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October 19, 2009
The "aggressive enough press"? The lapses mount, and the Atlantic Yards arena bonds issue might become a prime example
Atlantic Yards Report
Remember, Mayor Mike Bloomberg last week said he wants to get rid of the Public Advocate's office because, among other things, "we have an aggressive enough press."
The press has had a fairly weak track record on Atlantic Yards revelations.
But here are a couple just from last week's (non-daily) press, with emphases added. The last example, of course, involves Atlantic Yards.
The manipulation (or falsifying) of property values to satisfy the financing needs of sports-team owners would normally be a scandal, except in NYC, where it is just business as usual.
From Wayne Barrett's Village Voice feature this week, headlined A Bloomberg Score Card: The Mayor's Hits and Misses:
The evidence that top officials of the Bloomberg administration reversed land assessments for the Yankees deal to artificially jack up the value in order to qualify for the tax-exempt financing is overwhelming and would—in a time when a good scandal had staying power in New York—make Bloomberg wince at the thought of an election eve parade. E-mails like one from a top aide to Deputy Mayor Doctoroff explicitly said they were making the assessment "so high" in an attempt "to support the tax-exempt financing."
By December, the Bloomberg administration will replicate its scandal-ridden history of bonding these projects by supporting the issuance of $678 million in state tax-exempt bonds for the Nets. The IBO estimates that the arena will also cost the city $350 million, combining direct and indirect subsidies, concluding that it will lose at least $40 million over the life of the deal, assuming the most optimistic revenue projections. Salty Mike's response to the unstated, apolitical IBO: "I don't know what the IBO studies would have shown back when they tried to establish the value of Central Park."
Posted by lumi at October 19, 2009 7:09 AM