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March 14, 2010
Mayor Bloomberg likes the big picture, but he should keep an eye on the details, too
Daily News
By Adam Lisberg
Mayor Bloomberg loves to think big. The little things may need some attention.
He was in his element last week at the groundbreaking for the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn - thousands of jobs, billions of dollars (plus more than $200 million in public subsidies), shovels, hardhats, progress.
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All this attention to big projects comes at a price, though.
Some of the price comes out of your pocket - water and sewer rates have skyrocketed under Bloomberg, and the city's construction debt is higher than ever before.
Some of the price comes in the changed character of a city marked by giant footprints - neighborhood haunts like Freddy's Bar and some apartment buildings replaced by a new Brooklyn arena.
And some of the price comes in opportunities lost, inattention to detail, small problems that could have been fixed before they became big ones.
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History doesn't worry much about a few hundred million extra here and there. It's the taxpayers' job to look at the price tag.
NoLandGrab: Two "little details" the Mayor seems to have missed are that the new Nets arena is projected to be a money-loser by the City's own Independent Budget Office and that there is no market for additional office space and, thus, few permanent jobs generated by this project.
Posted by steve at March 14, 2010 7:24 AM