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About DDDB
Our coalition consists of 21 community organizations and
there are 51 community organizations formally
aligned in opposition to the Ratner plan.
DDDB is a volunteer-run organization. We have over 5,000
subscribers to our email newsletter, and 7,000 petition
signers. Over 800 volunteers have registered with DDDB
to form our various teams, task-forces and committees
and we have over 150 block captains. We have a 20 person
volunteer legal team of local lawyers supplementing our
retained attorneys.
We are funded entirely by individual donations from the community at large
and through various fundraising events we and supporters have organized.
We have the financial support of well over 3,500 individual
donors.
Leading Atlantic Yards Opponents Trounce Opponents in Democratic Primary While Bruce Ratner is making a mess over at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush after putting shovels in the ground, two of the most high profile political opponents of Atlantic Yards were held in high regard yesterday by the voters. Of course Atlantic Yards was not the defining issue in yesterday's races for State Senate in the 18th district and State Committee member (Male District Leader) in the 52nd district, but the fervor of the opposition sure helped Chris Owens win office for the first time and Senator Velmanette Montgomery retain her seat in the Senate. And both highlighted their Atlantic Yards opposition during their campaigns.
Owens beat his two challengers (Jesse Strauss and Stephen Williamson) getting over 50% of the vote and Senator Montgomery pummeled her challenger receiving nearly 81% of the vote.)
It is pretty clear that in Central Brooklyn an overwhelming percentage of the electorate is very comfortable with the position these two leaders have held over the past seven years.
More from Norman Oder on his Atlantic Yards Report:
…What do District Leaders do in their unpaid positions? Serve as liaisons between the community and elected officials, select the Brooklyn Democratic Party Leader, determine the slate of Democratic Judicial Candidates, and endorse candidates for local office.
Because they can raise campaign funds, District Leaders are essentially on the farm team for future elective office.
In the 52nd District: Owens and Simon
Despite endorsements and robo-calls from Borough President Marty Markowitz and 33rd District Council Member Steve Levin, and a slew of mailings, the two machine candidates for District Leader in the 52nd Assembly District, Hope Reichhbach and Steve Williamson, lost big.
According to the Brooklyn Paper, the results were:
Chris Owens, 2,154 (50 percent) Jesse Strauss, 1,361 (32 percent) Stephen Williamson, 771 (18 percent)
Jo Anne Simon, 2,645 (63 percent) Hope Reichbach, 1,657 (37 percent)
Given that Levin won his district with a majority of votes in Williamsburg, which is not part of the 52nd District, it was an uphill battle for Williamson and Reichbach against candidates from Brownstone Brooklyn.
One source of suspense was whether Jesse Strauss, who ran with Simon, both endorsed by the Independent Neighborhood Democrats, would split the reform vote with Owens sufficiently to let Williamson prevail.
That was not to be, as Owens, who has more name recognition due to longer service and his 2006 race for Congress (in which he was the candidate against Atlantic Yards), relied on the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats (CBID) and other endorsements.
(He got a last-minute endorsement from the Brooklyn Paper, which, after I chided them for not guiding voters in the print edition, issued endorsements online on Monday. Not that I'm saying there's a connection.)
Owens: anti-Atlantic Yards spirit helped
CBID First VP Raul Rothblatt shot the video below, in which Owens said an anti-Atlantic Yards spirit helped him win.
"When I saw people today at [PS] 282," Owens said. "People were coming not in large numbers... but they were coming, clearly looking to do something different. They stood there with Steve Levin, the Councilman, earnestly talking to them, and they earnestly listened to Steve Levin. And they earnestly listened to Ashley, who is one of Steve Levin's staff members, who was there, talking about Hope and Williamson. And then they walked over to me and said, Tell me why you should be the one. And I said, Because we've got to shape things up, and you're looking at basically people who will do the same things over and over again, only with a little bit more money. If we're going to do something very different, you've got to get someone who both has experience and who has the guts to be a nut."
"This is victory not just for me as a candidate," he continued. "This is a CBID victory. This is a statement that a progressive organization touting progressive values not only resonates in a part of Brooklyn but can actually deliver votes. And it's a statement that we understand strategically how to win an election. We out-covered them, we out-hustled them, we out-literatured them. But we clearly outfought them in terms of where we thought this battle was going to take place. They were blown away at 282 and PS 9 and 321.... I said, This is an area that hated Atlantic Yards. This is an area that clearly has always stood up for Major Owens and progressive values. This is an area that's looking for somebody to say, c'mon, keep it going, and you guys aren't it, down in Brooklyn Heights. We are it. CBID is it. This is the part of the 52nd that's been waiting to have its voice heard for real."
Legislative races
In other contested races, according to the Brooklyn Paper, incumbents easily prevailed.
In the 18th Senatorial District, veteran Velmanette Montgomery won by a nearly 4-1 margin over challenger Mark Pollard (an attorney and political newcomer), who relied on funds from charter school supporters. Maybe now we'll find out who paid for several of her mailings. …
This one-night-only performance is dedicated to The Civilians’ multi-year investigation into the Atlantic Yards development project. Civilians’ artists will perform songs and monologues taken from interviews with Brooklyn residents, business owners, community activists, politicians, students, and many others. Using material gathered for the company’s critically-acclaimed presentation of Brooklyn at Eye Level in 2008, along with new interviews about the most current events, Let Me Ascertain You: Atlantic Yards explores how the fate of the city is decided in present-day New York and what can be learned from this ongoing story of politics, money, and the places we call home.
Atlantic Yards will be the focus of a new Civilians’ work, In the Footprint, which will premiere at the Irondale Center in Fort Greene later this fall, so be sure to catch this first evening of songs and stories about Brooklyn!
Performers: Emily Ackerman, Marsha Stephanie Blake, Aysan Çelik, Billy Eugene Jones, Jennifer R. Morris, Monica Risi, Heather Simms, Joaquin Torres, Colleen Werthmann, and Sam Breslin Wright.
It is the first comprehensive review of the various lawsuits that were brought, primarily by DDDB, to challenge the Atlantic Yards project. The article reviews the suits, the judicial rulings and their meaning
beyond the Ratner project. The authors also suggest some ideas for reform.
Such articles (and we expect more over the coming months and years) are important for truth telling in the face of Atlantic Yards revisionism that has been creeping forward since the March groundbreaking ceremony.
Regarding these lawsuits (one is still outstanding, awaiting a ruling)—we are certain that the law is stacked against communities and residents, but that all along we and our legal team were right on the law.
Norman Oder writes about his article on his blog and includes excerpts and an embedded file of the article:
Atlantic Yards has survived all court challenges, but some of the wins have been ugly, leaving significant doubts about the capacity of the legal system to oversee such projects. So let the revisionism begin. (Cf. a line from the New York Times on Atlantic Yards.)
In the same issue of The Urban Lawyer that contains a revisionist article on the seminal Berman v. Parker eminent domain case, the author of that article, Amy Lavine, a staff attorney at Albany Law School's Government Law Center, and I collaborate on an article titled "Urban Redevelopment Policy, Judicial Deference to Unaccountable Agencies, and Reality in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards Project."
The article is embedded at bottom. Lavine did the first draft, and offered me credit because she relied so much on my work. I collaborated significantly on revisions. (Note Lavine's disclosure--unknown to me until this article--that she "provided limited research for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s state eminent domain and MTA lawsuits.")
(The quarterly journal is published by the American Bar Association Section of State and Local Government Law, and edited by professors and students at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.)
Below I offer some choice excerpts.
A public-private project?
We liken this project to a private-public development, rather than a public-private development, because it was devised by a private developer, it has significant private components and special private benefits, and because the public partner’s role has been more of an enabler than a policy-maker or supervisor.
NIMBY concerns?
Many of the concerns about Atlantic Yards might be classified as NIMBYist (not in my backyard), but many of the concerns are also well-founded, and project supporters’ attempts to paint critics as reactionary and frivolous are overstated and plainly incorrect. The planning process, or lack thereof, raises serious concerns about transparency and public accountability in the planning process, and the lawsuits have sought vindication of important constitutional and statutory rights.
Deferential judges
The courts have repeatedly used the principle of legislative deference to pass on the difficult issues—such as whether an arena is really a public good, whether private developers should be able to dictate that public good, the meaning of “blight,” and when a project changes so much as to require reapproval...
The Second Avenue subway, finally under construction on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, is of course a vast underground project...
But the project will also include construction above ground — not just station entrances but also a half-dozen boxy buildings on corners along Second Avenue that the transit agency acquired through condemnation. These so-called ancillary buildings, ranging in height from five to eight stories, will house ventilation equipment. They are also intended to disperse smoke and allow for evacuation from subway tunnels in the event of an emergency.
To the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of New York, the proposed buildings, designed by DMJM+Harris and Arup, part of the team that designed the Jet Blue Terminal at Kennedy International Airport, are “handsome in proportion and detail, while simple and straightforward in design.”
But to some real estate specialists, the structures represent a missed opportunity or an unwelcome industrial intrusion into a residential neighborhood, or both. Richard Bass, the chief planning and development specialist for Herrick, Feinstein, a law firm based in Midtown Manhattan, said that at three of the sites — on 97th Street, 72nd Street and 69th Street — the M.T.A. could have worked with private developers to incorporate the ancillary buildings into residential towers.
...On each of the corners cited by Mr. Bass, the developers could have sought development rights, known as air rights, from smaller adjacent residential buildings, Mr. Bass said. He said taller apartment buildings would have been more in character with a residential neighborhood and would have helped fill a need for moderately priced housing. In addition, the M.T.A. could have had the developers share in the cost of the subway structures, Mr. Bass said.
For those of us who remember the charges about how the Vanderbilt Yard site just "sat" undeveloped for years, here's the money quote:
But transit-oriented developments can also be used to defray construction costs. Julia Vitullo-Martin, director of the Center for Urban Innovation at the Regional Plan Association, said the M.T.A. typically had not engaged in strategic thinking when it came to its real estate. “The M.T.A. does not think of its real estate as either an investment opportunity or a development opportunity,” she said.
The announcement will name Arana Hankin as the project manager and first "head" of the project for ESDC. Oder tries to find information on Ms. Hankin beyond her loyalty to Governor Paterson. Though there is a thin record of her work, Oder does find some pertinent facts.
Good luck Ms. Hankin, you'll need it to oversee this debacle.
The news of the appointment is based on sources believed reliable; the rest of the article is based on public sources. The ESDC confirmed that an announcement about a new project manager is coming this week, though no name was mentioned
After years with no individual formally overseeing Atlantic Yards, the government agency in charge of the project, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), will soon name a project manager.
However, that new staffer--at least according to the minimal publicly available evidence--lacks experience facing up to developers like Forest City Ratner and scrutinizing complex development projects, much less engaging the public.
And that may be the point, given that the ESDC has dutifully found blight on the project site, overstated expected economic benefits, and insisted in court that the official ten-year timetable is reasonable.
Getting a loyalist in place
This week, the ESDC is expected to name 33-year-old Arana Hankin, who has a relatively thin résumé but close connections to Governor David Paterson--a staunch, if misinformed, Atlantic Yards supporter--to this new, unadvertised position.
(Though the ESDC wouldn't say so, it looks like a volunteer, attorney, Susan Rahm, served as project manager during a two-year stint that ended last year.)
Is the appointment of Hankin (right in photo, at 11/24/09 meeting of the board of the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation), nearly five years after the agency began evaluating the project, an effort to impose order on Atlantic Yards?
That may be the ESDC's posture. Equally important, however, may be the governor's desire to place a loyalist in an ongoing position after his administration ends this year.
(Didn't Paterson impose a hiring freeze? Maybe there will be vacancies at the ESDC if some staffers take a state incentive program to retire. But shouldn't a position like this new one be announced and advertised, as was the ombudsman job?)
Though Hankin's been a Paterson aide in two stints, the only press account of her government service I could find--as described further below--suggests her willingness to pursue her boss's agenda, pressing the ESDC to move forward in funding a questionable project led by Elsie McCabe, wife of then-New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson...
Oder updated his story from yesterday with this encounter between community groups and Ms. Hankin in 2008:
...It turns out that Hankin has intersected with Atlantic Yards, though not in a way that gave assurance to project critics and opponents.
After David Paterson became governor in early 2008, the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (CBN) and other groups pressed to meet with him, Terry Urban, former CBN co-chair, told me.
Paterson promised that Tim Gilchrist, who was in charge of economic development for his office, would attend that August 2008 meeting. "[Architect] Marshall Brown flew in from Chicago to present the UNITY plan, and several representatives from the larger community groups were there to show the extent of support for it, and to put a reasonable face on our suggestions for changing the proposed project, and demonstrate our willingness to work with the new leadership," Urban recounted.
"Gilchrist was a no-show. Ms. Hankin, as a Paterson aide, explained that she worked in the city office, and so chaired the meeting in his absence," Urban stated. "With the low-level staff on hand, she listened politely, and said she'd re-schedule with Gilchrist. She never did. Unfortunately for us, it was a competent stonewalling maneuver, merely another of many to which we were accustomed."
Posted: 8.24.10
Look What Barclays Is Up To
Is Barclays really the kind of "corporate citizen" whose logo we want plastered all over the crossroads of Brooklyn
and that should benefit from taxpayer subsidies?
So Barclays Bank PLC, the "major global financial services provider," is in the news this week, and it's not because the company has committed more than $200 million to plaster its name on the in-construction Atlantic Yards arena, aka the Barclays Center.
Nor is it because Forest City Ratner has promised $4 million to add the Barclays Center name to the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street transit hub.
Rather, it's because Barclays has committed, as part of deferred prosecution agreements, "to forfeit $298 million to the United States and to the New York County District Attorney’s Office in connection with violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA)," according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
Essentially, the bank used subterfuge to let banks from Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan, and Burma, as well as prohibited persons, move money through the U.S. financial system.
The tab for Barclays might have been more, since it agreed to pay $176 million for other violations, but the DOJ press release described that as "concurrent," which means that the violator's obligations are satisfied via the $298 million. (The exact calculations of fines is ambiguous.)
An AY connection?
None of the coverage, as far as I can tell, connected the Barclays prosecution with the firm's effort to establish a foothold in the United States via the Brooklyn arena.
However, Barclays voluntarily disclosed its long-running violations only eight months before the naming rights deal was announced--and likely during or just before the deal was being negotiated.
And this certainly casts doubts on Barclays as a "good corporate citizen," a term the Empire State Development Corporation used for Forest City Ratner, which has an murky role--with no charged wrongdoing--in the Ridge Hill corruption case. ...
We have been hard at work on the cut and are extremely happy with how the film is coming together. In the meantime we have put together a trailer to start building interest in the film.
A lot of Brooklyn politicians—and local residents—gave their support to the Atlantic Yards complex assuming it would be host to "the Brooklyn Nets." Now, they can't be so sure.
A team spokesman, Barry Baum, confirms news reports that the team submitted an application to change its name to the NBA. The timing, he said, was in order to be ready for the move to Brooklyn, expected in late 2012. But Baum wouldn't specify what the desired name would be or whether it would use "Brooklyn" or "New York" as the geographic name. The NBA also wouldn't comment.
While the sports world is abuzz with speculation over a nickname change, local officials are more concerned about the geography.
"The owners from day one—the one pledge they made, beside other pledges, was that the name would be the Brooklyn something," Borough President Marty Markowitz said. "And I don't care what the second name is as long as the first name is Brooklyn." ...
An agreement that Ratner's group negotiated with state officials to secure subsidies they needed for the project leaves open whether New York or Brooklyn would be used. That agreement was signed last October, about a month after the sale to Prokhorov was announced but before it closed.
"The company shall cause the team to play all of its home games using a name that incorporates the words 'New York' or 'Brooklyn,' unless otherwise agreed to in writing by ESDC," the document states, using the acronym for the Empire State Development Corporation.
Markowtiz says he wasn't aware of the document and would be disappointed if the team chose "New York" for its name.
"I know my colleagues in Brooklyn would feel very upset about it," he said.
Funny, he didn't seem to care about any of his colleagues (or constiuents) who have been furious about the Atlatnic Yards scam he spent the past seven years cheerleading.
The article continues:
But Markowitz said he didn't see any business reason why Prokhorov would break Ratner's promise. "The whole idea of locating a basketball team in Brooklyn is because of the Brooklyn persona, the Brooklyn brand, the whole Brooklynish thing," he said. "The name 'Brooklyn' is probably better known or at least equally known in the world as 'New York.'" (Emphasis added.)
Markowitz threw out a couple of other name suggestions of his own that would keep the borough's name intact—the Brooklyn Bridges and the Brooklyn Attitudes, for example. Prokhorov has been a bit more cavalier about the issue, once suggesting to reporters that he could rename the team after his girlfriend, except that would mean he'd have to change the team's name often.
Posted: 8.12.10
In Court Argument Atlantic Yards Called An Embarrassment Of Democracy
DDDB attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff took roughly one hour in court yesterday to lay out the "highlights" of the whole sordid Atlantic Yards partnership between Ratner and the ESDC. As Brinckerhoff said, if he was to cover all of the history, which he called an "embarrassment of democracy," it would have taken days.
Norman Oder reports in detail on the "surreal" courtroom drama:
Yesterday in Kings County Supreme Court emerged the most complete—and, to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), completely off-base—assault on the Atlantic Yards project ever heard in any courtroom, but it occurred before a handful of spectators and a single, not-so-engaged judge, well after most people, officials, and editors had relegated Atlantic Yards to the status of old news.
The case involves only three plaintiffs (two of whom are corporate entities owned by longtime footprint property owner Henry Weinstein), none of whom were in the courtroom. However, in challenging the ESDC to issue a new Determination & Findings because the justifications for eminent domain had changed markedly since 2006, it was essentially a challenge to the project itself. Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges faced dueling motions to both dismiss the case and expand the record.
With charges that the project timetable is “a complete fantasy” and the project is “a betrayal of the public trust” and “an embarrassment to democracy,” it was, perhaps, the argument that attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff should’ve made last October before the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, in a stately setting before engaged judges and a packed house. But, rather than get to the fundamentals of the sweetheart deal, that oral argument ran aground on debates about the contours of the state’s public use clause and whether the case should have gone to the high court in the first place.
Also, as Brinckerhoff stressed yesterday in court, some of the key elements of the ESDC’s behavior came to light only after the Court of Appeals’s decision in November, as well as the previous, seemingly dispositive appellate ruling: “They timed their disclosures in order to avoid judicial review.”
ESDC attorney Philip Karmel, unbowed, responded forcefully and sometimes dismissively to Brinckerhoff’s kitchen-sink arguments, some of which were not exactly on point. Curiously enough, however, Karmel never explained why the crucial Development Agreement, released in January weeks after it was publicly promised, was withheld for so long.
(The case is officially known as Peter Williams Enterprises, Inc et al. v. Empire State Development Corporation, but three of the original six petitioners, including Williams, Freddy's Bar & Backroom, and Daniel Goldstein, left the case as a condition of reaching eminent domain settlements. Besides the Weinstein entities, the other petitioner is The Gelin Group, the corporate name for the owner, or at least occupier, of a home on Dean Street scheduled for condemnation in a later phase.) ...
Starting off
Brinckerhoff began by thanking Gerges for giving him the time to argue and “for taking this matter seriously,” a statement that seemed a bit aspirational, aiming to goad Gerges into doing exactly that.
Brinckerhoff said he was acting for his clients, for all those affected by the project, and “frankly, for the public at large,” who’ve suffered “a really profound betrayal of the public trust by the respondent Urban Development Corporation [aka ESDC] in league with the developer.”
Gerges kept his poker face. There has to be a point where new eminent domain findings must be issued, Brinckerhoff said, and “we bitterly disagree at where that point will be.” ...
“Let me be clear about what I’m attempting to do,” declared Brinckerhoff, whose pepper-and-salt beard and sometimes unruly curls give him somewhat more of a professorial than corporate air, though his boutique law firm does quite well. “There’s a whole set of facts found in the document,” and none of such new information was disclosed until after the petition in this case was filed in January. Such facts, “put the nail in the coffin on what’s been going on for years.”
And that, he said, is why his clients should be granted, at a minimum, leave to amend the record to add such facts “deliberately concealed from us. ...
“[ESDC attorney] Mr. Karmel says he categorically denies a ‘deplorable lack of transparency,’” Brinckerhoff said, playing a bit of a trump card. “One thing you didn’t hear is an explanation of why their wonderful disclosures were timed in a way to avoid public review.”
“They love transparency--where’s the proof?” he asked incredulously. “It’s not there.”
“It’s clear now, crystal clear, it was part of a purposeful plot to deceive the public, deceive the judiciary,” Brinckerhoff said. “ So far it’s been successful. To say he categorically denies it is offensive.”
Addressing Gerges, he implored, “I think, I hope, I pray that the court recognizes we should be allowed to put these facts in a petition and have them deny it.” ...
Remember, the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) asserts that "Whatever the pace may be for the delivery of the many public benefits of the [Atlantic Yards] Project, the nature of those benefits remains the same."
I wrote yesterday that such a claim was poppycock--of course affordable housing and tax revenues arriving at a vastly slower schedule would make a difference.
Here's another reason why: the nature of those benefits, at least when it comes to the first subsidized housing units, would in fact change.
Remember, the Atlantic Yards affordable housing was sold to the public and supported by ACORN as a way to help the poor. Forest City Ratner attorney Jeffrey Braun swore in a 1/25/08 affidavit (p. 5) in a case challenging the Atlantic Yards environmental review:
“Furthermore, pursuant to an innovative Community Benefits Agreement, the FCRC affiliates that sponsor the project are contractually bound to provide a wide array of far-reaching benefits to the historically most disadvantaged segments of Brooklyn’s communities…”
(Emphasis added)
Not only is that claim contradicted by the fact that a majority of the subsidized units would be unaffordable to ACORN's constituency, it's quite likely that the first building would be even lessaffordable to that constituency.
In five of the six scenarios contemplated for the first housing tower, the monthly rent for most of the affordable apartments would range from $2287 to $3790, depending on household size. Those are the kind of unaffordable rents that ACORN members have cited in arguing for the project.
From initial claims to new plan
Before I explain the potential configuration of that first tower, let's look back at the housing promises. ...
Continue reading if you can bear to see the broken promises spelled out.
It looks like not one but two judges will have to grapple with a fundamental charge regarding Atlantic Yards: that the project has changed so much since its approval in 2006 that the findings at that time--regarding both the environmental impact of the project and its expected benefits--are no longer valid.
That doesn't mean the judges will rule in favor of those challenging the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC). That, we've learned, is not exactly how courts in New York State work.
But it does mean they have to think about it. And tomorrow, in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn, Justice Abraham Gerges--however distracted and uninterested he was during the first part of the case on August 6--should not think the issues were resolved in similar case he dismissed in March.
(The hearing [at 10 AM on Tuesday August 10th] will be at Kings County State Supreme Court, IAS Part 74, 320 Jay Street, Room 17.21, Brooklyn. Here's the map.)
"Whatever the pace may be for the delivery of the many public benefits of the Project, the nature of those benefits remains the same," insisted the ESDC, a statement cited in Gerges's opinion.
That, of course, is poppycock.
Even if you take the ESDC at its word and assume that Atlantic Yards would be built in full as promised--a low-percentage bet--the pace for the delivery of public benefits surely can change their nature.
For example, 2250 units of affordable housing delivered over a decade would be far different than the same amount of housing delivered over 25 years. (And, of course, a much smaller project would produce even less housing.)
Tax revenues based on a full buildout of the project (including an office tower) over a decade are far different from those for a project it takes 25 years to build. (And, of course, a much smaller project would produce fewer tax revenues.) ... Issue moot?
In his earlier decision, Gerges discounted new evidence proffered, such as the Independent Budget Office's finding that the arena would be a net loss to the city, that a revised deal with Metropolitan Transportation Authority would produce a smaller replacement railyard, and that the affordable housing would be contingent upon housing subsidies.
Gerges saw the issue as moot, since previous courts, ruling on eminent domain, had declared that the 2006 General Project Plan and the eminent domain Determination & Findings (D&F ) were valid.
The Development Agreement and delays
However, in that case, he had no chance to consider the Development Agreement, which, as part of master closing documents not revealed until January 2010, give the developer six years to build the arena, 12 years to build Phase 1, 15 years to start construction of the platform, and 25 years to finish the project.
In court Friday, attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff, who represents three entities (two owned by the same person) challenging the D&F, charged that the Development Agreement "was intentionally withheld in bad faith" and that "We now know [the ten-year project timetable] is complete, utter fantasy."
In a parallel case heard in June by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman, community groups organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and BrooklynSpeaks asked Friedman to reconsider her decision that the ten-year timetable was valid. They cited the timeframe in the Development Agreement. ...
The pressure on the judges
Friedman, who's yet to issue a ruling on the reargument she heard in late June, faces some pressure to be intellectually consistent, even if she's reluctant to throw a wrench into a project that's under way.
After all, in her March ruling on the case she chastised the ESDC for a "deplorable lack of transparency." And that was before the damning Development Agreement was finally released.
So, Friedman might order the ESDC to produce a new report on the impacts of the project--a report that would not necessarily put a wrench in the arena or the first buildings.
But she has shown herself reluctant to insert a judicial role in a project she deems so far along, so it's more likely she won't. If so, she'd have to chastise the ESDC for an even greater lack of transparency.
Gerges is a condemnation judge. He typically doesn't get into these things. And, as Karmel argued August 6, a case known as Leichter stands for the proposition that even significant changes to a project plan do not trigger a new Determination & Findings.
Brinckerhoff said in January, "The question ultimately that that case doesn't address and no case addresses, is at what point do the changes become so significant that they have to result in an amended finding?"
And, noting that the Development Agreement had just surfaced, he added, "Obviously I feel very strongly we've gone well past it over the course of the last four or five months, particularly in the past week."
Gerges didn't agree in that earlier case. But he never let the Development Agreement be part of the record, either, and Brinckerhoff wants to add it to this later case.
Posted: 8.09.10
Atlantic Yards Timetable is "Complete, Utter Fantasy"
Norman Oder takes a look at Friday's oral argument in front of Judge Gerges in Kings County Supreme Court. The plaintiffs' argument is that Atlantic Yards has changed so substantially from its approval in 2006 that New York State needs to issue new findings and determinations as to what is the public use of the project.
It hinges on key development agreements held back from the public's view. As Oder states on his Atlantic Yards Report serious charges were, indeed, lodged about Atlantic Yards:
The Atlantic Yards Development Agreement "was intentionally withheld in bad faith."
"We now know [the ten-year project timetable] is complete, utter fantasy," declared petitioners' attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff .
Finally, in court yesterday, some serious charges were lodged about the essence of the Atlantic Yards project, part of the case challenging the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) eminent domain Determination & Findings (D&F), based on the premise that the project had changed so much that the ESDC had to reassess its goals and value.
And previous court cases, limited to the record of Atlantic Yards as of 2006, were unable to examine the true nature of the project.
Whether Brinckerhoff's arguments get anywhere is another question.
The start of the case certainly wasn't auspicious. After all, the two Atlantic Yards cases were set for 9:30 am, but state Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges didn’t arrive until 10:10. Then the first case, involving the easement held (and still claimed) by Peter Williams Enterprises (PWE), got about 35 minutes.
(There were a handful of AY opponents in the room, as well as additional lawyers for the defense.)
Then, as Brinckerhoff (who's also led the Atlantic Yards eminent case) began his case, Gerges seemed ready to dismiss it completely. And when Brinckerhoff got up some steam, Gerges seemed distracted, periodically consulting a clerk, apparently about another case that was imminent.
But Brinckerhoff did get a chance to (partially) make his points, notably that the ESDC's ten-year timetable was undermined by the belated and dishonest release of the Development Agreement. And the case was continued until next Tuesday, August 10, at 10 am, for further argument. ...
Article 78 Petition to
Compel the ESDC to Issue New Determinations and Findings
Under the New York State Eminent Domain Procedure Law
(Filed January 19, 2010 in Manhattan State Supreme Court)
She works very hard, but when she can she enjoys relaxing in her backyard in Westchester rather than in the massive parking lots she is preparing to create in Prospect Heights. Also, like her predecessor Jim Stuckey and her boss Bruce Ratner, she is the product of the revolving door of the city's Economic Development Corporation.
MaryAnne Gilmartin is the executive vice president of commercial and residential development at Forest City Ratner Companies, where she's been since 1994. She's overseeing the controversial $4 billion, 22-acre Atlantic Yards development, one of the most significant developments in Brooklyn's history. She also led the construction of the new 1.6 million-square-foot New York Times headquarters in Midtown. Before working at FCRC, she participated in the city's Urban Fellows Program and spent seven years at the Public Development Corporation (now the EDC).
... How do you get from your house in Westchester to Forest City's headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn every day?
I have a driver … I used to laugh with Bruce [Ratner] when I was pregnant with each of my children that I would go into labor on the BQE and have to name one of them after an exit. ...
How did you end up in development?
It was really serendipity and a little bit of air-conditioning. For the Urban Fellows Program, you interviewed with city commissioners. I toured the various agencies and was aghast at the conditions -- desks in the hall, fairly deplorable buildings. I arrived for my interview at the PDC, and it was air-conditioned and carpeted. I thought, let me try public development.
What has been challenging for you personally about the opposition to Atlantic Yards?
It's a complicated project with lots of dimensions. And that's just hard work and I love that. I can't say I love the friction and the tension in a public setting. But it comes with the territory. I knew that and I accept that.
What did you do to celebrate closing the deal?
We closed on Dec. 22 [2009], so I went home to my family to begin my holiday shopping. [Just before we closed] there were two lost packages with critical documents in them, letters of credit without which we couldn't close. The UPS facility was completely overwhelmed with holiday packages ... But we unearthed the documents in time for the closing. ...
What do you do to relax?
Relaxation is the grass between my toes in my yard with my children underfoot. A game of Wiffle ball, a swim in the pool. I have two dogs, two fish and two birds. ...
Do your kids understand what a big deal Atlantic
Yards is?
They used to be flummoxed by what I did. They wondered … how could she leave every morning in a suit and build that building? When did she pick up her tool belt and how did she get so high up in the air? But whenever possible I include my children. For example, at the Atlantic Yards groundbreaking, both of my boys were there. I always say if I have to leave my children every day it better be good. And this has been quite good.
Someone (Ratner, Barclays, an unknown) is polling Brooklynites on Ratner's Atlantic Yards to tap and shape public opinion. Norman Oder takes a look and speculates on what the polling may really be about.
But that is the offensive (and outlandish) claim made in a press release from the British insurance and risk management corporation Willis Holding Group, plc annoucing their sponsorship of "loge boxes" in the planned Barclays Center Arena.
Here are snippets from the company's release including the offending one:
Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, a sales and marketing arm of the Barclays Center, today announced that Willis Group Holdings plc, the global insurance broker, has become a major partner of the planned Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
...
As part of its integrated marketing platform within the arena, the Willis brand will be displayed prominently as the exclusive sponsor of the Barclays Center's 38 Loge Boxes. The Willis name also will appear in all marketing and advertising associated with this premium seating, including a significant presence on Barclayscenter.com.
...
"Brooklyn is a great global brand that's reaching new heights with the Barclays Center. The borough has earned a storied place in sports mythology, from the heroics at Ebbets Field to being the birthplace of legends such as Vince Lombardi, Joe Torre and Joe Paterno," said Joe Plumeri, Chairman and CEO of Willis. "Willis helps manage the world's most complex risks, and we look forward to both helping the Barclays Center through its multi-faceted construction process and, when the arena is opened, to working with Mikhail Prokhorov, Bruce Ratner, Brett Yormark, Jay-Z and their team to carry Jackie Robinson's legacy forward and bring a new generation of champions to Brooklyn and New York."
It is a cynical use of Brooklyn's greatest sports figure. The way Barclays Center came to be, and what it will be, has ZERO to do with Jackie Ronbinson's legacy.
...Would you believe that Russia's second-richest man would be carrying Jackie Robinson's legacy forward?
See Scott Turner's (of Fans for Fair Play) November 2005 takedown of the difference between the Nets and the Dodgers.
Even the Rev. Al Sharpton, speaking at the groundbreaking in March, saw a distinction.
"When I was growing up in Brooklyn, my mother used to tell me about how it made her feel, that she could go to Ebbets Field before I was born, and see Jackie Robinson play. Jackie Robinson was the first black to own--to be able to play in major league baseball. He played his first games right here in Brooklyn and broke the color line in terms of major league baseball players. I'm glad I lived to see the color line in ownership broken in Brooklyn, where we've gone from Jackie to Jay-Z, where we can not only play the game but we can own a piece of the game. So my mother saw Jackie and my daughters will see Jay-Z--we have come a long way."
Members of the public should root for an owner, one who owns a tiny piece of the team?
Sharpton somehow neglected to point out that in June 2006, the majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, Robert L. Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television, announced that Brooklyn-born Michael Jordan would become the second-largest investor--two black men running a basketball team.
Today we have yet another case of Atlantic Yards revisionism and falling down the memory hole (this one particularly surreal) is noted by Norman Oder. It is the third instance in less than three weeks that he has pointed to. This time it is City Planning Deputy Director Sandy Hornick.
Hornick seems to think there was an Atlantic Yards process in which to participate and negotiate
and that opponents chose not to participate.
That is utter nonsense.
The opposition studiously participated in the barely existent process (two hearings on the environmental disclosure statement), while Ratner partners and Atlantic Yards proponents studiously disrupted the meager "process" that did take place. The opposition forcfully made the case, over and over, that they wanted a meaningful, democratic process in which to participate—but there simply wasn't one.
That is the original sin of Atlantic Yards. Shame that a city planning official doesn't get that (or know that), even worse that he gets it all backwards.
From Oder's Atlantic Yards Report we post a lengthy excerpt because Hornick's comments are truly staggering and disturbing:
It was a throwaway moment, almost, at Land Use and Local Voices, a conference July 21 co-sponsored by the Municipal Art Society and Manhattan Community Board 1.
But it was another example of how Atlantic Yards may be falling down the collective memory hole, and how even a top bureaucrat at the Department of City Planning doesn't understand the project, suggesting it as an example of effective public participation for some. ...
During a panel analyzing what's distinct about the city's land use process, moderator Ethel Sheffer, former president of the New York Metro Chapter of the American Planning Association, addressed panelist Sara Logan,Chair, Housing and Land Use Committee, Bronx Community Board 6, a mostly Hispanic area in the central Bronx with a significant fraction of people on public assistance.
How can people participate in the land use process, Sheffer asked, and do they feel burdened by hosting facilities that do serve a citywide purpose? ...
The segue to AY
Next up was Sandy Hornick, Deputy Director for Strategic Planning, NYC Department of City Planning, who said he had two comments. His second acknowledged the difficulty of siting such facilities.
But his first was an odd segue into Atlantic Yards.
"To tie leadership and participation together, I think in a city like New York, effective leadership inevitably means, somehow, bringing in enough of the constituencies to make that leadership effective," he said. "Let's use the example of original Mayor [Richard] Daley in Chicago: we don’t have that kind of concentrated power, and since Robert Moses, we have a conscious design not to let anybody ever get that kind of power again. We spread it out, and the only way to do it is a participatory way, that you build enough constituents that support it."
"And to just use a project that wasn’t really a [Department of] City Planning project, the Atlantic Yards project was extremely controversial-- by the way I live 1000 feet from it and did not work on it," he said.
(Actually, he lives about 1500 feet from it, by my calculation, just a little closer than I do.)
"But the people who did it--there were clearly some constituencies who chose never to participate in the process, to always oppose it," he said, "and there were other constituencies who chose to get something out of the process and may, if [it] really goes forward, may get all those commitments of affordable housing, and so on. But the nature of our process requires participation. "
What did he say?
Let me try to analyze Hornick's off-the-cuff and not very considered comments.
There were clearly some constituencies who chose never to participate in the process, to always oppose it
What process does he mean? The city's land use process was bypassed. Those who opposed and criticized the project participated very much in the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) review of the project. They filed numerous comments, which were both responded to and ignored.
In fact, they participated in the official process more than did project supporters. The latter simply cheered for the project as it stood, or mutated. The former tried to analyze the impacts.
(As I wrote 9/19/06, the final community forum crystallized into farce, when a job-seeking single mother asked opponents in the audience, “Why are you talking about the environment?” The Sierra Club's Timothy Logan responded, "Because it’s an environmental impact hearing.")
there were other constituencies who chose to get something out of the process
Those constituencies got something out of a process, but it wasn't the process, because the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) resulted from a private agreement between Forest City Ratner and several community groups, most with no track record. That private agreement was concluded before the official ESDC process began, and it was used to justify an override of zoning for the developer.
At a later panel during the July 21 conference, CBAs were roundly criticized.
may get all those commitments of affordable housing
Well, the individuals who supported the affordable housing are, statistically speaking, unlikely to gain access to it, given that a relatively small amount of housing--perhaps half of the subsidized units--that would be affordable to the constituency of ACORN, and housing will be distributed by lottery. (ACORN, of course, would gain institutionally from managing the housing, or the selection process.)
The affordable housing is less a commitment by the developer than a claim on (perhaps) scarce public subsidies to build it.
But the nature of our process requires participation.
OK, but Atlantic Yards wasn't our city process, so there was no opportunity for even truncated participation under the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.
So the three affected Community Boards, which would have had an advisory role under ULURP, were ignored, despite expressions of opposition and concern.
The problem: a fait accompli
I think Hornick's example ran aground when he brought up Daley and Moses. The ESDC process may be closer to that of Daley and Moses than it is to the city process. (Remember, planner Alexander Garvin wrote that the Urban Development Corporation, the ESDC's official identity had "truly amazing powers" when it was approved in 1968.)
Introducing his example, Hornick said:
We spread it out, and the only way to do it is a participatory way, that you build enough constituents that support it.
That's exactly what didn't happen with Atlantic Yards.
It was a done deal from the start. Remember Chris Smith's August 2006 cover story in New York magazine:
Every time I begin to buy into the lyrical people-have-the-power rhetoric of the opposition, to fantasize that Goldstein’s impending eminent-domain lawsuit has a prayer of succeeding, or to get revved up about the density trivia, someone smacks me back into reality. Most recently, it was a prominent Democrat. “In some cases, an army of Davids could take down Goliath,” he said. “But not this one. It’s a fait accompli.”
What's even more disturbing than the revisionism is that Atlantic Yards, as Oder emphasizes and combats, is falling down the
memory hole. (Any mainstream media out there willing to help close that hole?)
In two City Council committee hearings, held in March 18 and May 25, New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) President Seth Pinsky made some questionable statements regarding Atlantic Yards, but was not called to account.
He mischaracterized the timing and size of the city's investment
He claimed there were new incentives to get the project done on time, but those incentives don't conform to the timetable his agency used to calculate city revenues
He made new claims about the total of city spending on Atlantic Yards, but hasn't provided full details
He cited, but didn't at the time provide, a new cost-benefit analysis that seems dubious under scrutiny, given that it presumes a both a full buildout and one accomplished in ten years
He didn't point out that the city's new analysis represents a 20% decline in city revenue (though, likely, it's merely a more honest calculation than its predecessor because it incorporates certain costs)
Pinsky has a lot on his plate, so maybe he can't be expected to get everything right. But if he gets it wrong, why do all the errors come in defense of the project?
More scrutiny needed
That's an argument for an oversight hearing, as new City Council Member Brad Lander and veteran Letitia James have requested.
"It is the largest project in Brooklyn, and will have a massive impact on the neighborhoods around it," Lander said. "There are many unanswered questions, both about the project itself, and about a wide range of City services (transportation, public safety, affordable housing, public schools, open space, etc). Tish [James] and I have made repeated requests for such a hearing, and we will keep pushing for it." ...
One wonders why such a hearing is being held up and (Speaker Quinn) who is holding it up.
Former Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Dan Doctoroff has to be feeling pretty good. He didn't bring the Olympics to New York, and that smarts, and he couldn't get the West Side Stadium passed.
But he got most of the Bloomberg administration's ambitious land use agenda passed during his six-year tenure, which ended in 2007.
Now, in his genial, confident way, Doctoroff can look back and contend, as he has before, that he managed to thread the needle between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses, to get projects passed with sufficient public input and without much displacement, to make omelets (in Moses's famous formulation) but without breaking eggs.
And if he's not challenged--as he was back in 2007 by Majora Carter, then of Sustainable South Bronx--he just might get away with it. Doctoroff had said, as he's said since, that he and the administration had gotten better at listening.
Carter said they hadn't done enough, that they had to "really, really listen." She added, "The interesting thing about listening is you have to do it openly and not have a predetermined idea set.”
And Doctoroff might get away with claiming, as he did last week, that Atlantic Yards was primarily a product of city guidance, rather than a project presented by a developer with good connections.
...
“There are some places where things are big,” so as a result the weight of the project falls on a community, he said in response to his interlocutor.
“Would you say Atlantic Yards is such case?” Goldberger asked, diplomatically leading the discussion.
Doctoroff paused to get his bearings. (The video should be available on Urban Omnibus next week.)
“We had a view about Downtown Brooklyn, which was we needed to have an alternative to New Jersey,” Doctoroff replied, evading the question a bit. “If you look at what happened in the 1990s, and look at office space New York lost to New Jersey… in part because we did not have a modestly priced office market. The obvious alternative was Downtown Brooklyn…”
That’s true, and that’s why the city rezoned Downtown Brooklyn. That rezoning that did not include Atlantic Yards and it turned out to have missed the market, given that it became far more lucrative for developers to build condos (and without any reciprocal obligation to build affordable housing).
“But it lacked a series of amenities,” Doctoroff continued. “It lacked parkland.. Brooklyn Bridge Park. It lacked housing… It lacked retail, it lacked hotel, it lacked zoned office space… We thought it also actually needed more of a center, more of a draw, to make it more appealing, and that was the reason for Atlantic Yards… and therefore Atlantic Yards and Downtown Brooklyn had a purpose for the city, from a strategic perspective, that was much bigger than immediate community.. I said publicly in retrospect, rather than going through state process [for Atlantic Yards], we probably should have gone through ULURP.. I think at end of day things wouldn’t have been different, but plans might have been modestly different.”
He’s right that the city would’ve rolled over Council Member Letitia James, but she and the local Community Boards would’ve been heard.
But let's check some facts. Atlantic Yards wasn’t designed as a draw to make Downtown Brooklyn more appealing, since Atlantic Yards doesn’t even fit on the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership’s map–it’s off to the southeast, with the site in Prospect Heights.
Rather than act proactively, the city acceded to Forest City Ratner’s plan.
“We didn’t decide to take a look at the yards,” said Winston Von Engel, Deputy Director of the Brooklyn office of the Department of City Planning, in March 2006. “They belong to the Long Island Rail Road. They use them heavily. They’re critical to their operations. You do things in a step-by-step process. We concentrated on the Downtown Brooklyn development plan for Downtown Brooklyn. Forest City Ratner owns property across the way. And they saw the yards, and looked at those. We had not been considering the yards directly.”
Or consider that the proactive posture that characterized Doctoroff’s work doesn't apply to AY. Andrew Alper, then president of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, testified at the 5/4/04 City Council hearing that “they came to us, we did not come to them. And it is not really up to us then to go out and try to find a better deal.”
Does this guy take anything seriously? If he treats free agency and his franchise this way, imagine what kind of humorous stylings he'll come up with when Atlantic Yards doesn't provide any affordable housing
From Alper's blog post:
There's no doubt that the addition of Mikhail Prokhorov to the roll call of team owners makes the American sports landscape a more interesting one. We're starting to have some second thoughts about how much he means any of the things he says, however.
Case in point is an interview that Prokhorov gave to Nets Daily on Monday while he was flitting through the sky on his Gulfstream. The first question had to do with the departure of team president and general manager Rod Thorn and the search for a replacement who would help the Nets fulfill Prokhorov's promise of a championship within five years. The owner professed to be in no rush to hire a new man because, as a new owner, "I need to touch and smell everything myself and this takes some time."…
You know what smells bad? Atlantic Yards does.
That doesn't mean Nets games aren't going to be more fun this season. Here's Prokhorov on what the team's got planned to keep fans entertained when they head out to Newark:
"We’re looking at hiring the Red Army choir to perform at half-time along with Russia’s top dancing bear collective. Not to mention the Russian spies recently sent back to Moscow. We will be organizing their comeback tour to Newark. I’m sure it will be a great hit."
What a funny man. We're so glad the future of the crossroads of Brooklyn is in his hands.
The news from the city's Charter Revision Commission is that a vote on term limits (and maybe Instant Runoff Voting) are apparently on the agenda, but more substantive change, regarding issues like more public input into land use and expanded power of Borough Presidents, is not.
That's plausible, given the tight schedule to get measures on the November ballot, but the commission's staff report was dismissively brief, ignoring many legitimate criticisms posed by the Borough Presidents and others.
As the Staten Island Advance reported yesterday, that ticked off one Commission member:
"The fact the conversation on borough presidents and community boards warrants maybe two paragraphs, to me is utterly disrespectful to the communities," said Carlo A. Scissura, who is chief of staff to Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.
The fundamental problem
The failure to address the BPs' concerns reflects a larger issue, one that doesn't get traction in the Commission report, and one that explains the hundred successful rezonings under Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his ability to get agencies to march in lockstep to support projects like Atlantic Yards.
"The fundamental principle in this city is that there’s no real local government," suggested Gerald Benjamin, a professor at SUNY New Paltz, speaking at a June 10 hearing of the Commission. So "trapping the discourse as to whether the Borough President should have a guaranteed budget… drives discussion to margin rather than core."
That, to City Pragmatist blogger Alvin Berk, chairman of Brooklyn Community Board 14, was exactly the wrong thing. He wrote:
Benjamin, comparing NYC with other cities, observed that “the fundamental principle in this city is that there’s no real local government,” and then gave the 2010 commission an excuse to avoid this issue by commenting that its time frame forces it to “trap the discourse” at the marginal level of deciding whether borough presidents’ budgets should be formulaic, instead of considering what their duties and powers should be.
Adam Friedman, the executive director of the Pratt Center for Community Development, which has recommended comprehensive changes to the city's land use process, says he is "cautiously optimistic" that the panel might pursue a wider agenda than the staff has recommended.
"The dilemma everyone faces is that, yes, it is very complex. There's something about the commission process that makes it very hard to deal with complex issues," he says. But if the current panel has too little time, Friedman says, it's important not to waste time starting the next one. "If it's too complex to get onto the [November] ballot, you have to start right away on the 15-month process of hearings" for the next commission, he says. The current commission, or a new one, must be reappointed to begin that process.
...
Markowitz's take
Markowitz, in his April 20 testimony, also asked for broader powers for the BPs including formula-based yearly budgets for borough presidents, public advocate and community boards; a determination, not recommendation, in ULURP, requiring a CPC and City Council supermajority for an override; and “advice and consent” role in the appointment of borough commissioners of mayoral agencies; and a consistent budget for community boards.
As he testified:
So when it comes to things like land use, economic development, affordable housing, and ensuring equitable distribution of city resources, Borough Presidents are truly the only elected officials charged with considering the needs of each borough as a whole.
We are elected with more votes than any office other than the three citywide offices in this city (and sometimes, we even get more votes than those running for citywide offices do in our boroughs!). These voters elect us expecting that we have the power to help them — to be ombudsmen, ambassadors, and most importantly, to be a voice independent of city council and city hall. They look to us as the “chief executive” of the borough, with the power to plan and implement and truly fight for their interests.
Consider this: Brooklyn is home to 2.6 million residents. If it were its own city, it would be the fourth largest “city” in the United States. As it stands, I absolutely view my office as the “nerve center” of Brooklyn, and I leverage our land use powers and capital budget, as well as the power of the press and “bully pulpit,” to forge partnerships that result in economic development and more responsive, better city services. And of course, to make sure Brooklyn always gets its fair share.
Some might say I’ve been effective (well, those who like what I’ve done), but frankly, to truly be effective — to be able to do what voters entrust us to do, to be the independent voice and essential “checks and balances” in a “strong mayor” system — the position of borough president must be enhanced, with a stronger voice on land use issues, a more robust executive role with regard to borough commissioners and agencies, and an independent budget determined by formula — not, as it now is, by the subjective yearly decisions of the City Council and the Mayor.
...
Unelected government
Only late in the hearing did a former Staten Island Council Candidate, John Tabacco, bring home some oddities in the discussion.
"It’s odd that tonight’s panel would be to talk about structure, because, when you look at the political landscape.. there seems to be no structure these days,” he said. “When you look at New York state, we have an unelected governor, we have an unelected comptroller, we have an unelected lieutenant governor, we have an unelected senator, and many would argue that we have a mayor who was not legally elected." (Emphasis added.)
That comment, as with Benjamin's observation that "there’s no real local government," lingers out there for any student of democracy as practiced in this city and state.
Yancey Strickler and Perry Chen's Kickstarter.com, the innovative startup that allows anyone and everyone to help back a creative idea through micro-funding, is now celebrating a selection of its successful film projects with the Kickstarter Film Festival.
The shindig, held in collaboration with Rooftop Films, will screen 90 minutes of 12 films. Narrowing it down, Stickler told us via-email, was tough.
"We've had well over 5,000 projects on Kickstarter at this point, so there was a lot to choose from," Strickler said. "The festival lineup is weighed towards early favorites. Many of these are some of the earliest Kickstarter projects, some of the first to stun us with their passion and creativity."
The chosen few include stop-motion film Little Brass Bird by way of Chicago, Battle of Brooklyn, about a Brooklyn neighborhood's resistance to the Atlantic Yards development project, and the extended trailer for The Woods, Matthew Lessner's Lord of the Flies take on the digital age. Some will be shown in their entirety, but most of the screenings are extended introductions at four to twenty minutes long.
...
Presale sold out, and though additional tickets will be for sale at the door, we suggest you get there early. And don't head out before the afterparty.
Old American Can Factory, 232 3rd St., Gowanus, Brooklyn, (718) 237-4335. Friday, July 9. Doors 8 P.M. Films 9 P.M. Afterparty 11:30 P.M. $10.
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What
would Atlantic Yards Look like?... Photo
Simulations
Before and After views from around the project footprint
revealing the massive scale of the proposed luxury apartment
and sports complex.
