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October 10, 2007
Markowitz Declines To Reappoint Williams to Planning Commission
Building Co. Exec Was Often Under Fire for Ratner Ties
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Raanan Geberer
Borough President Marty Markowitz has decided not to reappoint construction company executive Dolly Williams, whom he appointed to the City Planning Commission in 2002, to another term.
...
She was often criticized in the press, even for a seemingly small matter as getting a ticket for her yellow Porsche being parked in front of a fire hydrant when she had her own private parking space nearby. But the main focus of the criticism against her, especially by such anti-Forest City Ratner Web sites as No Land Grab, had to do with her ties to Bruce Ratner and the Ratner-owned New York Nets.
NoLandGrab: Williams was NOT ticketed for parking at the hydrant. On the contrary, she displayed her NYC Gov parking placard in her window, presumably to dissuade parking enforcement agents from citing her.
Calling NoLandGrab.org an "anti-Forest City Ratner Web site" is peculiar. NLG is generally characterized as a critic of Forest City's Atlantic Yards project and the company's use of eminent domain, especially Bruce Ratner's division here in NY. But we're the only web site that attempts to observe the corporate culture of the entire Cleveland-based company, which includes some ambitious and progressive developments elsewhere in the nation, some of which even preserve and adaptively resue old buildings when possible.
In 2005, Williams had to recuse herself from any discussion on the City Planning Commission involving the Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project and the Ratner-owned New York Nets because she and her husband were found to have a more than $1 million investment in the basketball team. The Nets, as part the Atlantic Yards plan, would move to a new arena in the Yards’ “footprint” near the LIRR rail yards.
Williams didn't voluntarily reveal that she was an investor in Bruce Ratner's NJ Nets ownership group. The story broke in the Brooklyn Paper and she was subsequently forced to recuse herself.
As each borough president only has one appointee on the 13-member City Planning Commission, Atlantic Yards opponents charged that Brooklyn had “no voice” if the important development plan comes before the commission.
More recently, Williams was barred from any discussion or vote on the Gowanus rezoning, this time because her company owns property within the area under consideration.
More recently, her firm has been involved in a building dispute at an East Harlem mall that is being co-developed by the same Forest City Ratner.
Posted by lumi at October 10, 2007 7:19 AM