« Markowitz Puts on a State of the Borough Spectacle | Main | “You should let the marketplace decide,” Bloomberg asserts, regarding Wal-Mart; sound familiar? »
February 5, 2011
Atlantic Yards' foot-in-mouth veep
New York Post
by Rich Calder
A top official overseeing Brooklyn’s $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project is being accused by one of its biggest supporters of making insensitive comments about a green-card program being used to raise funds for the cash-strapped plan.
Former ACORN boss Bertha Lewis — who was largely responsible for garnering key grass-roots support for the planned Prospect Heights development that includes an NBA arena – told the Post yesterday that she wants developer Forest City Ratner’s vice-president MaryAnne Gilmarten to apologize for comments reportedly made at a recent Manhattan public event.
"As citizen Gilmarten, I’m not sure how I feel about it. This is not your cleaning lady’s green card program," Gilmarten is quoted in the New York Observer saying while speaking at the New York Commercial Real Estate Woman Inc. event.
She was referring to the federal "EB-5" program, which gives green cards to investors of at least $500,000 in US job-creating projects. FCR expects to raise $249 million through 498 Chinese and South Korean nationals buying their way into America.
Why is she dragging cleaning ladies into this?" Lewis said. "It makes me sad because my aunts and grandmother were cleaning women, and there's a lot of educated people in this country who are cleaning women.
"What is she saying? That rich people can buy their way into the country but the heck with the poor?"
NoLandGrab: Yes, Bertha, that's exactly what your friend, Maryanne, is saying. Do you have a problem with that?
Posted by steve at February 5, 2011 2:23 PM