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March 20, 2011
Dear NY Media, Forest City Ratner Is Corrupt
Daniel Goldstein
Soon to be former New York state senator Carl Kruger and uber-lobbyist (and hugely hypocritical self-promoter and self-righteous blogger Richard Lipsky) are corrupt. It didn't take last week's federal indictment against them to make that clear, anyone who has watched them over the years could see that.
Kruger shilled for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan over and over and Lipsky was paid to shill for Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan over and over. Specifically Kruger, at public hearings and a Senate hearing urged the MTA to sweeten an already sweetheart land deal for Ratner, and spoke in support of the project with such over the top glowing praise that one couldn't help but think "who paid this guy off?"
Lipsky went on the attack against Atlantic Yards opponents and critics, including me personally, attended every important event and hearing, blabbering into the bluetooth glued to his head or speed thumping his blackberry, during the Atlantic Yards approval "process," and he carried Ratner's water even though Ratner stands for everything Lipsky supposedly has spent his career fighting. Just last week he claimed he was only helping Ratner with youth sports efforts. Yeah right.
These are corrupt individuals.
But what of Bruce Bender, Ratner's vice president of governmental affairs and public relations? And what of Forest City Ratner the corporation? This is a corrupt organization. Bender has been named now, for the second time in just over one year, as a key player in a federal corruption indictment. No, Mr. Bender wasn't indicted in either instance, but the only question that raises is--why not?
In the Ridge Hill indictments in Yonkers though he is not named I'm sure Bender is the same player. Bender, on behalf of Forest City Ratner, is at the very center of the indictment for bribery against former Yonkers councilwoman Sandy Annabi and lobbyist Zehy Jereis. Bender, it seems pretty clear from that indictment, gave Mr. Jereis $60,000 for a no show consultant job with Forest City and in return Jereis got Annabi to change her pivotal vote on Ratner's Ridge Hill project from "no" to "yes." Annabi’s flip happened days after Bender met with Jereis over lunch in Brooklyn.
(And by the way, why aren't Forest City Ratner and Bender referred to by name in this Kruger indictment, why are they anonymous? There doesn't appear to be any reason for the anonymity.)
Bender is a corrupt individual. And he serves a cutthroat, ruthless real estate corporation with his corrupt behavior. Forest City Ratner will stop at nothing to gain more and more public subsidies and more and more valuable real estate. To paraphrase Bender from the Kruger indictment, they don’t even care if they fuck the public.
I'm sure Bender’s day will come, but until it does it is important to remember that just because the Feds haven't indicted anyone at Forest City Ratner for corruption, doesn't mean they haven't acted corruptly. They have, and they continue to do so.
Forest City's response to the Lipsky indictment, that they are shocked, shocked! to find that Lipsky is tainted and that they've cut ties with him immediately, is such a cynical joke. Forest City hires guys like Lipsky and Bender to do their dirty work, they hire them specifically because they are tainted and have strong relationships with easily corrupted politicians such as Kruger. Bender built up his political operative status as a powerbroker in South Brooklyn’s Thomas Jefferson Democratic clubhouse. And now he just uses that power to cut deals and call in favors from sleazy characters such as Kruger.
How does Ratner mouthpiece respond to the crude wiretap dialogue between Bender and the indicted Kruger in the federal complaint? Here’s the official Forest City Ratner response in The Times:
...Forest City Ratner did not deny that Mr. Bender was the person to whom Mr. Kruger was speaking. “I don’t think it will come as a surprise to anyone that the person in charge of government relations at Forest City Ratner speaks to government officials,” said Joe DePlasco, a spokesman. The complaint, he said, “does not suggest that Forest City Ratner behaved in any way that’s inappropriate."...
Did DePlasco read the complaint?! No, nobody is surprised that Bender talks to government officials, but is DePlasco suggesting that we shouldn't be surprised that Bender, on the wire tap talking to Kruger about getting public money to rebuild a bridge crucial to local traffic flow that his company took down and was supposed to pay for and rebuild 2 years ago, said, "I don't mind fucking the bridge, I can't fuck it right now." Does Joe DePlasco think we are all idiots? Does he think that is the appropriate way to treat the public for his company's purportedly public project?
DePlasco is wrong: the complaint doesn't suggest that Forest City Ratner behaved in any way that's illegal, but it sure does suggest that it behaved in an inappropriate way, as did the Ridge Hill indictment.
I'm so sick and tired of Forest City Ratner getting a completely free pass from New York politicians and most of the New York media. Perhaps now--with Bender's extra salty language and hardball lobbying tactics (in this case trying to scrounge up public money for a public bridge Forest City Ratner took down for AY and was supposed to pay to put back up and still has not done so over 2 years since it was supposed to go back up), with no regard for the Brooklyn public or New York taxpayers, luridly exposed in this indictment against Kruger, along with the Ridge Hill bribery mystery--that free pass can end.
Posted by steve at March 20, 2011 12:01 AM