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January 13, 2009
PRESS RELEASE: Assembly Committees Issue Subpoenas to Randy Levine, Yankees President, and Seth Pinsky, Chairman of the NYCIDA Board, on Public Financing of the New Yankee Stadium
Committees Seek Testimony and Documents Which Yankees and NYCIDA Have Failed To Produce
Chairman Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester) of the Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, and Chairman James Brennan (D-Brooklyn) of the Committee on Cities, issued subpoenas yesterday to Seth Pinsky, Chairman of the Board of the New York City Industrial Development Agency, and Randy Levine, President of the New York Yankees, to appear at the Committees' hearing tomorrow, January 14th, 10:00 A.M., at 250 Broadway, Room 1923 (19th Floor), and deliver documents regarding the public financing of the new Yankee Stadium. The Yankees and the NYCIDA have continued to stonewall the Committees’ requests for documents pertaining to the request for an additional $430 million in public financing, in the face of a NYCIDA Board vote on Friday, January 16 on the additional money.
Assemblyman Brodsky said, “The Assembly investigations of the NYCIDA financing of the new Yankee Stadium have already revealed that taxpayers will pay up to $4 billion to construct the new Stadium; that City agencies cooked the property tax assessment; that secret negotiations gave the City, at taxpayer cost, a free luxury suite at the new Stadium, and that the number of new permanent jobs created at the Stadium in exchange for $4 billion of subsidy was 22. The City and the NYCIDA are now seeking to railroad an additional $430 million of taxpayer money, on which the Assembly Committees have been seeking additional information for months. The City, the Yankees, and the NYCIDA have refused to make these and other documents available. The legislative oversight and legislative functions of the Assembly require the City and the NYCIDA to tell the Committees and the public the truth about this deal. Subpoenas, as always, are a last resort, but in this case were necessary.”
"It is obvious that additional public subsidy for the Yankees is both inappropriate and unnecessary and the New York City IDA should halt further tax-exempt financings based on diverted property taxes," said Assemblyman Brennan.
Posted by eric at January 13, 2009 9:12 PM