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March 23, 2007
Ratner’s lobby hobby: Bruce spent big in Albany last year
The Brooklyn Paper
By Gersh Kuntzman
Not content to grouse or stare wide-eyed at the $2.1 million Bruce Ratner spent on lobbying this year, The Brooklyn Paper ran an excellent article that goes in depth into what the money was spent on:
Salaries for the platoon of lobbyists
The single largest expense — $1.4 million — paid salaries at his seven outside lobbying firms and his own in-house team of 41 part-time influence-makers.
Ratner's Got Game!
“Here is how the game is played,” said one state-registered lobbyist, one of the few who was actually not on Ratner’s payroll last year.
“They have to hire all these different lobbyists to lobby different players. If you want to talk to Shelly [Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver], you hire Pat Lynch. If you want to lobby city government, you hire John Locicero [a former aide to Mayor Koch].”
Lobbying City Planning (even though the public didn't get a chance to)
One of the lobbyists hired by Ratner last year, Melanie Meyers, used to be general counsel at the Department of City Planning, which was first reported by the Atlantic Yards Report. Opponents of Atlantic Yards point to this hiring as evidence that Ratner was buying his way into meetings with Planning officials even as the public was barred from the limited city role in the Atlantic Yards public approval process last year.
After being lobbied by Ratner and his team, the Department of City Planning eventually negotiated a deal with Ratner that would trim the size of Atlantic Yards by eight percent — but that “cut” only brought the project down to its originally proposed size.
Lobbying Marty???
Another public official who shows up repeatedly as a target of Ratner’s lobbying effort is Borough President Markowitz, a strong supporter of the project.
Markowitz would not comment on what form Ratner’s lobbying took, but said through a spokesman that any meetings he had with Ratner officials involved “making Atlantic Yards work better for Brooklyn.”
What Ratner money isn't used for
“Forest City Ratner had $2.11 million to lobby Albany on ‘Atlantic Yards’ but will not spend a single penny to purchase the rail yards which comprise over one-third of the development site,” said Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. “Instead, New York City taxpayers will buy the yards for Ratner. It’s an exquisite shell game. … The taxpayers are being forced to pay Ratner’s bills without any say in the matter.”
And, as usual...
Forest City Ratner did not return several calls and emails seeking comment.
Posted by lumi at March 23, 2007 7:56 AM