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March 29, 2006
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn: Letter and Documents Sent to Legislature
The NY State Legislature is making a mad dash to adopt an on-time budget for the second year in a row. March Madness includes Forest City Ratner's lobbying effort for a $100-million direct subsidy for Atlantic Yards.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn is fighting back by sending a packet of information to legislators, explaining that it is premature to earmark money for a project that hasn't been approved and whose justification is based on a growing pile of mistruths and overestimations.
Link to LETTER & INFORMATION PACKET sent to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
$6 BILLION, PR TACTICS & HALF-TRUTHS
Yesterday, Atlantic Yards Report revealed that the $6-BILLION figure, used in the form letter Forest City Ratner provided for legislators to send to Silver in support of the project, was based on a discredited report, commissioned and paid for by Ratner.
FORM LETTER WITH ANNOTATIONS
DDDb sent the same form letter complete with annotations that reveal the extent that Forest City Ratner has resorted to PR tactics and half-truths to promote the proposal for the largest private real estate deal in Brooklyn in history.
NoLandGrab readers love a good joke so we saved the funny part for last.
20-YEAR PRO FORMA CASH-FLOW PROJECTIONS FOR ATLANTIC YARDS
Good government advocates argue, if BILLIONS of dollars of taxpayer money is going into the project, then the public has a right to know how much Forest City Ratner expects to make on the deal.
For months local groups have requested that Forest City Ratner's profit projections submitted in their formal MTA bid be released (rival bidder Extel's projections were released at the time that the bids were unveiled).
Finally, brought to you by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn through a Freedom of Information request, these projections are seeing the light of day.
The joke is that the 20-year cash-flow analysis turns out to be one page of meaningless figures.
CONCLUSION. Either: * the MTA is continuing to hide the rest of the figures, or * Forest City Ratner really did give them one sheet of paper with some numbers, knowing in advance that they had the "winning" bid (despite bidding $100 million less than Extel).
Hey, we just said it was "a good joke," not that it was on us.
Posted by lumi at March 29, 2006 8:53 PM