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December 18, 2009
Due diligence on the BALDC leads down a rabbit hole, while other state agencies are more transparent than ESDC/JDA/BALDC
Atlantic Yards Report
The Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation (BALDC) was omitted from most press coverage of the arena bond sale, with some reports claiming that Bruce Ratner sold the bonds himself and others acknowledging the role of an unnamed "local development corporation," or LDC.
It's enough to leave readers wondering, perhaps to wonder if the unnamed BALDC might be similar to the Atlantic Avenue LDC, or the LDC of East New York, or the Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project LDC, or the BAM LDC.
It's not.
About the BALDC
Should someone be curious about the obscure, single-purpose entity that authorized and issued the bond, maybe they'd try to find a web site for the BALDC. There isn't any. There's no way to see its bylaws or learn about its board members.
The BALDC was created by the New York State Job Development Authority (JDA), a sibling agency of the ESDC, “to facilitate financing for the arena and certain infrastructure improvements related to the project.”
Why the JDA? “ESDC and JDA have differing statutory powers,” spokesman Warner Johnston told me earlier this year.
The JDA has no staff and no budget. But the JDA's creation of the BALDC allowed the arena bond transaction to skirt the review of the Public Authorities Control Board and the Comptroller, because only subsidiaries which have the same members or directors as the ESDC or JDA are included, according to Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn attorney Jeff Baker.
NoLandGrab: We've asked this before, we'll ask it again — if the Atlantic Yards project is so great, why be so secretive about it?
Posted by eric at December 18, 2009 12:22 AM