« Concrete workers ordered back to work, including at arena site, but union said to plan appeal | Main | GAME CHANGER! Professional hockey could be coming to Brooklyn »
August 4, 2011
A partial loophole in Forest City Ratner's plan to hire an Independent Compliance Monitor for the CBA, but the developer still hasn't fulfilled its obligation (and backers are quiet)
Atlantic Yards Report
I should revise my analysis of Forest City Ratner's obligations under the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) to hire an Independent Compliance Monitor (ICM).
I wrote 11/29/10 that Forest City Ratner lied about CBA, claiming it went into effect only when the arena broke ground, and avoided hiring an ICM. I stand by that overall critique. The CBA went into effect shortly after it was signed in June 2005.
However, in terms of hiring an ICM, a footnote in an RFP (Request for Proposals) gave the developer slack until shortly before the groundbreaking, thus contradicting the language (likely) and spirit (clearly) of the CBA.
Even with that slack, however, Forest City Ratner has evaded its obligation, leading to regular situations, as I've described, in which the developer publicly self-reports on compliance with the CBA.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Beyond the over-hyped CBA: Bloomberg announces new plan to address jobs and training for young black and Latino men; response includes a good measure of skepticism (too little, too late?)
Once upon a time, Atlantic Yards and its Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) was portrayed as solving a decent chunk of social problems in Brooklyn. Actually, that was pretty recent; then-Governor David Paterson, at the March 2010 arena groundbreaking, declared, “As the buildings rise on Atlantic Yards, the joblessness rate will fall here in Brooklyn.”
Maybe a somewhat comprehensive strategy is necessary.
A front-page article in today's New York Times, Bloomberg to Use Own Funds in Plan to Aid Minority Youth (or in print "City Campaign Seeks to Lift Young Black and Latino Men"), reports:
The administration of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, in a blunt acknowledgment that thousands of young black and Latino men are cut off from New York’s civic, educational and economic life, plans to spend nearly $130 million on far-reaching measures to improve their circumstances.
The program, the most ambitious policy push of Mr. Bloomberg’s third term, would overhaul how the government interacts with a population of about 315,000 New Yorkers who are disproportionately undereducated, incarcerated and unemployed.
Posted by eric at August 4, 2011 11:22 AM