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April 25, 2005
Pastor of the People: David Dyson
in conversation with Norman Kelley
Brooklyn Rail
Pastor of Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene and long-time social activist David Dyson draws support and inspiration from the New Testament teachings on social justice ("to advocate for the least, the lost, and the lonely"). Though his church has no official position on Ratner's master plan, which, if built, will only be a couple blocks away from the historic Fort Greene church, Dyson shares his own opinion based upon moral and ethical principles.
There’s not a church position on this. Our position here as a mainline Protestant church is really not to take positions on specific political issues or to endorse specific political candidates. Certainly we feel the gospel informs our positions on moral and ethical issues, and I personally have become very involved with this, because I’ve been very upset by how this project has come about. I just wrote a letter to Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in which I said that I was not anti-development but that I was anti-corruption, anti-sweetheart deal, anti-eminent domain, anti-environmental chaos, anti-lack of transparency—in short, anti many of the things that have been the hallmark of the Atlantic Yards Project. I had a private meeting with Borough President Marty Markowitz, where he asked me why I had a burr under my saddle. I said it’s because one guy—Ratner, who I actually know a little bit—has this sort of private pipeline to this project. There’s no open bidding, there’s no transparency, there’s no community forum. The only people who are being brought in on a community level are being brought in as business partners, not as advocates for the welfare of the community. I told Marty that the deal is being handed on a silver platter to Bruce Ratner because he’s an old college buddy of George Pataki. I said that it just rubs those of us in our community the wrong way. It’s not merely a question of jobs, as our city councilwoman, Tish James, has pointed out many times. Any development scheme or idea is going to bring jobs. The question is about this particular development idea, which is so fraught with corruption, cronyism, and favoritism that I object to it from a moral and ethical standpoint.
Dyson on the support of Ratner's plan by felllow clergyman and partner in many civil rights issues Herbert Daughtry:
Q: Would you say that Ratner is playing the race card?
Dyson: Yes, and it’s very depressing. This project has actually split lifelong partners in the progressive movement. We feel that Reverend Daughtry and ACORN have been brought in by Ratner not as advocates for the community but as private business partners in the deal. We’re trying to prevent the misuse of eminent domain, trying to increase the number of affordable housing units, trying to decrease the number of high-rise luxury office buildings. Those are the kinds of issues that a community group should have, but the Reverend Daughtry—who’s also an old friend—and our friends at ACORN are trying to cut a personal deal so that they can be brokers over whatever little piece or crumb of this pie falls from Ratner’s table. Ratner has been to Brooklyn what Karl Rove was to Ohio and Florida—brilliantly able to play on people’s worst instincts in order to get what he wants in a way that he wants it.
Posted by lumi at April 25, 2005 7:57 AM