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July 9, 2007
My View: The Eminent Domain Casino
MetroNY, Op-Ed By Mary Campbell Gallagher
What happens when New York fails to learn from lessons of the past:
Atlantic Yards will be one gigantic, 23-acre, all-or-nothing gamble looming over Brooklyn. ...
Eminent domain for Atlantic Yards is gambling, but who pays?Not Mayor Bloomberg. He plays by his own rules. He popped Atlantic Yards out of the City Charter process requiring a vote in the City Council, and he handed it to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC).
Not the ESDC. It’s a state public benefits corporation playing a shell game, and nobody gets to watch. Not the City Council, either. The mayor kept them from playing.
And Ratner? He walks away richer than ever.
If we allow the government to use eminent domain to gamble away the character of Brooklyn and speculate with citizens’ property, no one will ever pay the price expect for poor jerks like us.
Posted by lumi at July 9, 2007 9:31 AM