrage”

New York Republicans: Spare Effort?

The Times article states near its outset:

No effort is being spared by New York Republicans in the final days of this election season, which will determine whether they continue to control the State Senate, their only outpost of power in an increasingly Democratic state.

True? No effort being spared? Maybe not. Nowhere in the Times article is the subject of eminent domain mentioned. Of course, that could be a reflection of the Times’ of lack of passion for reform in this area. (The Times is, after all, a little bit pregnant on the issue, having benefitted from what some believe was eminent domain abuse to acquire the site for their new office tower.) More likely though, eminent domain reform just has not been pushed sufficiently to the forefront in the State Senate campaigns to get mention by most media. Noticing New York investigated the subject of eminent domain reform in the senate campaigns. It is something that could be getting a lot more attention. For the Republicans it was likely a missed opportunity.

Whose Issue?

We were intrigued by the Sun article reporting that the Democrats (or some Democrats) were seizing the mantle of eminent domain reform for themselves. Many would think that eminent domain reform should be a natural for Republicans. In the U.S. Supreme Court Kelo case, it was the conservative Republican appointees who perceived and criticized the potential for abuse. It was the Democratic court appointees who seemed the most willing to give Democrats and liberalism a bad name by blithely tolerating abuse when real estate developers throw their big-business weight around to drive these projects.

We decided to look more closely at the issue of eminent domain in the key senate races that were in the balance and at whether the Republicans were really ceding such a potentially potent issue to the Democrats. We contacted spokesmen for the respective campaigns that might effect a change of senate control and we contacted the majority and minority leaders of the state senate. With Republicans we reminded them that for many it would be surprise if the reform issue belonged wholly to the Democrats without the Republican testing the territory. For instance, we pointed out that Sarah Palin, interviewed on Fox News, had made a point that one of the Supreme Court decisions she most disagreed with was “Kelo vs. New London.” We noted that this seems like an easy and obvious pick during an election campaign, given the opinion’s 95% disapproval rating with the public. The Fox News interview with Palin gave her a chance to recover from her previous inability in a Katie Couric interview to say which Supreme Court opinions she disagreed with other than Roe v. Wade. (As reported in the Wall Street Journal, Palin’s ineptness as Mayor in handling a Wasilla real estate transaction to build a city hockey rink for her son to play in actually led to Wasilla using eminent domain and spending an extra $1.3 million more than would have been necessary otherwise.- Oh those “hockey-moms.”)

Majority and Minority Senate Leaders

Were the Republicans eager to claim the mantle of eminent domain reform for themselves? This is the statement we got from the office of Republican Senate Majority Leader Dean G. Skelos:

The issue of eminent domain has been the subject of debate, public hearings and legislation for several years. The Senate passed eminent domain legislation as recently as 2006 but the Assembly did not pass it. As for the political impact of this issue, the priorities of New Yorkers continue to be a stronger economy, job creation and tax relief. New Yorkers recognize that the Senate Majority has a very strong record on these issues as we passed the Governor's property tax cap plan and have been responsible for the state's programs to create high tech jobs throughout the state.

This hardly seems to be a rousing endorsement of reform. Converting this to a yes/no answer it seems to be a “No” to any interest in reform with “the priorities of New Yorkers continue to be a stronger economy, job creation and tax relief” carrying the day. We would actually suggest that a stronger economy and more jobs is what you get if eminent domain reform is implemented.

Does that throw those interested in eminent domain reform into the arms of the Democrats? Maybe “Yes” for a fairly subtle reason we will discuss in a bit, but the arms are not very welcoming. At least Senator Skelos’ office provided an answer to our question on where they stood. When given the same opportunity to provide insight on the Democratic position on eminent domain reform, the office of Democratic Minority Leader Senator Malcolm A. Smith formally declined to comment, notwithstanding an important election where the Democrats are working hard to take over the Senate.

Republicans, Upstate and Downstate, Rent Stabilization

One reason that New York State Republicans may not be as quick as national Republicans to align themselves with the cause of post-Kelo eminent domain reform is the way in which Republicans have come to rely upon the New York City real estate industry that has used the State Senate to fight for what it wants in terms of rent stabilization. Albany trumps local city governance when it comes to what happens in terms of rent stabilization. A lot of city money winds up flowing into upstate senate campaign as a result. (Bloomberg also gets involved in senate campaigns.) Noticing New York has a lot of reservations about the problems associated with the whole rent stabilization system, but if lack of eminent domain reform is another price we indirectly pay for rent stabilization then we are sad indeed.

Micro-level: Five Campaigns

We also thought we should look at the question of eminent domain reform on the micro-level in individual senate campaigns that will determine control of the senate. We looked at and called to speak to spokesmen for all of the following campaigns:

1. Brian Foley (D) v. incumbent Senator Ceasar Trunzo (R).

2. Joseph Addabbo (D) v. incumbent Serphin Maltese (R).

3. Joseph (“Baby Joe”) Mesi (D) vs Mike Ranzenhofer (R) (Picking up SD-61 in the Buffalo suburbs, held by the retiring Republican Mary Lou Rath.)

4. Rick Dollinger (D) v. incumbent Sen. Joe Robach (R)

5. Incumbent Bill Stachowski (D)- vs. Dennis Delano (R)

Although everyone had a couple of weeks to respond and many promised statements, we do not have much to report. (One Candidate, Republican Dennis Delano, did not even seem to have anyone ever answering phones at his campaign headquarters. If the messages we repeatedly left on the answering machine were ever picked up, the calls were never returned. Mr. Delano’s claim to fame and the way he apparently got onto the ballot is that he was a “Cold Case File” star.)

From the office of incumbent Democratic Senator Stachowski we were told the following:

The Senator doesn’t have a position on eminent domain reform. If the Democrats take the senate than Senator Perkins as head of his committee would be bringing the issue up in the senate at which time the Senator would consider what was presented and develop a position.

This position at least highlights the fact that a Democratic takeover of the senate would effectively serve to bring up the issue of reform as procedural matter. That would be a start and an improvement over other possibilities.

The office of incumbent Republican Senator Joe Robach informed us merely that the Senator would defer to the position of Majority Leader Dean Skelos (set forth above). They ascertained from us that we had gotten such a position. We suggested that it might not be great position to sign on to, but they did so without our reading to them what the position was.

Past Actions vs. Statements

We received no other statements of positions by any of the candidates though we might have if we had been more aggressive. However, information from past activity can be informative.

Eminent domain abuse is actually an issue in the Queens campaign of Democratic challenger Joseph Addabbo v. incumbent Republican Senator Serphin Maltese. The district in question includes Willet’s Point. Serphin Maltese signed a letter supporting the eminent-domain-abusing project. Joseph Addabbo, signed a letter opposing the redevelopment plan. One ought to presume that a Democratic victory in the race would lead to an important shift in the direction of reform.

Atypicality, Eminent Domain and a New York Times Editorial

The New York Times actually wrote an editorial about the use of eminent domain in the past by Democratic candidate Brian Foley, who is running in Long Island against incumbent Republican Senator Ceasar Trunzo. The editorial is interesting and worth thinking about. It is probably more interesting for what it says about the Times than for what it says about candidate Foley. The April 2006 editorial almost sounds like a different, much more cautious New York Times than we would expect on the subject of eminent domain:

Eminent domain, the ability of government to take private property for public use, is like any heavy-duty power tool: It can do a lot of damage if mishandled. But wielded cautiously and wisely, it can do much to advance the public interest.

* * * *

People are right to be on guard whenever government uses its power of eminent domain to transfer land from one private owner to another. The attachment to property rights runs deep, as the most recent Supreme Court decision on eminent domain vividly demonstrates. By upholding the right of the City of New London, Conn., to seize private homes for economic development, the court has provoked a nationwide scramble by state legislatures to refine and restrict their states' ability to exercise eminent-domain powers.

Yet the courts have long held that eminent domain need not always be restricted to public amenities like roads and bridges, and they have given governments wide discretion in deciding how to define a valid public use. If taking land for a private project provides a clear public benefit, if it is not done merely to make a private landowner richer or to discriminate against a specific class or group of people, and is a last resort when all other attempts at striking a fair deal fail, it can be justified.

(See: Long Island, Eminent Good Sense April 9, 2006)

Also fascinating and confusing is that in this case the New York Times is NOT speaking in favor of development. In a turnabout from the typical, the eminent domain in question was being used against developers to prevent development so that land could be used as farmland instead. The situation involves so many shoes being on the other foot that it is a good principle-testing exercise to consider. It is also so abnormal a situation that it makes it almost impossible to say what Mr. Foley’s principled position would be on eminent domain were he to be elected to senatorial office. (Mr. Foley was the Town Supervisor of Brookhaven, Long Island when dealing with the overdevelopment question that generated the Times editorial.)

Elevating Eminent Domain Reform’s Importance

It seems clear that the importance of eminent domain reform needs to be elevated as an issue. Even though Sarah Palin received play in the news by jumping on the bandwagon of Kelo objectors, eminent domain abuse reform was not a big issue during the current presidential campaign. Other issues will probably keep the McCain/Palin ticket from being elected. Though we nominated eminent domain abuse as a topic for discussion on Brian Lehrer’s “Thirty Issues In Thirty Days,” it wasn’t chosen. (See: September 8, 2008, Your Chance to Vote on Eminent Domain Abuse) Other issues the public considers more important took up the thirty slots with, for instance, energy policy taking up five slots (Alternative Energies/Carbon Footprint/Domestic Drilling/Nuclear Power/Renewable Energy) There were issues that related to eminent domain abuse without actually leading directly to a discussion of it. In this regard, four slots went to the following topics: Upholding the Constitution, Urban Affairs, Government Transparency, the Role of Government.

Will eminent domain reform get elevated in importance? If people call candidates and incumbents to ask their positions, this will happen. If the Democrats become the sole party in power in New York State, this will be particularly important during primaries and it will be all the more important to put pressure on incumbents. It may also be a way for principled Republicans running for office to regain the attention and respect of the New York electorate. On the flip side, Democrats in both New York and nationally must realize before it bites them that putting big-business real estate developers in the driver’s seat with the power of eminent domain at their private disposal is not good policy, liberalism or defensible democracy. People need to take every opportunity available to them to do things like signing onto the petition available on My Land is Mine, Nick Sprayregen’s website set up to fight expropriation of his land by Columbia University. Then there is the possibility of donations to organizations like Develop Don’t Destroy to make sure that lawsuits are funded and a high profile of effective opposition is kept.

MAS Addendum

The Municipal Art Society is overdue in coming up with principles to identify undesirable and unethical eminent domain, as we have previously commented:

A Digression: Precepts of Eminent Domain Abuse and MAS
Digressing briefly to mention something important. At the Monday night MAS evening event it was mentioned that MAS has not yet sorted out a set of principles it can offer to distinguish defensible eminent domain from eminent domain abuse. I think the task is well within reach. MAS has provided multiple excellent forums in which people have taken the opportunity to discuss questions in this regard. I think one only needs to start with the most basic precepts on the subject and build from there.

(See: Friday, September 26, 2008, Weighing Scale)

If nothing else, MAS could begin by ranking the sorts of eminent domain most commonly identified to be objectionable (developer-driven, no-bid, more destructive than creative, etc.) and those that are generally thought to be the most defensible (creation of publicly owned transportation infrastructure like Moynihan Station or parks).

A Billionaire’s Principles

A lot of the senatorial election contests on which control of the Senate will turn were upstate and Southern tier elections. One thing to consider: Billionaire Tom Golisano has stepped in with an interest in influencing elections of this kind. Mr. Golisano does not yet seem to have taken a position on the need for eminent domain reform. It is almost amazing that he hasn’t. His Responsible New York organization has a web site that sets forth Mr. Golisano’s concerns. The issues he has been championing are almost all things that eminent domain abuse tend to tie in with: no-bid contracts, special tax abatements and exemptions, lack of transparency, favoritism, inequitable distribution of assets, back-door borrowing, out-of-control authorities and special big-developer real estate interests. Wouldn’t it seem natural that members of either party that take up the cause of eminent domain abuse reform should be hoping for future help from Mr. Golisano and Responsible New York? (But OMG, can we really be talking about bringing in yet another billionaire to influence our electoral processes?)