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October 22, 2009
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Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder hands out two Atlantic Yards caveats (and one "WTF"), currently marring the records of two Village Voice Best Ofs:
The Village Voice's Best of NYC 2009 issue honors Richard Lipsky as the Best Small-Business Lobbyist.
*Lipsky the lobbyist is usually found on the steps of City Hall: He's the guy in the suit, with a shock of dark hair and a brush mustache gone gray, talking nonstop into a cell-phone device in his ear. In a city where lobbyists get paid big bucks to whisper quietly to influential politicians, Richard Lipsky will have none of it.... Victims who can attest to the sharpness of his bite include the likes of Wal-Mart—defeated three times in its bid to find sites for giant local box stores. Another un-lobbyist-like tool is his nonstop blog—cloyingly dubbed "momandpopnyc.com" [actually momandpopnyc.blogspot.com]—which regularly takes journalists to task on subjects ranging from Israel to school testing. He may also be the only lobbyist now working City Hall to hold a Ph.D., which he sometimes can't help showing off: His blog posts often include words like "avidity"—which he knows the press corps will have to look up.
WTF? Can't the Voice look beyond his SAT words--words the press should know--and consider the contradictions: NYC Lobbyist Search shows (click on graphic to enlarge) Lipsky working for Willets Point United and Tuck-It-Away, which are fighting eminent domain in Willets Point and West Harlem, respectively, while working for the Atlantic Yards Development Company and Forest City Ratner, which are hoping to gain from eminent domain in Prospect Heights.
And while Lipsky is fighting big box stores, he's helping ease them in while working for FC East River Associates, which is developing East River Plaza in East Harlem.
An asterisk attached to the Village Voice's praise for Richard Brodsky: what about Atlantic Yards?
The Village Voice's Best of NYC 2009 issue honors Richard Brodsky as the Best Assembly Mouth That Roars.
If Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky could run for office in New York City, Mike Bloomberg's brazen bid for a third term might really be on the ropes. Back in January, Brodsky—a 27-year veteran Assemblyman—gave the Bloomberg administration its toughest case of conniptions yet when he released a series of startlingly embarrassing e-mails between top city aides and lawyers for the New York Yankees in their negotiations over the new gold-plated stadium. At the time, the city was getting ready to hand the Yankees another $370 million in tax-free bonds, in addition to the $1 billion it had already provided. But Brodsky, the ever-innovative chairman of the Committee on Corporations, Authorities, and Commissions, started digging, and came up with a treasure trove of e-mails back and forth between Bloomie's bureaucrats and Yankees lawyers. Turned out the big fight wasn't over how much to give the world's richest sports franchise, but whether or not the Spankees were going to give the city its own special luxury stadium box—plus food! Brodsky subpoenaed some very unhappy Yankees brass and city bigs to testify before him and Brooklyn Assemblyman James Brennan. The show was every bit as good as a Yankees–Red Sox face-off. Brodsky, who has been shining his legislative light into the dark corners of everything from the MTA to Indian Point for years, singlehandedly disproves the claim that no one in Albany knows how to legislate.
Sure, Brodsky has done yeoman work on Yankee Stadium and, more importantly, led the charge for yet-unresolved reform of public authorities.
But his Yankee Stadium investigation came after the fact, generating many headlines but relatively little impact on the new stadium and its funding.
Meanwhile, faced with a pending and similar funding plan for the Atlantic Yards arena, Brodsky has kept his distance, in August saying, "There are a lot of very reasonable questions about the role of the assessor's office in these large authority deals, that are currently under review."
Posted by lumi at October 22, 2009 7:52 AM