Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Several neighbors have asked me my thoughts about the 33rd Council District. I see it as a complex calculation, involving policy, electability, record, and hold-your-nose factors. Whoever wins likely will have to be watched carefully. (Wasn't David Yassky a reformer?) And I'm convinced that, without Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which allows voters to rank preferences and thus support a second-best candidate, we'll continue to have multi-candidate elections in which a winner is chosen with a bare fraction of the vote. (Here's Part 2: why I'm voting (gingerly) for Simon .) Framing the election I went to the final debate for the 33rd Council District last Thursday and again emerged contemplating a paradox. The candidates who profess to be most pure--least beholden to developers and various parts of the political establishment--are likely the least electable, lacking the endorsements from unions, elected officials, and newspapers that help sway undecided voters. So, w...

Like other residents of the 18th Senatorial District, I got several slick mailings with the same "Velmanette Montgomery" logo but no returning mailing address, just a tiny, unreadable logo. And Montgomery's campaign said they didn't know who was responsible. That's unacceptable. Either they were lying or should know. (It's shades of BUILD's James Caldwell, in 2005, claiming he didn't know who was paying for the group's public relations.) The day after Montgomery cruised to a more than 4-to-1 margin--thanks, in part to a 10-to 1 advantage in volunteers , many from unions--I got a message from Montgomery staffer Jim Vogel. "Senator Montgomery’s campaign finally discovered who sent out the mailer you were wondering about," he wrote. "Yesterday afternoon we had a visit from the local head of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) who told Senator Montgomery they did the mailing. She really had no idea before then." It's a...

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle this week had a scoop, shooting down the vague plans for a new "21st century" Brooklyn Tech and the rumors that Forest City Ratner wanted the eight-story building--the largest high school built in the country--at the edge of Fort Greene Park. In the article, headlined Brooklyn Tech Won’t Move, Dept. of Ed Assures Alumni , the Eagle notes that the building, which has a 3012-seat theater and basement swimming pool, has gone through several recent upgrades to its labs, library, wireless and fiberoptic network, and athletic facilities. Valuable real estate The Eagle reports: The thought of moving Tech is “unconscionable,” says alumnus Melvin Band, who confronted Schools Chancellor Joel Klein at the January 22 Educational Panel meeting about the Daily News article. “Tech will get a much smaller school made with spit in a less safe neighborhood. On the other hand, you’ll get the goose that lays the golden eggs — Tech’s cash cow,” Band said he told the chan...

Today is the annual West Indian Day Parade, the largest public event in Brooklyn, and Forest City Ratner saluted the parade on Wednesday in an advertisement (right) in the New York Daily News, connecting the company, the parade, and the Nets' planned move. Also, as No Land Grab pointed out , the developer is sponsoring Infinite Island, a Brooklyn Museum exhibition (Aug. 31–Jan. 27, 2008), recent works from artists, in the Caribbean and abroad, "that reflect the region's dynamic mix of cultures, its diasporas, and its socio-political realities." A mix of corporate citizenship and the Atlantic Yards permanent campaign , such support comes a lot easier for Forest City Ratner when Atlantic Yards gets an extra $105 million from the city and a special tax break worth up to $200 million. More outreach Forest City Ratner sponsored a basketball clinic Aug. 27-31 in Downtown Brooklyn featuring Nets player Josh Boone. Promotional pictures were circulated. Such p.r. wasn't...

Seventeen months ago, after approval of the Atlantic Yards project in December 2006, the Daily News massively overhyped --with the headline "Nets go High Tech: Ratner throws in new home for elite Brooklyn HS in arena deal"--a vague plan by Forest City Ratner to "work with the City, State and the United Federation of Teachers on the creation of a new 21st Century Brooklyn Tech High School, at a yet to be determined location in the borough." There was no promised new home, and it certainly wasn't guaranteed to be Atlantic Yards. In April 2007, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle shot down any such plans, saying that influential alumni were opposed to the idea of leaving the largest high school in the country--prime potential real estate--and that the Department of Education had no plans to move. Now they tell us The Daily News should've responded immediately. Instead, more than a year later, we get a story today, disingenuously headlined Brooklyn Tech building not slate...

It began in mid-afternoon with two distinct shows of strength: hours before the 4:30 pm start of the state hearing on the Atlantic Yards Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), hundreds of people—many organized by union locals and Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) signatories—were already lining up outside the Klitgord Auditorium of the New York Institute of Technology on Jay Street in Downtown Brooklyn. (Developer Forest City Ratner catered 1500 lunches.) Across the street, at 4 pm, the developer held what was billed as a press conference but was really a no-question-time rally, an opportunity for politicians, union/civic leaders, and celebrities to vouch their support for the project. (Photo by NYC IndyMedia) When the epic hearing ended at 11:30 pm (the building had to close), three hours later than billed yet still too soon for hundreds of people who’d signed up to speak, much of the crowd had left. (For hours, there was a line to get into the room, which holds about 800.) Pr...