The Road to Mandelay

In today's NY Daily News, the paper's Errol Louis, building on our argument from the other day, editorializes about the self-centered delaying tactics of the Develop Don't Destroy folks. It now appears that the effort to use the courts to postpone the inevitable has some very real world consequences: "There's a real possibility that up to 100 construction and demolition workers could be laid off in the near future, thanks to the delaying tactics being employed by opponents of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn."

Enough already! It's high time that the DDDers, took their settlement monies, and went back to their lattes. The construction jobs and the future housing is too important to allow a small cohort of folks to drag the Atlantic Yards project into this legal morass.

And as far as the future home of the Brooklyn Nets is concerned, the responses that we got from some about our discussion of civic spirit engendered by a local sports team really exposed the underlying elitism of the opponents. "Bread and Circuses," they cried, echoing the tired neo-Marxist rant about how sports is the "opiate of the people."

The fact remains that the Brooklyn Nets willl become a borough treasure, and not only because of the euphoria that the team will hopefully generate. The Nets and FCRC will invest in the youth of Brooklyn-something that will be unveiled shortly with the launch of the Brooklyn Sports Alliance. The team will be a community partner with a myriad of sports and youth organizations, and the BSA will promote sports as an essential ingredient for a healthy and productive life.

So let's rally around the removal of the rear-guard actors. It is high time for our political leaders to get off of their duffs, "and political, civic, labor and business leaders need to stand up for Brooklyn jobs by urging state courts to resolve the junk lawsuits of the anti-development brigade with all deliberate speed."