Public discussion about parking permits led the New York Times back into city archives to explore the Giuliani administration's 1998 bestowal of parking permits to select supporters.Among them were "Democrats for Giuliani," including developer Bruce Ratner and Forest City Ratner executive Jim Stuckey, who had served, respectively, as city Consumer Affairs Commissioner and head of the Public Development Corporation (precursor to the New York City Economic Development Corporation).
But do they still have the permits?
(Click on graphics to enlarge.)
Update April 21, 2009
A commenter takes me to task, saying that none of the documents state that Bruce Ratner or Jim Stuckey received a parking permit.
I acknowledge that the documents are ambiguous, and that the first page of the series shows notations regarding each person's request. I took my cue from the New York Times's annotation of the third page (right), which indicated that everyone at the top of the page got a permit.
Thus, I concluded that those on the bottom half of the page also got a permit.
Update May 2014
I took another look at this post and find myself agreeing more with the commenter.
The evidence is too ambiguous to indicate anything more than Ratner and Stuckey were Democrats for Giuliani.
Update May 2014
I took another look at this post and find myself agreeing more with the commenter.
The evidence is too ambiguous to indicate anything more than Ratner and Stuckey were Democrats for Giuliani.
Norm,
ReplyDeleteRe your post the other day about parking permits handed out under Giuliani: I’ve carefully studied the NYTimes blog entry you refer to as well as all the documents linked to. None of these state that Bruce Ratner or Jim Stuckey received a parking permit.
They are indeed listed as members of Democrats for Giuliani, but as former government officials. While some Democrats for Giuliani did get permits, as far as I can tell, these were limited to currently serving officials. None of the former officials seem to have gotten permits. Did you simply assume everyone on this committee got one?
For someone like you, who’s usually careful to the point of obsession, this seems surprisingly sloppy, and I think you jumped to an insupportable conclusion.