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

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

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

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

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

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

LAND USE COMMITTEE (17-4):

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

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

ZONING AND FRANCHISES SUBCOMMITTEE (6-2):

Tony Avella: no
Eric Gioa: no

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

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

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

Prior Posts:

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


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

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

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

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

Development and Urban Design Themes: Portents of Woe

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Twenty Candidates Speak

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Liu on Atlantic Yards

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Liu on Term Limits

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

Mr. Liu on Development

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yassky’s Defense on His Term Limits Vote

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Term Limits and Lambda Comptroller Endorsement

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

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

Cost of the Term Limits Vote- Back To Dock Street

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

Principled City Council Votes?

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

And Principle Would Dictate on Dock Street. . .

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

Tish James on Dock Street

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jo Anne Simon on Dock Street

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

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

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

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

* * * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

Names and Votes of City Council Committee Members: Again, Any Comment?

Here are the votes of the two committees that voted on Dock Street on Thursday. City Council members on the Land Use committee who are also on the Zoning and Franchise committee are indicated in italics. (Everyone on the latter is on the former.) For extra good measure, we have bolded the names of any of Council members who also was among the 29 members who voted to extend the mayor’s term limits. We are particularly dismayed by the Dock Street votes of certain Council Members who ought otherwise to have particularly bright futures, Jessica Lapin and Daniel Garodnick among them.

LAND USE COMMITTEE (17-4):

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

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

ZONING AND FRANCHISES SUBCOMMITTEE (6-2):

Tony Avella: no
Eric Gioa: no

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

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

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

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

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

Not Listening to Communities and Circumvention of Process

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Role Paterson Does Not Fulfill as Governor

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

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

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

Bloomberg’s Competition

Sometimes we just have to do a quick one to point out something that is just so choice. With all the flurry of news going on this little tidbit might go unnoticed by too many if we don’t help point it out. (Flurry-wise ESDC head Marisa Lago- working on Atlantic Yards is out of a job right on the heels of Frank Gehry getting booted from Atlantic Yards.)

Nobody can write during a flurry of news faster than Norman Oder (Atlantic Yards Report) and still make the super-trenchant passing remark in the midst of all his other meticulously astute cataloguing of government chicanery. (Mr. Oder has four posts up today on current news no one else has caught up with, including Daniel Goldstein’s gutsy asking of questions at Forest City Enterprises’ annual shareholders’ meeting.)

Here is what is not to be missed. Reporting on a Bloomberg radio interview from earlier today, Mr. Oder asks (and answers) the question: Bloomberg likes competition? (He doesn’t.) Here is the bit from Mr. Order’s post wherein the mayor, ever dedicated to his friend Bruce Ratner,* is still finding nice things to say about Bruce’s Atlantic Yards Nets arena which has degenerated into an airplane hanger/planting shed.

MB [Bloomberg]: And if you want to have a circus while somebody else has the Ice Capades... you’ll have another venue. The Dolans might not like competition, but competition’s good.

Bloomberg likes competition? He's the guy who backed Forest City Ratner's project in 2003, a project that would involve 8.5 acres of crucial public property, without suggesting that the Vanderbilt Yard should come up for bid.

(* Bloomberg’s support it seems is definitely ad hominem, support Bruce Ratner, the man, no matter what the project is- The same way the ESDC contracts were written.)

Mr. Bloomberg likes competition? He is the guy whose direct campaign expenditures have already exceeded everything that all his “competitors” in the mayoral race will spend collectively to run against him during his entire campaign. And Bloomberg even denies he has started his campaign! Rent for his campaign headquarters exceeds everything one of the other main candidates has already raised. Plus he is using his incumbency to mobilize city funds in service of his campaign and he is spending over $235 million a year during the campaign on charitable expenditures that are used for political purposes. Beyond that, by virtue of being mayor he controls city charities that are similarly pressed into service for political ends. This is the mayor whose top staff calls up the recipients of charity to warn that they had better not support his rivals or they will be cut off. This is the mayor who uses fake push poll calls to politically emasculate another of his political rivals before that rival has even gotten started. And what is this we hear about Bloomberg using influence with media owners so that profiles of his campaign opponents don’t get into print to tell the public that there might actually be alternatives?

Bloomberg thinks competition is good? Ridiculous!*

(* What Mr. Bloomberg said about the question of a reporter asking whether Mr. Bloomberg would save the public money by limited his campaign spending to the level of his rivals are permitted to spend.)

What’s Up At Dock Street, Really?

City Council Members Eric Gioia and David Yassky held a press conference Saturday morning on their continuing investigation into the proposed Walentas Dock Street project in DUMBO proposed to be built where it will block views of the Brooklyn Bridge. We try to avoid press release journalism but the Gioia and Yassky press conference was so on-target we’d like to report precisely what they said. They made it clear we have plenty of reason to be alarmed by the conduct of city administration officials and the kind of backroom dealing they are apparently willing to engage in to manipulate favored real estate deals through the approval process.

And to be fair, we will also acquaint you extensively with the thinking of a (possibly now erstwhile) proponent of the Dock Street project who came to the press conference that will, appropriately, give us the opportunity to discuss some related things about the Atlantic Yards mega-boondoggle.

The “Bundle” Bungle

When we first wrote about the Dock Street project we directed ourselves to the inappropriate bundling of the project together with a middle school:

Is there wisdom to the bundling of these decisions? Does the bundling enhance each choice or just cause each choice to be suspect? Shouldn’t we now ask, if the building is a good size, shape and height, if it has to be “sold” to the public by incorporating a school? Is the school really good planning or the one that the public actually wants if it is being tacked-on to “sell” a project of a likely unwanted size, shape and height?

(See: Wednesday, February 4, 2009, Reject the “Bundle” Bungle: Saying “No” to Walentas Dock Street Project Next to the Brooklyn Bridge. For more see: Saturday, March 14, 2009, At the City Planning Commission Hearings on Proposed Dock Street Project: A Reprise.)

From Faustian to Foxily Faux

The New York Times had already referred to this approval of a school conditional on allowing a developer to build a project of extra height as “a Faustian bargain.”Councilman Gioia, when we talked with him at the end of the press conference, referred to it more accurately as a “false choice.” The point of the press conference was to focus on the fact that internal e-mails of the School Construction Authority disclose that the SCA was clearly manipulating to put the school into the Dock Street project in order to get the project approved. Absent using the school as a sweetener to get the project approved, it seems clear the SCA wasn’t interested in providing a school or acknowledging that it was needed. The SCA did, however, think it expedient to perform a charade of pretending to consider other sites presented to it so it could pretend that it had done a cost-benefit analysis.

This is from the New York Post:

. . . while the SCA says it looked at other sites to ensure the most cost-effective school is built, documents suggest otherwise.

For instance, an e-mail dated Dec. 8 from SCA Executive Director Lorraine Grillo to another staffer shows the lack of attention a Water Street site suggested by Yassky actually received compared to the Walentas' plan for nearby Dock Street in DUMBO.

"Now I know that if we don't do the Walentas project that we don't really want to do anything else over there, but I think we have to follow up on this just so we can say that the Walentas project is such a good deal," the e-mail says.

(See: Dumbo Stumble, E-mail Shows Fix Was In: Pol, by Rich Calder, April 1, 2009.)

Yassky and Gioia

David Yassky is the City Councilman in whose district the project would be and although he is opposing the Dock Street project, he has also been asking for a new middle school for some time. It was his office’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request that turned up the smoking gun e-mails. Eric Gioia is a member of City Council land use and zoning committee that will vote on this project. He got involved in the investigation when he grilled SCA Vice President Ross Holden about the e-mails at a City Council hearing on the project. (See: City Council Troubled by Dock Street Project, by Ben Muessig, May 22, 2009.)

It is worth mentioning that Mr. Yassky and Mr. Gioia are running, respectively for the positions of City Comptroller and Public Advocate, both positions where an ability to pay attention to numbers, to question ostensible versus true purpose, and to investigate effectively will be critical attributes.
Mr. Gioia’s Eloquence

Here is what Mr. Gioia had to say at the press conference Saturday:

I am here for a very simple reason. The day before the hearing on this issue I was presented with a package on this issue including some e-mails that I found incredibly disturbing. When I saw these e-mails I knew I had to act. Very simply, government is not supposed to act one way in private and another way in public. It is that kind of conduct that drains people’s confidence and faith in the honesty of government. It is that kind of behavior that drives people away from the process. When good people walk away from government, who walks onto the playing field but lawyers and lobbyists and special interests and we are all worse because of that. The overarching goal of elected officials in this city really has to be to rebuild people’s faith in our process, to rebuild people’s faith in government. All government is a way to stay working together, overcoming superficial differences by common values, common goals and to grow in the same direction.

When people begin to smell something funny, when people begin to see e-mails between government officials that say, in essence, that they are going to deceive elected officials and then the community, that is the sort of thing that turns people off from government. These e-mails raise some very serious questions about the School Construction Authority. These are questions the School Construction Authority has an absolute obligation to answer before this project moves forward. The integrity of this process has been tainted by these e-mails. These e-mails would lead a reasonable person to believe that this middle school was designed simply to justify a real estate deal and that is wrong.

The School Construction Authority in their testimony before the City Council told me, `Councilman, you’re wrong, that’s not what this is about and we have evidence that shows that those e-mails are out of context.’ At that hearing I asked for those e-mails to be produced. They told me that they had them at the ready. I suggested that if they had them ready they could provide them at the end of the day. Well, a week went by and we didn’t hear from the School Construction Authority. A few more days went and we did not hear from the School Construction Authority. So yesterday I contacted them and I said `I’m a really fair guy. If you’ve got evidence that shows that these e-mails would portray things falsely, please provide them. And so my office actually went down and picked up the package of information the School Construction Authority had prepared for me. I read the e-mails yesterday afternoon. I read the entire package last night and I did not find a single thing to refute the e-mail that I raised at the City Council.
And so I will say this. The School Construction Authority and the city government, the city has an obligation to clear the air in this situation. If they have exculpatory evidence then they should make that clear and if they don’t then this project has to be stopped. Because this is exactly,- this is exactly- the way the government is NOT supposed to work. And I will say that there have been times in my neighborhood when there have been projects in my neighborhood and there have been two sides and vigorous opposition. And that’s OK and the truth is that everyone can’t always agree and sometimes government won’t make the right decision and there is no promise that we can always fix that. But what we have to promise is that there be an open, transparent and accountable system. And when that fails we need to go back to the drawing board and start over again. And that, to me, is what this is all about.

Mr. Yassky: A Proposition on Proving Our Worst Suspicions

Councilman Gioia handed off to David Yassky who said:

I just want to remind everyone here, particularly the journalists and people who are here today, about some of the history, because four years ago there was a proposal, same owner, same site, same big building right next to the Brooklyn Bridge and the neighborhood stood together and said, on behalf of everyone in the city, in the country, in the world who cares about the Brooklyn Bridge we are going to oppose this project and we got it stopped. That was 2005. And then someone came up with the clever idea that `if we say we will put a school in it well then maybe we can get them to go along with it.’

Now I see a lot of my neighbors and constituents here. I know that you are here, you live in Downtown Brooklyn area. Yes, we need a school. Yes, we want a school. That’s why we have been demanding a middle school from the School Construction Authority for three solid years. We’ve been telling the School Construction Authority that we need a school in Downtown Brooklyn and all they said was NO, you know you’re fine, you don’t need a school.

Well, the developer comes along and says I’ve got an idea, how about this project, how about we put a school in it and all of the sudden the School Construction Authority changes its mind and says yes, we’ll put a school here. And I was wondering: Now why is that? What could explain? Maybe it really is the strength of our advocacy they finally decided even though I hadn’t seen it anywhere else. . . The School Construction Authority decided, yeah, we’re going to listen to a neighborhood about what it really needs.

And then this e-mail comes out. And then this e-mail come out, this e-mail that says in response to us saying here are some other sites where we would rather see a school. We in this neighborhood think, yes, we need a school, here’s the best place for it. Here are three better places for it than right here. And this e-mail comes out that says that if we don’t do the Walentas project we are not going to do a school anywhere nearby here.

Now that is disgusting. And that is very worrisome. Eric Gioia is right: That is government at its very worst. That just confirms people’s worst suspicions about what goes on in the back rooms out of public view.

And when we asked the head of the School Construction Authority what is this? Maybe a month ago now- - I said well, does his e-mail really reflect your position? This is the only place you will do a middle school? - Oh no, that’s not our position. - Well then, how about these other sites? - Oh no, we ‘ve got a problem with this one, a problem with that one, a problem with other one. That e-mail, you know, we are pretending that is not us, but in fact, this is the only place we will look at for a school.

Outrageous! Outrageous! Now the School Construction Authority: I want them on notice, that after we defeat this project in the City Council, they better come back and put a middle school here. Because, if they do not then they will have proved that they were participating in a sham. If the School Construction Authority does not come back and put a school in Downtown Brooklyn after this project goes down then they will have proved that our worst suspicions about them are actually true.

Dubious

Others spoke afterwards. Gus Sheha, president of the DUMBO Neighborhood Alliance said, among other things:

The Brooklyn Bridge should not be the pawn in the dirty politics of developers in dubious dealings by city agencies entrusted to protect the taxpaying public.

Another Wired Deal: Speaker Quinn, Katz, Council and Cash

Kristian Roebling great-great-grandson of Washington and Emily Warren Roebling who built the bridge reprised his testimony before the City Council. You can read more about him in this Jim Dwyer piece from the New York Times, About New York: Money and Politics Meet at the Brooklyn Bridge (May 22, 2009). In it Mr. Dwyer writes:

Whatever its merits, the Dock Street development is as wired politically as the bridge is with steel.

As Dwyer explains, it all comes down to money and campaign contributions to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and company:

Just before new rules severely limited campaign contributions by companies doing business with the city, Two Trees accounted for at least $74,250 in donations to the two City Council members with the most power over the development, Speaker Christine C. Quinn and Melinda R. Katz, chairwoman of the Council’s Land Use Committee. The company has also spent about $400,000 lobbying the Council and city agencies

“I think Two Trees is an example of the many developers who are able to wield huge influence by the donations they make,” said Councilman Tony Avella, chairman of the subcommittee on zoning. “The real estate industry donates the most money to elected officials in New York and they control the agenda.” Mr. Avella, who has announced that he is running for mayor, opposes the project.

As we previously wrote, Borough President Marty Markowitz more or less told us that the pending City Council approval for the project was rigged. (See: Sunday, April 26, 2009, Markowitz, McCullough, Me and Other Merry Minions of the Blogosphere.)

Ed Brown and Troop

Here is an unanticipated surprise. We found that one of the most interesting things at the press conference was speaking with Ed Brown. Mr. Brown had led a group to the press conference to demonstrate in favor of the Walentas Dock Street project. We thought if we talked with Mr. Brown we might learn something interesting and we did. For reasons that will become obvious as we provide our account, it is important to note that we spoke to Mr. Brown before the press conference was underway and before Mr. Gioia and Mr. Yassky had made the statements we set forth above.
Perking on Perkins Hearing

Just the day before we had been at Senator Bill Perkins State Senate hearing on Atlantic Yards where there had been extravagantly raucous demonstrators in endeavoring to use noise (steel whistles included) to drown out any thoughtful legislative inquisitiveness about what is really going on with the Atlantic Yards megadevelopment. (See: Friday, May 29, 2009, Today’s State Senate Hearings on Atlantic Yards and Noticing New York Testimony and Monday, June 1, 2009, Negotiating With Your Contractor: The Atlantic Yards As Kitchen Renovation Metaphor.) Thoughtful and considered, Mr. Brown was a much different sort of demonstrator from the disruptors of the proceedings we had encountered at the hearing the day before. (For more thoughts on the Perkins hearing disruptions from the Daily News, see: June 2, 2009, Time to stop bullying at Atlantic Yards.)

Mr. Brown Representing . . .

Mr. Brown is a member of the local Community Board 2, the board responsible for the area into which the Dock Street project is proposed to go. He is the tenants association president for the Ingersoll Housing Development. He explained that he was there with the group that he had bought, residents of public housing, to represent the Ingersoll Houses, the Walt Whitman Houses and also the Farragut Houses. He had heard about the press conference from an e-mail he received. He said that he was there to support the project because it would give the residents of public housing the chance to send their kids to a diverse middle school within the community.

Developments Causing Discomfort, Including Atlantic Yards

A member of Community Board 2 for just over two years Mr. Browns said that he particularly liked to follow issues with respect to development because the residents of public housing were being affected by so much development that was causing discomfort because, with all the development going on in and around the community, residents just didn’t feel that they “were being included in the plans for the future of Downtown Brooklyn.” He said that, Dock Street aside, there was discomfort with the Atlantic Yards project and several other developments that had taken place in their immediate area. By contrast, he said the Walentases had “reached out, this is the first developer who had reached out BEFORE a project, rather than `it’s already there’ - - and then they engage us once we speak in opposition to it.”

The Walentas Approach

He said the Walentases had come to his group prior to the project’s coming up for approval, “for whatever reason” to let them know what the project entailed and the benefits it would have, not only for the community, but for their particular group. He said those benefits would be the middle school and also the affordable housing. He explained that there were many people in affordable housing that were looking to get out of public housing and stay in Downtown Brooklyn and that all the condominiums and all the high-end apartments with unaffordable rents coming to Downtown Brooklyn made the affordable housing component of the project very important.

Mr. Brown said that the Walentases had reached out to the tenants association (perhaps a little more than a year ago) and had come to some of the schools in the area to make presentations about the project. He said that he had been skeptical about the project at first because it was another developer developing in Downtown Brooklyn and had wondered whether his community would benefit in any way. He said it was the “middle school piece . . . that really captured our attention and then the affordable housing piece.” He said that this was something that hadn’t been seen in this area in approximately the past five or six years.

Atlantic Yards Hearing

As previously observed, Mr Brown had volunteered Atlantic Yards as an example of a project that was a particular source of community discomfort. We asked about Senator Perkins’ hearing on Atlantic Yards the day before and Mr. Brown told us that he has also gotten an e-mail about it and that while he had wanted to attend the hearing he had been unable to because of a prior engagement. He said that one of things he was concerned about with Atlantic Yards was affordable housing. (We have more commentary on that below.)

Not Anti-development but Basic Issues and the Overall Health of the City

He explained that his group was not at all anti-development but that a stigma is attached to people in public housing and that he was working to have people understand that the residents are good, hard-working, law-abiding citizens who are not involved in crime or antisocial behavior or conducting themselves in a way that was detrimental to the overall health of the city of New York. He said that not only was new affordable housing important, but jobs also were because Ingersoll and the other housing developments had upwards of 60% unemployment. He said that when people were employed it served to change the dynamics of everything for the better.

Looking Into One of the Main Criticism of Dock Street

We asked Mr. Brown whether he knew that one of the main criticisms of this project was that the community had repeatedly asked for a school, and in fact was doing a lot of work to go out and find sites that were appropriate for schools and had identified a number of them and was being told over and over by the city administration that they were not going to be provided with a school at the same time that e-mail now showed that the city administration was at the same time working to put the school in this project as a sweetener so that a project the community had previously voted down would then be approved for an up-zoning by the community. I asked him if that sounded like a manipulation by the city administration and the developer.

Mr. Brown said that he had been unaware of this and indicated such information was important to understanding the “full dynamics” of what was going on. He said that now being so informed he would have to go back and do some research on the issue, reiterating that one of the main things that had captured the attention of his group was the placement of the school in the project. Mr. Brown’s next thought was to muse on how change reflected by the new Obama administration represented an opportunity to avoid the polarization of the past and to build truly diverse communities. We confirmed with Mr. Brown that while he was in favor of a new school in Downtown Brooklyn, he was not necessarily in favor, subject to investigation, of manipulations to use this school to get an overscaled project approved that was previously disapproved by the community. Said Mr. Brown:

Oh, I can adamantly say that. You know that if there is any manipulation or underhanded moves taking place to make this thing happen I can say that, no, I am not in favor of anything of that nature.

I explained that was one of the things the press conference would be about so there was a reason to listen carefully and that maybe afterward he would have some more thoughts. Mr. Brown was in favor of looking into things. Accordingly, we suggested that proceeding with the e-mail investigation seemed to be just the ticket.

Affordable Housing: Illusive, at Least in the Case of Atlantic Yards

At this point some of the project opponents listening to our exchange spoke up, wanting to make points about how the affordable housing in the Dock Street project (being described just as “below-market rents”) would not be truly affordable. This then caused me to mention how the quote: “affordable housing” at Atlantic Yards for which ACORN is to blame is largely a sham. I mentioned the peculiarity of the middle band “negotiated” by ACORN which would effectively bar people with those incomes from getting the benefit of occupying the project. See the chart below (click to enlarge):

Incomes below the “missing band” in the above chart will be units required in any event by the tax code (so ACORN negotiated no additional benefit there) while the units provided to families in income bands above that level (especially given the MISSING income band) are being provided essentially at or close to market (so, once again, ACORN essentially negotiated no additional benefit there either). This, of course, gets to the heart of the problematic issue of “community benefit agreements” as sham and manipulations. For more on the way in which ACORN sold out the community see the following: Saturday, June 28, 2008, Selling out the Community for Beans (A Giant Wrong) Thursday, July 24, 2008, Falling Acorn! How Far from the Tree? Thursday, April 2, 2009, Jane Jacobs Atlantic Yards Report Card #14: Project Creates Population Diversity? NO Friday, April 10, 2009, As AMI climbs, a significant slice of Atlantic Yards "affordable housing" seems to track market.

We note that as the morning proceeded Mr. Brown and the opponents of the project remained very much engaged in apparently thoughtful, amicable, productive and mutually beneficial discussions exchanging information and thoughts.
(Ed Brown)

Moral of the Immorality

The window afforded by the School Construction Authority e-mails into the level of manipulation in which the Bloomberg administration is willing to engage should be a red flag and clarion call to action. Not only do we need to be able to trust our public officials to live up to a much higher standard but lawsuit after lawsuit (for instance, in the case of Atlantic Yards) hinge on the courts deferring to the notion that these same public officials can be counted upon to act in good faith and an unbiased manner, and that is something we are repeatedly seeing that the Bloomberg administration officials do not do. As the Bloomberg and Paterson administrations are equally responsible for Atlantic Yards, it appears clear we have a severe problem at both city and state levels of government.

There is an increasingly obvious absurdity to the judicial deference our courts are giving to biased public officials who consciously manipulate the public and disregard facts and fairness. (See: Saturday, July 19, 2008, Reality Denied!) When it comes to things such as eminent domain, our courts, by virtue of such absurd deference, are putting the protection of fundamental constitutional rights out of reach of every citizen. Our public officials, who have proved that they are not worthy, would clearly like for no New York resident to ever be able to win an eminent domain case against the government. And yet, against and for whom are the Bill of Rights-based eminent domain provisions of the New York State and federal constitutions meant to afford fundamental protections if not protection for the individual against the government? We look at the Dock Street manipulation and we say: These are the public officials to whom the courts defer and whom they assume act in good faith? It is absolutely time to think again.

Negotiating With Your Contractor: The Atlantic Yards As Kitchen Renovation Metaphor

At Friday’s state senate hearing on Atlantic Yards, Marisa Lago (head of the Empire State Development Corporation and responsible for Atlantic Yards on behalf of Governor Paterson) tried to make current negotiations with proposed project developer, Forest City Ratner easy to explain by likening Atlantic Yards to a kitchen renovation. That therefore allowed Ms. Lago to tell Senators Bill Perkins, Velmanette Montgomery and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries that Forest City Ratner is going to give the public a lot less than the public was once supposedly going to get by telling the legeslators that there isn’t going to be a garbage disposal, the level of trim and finishes won’t be the same (Formica countertops instead of granite?) and that the stove was only going to have four burners rather than six.

We’ll figure that the four burners instead of six outcome was meant to be suggestive of the fact that Forest City Ratner is now, among other things, only going to be giving the MTA a 7-train capacity train yard rather than a 9-train capacity yard. (a 22% cutback). So much for the future growth of a growing city! Along with this were the revelations that Forest City Ratner wants to pay the MTA less than previously specified for its land, wants more money from the public and is going to take a lot longer to deliver any public benefit. Some dates for delivery of public benefit may simply go unspecified. (See: Friday, May 29, 2009, Today’s State Senate Hearings on Atlantic Yards and Noticing New York Testimony.)

We rather like the kitchen renovation metaphor. Maybe it provided Ms. Lago with an out to avoid saying things in less blunt, specific or informative terms but we think that it does help make some things easier to explain. We will come back to that in a minute but first let’s note what this is really all about in basic, big-picture terms. It’s about government negotiations with a private developer, what the developer gets and what the public is going to foot the bill for while the developer takes away private benefit. It is also about whether given the “weakness in the economy,” public authorities should reopen agreements to tilt things more in favor of the private developer though it would be “at the expense of the authority’s primary mission.”

The New York Times had an interesting editorial Wednesday, Stalemate at Ground Zero, taking some positions that ought to be relevant. (We just quoted from that editorial above.) In this case, the Times was writing about negotiations respecting redevelopment of the World Trade Center site.

Mr. Silverstein . . . [who is building at the Trade Center site] . . wants to reopen a 2006 building agreement with the authority, citing delays by the authority and the weakness in the economy.

. . . . Mr. Silverstein made his pitch that the authority should use its money to help him build two skyscrapers that the private market won’t finance in the current climate. Basically he is asking the authority, which has limited resources and many other demands, to get even deeper into real estate speculation.

* * * *

The authority’s board has authorized over $800 million so far to help with Mr. Silverstein’s financing. The mayor and his dealmakers should not drain any more of the funds the authority needs to maintain and manage the bridges, tunnels, ports, terminals and airports in the metropolitan area. We all want the ground zero memorial and the other structures finished. But it cannot come at the expense of the authority’s primary mission.

Because it seems that the Times has let its business relationship with Forest City Ratner influence it coverage, we doubt that the Times will be publishing any similar editorials about Atlantic Yards. We are happy to be here to fill the void.

Should “weakness in the economy” cause a public authority like the MTA to reopen its negotiations with Forest City Ratner and agree to take even less for its land “at the expense of the authority’s primary mission?” (Remember that, going back, Ratner was not even willing to match the offer of another developer to pay more to the MTA for its land than Forest City Ratner was originally willing to pay.)

In fact, is“weakness in the economy” a reason to give more to a developer or is a downturn in the economy a reason to do exactly the reverse? We have previously written about how:

. . . state and local governments everywhere else are saving significant money on public sector work by getting bids during this economic downturn, and Forest City Ratner claims it is similarly going to reduce costs for itself through the lower bids they can get during the economic downturn. .

(See: Thursday, April 16, 2009, The Great Recession: A Stimulus to Get Our City Back to “Bidness?”)

The latest on this (in an article appearing only one day after the Times editorial) is that Ratner has reportedly reduced his cost of building his Beekman Tower by negotiating with the construction unions “a series of concessions on work rules that proponents said would save builders as much as 20 percent on labor costs.” (See: Savings on Labor Allow Work on Residential Skyscraper to Resume, by Charles V. Bagli, May 28, 2009.)

As we said before, it looks like the New York taxpayer is the only one who isn’t being invited to the party to get the benefits of saving through such bidding and negotiation. This takes us back to Ms. Lago’s kitchen renovation metaphor. Now is a great time to be in the market for a kitchen renovation! Contractors are hungry for work and they are bidding for it aggressively. The same thing applies to Atlantic Yards.

When it comes to kitchen and apartment renovations we have a few rules which we would like to supply for the sake of analogy. Those of us who have actually renovated our apartments, bathroom or kitchens know these things but it is time for our public officials to wake up and do what makes sense when spending the really big (billions) bucks:

NOTICING NEW YORK’S KITCHEN RENOVATION RULES
(Applicable also to NYC megadevelopments)

1. When selecting a contractor, get bids. Forest City Ratner was selected to build the 22-acre Atlantic Yards without an effective bid process. If you don’t get bids, expect to get soaked.

2. If you can (as noted above), it is good if you can bid out your kitchen renovation when things are otherwise slow in the construction business.

3. Establish a schedule by which the contractor must complete the renovation. If you establish a long, protracted schedule and distant deadline for completing construction, letting the contractor complete at his leisure (and work only when it is most convenient in terms of scheduling his labor, picking up his materials, prioritizing your job versus somebody else’s), expect the contractor to give you a really good break on price. But also consider that it will cost you a lot in that you have to pay rent or maintenance and your mortgage for a long time while not being able to use your property. Atlantic Yards has few real deadlines. From a pragmatic standpoint most of the deadlines are essentially nonexistent, many of them not even existing within the span of many people’s professional lifetimes. To the extent that deadlines are supposed to represent a day of reckoning, a time when the contractor can be held to account, a time to determine whether standards have been met, Forest City Ratner seems to have escaped such accountability. About all that is being required is that of FCR as Atlantic Yards developer is that it is supposed get the project underway by the end of the year. The sole requirement to simply get the project underway only benefits FCR by locking them into the job and has nothing to do with completion or delivery of public benefit. Without practical deadlines, Forest City Ratner is essentially strapping on a feedbag and the fact that it can munch at its leisure, taking decades to complete the monopoly it has been given (speeding up or slowing down at will) amounts to an extraordinary public subsidy for the firm. Apparently, our public officials believe that this subsidy will go undetected by the public.

4. Specify ahead of time all the work to be done before bidding out the job. This of, of course, is pretty basic stuff, but notice that this wasn’t done with Atlantic Yards.

5. Don’t let the contractor demolish the kitchen before you have a contract. It puts you in a tremendously weak negotiating position. How are you going to negotiate effectively when you have to eat out at restaurants or order take-out and there is nowhere to do the dishes? You’ll be sitting in a pile of construction dust and will probably feel that you need to agree to practically any outrageous proposal the contractor trots in. This is essentially the kind of situation Forest City Ratner has worked to create by tearing down much of the neighborhood while not having funding or a go-ahead to replace any of it. This includes demolishing the Ward Bakery Building and the Carlton Avenue bridge and creating unnecessary blight.

6. Don’t front-load the payments to the contractor. If you give all your money to the contractor up front it eliminates the incentive for the contractor to come back on a timely basis to finish the rest of the work. It also tends to lock you into continuing to use the contractor for the job because you won’t have money to engage a replacement contractor when you discover that you want to fire the original one. So why have the city and state been giving Forest City Ratner their contributions to Atlantic Yards up front?

7. If you advance money to the contractor that is going to be used to buy materials, you probably want to specify that the materials bought will belong to you rather than the contractor. That way you will be all set and ready to redirect the work to a new contractor whenever you need to. When you switch contractors, you don’t want your old contractor blackmailing you, saying that he is not going to turn over to you the custom-made granite countertops or the special-order tiles he took possession of at your expense. The city and state have been careless and are now at an analogous disadvantage whenever they decide to get rid of Forest City Ratner because Ratner took money that the city gave them (that was supposed to upgrade infrastructure) and used it to buy and take title to property within the Atlantic Yards footprint; Forest City Ratner is likely to try to hold that property hostage when the ESDC and the city send them packing.

8. If you’re trying to economize and save money, don’t let the contractor turn the job into a bigger, more costly job than it needs to be by going crazy and ripping out and throwing away a lot of walls, baseboard moldings and appliances that are perfectly serviceable and ought still to be used. If you want to save money, don’t rip out walls that are sound just because they have a few cracks. If new plumbing was recently installed, don’t rip it out to replace it all over again. Don’t let your contractor get rid of sound appliances and fixtures that could serve you perfectly well just so that the contractor can make a profit on selling you everything all new even though that is not what you needed. That is a form of churning. Have you noticed that Atlantic Yards involves plans to demolish some perfectly wonderful co-op and condominium buildings that were just fully and completely renovated?

9. Check out your contractor’s credit worthiness before engaging him. Forest City Ratner is teetering financially. On reason we have government officials who are likely going to be telling us that the public needs to come to the financial rescue of FCR because of the “weakness in the economy” is because of FCR’s own financial weakness. If you were doing a kitchen renovation you want to start with a contractor strong enough so that you would not have to face such ridiculous arguments.

10. Maintain the option to terminate and bring in another contractor- especially if the contractor wants to renegotiate after accepting the job. If a contractor doesn’t believe you are going to be able to replace him, he is going to try to take advantage of you during negotiations- Like asking for extra concessions because the economy is weak. How ridiculous is it that Forest City Ratner doesn’t think they can be replaced when the work being talked about won’t be done until as much as thirty years in the future and Forest City Ratner hasn’t even been specific what it is they are going to produce or the price they will produce it for?

We expect we could go on with other analogies about what is being done wrong at Atlantic Yards and that anyone with home renovation experience could add additional points of wisdom to this list. For instance, don’t get taken in by the contractor’s high-pressure sales job to buy super-glitzy name brand stuff that he can sell to you at an especially high mark-up. Maybe you do want a Sub-Zero refrigerator for your home rather than a top-of-the-line GE product, but do you really want to get suckered into paying extra for some Frank Gehry frippery that leaks? Everyone should feel free to add their advice to ours in the comments section to this post. Our public officials have a lot to learn about kitchen renovations!