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February 14, 2012
Times columnist Powell again tracks the connection of "politically wired developer" Ratner to the Yonkers corruption trial involving Ridge Hill
Atlantic Yards Report
In Tracking the Tentacles of Corruption, New York Times Gotham columnist Michael Powell writes again (as he did last month) about the upcoming Yonkers corruption trial and the connections to developer Forest City Ratner:
But the trial is tantalizing for where its tentacles extend — linking political corruption in Westchester to that in Brooklyn, and touching on the curious fashion in which real estate developers pursue their chosen game.
(Where was Powell, say, at the March 2010 arena groundbreaking, or the August 2006 hearing on the Draft EIS, both of which were prime fodder for columns? Well, he's been a columnist since only May 2011. But no other columnist had a clue? Shame.)
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Times Columnist Michael Powell Takes Second Closer Look at Ratner Ties to Yonkers Corruption Trial
February 14th starts the federal corruption trial involving Bruce Ratner's Ridge Hill project in Yonkers, in which his now-former top lobbyist Bruce Bender is the unnamed and unindicted co-conspirator in a case where the briber and the bribee were indicted while the beneficiary of the bribe, Bruce Ratner's firm, wasn't.
On the eve of the trial's start The Times's columnist Michael Powell's second column on the Ratner ties to the trial pulls no punches. Powell is the first mainstream journalist, as far as we can tell, to pull the mask off Bruce Ratner and his "left-liberal" abettors such as former public advocate Betsy Gotbaum....
NoLandGrab: Given the machinations of Gotbaum and her successor Bill de Blasio, perhaps the office's name should be changed from NYC Public Advocate to Bruce Ratner's Personal Advocate.
Posted by eric at February 14, 2012 12:22 PM