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October 12, 2007
Hit the road, Dolly!
The Brooklyn Paper
By Dana Rubenstein
Dolly Williams speaks out against her critics after Borough President Marty Markowitz announced that he would not be reappointing her to the City Planning Commission. At issue are two major recusals due to conflict of interest and some uncivil-servant-like behavior:
“There are hundreds and hundreds of projects before us,” said Williams. “In my five years, I’ve recused myself maybe five times. I think most of the commissioners have at least done that. And I think we underestimate the ability of other commissioners to consider Brooklyn items.”
A Planning spokeswoman said that the Commission considers 500 cases a year, and confirmed that it is fairly commonplace for commissioners to occasionally recuse themselves.
Beyond Williams’s professional shortcomings, opponents also focussed on her train wreck of a personal life. In July, for example, a blogger uploaded photos of Williams’s yellow Porsche — with its city placard prominently displayed in the front window — parked at a fire hydrant.
She had refused to talk about the issue, but this week told The Brooklyn Paper that the photos were “a “cheap shot.” She said she was parked in front of the hydrant for just five minutes, while she dropped off a gallon of milk at her grandson’s house.
She also denied a blogger’s report she had sideswiped a car in front of the Tea Lounge in Park Slope while appearing intoxicated.
“I never get into my car when I have a drink or two,” she told The Brooklyn Paper. “I have never gotten drunk in my life, come to think of it.” (She did admit she had ripped off her side-view mirror in the incident.)
...
No litany of complaints about Williams would be compete without reference to a widely blogged photo of her cheering on Atlantic Yards at a public hearing on the project in 2006. Though she rooted for Ratner then, she’s currently entangled in an ugly billing dispute with Ratner over a mall project in Harlem.Williams told The Paper that she has served “proudly,” but expressed discontent that her term has been so rife with controversy.
“I have done my job legally, ethically and morally correct,” she said. “Some of the other commissioners are in the real-estate business, too.”
NoLandGrab: Folks, it's all lies, cheap shots and misunderstandings: she has never been drunk, only parked in front of a hydrant once in the case of an emergency, and she would have told everyone that she was an investor in the Nets, only it leaked out before she had a chance, but now that everyone knows, "Let's go Nets!"
Posted by lumi at October 12, 2007 5:47 AM