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December 1, 2006
No ‘thanks’ to Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Papers
By Ariella Cohen
Rushing to gain approval for Bruce Ratner’s mega-development before Gov. Pataki leaves office, a roomful of Empire State Development Corporation staffers spent their holiday weekend working overtime to put in public comments that had been left out of the project’s final environmental impact statement.
One hundred and forty eight public comments had been excluded — in violation of state bylaws — from the state’s documentation of the traffic, pollution, gentrification and “unmitigatable impacts” that will be caused by Ratner’s 16-tower, residential, hotel, office space and arena project.
But visions of sugarplums on their Thanksgiving tables had the ESDC minions quickly digesting gentrification pie charts and traffic-congestion diagrams. In just seven days, the secretive agency managed to retract, reissue and recertify the 4,500-page, single-spaced document.
As far as we can tell, The Brooklyn Papers is the only media organization that has reported that all three parties represented on the Public Authorities Control Board support the Atlantic Yards project. The article closes:
All three board members — Gov. Pataki, Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Rensselaer) and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) — have said they favor the project.
Posted by lumi at December 1, 2006 8:09 AM