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April 12, 2007
April 15: Rally Against Ratner, Where Is The Litigation Support?
OnNYTurf provides a link to the rally from its highly excellent ONYT subway map and then explains that, even though DDDB is supporting the rally, Brooklyn Speaks, "the quasi anti-Atlantic Yards project led by Municipal Art Society," isn't scratching Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's (DDDB) back.
Brooklyn Speaks has remained mute on supporting the lawsuits lead by DDDB. The question becomes are letter writing campaigns and rallies against parking effective when your organization seems unprepared to play hardball - both politically and financially.
Brooklyn Speaks remains silent on the use of eminent domain in this case because several of its members and most notably Municipal Art Society feels it can't comment on eminent domain use in the Atlantic Yards case because sometimes ED use is justified. This was the rationale told to me several months ago by Jasper Goldman a MAS representative. The logic of this makes no sense, that MAS can not comment on a particular use of Eminent Domain just because some other cases are good. This would be the whole point in commenting.
Instead Brooklyn Speaks flounders around continuing their letter writing campaigns to Spitzer and Bloomberg and hold silly rallies like this to protest surface parking.
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If you want real public pressure you need a united public front, and if you want real financial pressure on the developer you need a full court press in the courts. Rallies are nice but do not present the same teeth that lawsuits do.
Posted by lumi at April 12, 2007 10:27 AM