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May 5, 2008
U.S. Investigates Yonkers Development After Official’s Surprising ‘Yes’ Vote
The NY Times
By Alison Leigh Cowan
Could it be that the Feds are building a case against a Yonkers City Councilwoman for her deciding vote to approve Forest City Ratner's controversial Ridge Hill development plan?
For years, City Councilwoman Sandy Annabi of Yonkers was among the most vigorous critics of an enormous $600 million development proposal that called for 1,000 housing units, shops and a movie multiplex in the cliffs here over Sprain Lake.
She complained in late 2005 that the developer, Forest City Ratner, was “probably richer than God,” did not need tax breaks and was “robbing the city blind.” And she was the lead plaintiff in a 2005 lawsuit against the city, objecting to its approval process.
So the next summer, it stunned the Yonkers political and business establishment when Ms. Annabi provided the crucial fifth vote on the seven-member Council that the courts made clear Ratner needed to proceed.
Now, as bulldozers zip around the 81-acre parcel known as Ridge Hill, intended as an upscale oasis within a city looking to shed its past as a faded factory town, federal prosecutors are investigating the development deal and leaning toward indicting Ms. Annabi, a 37-year-old Democrat, on corruption charges or other misconduct, according to a person involved in the investigation.
Is Forest City Ratner at the center of a spreading corruption scandal?
To the political and legal cognoscenti in Yonkers, the length and breadth of the inquiry suggests that it must extend beyond Ms. Annabi’s about-face, and perhaps far beyond Yonkers’ 18 square miles to some of Westchester County’s leading power brokers.
Investigators have inquired about Zehy Jereis, the former chairman of the Republican Party here and a distant relative of Ms. Annabi’s — and subpoenaed his financial disclosure forms, though city officials said they had none to turn over. Prosecutors have asked about Albert J. Pirro Jr., a former lobbyist for Forest City Ratner and the estranged husband of Westchester’s former district attorney, Jeanine F. Pirro.
And they have also questioned whether former State Senator Nicholas A. Spano, whose ability to find money in Albany for Yonkers has long made him a Republican legend, or his brother Mike Spano, a Democratic assemblyman who worked as a lobbyist for Ratner between terms in Albany, exerted any undue influence.
NoLandGrab: This corruption scandal sounds serious, but is by no means the first for Forest City Ratner in Yonkers.
Early on in the planning and approval process the Ridge Hill Development Corporation was mired in controversy when it had sole discretion over the allocation of profits from the project and also had the twenty-something son-in-law of the former Yonkers Mayor on the payroll at a six-figure salary. A year later, the son-in-law showed up on Forest City Ratner's payroll as the "property manager" for the project.
Posted by lumi at May 5, 2008 4:52 AM