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February 15, 2008

Payback time

The Brooklyn Paper
By Gersh Kuntzman

Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner, who said that he stopped making political contributions because they created an appearance of impropriety, abandoned that policy last month with a large donation to a “slush fund” controlled by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Ratner’s $58,420 contribution to the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee on Jan. 7 drew immediate criticism from good government groups as evidence that a “pay-to-play” culture festers in New York State — especially in light of the significant role Silver played in getting the controversial $4-billion mega-development approved in late 2006.
...
A “housekeeping” account is one of many accounts maintained by political parties. In theory, “housekeeping” accounts are set up to raise money for party-building activities, such as get-out-the-vote drives and voter registration, Lerner said.

“But in practice, housekeeping accounts are a political slush fund controlled by the speaker,” she said. “Money given that way is money that gets dispensed and used by the party bosses rather than by an individual candidate. It gives much more bang for the buck.”

And gives the appearance of a payback. After all, Silver held all the cards in December 2006, when Atlantic Yards needed the approval of the three-man Public Authorities Control Board.

Predictably:

The executive director of the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee, Kathleen Joyce, said she could not comment for this story, but promised to find someone who could. That person never called The Brooklyn Paper.

A spokesman for Forest City Ratner said only, “No comment.”

article

Ratner’s naked ploy
In an editorial, The Brooklyn Paper adds:

To the list of the many wrong things that Bruce Ratner has done to steamroll public opposition to his Atlantic Yards mega-project — including playing the race card, creating fantasy tax-revenue projections, and saying that the basketball arena would be built with private money when it is in fact being financed entirely by taxpayers — we can now add his donation last month to a political committee controlled by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
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Silver, of course, holds virtually all of Albany’s cards — and even though he played a role in the 2006 state approval of Atlantic Yards, the legislature still has not formalized any of the tax-abatement, bonding or subsidy agreements that Ratner desperately needs to make a government-insured profit on a project that the free market has already turned against.

Hence, Ratner’s timely donation.
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Our state lawmakers have been lied to, manipulated and lobbied by Ratner’s machine. Now they’ve been paid off for their fine work.

Posted by lumi at February 15, 2008 6:42 AM