Passing the buck: when it comes to Atlantic Yards, elected officials and judges say the other's responsible

From state Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman's decision yesterday in the case challenging the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) 2009 approval of the Atlantic Yards Modified General Project Plan:

At this late juncture, petitioners’ redress is a matter for the political will, and not for this court which is constrained, under the limited standard for SEQRA review, to reject petitioners’ challenge.

From Governor David Paterson's statement in response to a question on Tuesday:

"Since the project was already in implementation when I came into office, I waited for the Court of Appeals to make a decision, and they ruled the way they did."

That makes it look like, once Atlantic Yards got started, it had inevitable momentum.

But that's not so. After all, as I noted, it was a pretty "late juncture" when, last year, Forest City Ratner renegotiated deals with the ESDC and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

(And, as NLG's Eric McClure points out, Paterson wasn't elected governor.)