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December 19, 2011
Marty Markowitz Spreads Holiday Cheer With Bogus Blame and Divisiveness
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
If the folks who supported Atlantic Yards, such as its biggest (as in loudest) cheerleader Marty Markowitz, hadn't attempted to construct the largest single-developer project in NYC history by overriding local zoning, bypassing the votes of all city and state elected officials, utilizing eminent domain for private gain, giving away public assets through sweetheart deals, providing special deals and subsidies totaling somewhere near $2 billion, and breaking housing and jobs promises left and right all while ignoring community input without ever sincerely seeking it, perhaps Atlantic Yards would not be the most reviled development plan in all of New York.
And now, despite all of that plus the growing realization among the non-partisans that the project and its one accomplishment—a money-losing arena—is a clustermess in the heart of Brooklyn, the Borough President is sticking to the absurd line that it is the community advocates' fault the project is a failure. Taking it yet one step further Markowitz astonishingly claims that the use of eminent domain for Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov's benefit was somehow a good thing.
Why do we bring all of this up? Well just look at what holiday cheer Markowitz is spreading.
Posted by eric at December 19, 2011 10:10 AM