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September 17, 2006
Progressive Democrat Issue 87: THOUGHTS
Mole's Progressive Democrat
Ratner's project permeated this year's elections, with some candidates being funded by Ratner specifically to eliminate veteran politicians who oppose him. Mostly he failed, but my Congressional race pitted a single candidate (Chris Owens) who opposed awarding the contract to Ratner, favoring the more community-based development plans for the region, against three candidates who supported giving the contract to Ratner. Ratner's biggest supporter in the race won. She won because unions have accepted Ratners promise of jobs almost without question. In effect, labor in NYC has become almost virulently hostile towards local progressives and community activists to the benefit of an extremely wealthy and corrupt developer all over some vague promises of jobs and affordable housing. The winner of the Congressional race, Yvette Clarke, won because of this union support. In truth, Chris Owens was by far the most pro-labor candidate in the traditional sense. But because a wealthy developer makes a few promises, unions abandon traditional pro-labor supporters in favor of someone who supports a corrupt and unfair process to award Ratner his dream project.I should note that Ratner's previous projects have largely been failures, never filling up office space, creating few union jobs and providing not a single unit of affordable housing.
Posted by amy at September 17, 2006 10:55 AM