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May 9, 2009
Two For Saturday Morning from Atlantic Yards Report
Forest City Ratner just outside top ten in lobbying, but has third largest state contract
Norman Oder notes the recently released figures on state lobbying and duly notes the spending to promote the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
The New York State Commission on Public Integrity released its 2008 Annual Report Thursday, with real estate and construction, spending $26.1 million on city and state lobbying, in second place behind health and mental health organizations, spending $29.9 million.
And Fried Frank Harris Shriver &; Jacobson had the third largest contract, valued at $370,399, with Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards Development Company. (In 2007, Fried Frank's work on Atlantic Yards represented the second largest contract, at $771,170.)
Forest City Ratner, according to my calculations, finished just outside the top ten in combined lobbying.
Oder goes on to note how the media has ignored this report and fails to keep the public informed regarding Atlantic Yards.
There was very little coverage of the report. There was no mention of the Atlantic Yards contract in Daily News coverage of the report, or in a brief wire report in Newsday. The Times ignored the report. Last year, the Times ignored the report, though others gave it more coverage.
...
WNYC talk show host Brian Lehrer, who generally does a decent job, on Thursday wondered if "people go to Norman Oder's site, which is, y'know, pitched primarily anti-Atlantic Yards Project and have a discussion on both sides? Or is it just an echo chamber of the like-minded?"
He missed the point, I argued, and today's news buttresses my argument. My goal is to explain to people what's going on, and to look into questions of civic importance, I wrote. Have Lehrer or WNYC informed the public of the Commission on Public Integrity's report? Not as far as I can tell.
Should the public know that Forest City Ratner is spending so much on Atlantic Yards, especially when little work is going on? Sure. (DDDB pointed out that FCR was working the back room.)
Isn't a behind-the-scenes lobbying effort "just an echo chamber of the like-minded"? And isn't that a lot less transparent than a blog that links to publicly available sources?
Yes, the Times reviewer notices the gentle treatment of AY in new Gehry book
From Martin Filler's review of Conversations With Frank Gehry, in Sunday's New York Times: Doubtless eager to remain in her subject’s good graces, [Barbara] Isenberg poses few questions of the confrontational sort that wise interrogators withhold until the end of a session, lest they be shown the door. For example, from her upbeat recapitulation of Gehry’s Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn — a large-scale mixed-use urban redevelopment centered on a professional basketball arena — you’d never know that the scheme has aroused heated opposition from community groups and planning experts, or that its future is imperiled by the current economic crisis.
That's mainly because the interview was conducted in 2005 and, as I wrote, interviewer Isenberg didn't follow up. (Will she do so at Monday's public interview session with Gehry?)
More than two years ago, Filler wrote critically about AY.
Posted by steve at May 9, 2009 8:57 AM