« Goodby (sic) Dolly | Main | A New Proposal From Ratner: Brooklyn's Tallest Building »
November 29, 2007
Dolly's Follies
Disgraced City Planning Commissioner Dolly Williams Fined for Atlantic Yards Conflict of Interest
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Though Williams feigned innocence, it only took three years to show that where there's smoke, there's fire:
In August 2004, it was reported in the Brooklyn Paper that Brooklyn's only representative on the City Planning Commission, Dolly Williams, had become an investor in Bruce Ratner's Nets. It was amply clear to us that her financial stake with the team and her role as a Commissioner created a conflict of interest that broke the Ethics Law of the City Charter, which says that a city officer with ownership interest in firms doing business with the city has a conflict of interest. . Days after the disclosure Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn lodged a complaint with the city's Conflicts of Interest Board (click to download the complaint).
At the time, Ms. Williams told the Brooklyn Paper: "It is not a conflict, otherwise I would not do it."
Tuesday, over three years after the complaint was filed, the Conflicts of Interest Board released a disposition by Ms. Williams where she admitted that her partial ownership of the Nets and her vote in favor of the 2004 Downtown Brooklyn Rezoning -- which included a rezoning of a small part of the Atlantic Yards project site which would benefit Forest City Ratner -- was a conflict of interest. The Board also announced a $4,000 dollar fine it has imposed on the now disgraced commissioner. Ms. Williams has not explained why she did not recuse herself from that vote and admit to her conflict much earlier.
Posted by lumi at November 29, 2007 5:41 AM