So yesterday I asked the Empire State Development Corporation if they had any comment on the questions raised by state Senator Bill Perkins about the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation (BALDC), but I got no answer. Rich Calder of the New York Post was similarly ignored.(The BALDC is the Issuer in the chart at right, from the Barclays Center Arena Preliminary Official Statement prepared by Goldman Sachs. Click to enlarge.)
Ongoing review
But Calder reported on the newspaper's Brooklyn blog (sans links to any of my coverage or even the Perkins letter) that something is percolating:
A spokeswoman for Paterson today sent the Post an e-mail saying “In addition, I can add that there is an objective, ongoing review being conducted by our counsel on the procedures. Top administration officials along with the chairmen of ESDC and the MTA met with Assemblyman [Hakeem] Jeffries last week to address concerns that he has with respect to Mr. Ratner’s commitment to building affordable housing. We are carefully reviewing.”Ok, so perhaps the counsel for Paterson, Peter Kiernan, will produce a statement sometime Tuesday, a day before the expected "master closing" in which all contracts are supposed to be signed.
As for Jeffries' concerns, the affordable housing depends on incentives and penalties built into the contractual documents that won't be made available, as well as the city's willingness to allocate scarce tax-exempt housing bonds to this project above others.
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