Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

From the Community Newspaper Group editorial endorsing Mayor Mike Bloomberg: Concerning the sprawling Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the mayor’s team admitted long ago that it didn’t handle the development properly and has since done a much better job. That improvement deserves praise. A much better job ? Do they mean the accelerated transfer of subsidies or the dissing of the Independent Budget Office ? Term limits Remember, the Community Newspaper Group is owned by Rupert Murdoch, who agreed to have his New York Post support Bloomberg's effort to overturn and extend term limits. And consider that the victories yesterday by Bill de Blasio in the race for Public Advocate and John Liu in the race for Comptroller relied not only on the Working Families Party's endorsement and ground troops but the candidates' vocal opposition to term limits. Progress, not politics? The endorsement claims: And best of all, he’s not a politician. Indeed, critics complain that the mayor’s...

In February, I pointed out that Mayor Mike Bloomberg, on his campaign web site, neglected to mention two new baseball stadiums and a long-stalled basketball arena, much less that subsidies for the latter might make the arena a money loser for the city. Indeed, since then, the Independent Budget Office has estimated that the arena would be a loss for the city. In the latest issue of the free newspaper Fed Up New Yorkers (FUNY), Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's Daniel Goldstein focuses on AY , writing: On June 24th he pressured the MTA Board into approving a new sweetheart land rights deal for Forest City Ratner. Just after the MTA had been bailed out, purportedly fiscally prudent Bloomberg pressured the Board to accept $20 million up front and $80 million over 22 years from Ratner for the rights to the valuable 9-acre rail yard portion of the Atlantic Yards site in the heart of Brooklyn. Never mind that the yards had been appraised at $214.5 million and Ratner had originally ...

Comptroller Bill Thompson is the current front-runner (in fundraising, at least) among Democratic candidates for mayor but of course has an uphill battle in his effort to unseat Mayor Mike Bloomberg's effort to get a third term, made possible by the overturning and extension of term limits. While Thompson has hammered away on term limits, he's not exactly challenging Bloomberg on Atlantic Yards. From an interview with Democratic mayoral candidate , by Louise Crawford of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn: Atlantic Yards? " I did initially support it. I have real concerns now. I will continue to re-evaluate it, meet with individuals, have a conversation. I plan to sit down to talk and evaluate," he said. [Crawford's] reaction: You lived in Prospect Heights and initially supported the Atlantic Yards???? Yikes. And why aren't you more outraged now? Many Brooklyn Democrats are. My reaction: Thompson has had ample time to evaluate. In May 2008, he was pretty vague abou...

There's no campaign web site just yet. However, after two terms and the extension of term limits, the Borough President's web site surely does double duty .

As Election Day approached--not one with much choice for New Yorkers in local election, as City Limits reported --Mayor Mike Bloomberg, for the first time, yesterday had to listen to members of the public scold and rebuke him in the four-hour "comment period" before he signed an extension of term limits into law. At least one person commenting yesterday, Prospect Heights activist Patti Hagan, managed to shove Bloomberg's own unequivocal words--five separate statements--in his face while connecting his "power grab" to Atlantic Yards. She commented: After your strong-armed, knuckle busting performance last month to get term limit extended, I'd like to refresh your memory on the subject of term limits extension--in your own words. You said: "The public has spoken twice and they have spoken quite clearly. I don't know that you should keep shopping for a different answer." ...Unfortunately, Mr. Mayor, you have a bad habit of ignoring the People of ...

On WBAI radio yesterday, sociologist and City Watch co-host Bill DiFazio invited ACORN chief organizer Bertha Lewis to defend the organization against charges of voter registration fraud--and, at about 17:50 in, brought up Atlantic Yards. (Lewis was elevated from New York to the national role in the wake of an embezzlement scandal .) BD: Maybe it’s my ignorance, but I don’t know what’s happening with Atlantic Yards any more. I never hear about the Atlantic Yards project. (He must not have been trying that hard.) Personally, I’ve been against it…. It’s one of the few things we don’t agree on. (See his comments when Lewis was a guest in February 2007.) But what’s happening with it. What’s the current status? Not paying as much attention BL: I have to say I haven't been paying as much attention since I’ve just gotten a new position, I am now chief organizer for ACORN national. So... Lewis continued, unmindful about the "AY is dead" meme or the proliferating reports of B...

City Council Member David Yassky, known for his waffling on Atlantic Yards, today circulated a letter (full text below) explaining his equivocation on term limits. Note the curious logic. On the one hand, Yassky wants voters to have a choice, not acknowledging the huge power of Mayor Mike Bloomberg's incumbency, and the mayor's $100 million war chest: I became convinced that the right choice at this point in time was to leave open for voters the option of choosing to continue the Bloomberg Administration next November. On the other hand, Yassky admits that he won't challenge the sitting Comptroller, who has the advantage of incumbency: Finally, I know that some on the other side of this debate have accused Council Members of acting out of self-interest in voting to change term limits. For my part, I can say unequivocally that I saw no personal benefit in the Mayor's proposal. As you know, I have been planning to run for City Comptroller next year, and have felt confid...

While the New York Times published six letters on Thursday, the day of the City Council's vote to overturn and extend voter-imposed term limits, it had not published a letter since. That's a serious lapse, after all, there were 710 comments on the Times's CityRoom blog responding to the Council's vote and 105 comments after Bloomberg defended the move on the radio. Even if the Times eventually publishes some letters, it has partly squelched the instant voices of dissent. Oh, and the Sunday City section surely has an article about the implications of the term limits extension, right? Nope. The lead article is about the proliferation of specialty coffee shops.

Who would've guessed that Mayor Mike Bloomberg's successful effort to have the City Council overturn and extend voter-imposed term limits (for themselves, Borough Presidents, and citywide office holders) would make the Atlantic Yards approval process look like an exercise in direct democracy ? The Atlantic Yards project was announced in December 2003; in September 2005, the Empire State Development Corporation began the process of the environmental review, which took 15 months. Bloomberg's power move took all of three weeks. Of course, as with Atlantic Yards, he had supporters lined up. Supporters' main justification--that the fiscal crisis required stability in office--was bogus. Most of those who will benefit from the opportunity to run again won't help with the fiscal crisis; after all, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz knows more about organizing concert series than municipal finance and some City Council members, if you hear them talk,are not the bri...

Daily News columnist Errol Louis, a noted Atlantic Yards supporter, has been one of the most powerful voices against Mayor Mike Bloomberg's effort to have the City Council override voter-imposed term limits, writing today, in a column headlined The rich versus the rest : We love the rule of law that says we are all equal as citizens, and we love the checks and balances - including term limits - that keep power from accumulating in the hands of a few. These are the finest of democratic instincts, and everyone who signed a petition, made a phone call or berated a Council hack in recent days deserves a medal. Perhaps the most effective testimony (at least according to It's Our Decision , the coalition opposing Bloomberg's power grab) came from Noticing New York blogger Michael D.D. White, who cleverly asked if he could extend his remarks and was told no, as Council Member Simcha Felder, the hearing chair, belatedly recognized that White, like the mayor, wanted the rules to be ...

"Is Mayor Mugabe an outrageous comparison?" asks Tom Robbins of the Village Voice. City Council Members Letitia James and Bill de Blasio have filed suit to block the Council's scheduled vote tomorrow to overturn voter-imposed term limits and give Mayor Mike Bloomberg (and many others) a shot at another term. ( Update : it failed , but an amendment will be offered to the bill tomorrow, asking the council to approve a referendum.)

( Update Wednesday 4:40 pm: Yassky supports an amendment to the pending bill that would require a referendum.) The New York Times reported last week on City Council Member David Yassky's indecision on term limits: Indeed, in an interview on Wednesday morning, Mr. Yassky repeated his longstanding opposition to changing the term limits law without taking the matter to the voters who approved it in two public referendums. “I think that clearly, the better way to change term limits is by referendum,” he said. “I have no doubt that it’s the better way to accomplish this.” Then why does Mr. Yassky, who has been part of the progressive faction in Brooklyn politics, place himself in the category of the undecided council members? For one thing, he said, Mr. Bloomberg remains highly popular in the district and many voters are eager to have some degree of stability in local government in a period of economic turbulence. Given the overwhelming sentiment expressed in a Quinnipiac Poll held ...

Despite significantly changed circumstances regarding the Atlantic Yards project, Walk Don't Destroy 4, the fourth annual walkathon Saturday from Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, in many ways was similar to previous versions. (Marchers on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope; photo by Jonathan Barkey .) While yesterday’s event was a candlelight walk rather than an afternoon one, it raised $45,000 for the legal fight against Atlantic Yards, a sum only slightly less than the $50,000 raised last year. DDDB reported 175 walkers (I counted at least 160) and just over 500 donors, while at last year’s event , DDDB reported 200 walkers and 600 donors. “Even though we're in the midst of a very difficult economy, and a presidential campaign competing for funds, our donor base continues to grow.” said Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn spokesman Daniel Goldstein. "Fundraising for the two lawsuits is an ongoing, daily effort, and the response consistently reminds us of the support we have, w...

Mayor Mike Bloomberg's effort to get the City Council to extend voter-approved term limits deserves continuing scrutiny, but the coverage and commentary in today's newspapers is anemic. There's nothing in the New York Times. The New York Daily News offers an encomium to Bloomberg from financier Felix Rohatyn, who conveniently ignores that the term limits override would apply to the Council, the Borough Presidents and more. The New York Post does some investigating, and discovers that Bloomberg "showered cash on key City Council members with the power to kill a term-limits extension bill in the last year." And the Daily News reports that many of those fighting the override have personal or political agenda, though some, an observer acknowledges, are motivated by principle. Missing the larger point Still, we are missing a larger point about ways to improve political representation. If those fighting Bloomberg's plan are successful in gaining a referendum to a...

The big news from yesterday's second (and final) day of hearings on the Bloomberg administration's attempt to extend voter-imposed term limits was not the dueling arguments--most were not new--but the clear evidence of manipulation. (If only the New York Times had done such an assiduous job covering that August 2006 Atlantic Yards hearing .) (Photo of State Senator Eric Adams, with Rep. Anthony Weiner, a mayoral candidate, at right, from the New York Times .) As the Times reported today, in an article headlined Bloomberg Enlists His Charities in Bid to Stay : Michael R. Bloomberg, who says he strictly separates his philanthropy from his job as mayor of New York, is pressing many of the community, arts and neighborhood groups that rely on his private donations to make the case for his third term, according to interviews with those involved in the effort. As opposition mounts to his plan to ease term limits, those people said, the mayor and his top aides have asked leaders of org...

The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia has some lessons, perhaps, for those City Council members aiming to overturn voter-imposed term limits. As summarized by New York Magazine's John Leonard: It was at the Magic Lantern Theater, on a stage set for Durrenmatt's Minotaurus, under a television set with the sound turned off, that Vaclav Havel and his friends -- writers, professors, actors, and jailbird intellectuals -- met to compose a brand-new social contract. Ash tells us that once when they were tired and depressed, students appeared onstage dressed comically as Young Pioneers (red kerchiefs, white blouses, and pigtails): "It is the Committee for a More Joyful Present. We have come, they say, to cheer you up -- and make sure you don't turn into another politburo. Then they hand out little circular mirrors to each member of the plenum." So that the members of that plenum would have to look at themselves as they wrote the future.

I wasn't able to make it to the marathon (10.5 hours) hearing yesterday on whether the City Council should overturn voter-imposed term limits. (Heck, I wouldn't have gotten in, unless I came way late.) Still, thanks to the New York Times's extensive live-blogging ( evening and afternoon ), there were definitely some Atlantic Yards references (and perhaps more than reported). That makes sense, because, as I wrote yesterday, Bloomberg's effort, like Atlantic Yards, is a backroom deal that has generated much outrage. NY reported that 75 percent of those polled favor a referendum, rather than a Council vote. (Photos by Michael D.D. White. The Times has video , with Mario Cuomo, Letitia James, and especially Charles Barron.) The fundamental lie First, let's remember that the move to get Bloomberg a third term began well before the financial crisis. The Times's article today summarized the issue: For more than nine hours, the hearing returned repeatedly to a singl...