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August 1, 2012
Bill de Blasio Tries His Best to Court Business Allies Ahead of Mayoral Run
NYMag.com
by Chris Smith
Speaking of values, integrity and honesty, alleged Mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio made a speech to business leaders yesterday, in which he assailed "rapacious bureaucrats" and praised Bruce Ratner. You can't make this stuff up.
De Blasio delivered his nearly hour-long address at an NYU event sponsored by the Rudin family, one of the city’s best-connected real-estate dynasties, with patriarch Bill Rudin in the front row. He ripped “heavy-handed, rapacious bureaucrats” getting in the way of development, and beat up on the city’s land use approval process and its buildings department, two eternal villains in the business community. And as a badge of business-friendly courage, de Blasio cited his support of Atlantic Yards despite the fierce opposition the project provoked in Park Slope, the neighborhood he represented in the City Council.
“When it came to the criteria that mattered above all others — good jobs and affordable housing,” de Blasio said, “it was clear that Atlantic Yards would help stanch the bleeding in an area facing huge problems of affordability.”
If only that were how things have turned out. The Barclays Center arena will open this fall, but its construction has generated far fewer jobs than promised; the housing at the site — affordable and not — hasn’t materialized at all. De Blasio blamed the economic downturn, Governor George Pataki, and even — to his credit — “my friends at Forest City Ratner,” an allusion to the thousands of dollars that the Atlantic Yards developer has contributed to his campaign.
Posted by eric at August 1, 2012 7:07 PM