Koppell Tells it Like it Is

Speaking in an interview with the Bronx News Network, Council member Oliver Koppell lays the blame for the defeat of the Kingsbridge Armory project right where it belongs-not with the KARA coalition, but with the mayor and the developer: “I wanted the project to go ahead,” Koppell said, “but I hadn’t made up my mind because we were involved with quite lengthy negotiations with the city to try and get some concessions on the living wage.” Koppell said the negotiations with the Bloomberg administration were “going ahead fairly positively until Friday [the vote was on Monday], and then at the last minute, the administration took all of their tentative offers off the table, and wanted us to proceed with no concession on living wage,” and no progress on other matters either."

And, as BNN points out, Koppell appeared to be the least likely council member to join with his colleagues against the mayor on this issue: "As a vote neared in the City Council on the Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment, only Oliver Koppell was publicly expressing reservations about joining with the Bronx delegation in rejecting the project. Earlier that week, Koppell held a town hall meeting in Bedford Park where he verbally tussled with constituents who were virtually unanimous in their position that he should vote the plan down if it didn’t include a living wage provision.“If you want to be responsible for an empty building for the next 10 years, that’s you,” Koppell told his audience then. “I don’t want to be responsible for that.”

If you add to that the fact that Koppell had actually endorsed the mayor's re-election bid, you get what is known as a reliable source on where to lay the blame here-and Crain's should listen closely, as should the other media harpies that are screaming for the RW's scalp for the Armory failure: “I wanted the project to go ahead,” Koppell said, “but I hadn’t made up my mind because we were involved with quite lengthy negotiations with the city to try and get some concessions on the living wage.” Koppell said the negotiations with the Bloomberg administration were “going ahead fairly positively until Friday [the vote was on Monday], and then at the last minute, the administration took all of their tentative offers off the table, and wanted us to proceed with no concession on living wage,” and no progress on other matters either."

Acting, in our view, as folks content to either try to bogart a vote for the project as is, or sanguine about walking away from a development that no one was too thrilled with: "On the day of the vote, Council Majority Leader Joel Rivera told the press that the city’s top lawyer said that one of the offers – giving direct financial to eligible workers – might run afoul of the state Constitution .But Koppell, a former state attorney general, said he believes even that “could have been worked out in my opinion if the city and Related wanted to proceed with it.”

Which is why we are hearing all of the post-defeat scapegoating of Stuart Appelbaum-it's all designed to deflect attention away from the administration's culpability for walking away from the table; after fatally waiting too long to even begum to discuss compromise. This misdirectional carping is underscored by the comments of EDC's Dave Lombino.

In a letter to the Riverdale Press criticizing the paper for its ant-Armory stance, Lombino says: "The Council’s votes killed the opportunity to bring $300 million in private investment and thousands of jobs to the Bronx where the unemployment rate is the highest in the state. The Council’s irresponsible actions ignored the community-based task force, the local community board, area civic groups, and mostly, the people of the Bronx."

The misinformation here is truly jarring-and for Lombino to say that the council ignored the, "community-based task force" is risible, given the manner in which Related simply trashed EDC's own RFP and proceeded to propose a mall that mocked the task force recommendations. Anything to avoid their own responsibility.

So it is back to the drawing board for the Kingsbridge Armory-and Related's defeat-no matter what spin Lombino tries to put on it-is simply addition by subtraction. The Bloomberg economic model-the one that has led to record city unemployment-is no longer seen as tenable. Maybe the commissioners musical chairs suggested by the mayor in his inaugural address will lead to some new ideas. We certainly hope so, since the current crop of economic advisers is just brain dead.