The Neighborhood Retail Alliance

Cart Wheeling and Dealing

2011-03-09T08:49:00.000-05:00

As the WSJ is reporting today-and it comes as no great surprise to us-there is a thriving black market in food cart permits: "Monawara Sultana says her rent is going up: $14,000 for a two-year permit to run a food cart where she sells $1 hot dogs outside of Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. And it's not the city levying the increase or recouping the money. It's the permit holder, who is asking for double what she previously paid, according to Ms. Sultana. "It's not fair," said the Bangladeshi immigrant and mother of three. "Why did it go up so much?"

Can you say black market? WSJ can: "The city's competitive street food culture has created a thriving black market for mobile food vending permits issued by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The city charges a mere $200 for most food-cart permits, which must be paid every two years when they are renewed. But it only issues 3,100 year-round permits plus an additional 1,000 seasonal permits—not enough to satisfy demand. Transferring or renting these permits to another vendor is illegal but everyone, including the city's Health Department, acknowledges, that it happens."

Which is just another indication that the entire food vendor system needs to be overhauled-from licensing and street placement, all the way to an enforcement that is almost nonexistent. Still, even after the IBO's expose on the subject-and the fact that millions of dollars of fines were going uncollected-the Bloomberg administration remains stuck in the mud.

On top of this, all of the cries of legitimate store owners about how veggie peddlers are cannibalizing their produce business has fallen on deaf ears. We have also been pointing out that it appears that certain individuals-contrary to the law-hold multiple permits and illegally rent them out for exorbitant profits. Often for a 24 hour cycle to more than one vendor license holder.

Here's the DOH comments: "Elliott Marcus, an associate health commissioner, said the black market was a source of "big concern." Still, in a statement, the Department of Health noted: "While the Health Department suspects that in some instances permits are being transferred illegally, it is extremely difficult to prove an illegal sale in a particular case because the law does allow a permit holder to employ other licensed vendors to work his or her cart." To help remedy that, the department will soon propose changes requiring that permit holders appear when renewing permits and carts are re-inspected every two years."

How about a total overhaul-with an agency or task force dedicated to just this issue? "Meanwhile, demand for permits and their black-market prices continue to climb as street food's popularity soars with blogs like Midtown Lunch chronicling vendors' moves and some gourmet food trucks developing cult-like followings. Some permits fetch as much as $20,000 for two years, vendors say. In the case of Ms. Sultana, the Bronx food vendor, she says the permit holder told her someone else was willing to pay $15,000 for the permit she previously paid $7,000 for two years ago."

This is an area that is replete with corruption-and it appears that Public Advocate de Blasio is looking to propose some major changes in the vendor system-to both insure fairness and to protect the city's tax paying store owners. When his reforms are proposed, they should be given a fair hearing along with swift action. For too long local communities and neighborhood stores have been victimized by an out of control street vendor system. The chaos has gone on long enough.

Reckless Lane Change

2011-03-09T06:00:00.000-05:00

The law suit that's been brought against the Prospect Park bike lanes-lanes that we have no personal interest in-is still of utmost importance to all New Yorkers. The importance lies with the manner in which NYC DOT, and its ideologically driven commissioner, may be manipulating data to prove that the lanes are good for public safety. As the NY Post reports: "A scathing lawsuit filed against the city this week turns the Department of Transportation's own data against the Bloomberg administration's push for a bicycle lane along Brooklyn's Prospect Park West -- showing crashes and injuries actually increased after the two-way path was installed there last summer. The suit, filed Monday in Brooklyn Supreme Court by a group of well-heeled Park Slope residents, seeks the lanes' immediate removal. "This was a massive effort to distort the facts and force community support," said Norman Steisel, a former deputy mayor in the Dinkins administration."

We'll see how this plays out, but our first instinct is to believe the accusations because we have seen how the city agencies-across the board-from the DOE, and the DOH, all the way to our favorite, EDC, routinely cook the books in their favor to justify often misguided policies. So whether it is teacher bonuses, the evaluation of menu labeling, or the analysis of traffic from the proposed Willets Point development, we see how policy makers proffer corrupted data to make their initiatives look better.

The NY Daily News weighs in here: "New Yorkers who've long suspected that when it comes to Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan's bike lanes, somehow the numbers just don't add up, may well be right. A lawsuit filed Monday challenging the bicycle path on Prospect Park West in Brooklyn is chockfull of statistics wrested from Sadik-Khan's own agency through Freedom of Information Law requests. Comparing the numbers with those the Department of Transportation has issued publicly makes for a fascinating read. According to court papers, when DOT proposed the lane to Community Board 6 in April 2009, the department reported there had been 58 crashes on Prospect Park West and side streets from 2005-07 - proving a need for so-called traffic calming. That number was inflated; a more honest accounting wouldn't have included 12 accidents that did not occur on the thoroughfare."

What the department has done it appears, is to hide the raw data and dishonestly message what is released: "The plaintiffs allege more shenanigans: At a followup meeting six months after the bike lane was installed last June, transportation officials declared the path a rousing safety success. How? They used a three-year average culled from the second halves of 2007, 2008 and 2009 - purportedly showing a decline in the number of accidents from 29.7 to 25 in the second half of 2010. That was heavy spin - papering over a jump in accidents from 22 in late 2009 to 25 in late 2010. Why didn't DOT present the raw numbers? Because they didn't help make the case for the lane?"

As the Post also points out: "But Steisel's group ran the DOT numbers on a yearly basis and found crashes and injuries had been steadily declining -- but then slightly increased in the second half of 2010 once the lanes were installed."

What all of this underscores is that there is a need for a full and independent environmental review of all of DOT's efforts to radically alter NYC's streetscape-and if it is proven in court that Sadik-Khan consciously doctored the data then she should be jettisoned as fast as possible. New York doesn't need a policy maker who needs to make her case with fraudulent statistics.

While we're at it, though, it is now time for the city council to enter this argument-not in the microcosm of Prospect Park, but in the larger evaluation of the Sadik-Khan schemes. It should demand from the mayor all of the department's raw bike lane data from each and every installation city wide-and throw in the 42nd Street transformation for good measure. Once done, the council should hire an independent traffic expert to see how the department's numbers square with reality.

By doing this, the legislature would be laying the ground for a legislative initiative that would compel the city to conduct environmental reviews of all of these proposed changes-with the council getting the opportunity to vet the consultants' work. The city loves to mark its own exams-never a good idea for the public interest. A system of checks and balances most be instituted so that better policy making can ensue-and dishonest ideologues sent packing.

Van Wicked

2011-03-08T17:38:00.001-05:00

For those of you who have been downplaying our concerns about the traffic impact of the Willets Point development, today's NY Daily News article on NYC traffic should be a real eye opener-the city traffic is so bad that we are rapidly approaching Los Angelos levels, and may soon pass smog city. Even more interesting to us, of course, is the role that the Van Wyck plays in this traffic nightmare-two of the five worst hot spots are on this one expressway.

As the News reports: "New York City is on a highway from hell, poised to creep past Los Angeles for a dubious honor: the country's gridlock capital. The New York-New Jersey metro area has been deemed the second most congested in the U.S. - and the slow-speed gap with smogged-and-clogged L.A. is narrowing, a new report on highway travel reveals. "The level of congestion in New York is worsening at a faster rate than L.A.," said traffic expert Sam Schwartz, who writes the Daily News' Gridlock Sam column. "If this continues, within one year we very well may be the most congested city in America."

How could this possibly happen with the Bicycle Queen in charge of NYC transportation? You know, Ms. Carbon Footprint Reduction herself, good old pedestrian mall Sadik-Khan: "The data come from the 2010 National Traffic Scorecard compiled by INRIX, a technology and traffic information company based in Washington State. It calculates travel times using anonymous Global Positioning System devices.The New York region's congestion was equal to 86% of that experienced by L.A. drivers in 2009, but rose to 99% last year, the report shows. Schwartz said that may be the downside of an improving economy."

Gridlock Sam is onto something, but is, at the same time, missing the crucial variable-it isn't only a generic improvement in the city's economy that pushing folks into their cars to shop. The X factor is the number of suburban style malls that EDC has been successfully promoting-and the bogus traffic studies used to justify their zoning applications. As Schwartz hints: "I think more people are working, more people are spending money and more people are traveling," Schwartz said."

But just take a look at the Van Wyck gridlock that is pictured in the story-and Willets Point United's Brian Ketcham has documented how that roadway is simply unable to accommodate the 80,000 car trips a day that the Willets Point project will bequeath to it. But is precisely this reality that NYC EDC and DOT are trying to avoid-making an end run of the review process for the construction of ramps to and from the development from off of the Van Wyck.

Unable to justify the ramps to state and federal regulators, the EDC bait and switchers are moving to condemn and construct without the ramp approvals that the agency-and the former deputy mayor-had said were prerequisites to doing just that. And this is without considering-as Brian Ketcham has done-the building of Flushing Commons and 20 million sq.ft. of additional development for in and around Willets Point.

One other important point. It is quite likely that the traffic estimates for Willets Point and Flushing Commons-as large as they are-may in fact be low balled numbers. That's because Ketcham has identified in the official traffic studies, an inordinate estimate of the number of mass transit trips that both projects will generate-underestimating car ownership and usage to get these numbers.

There are two possible scenarios we can deduce from this-neither of them pretty. In the first instance, the low car estimate and high mass transit numbers are righteous-which means that there will be thousands of additional daily bus and subway riders that simply can't be accommodated by the infrastructure (think Train). The other scenario is, of course, that car ridership is considerably higher than the official numbers would have us believe-meaning that the highway gridlock will be almost exponentially greater.

Whatever the scenario, however, the efforts of EDC to avoid oversight and regulatory review have profound implications for all those folks who are suffering on both the Van Wyck and the Grand Central. It is exactly why SDOT has been strongly resisting giving the ramp application the green light that Sadik-Khan has been pressuring it to do.

EDC and NYC DOT need to be reined in-just as the locals in Park Slope are trying, on a smaller scale, to do with their bike lanes. The Bloomberg malling of the city has had a disastrous impact on NYC small business-and now we find that it may be having a similar impact on the overly congested roads. Willets Point United shouldn't be alone in the effort to put brakes on this wrong headed policy that is exemplified by the plan for the Iron Triangle-it should be everyone's concern, especially those who pretend to worry about Global Warming and the city's carbon footprint.

Hitting for the Cycle

2011-03-08T07:04:00.000-05:00

The NY Times is reporting that local Park Slope residents are bring a lawsuit against the Prospect Park bike lanes-and it's about time that some folks challenged the arbitrary and capricious actions of Commissioner Sadik-Khan: "Well-connected New Yorkers have taken the unusual step of suing the city to remove a controversial bicycle lane in a wealthy neighborhood of Brooklyn, the most potent sign yet of opposition to the Bloomberg administration’s marquee campaign to remake the city’s streets."

And while the action is only directed at these particular lanes, it could have repercussions for all of the commissioner's schemes: "But while the suit seeks only the removal of that particular lane, it incorporates criticisms of the administration’s overall approach in carrying out the high-profile initiatives of its transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, including placing pedestrian plazas in Times and Herald Squares and rededicating dozens of miles of traffic lanes for bicycle use."

What the suit will hopefully do is to expose the corrupt nature of the methodology used by DOT-and underscore the need for full environmental review of measures such as these that have a significant impact on traffic. The Times doesn't get fully into the legal theory, however, but does suggest its outline: "The lawsuit, filed by a group with close ties to Iris Weinshall, the city’s transportation commissioner from 2000 to 2007 and the wife of Senator Charles E. Schumer, accuses the Transportation Department of misleading residents about the benefits of the lane, cherry-picking statistics on safety improvements and collaborating with bicycle activists to quash community opposition."

The latter suggestion raises some interesting issues of collusion between the Bloombergistas and the not-for-profit sector. As the paper points out: "The opponents also produced e-mail correspondence that they sought to portray as an effort by the Transportation Department to coordinate criticism of the lane’s opponents. In an exchange from June, Ryan Russo, the department’s assistant commissioner for traffic management, told Aaron Naparstek, a leading bicycle advocate, that the lane “is under serious attack,” and he asked whether Park Slope Neighbors, a neighborhood group in favor of the lane, was “counterattacking” the criticism. “There are enough important people talking to other important people for me to worry and to require neutralizing,” Mr. Russo wrote in the e-mail."

Wow, coordinating with a non profit, who would have suspected? But the larger issue is one of rooking the residents and cooking the books: "The opponents, however, disputed that safety had improved, and their suit argues that the department presented “deceptive” statistics. They also accuse transportation officials of ignoring required environmental reviews and subverting a public review process by presenting a full report on the lane only after the decision was made to make it permanent."

Just as we have been arguing all along-as we said yesterday: ""Data-driven?" Cooked books is more like it-and if her data is so righteous why is most of what DOT plans concocted in secrecy worthy of the old Soviet Union? And, aside from the bicycle brigade, Sadik-Khan is pretty much universally-and deservedly-despised: "Council members have found her dismissive and confrontational,” said Letitia James, a councilwoman from Brooklyn who described herself as a friend of the commissioner’s. “Other than Brownstone Brooklyn and parts of Manhattan, she is pretty much despised by my colleagues.”

So, it's about time that Her Haughtiness was challenged-and our only regret was that the action wasn't brought by the city council, the folks that should be in the middle of the oversight of all of Sadik-Khan's majestic visions. As far as TA goes, we owe the group an apology for accusing it of being on the Bloomberg pad. Clearly, the payoff here was pure policy and no donation was needed to grease the wheels.

It does, however, underscore just how creepy the commissioner's ideological bent really is. To have a mayoral administration riding in locked wheels with this helmeted brigade is the one truly frightening thing that has come out of this so far. We do anticipate that once the opponents get a chance top review the books, they will find-just as we found with Willets Point-that both the figures lie, and the liars figure.

Commissioner Arrogance

2011-03-07T05:31:00.012-05:00

While we're on the subject of our favorite commissioner, the wild and wacky Sadik-Khan, let's take a longer look at the NY Times profile we alluded to in an earlier post. What comes through for us is the blithe arrogance of Sadik-Khan-and her cavalier and brusque treatment of those around her underscores this: "But among the city’s political class, Ms. Sadik-Khan has also become notorious for a brusque, I-know-best style and a reluctance to compromise. In public screeds and private whispers, many city leaders say they have felt rebuffed, alienated or outright dismissed by Ms. Sadik-Khan, with several recounting in interviews having picked up their phones to find her yelling on the other end. And she recently set City Hall atwitter by appearing to deflect criticism over the response to the December blizzard to Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly."

Public Advocate de Blasio highlights this: "Even if one appreciates some of Janette’s goals, it’s clear the approach has been very alienating all over the city,” said Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate. “There is a needless level of conflict. A lot of communities have become distrustful of the approach that the mayor and Janette have taken.”

The commissioner's problems devolves from her out sized sense of rectitude-something that doesn't go down well in the nabes: "In the past several months, even members of the Bloomberg administration have begun to acknowledge that Ms. Sadik-Khan’s aggressive style, so effective at first, may have morphed into a liability. The mayor, who found himself booed over bicycle lanes at a town hall meeting in Queens in January, spoke with Ms. Sadik-Khan, and they agreed she would solicit more opinions from neighborhood leaders."

Hence the backdown on 34th Street-as we pointed out earlier. What the city doesn't need is an imperial commissioner-especially since the chief executive has similarly abrasive qualities: "Sharp elbows and strong words are nothing new in city government, and some have wondered whether the backlash against Ms. Sadik-Khan has become unusually ferocious and personal in part because she is a woman. Cindy Adams, the venerable gossip columnist, has taken to calling her the “wacko nutso bike commissioner,” and the tabloids have showcased City Council members and borough presidents who have taken the rare step of publicly criticizing a prominent member of the Bloomberg team."

If any one feels that Sadik-Khan is being unfairly treated because of her gender, then they should do so on the record-the Times doesn't do itself any favors by sneaking this anonymous accusation into the mix. Just listening to the commissioner defending herself is enough to leave one queasy: "In an hourlong interview last month, Ms. Sadik-Khan said that she believed her initiatives had saved hundreds of lives on the city’s streets, and that she had pursued precisely the type of innovative, data-driven thinking that Mr. Bloomberg prides himself on. But she also conceded that mistakes had been made."

"Data-driven?" Cooked books is more like it-and if her data is so righteous why is most of what DOT plans concocted in secrecy worthy of the old Soviet Union? And, aside from the bicycle brigade, Sadik-Khan is pretty much universally-and deservedly-despised: "Council members have found her dismissive and confrontational,” said Letitia James, a councilwoman from Brooklyn who described herself as a friend of the commissioner’s. “Other than Brownstone Brooklyn and parts of Manhattan, she is pretty much despised by my colleagues.”

Nothing is more emblematic of the haughtiness of Khan than the following anecdote: "Then and now, City Hall officials considered Ms. Sadik-Khan a brilliant innovator with a sharp mind for data and details. But she has repeatedly stumbled on the political side, making errors that, some officials fear, threaten her ability to pursue her department’s agenda. The trouble began early. At a get-to-know-you session on Staten Island, the politically crucial borough where transportation troubles are legion, Ms. Sadik-Khan listened for about 20 minutes before making it clear that, in her mind, the meeting had come to an end. “Three minutes, gentlemen,” Ms. Sadik-Khan informed the group, which had not yet finished its presentation, according to several people in the room at the time. Three years later, “three minutes, gentlemen” is still a joke among the politicians who were part of the meeting, invoked whenever they believe the Bloomberg administration has ignored their interests."

And the Times underscores what the Post editorialized on-the commissioner's penchant for eschewing oversight: "Inside City Hall, Ms. Sadik-Khan developed a reputation as a difficult colleague who resisted oversight, according to current and former administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the mayor’s distaste for public discussion of internal business. Friends allow that she has a temper."

When overweening rectitude is melded with an abrasive personality you have-quite appropriately-a witch's brew: "She couldn’t care less whether you like her or not,” said a city official who has been close to Ms. Sadik-Khan for years and insisted on anonymity for fear of straining the friendship. “She doesn’t suffer people who don’t support her lightly. She’ll scream right back.” Another high-ranking official, fearful that being named could get him fired, recalled a heated conversation that culminated in Ms. Sadik-Khan’s announcing that she planned to remake New York City’s streets, “and people are going to have to get used to it.” “She has an absolute certainty that she’s correct,” said Lewis A. Fidler, a council member from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, who has clashed with Ms. Sadik-Khan over bicycle lanes. “I guess it’s nice to go through life with that kind of certainty, but I don’t know if it’s appropriate in government.”

Which gets us to Sadik-Khan's role in the fiasco over the Willets Point/Van Wyck ramps-an involvement that dramatizes all of our previous characterizations of the once and future queen. When it became apparent that SDOT was not going to simply roll over for the city and approve the ramp application that was supported by deficient data (data driven?), Sadik-Khan went into full boil mode that was captured in an email exchange between the local DOT administrator and the acting state commissioner. As we pointed out last year:

"When last we looked, there was friction between NYC DOT Commissioner Sadik-Khan, and the local regional head of the state agency who felt that the commissioner was threatening him if he failed to act expeditiously (read: hastily and without real oversight). As he said in an email: "JSK noted that she will be sending me a letter holding me personally responsible for holding the Willets Pt project hostage. I'm okay with that as we need to ensure that we have thoroughly reviewed the issues and that they are resolved satisfactorily."

Well, well, well. What an interesting situation. Commissioner Carbon Footprint, the person who persuaded the mayor to try to limit cars in midtown, an action that "catapulted Ms. Sadik-Khan to celebrity," was upset because the state wanted stricter oversight over a project that would generate 80,000 car trips every day! Which underscores the larger hypocrisy of the Bloombergistas-and the collusion of Sadik-Khan in it.

Put simply, the Bloomberg economic development policies have pretty much exclusively been characterized by the promotion of auto-dependent malls-from Gateway in the Bronx to Gateway in Brooklyn, with a Flushing Commons in between. Willets Point, however, is the center piece of the hypocrisy because there is not only no way to mitigate the traffic, but the assumption that over 50% of the traffic generated will use an overtaxed mass transit system is, at one and the same time, a unachievable goal and a conscious lie.

Talk about Khan jobs! So while this Sadik is making the life of motorists miserable through her experimental intrusions into our everyday lives, she is simultaneously silent or shilling for the mayor's development policies that put people in their cars; taking them away from the walk to shop neighborhood commercial strips-a classic example of hypocritical misdirection.

All of which-along with the mayor's tarnished reputation-has started to change. And the retraction on 34th Street may just be the beginning-something that Sadik-Khan herself is beginning to slowly realize: "The recent travails seem to have left Ms. Sadik-Khan more guarded and on edge — and more attuned to her public image. Asked in the interview if she believed her standing with the mayor had fallen, she said: “I really can’t speak to that. I think you’d have to ask him.” As the conversation came to a close, Ms. Sadik-Khan slumped in her chair, exhaled deeply, and crossed her arms. “A 30-year career,” she declared, with a snap of her finger, “can go like that.”

We're not interested in where her career goes. We'll be happy if she just exits from the municipal stage as soon as possible.

Willets Pointman

2011-03-07T05:18:00.002-05:00

The NY Daily News' Adam Lisberg focuses his column on our lobbying work on Willets Point-and beyond: "Lobbyist Richard Lipsky, who has been a thorn in the side of mayors and governors and their megaprojects for decades, is leading the charge against Mayor Bloomberg's dream of redeveloping Willets Point in Queens."

But Lisberg also points out what he implies might be a conflict owing to our work on Atlantic Yards: "The city wants to create jobs in a forlorn section of Queens by shutting down the businesses that have been there for decades. Sound weird? How’s this: The chief lobbyist against using eminent domain on those businesses in Queens also works for a developer using eminent domain on homes in Brooklyn."

Now, we dealt with this issue six years ago-emphasizing the importance of the Nets coming to Brooklyn:

"From the Alliance's perspective the most salient reason to join hands with FCRC, Build and Acorn is the bringing of the Nets to Brooklyn with a brand new arena. When the Alliance's Richard Lipsky was an up and comer plying his basketball wares all over the city, Brooklyn was a mecca for all BBall pilgrims. It still is, and the love for the game is beyond what even we would have imagined when we first began to evaluate the AY proposal.

The Brooklyn Nets are going to galvanize the entire borough and the team and its ownership is going to play a major role in working along with the youth leaders of Brooklyn in their tireless and unacknowledged efforts on behalf of the kids. That is why the support has been so unequivocal from these community folks."

A position that we reiterated when we talked with Lisberg: "Eminent domain allows government to seize a private owner's property to serve the greater public good — if you consider a basketball stadium or a shopping center to be a public good. Lipsky said he's usually against it, but the Nets arena and its benefits for neighborhood kids make it worthwhile in Brooklyn. "I don't have an absolute position on [eminent domain] but I do have a strong disposition against it," Lipsky said. "It takes a lot to push me in that direction." He also said he only worked on Atlantic Yards' youth sports efforts programs, not its eminent domain work efforts."

But Lisberg sees something else afoot in the representation: "Of course, Ratner could have hired him to work for Atlantic Yards just so the opponents couldn’t hire him to work against it. "That's true," Lipsky acknowledged. "You'd have to ask them why they hired me." An Atlantic Yards spokesman said Lipsky was hired strictly for youth sports programs."

All of which takes nothing away from the righteousness of the opposition to the massive Willets Point development: "The so-called Iron Triangle is a dilapidated maze of body shops and junk piles, a muddy morass in the shadow of Citi Field. It's the kind of place where the city never paved the roads or fixed the sewers — then called the area blighted. City officials want to use eminent domain to clear out the small businesses there and replace them with a huge complex of stores, hotels and homes. Into the fight stepped Lipsky, who has long represented small business groups against big business plans. He is a tenacious lobbyist and a loquacious blogger, lately trying to stop Columbia University from expanding into West Harlem and stop Walmart from opening in Brooklyn."

Some of which was captured by this WPIX video of our presser last week-as WPU and the workers came out in force at the illegal eminent domain hearing. Expect more of this as we get closer to the upcominf court battles.

All this points to, we hope, is that our work-wherever it takes us-has a degree of effectiveness that people of all stripes recognize. But what Lisberg misses here-and should pursue in our view-is that our representation of WPU has always been straightforward and above board. The proponents of this massive boondoggle, however, have been underhanded from the start-improperly hiring Claire Shulman's local development corporation to engage in a successful lobbying of the city council when such advocacy is proscribed by law.

Lisberg and his Albany colleagues should be asking the NYS Attorney General, what is the status of the investigation into the Shulman matter? It is bad enough for small property owners when the city comes down on them with threatened condemnation-but when the effort is rife with illegalities and improprieties, the press should take notice. This is the real newsworthy lobbying story-and our role becomes interesting only to the extent to which we have been able to expose how the city has gone about gaining approval for Willets Point

The city now realizes, however, that its effort to throw the little guys out of the Iron Triangle will not be smooth sailing-and the degree that this is a result of our advocacy, gives us a sense of well being. If it ends up with the project going down, so much the better-not particularly for us, but for those fighting property owners getting the shaft from EDC.

Bursting Bloomberg's Bubble

2011-03-07T05:10:00.001-05:00

In yesterday' NY Post, Fred Siegel and Sol Stern get to display their Bloomberg deconstruction project that appears in a fuller form in this month's Commentary-and the authors don't disappoint. First, the mythology: "In the narrative crafted by Michael Bloomberg’s public-relations team throughout the first nine years of his mayoralty, he was the fabulously successful businessman who saved New York’s economy after the 9/11 attacks and then went on to master urban governance without breaking a sweat. Along the way, we have been told relentlessly, Bloomberg became the nation’s leading education reformer, responsible for reducing by half the black-white achievement gap, while also launching lifesaving public-health and environmental initiatives."

For those of you who are frequent readers of this blog, the Siegal/Stern takedown is not anything new-we have been inveighing against the Myth of Mike for the past six years. But it's good to see some of what we have been pointing out get a wider dissemination-and we all agree that the snowfu of last Christmas was the turning point: "But all that was before the Christmas 2010 snowstorm, when this protean genius of 21st-century politics somehow forgot the first rule of New York City governance: The mayor must make sure the streets are cleared before he sets upon saving the world. As a powerful blizzard bore down on the city, Bloomberg, as was his weekend custom, was relaxing at his sunny Bermuda hideaway."

The emperor was finally be de-frocked: "The outrage surging up in the city’s neighborhoods was so palpable that even Bloomberg’s most reliable boosters began making fun of the great manager’s performance. The mayor’s approval rating plummeted to 34%, according to a Marist poll. The rumors planted in the media about his running for president finally, and mercifully, ceased."

In the authors' most trenchant analysis, they point out that this Fall from Grace was no Greek tragedy-precisely because, despite all of the myth making, there was no heroic prelude: "It is tempting to depict Michael Bloomberg’s reversal of fortune in his third term in office — a term he secured by muscling through a change in the city’s term-limits law before spending $150 million to win only 50.7% of the vote — with hubris metaphors drawn from classical tragedy. But this assumes there was glory before the fall. In reality, there never was greatness. There have been no lasting fiscal or education reforms. The story of Bloomberg’s mayoralty is this: There is no there there."

The article goes on to point out how Bloomberg initially went back on his no tax pledge to raise the commercial real estate levy in 2002-a point that we have emphasized because it placed a real hardship, an across the board rent increase, on all of the city's neighborhood retailers. Bloomberg, forgetting his faux fiscal integrity campaign promise, added insult to injury with his haughty response to the criticism of his about face: "This was fitting, he believed, for a metropolis that, he said in 2003, “isn’t Wal-Mart. It isn’t trying to be the lowest-priced product in the market. It’s a high-end product, maybe even a luxury product.” You want to live in and around a luxury product? You have to pay more."

Siegel and Stern also underscore Bloomberg's lost opportunity after 9/11 to rein in the cost of government-one of the reasons we have called the mayor, John Vliet Bloomberg: "The aftermath of 9/11 was an extraordinary lost opportunity for the city. It could have been a moment when, in the name of shared responsibility for bringing the city back to life, spiraling labor costs could have been addressed. Public-sector employees working for the city labored but 35 hours a week and contributed nothing to their own health-insurance premiums. Rather than take up the matter, Bloomberg simply retained the status quo when it came to negotiating with the city’s most important voting bloc. A routine was established: Bloomberg would start out by talking tough about how new contracts could be paid for only with increased productivity, and in response unions would reply in a patented and choreographed “anger” mode. This false confrontation would be followed by a renewal of the old contracts and their counterproductive work rules with a few cosmetic improvements. Thus the need for new borrowing."

Of course, where would a Bloomberg deconstruction project be without a discussion of the educational reforms that were built on a solid sand foundation. This is an area that Stern has been most incisive about in his essays in the City Journal-and the focus here on the Bloomberg educational spend-a-thon is most instructive. First, the false rhetoric: "Bloomberg said that the $12 billion the city was then spending on the schools should be enough to provide a decent education for all children because he and Klein were now going to “make sure we get the most value for the school system’s dollar.” Bloomberg also seemed to be rejecting the progressive-education approach to curricular issues and classroom pedagogy and casting his lot with education traditionalists."

Then, the reality: "But soon it became clear that, in this area as in others, it was necessary to pay attention to what this mayor did rather than what he said. Bloomberg began dipping deeper into the city treasury for more and more tax dollars for the schools. From fiscal 2003 to 2011, the education budget grew from $12.7 billion to $23 billion annually — almost a 70% increase in inflation-adjusted dollars. Most of the money was paid out in 43% across-the-board teacher-salary increases in just the first six years of Bloomberg’s tenure."

Gee, and now Mike wants to let go teachers because the city is tapped out? At the time, it was politically expedient to buy off the UFT-much as he had Al Sharpton: "Indeed, the purpose of the extra spending could not have been to improve student performance, since he said very plainly that he didn’t believe there was any connection between the two. Rather it was to shore up his political prospects and help make his reputation as the nation’s “education mayor.” Instead of insisting on changes in teacher-compensation packages that might have reduced the city’s long-term pension and health-care costs, Bloomberg cashed in his chips in the coin of either direct political support from the UFT or its calculated neutrality."

And the UFT delivered for Bloomberg when it didn't stand in the way of the renewal of mayoral control in 2009-but then came the real earthquake level tremors in the form of school test fraud revelations: "And then, in early 2010, the Bloomberg education bubble burst. State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Education Commissioner David Steiner acknowledged that over the past several years, the test scores had been grossly inflated...Bloomberg’s administration tried to put the best face on the news. It was true, Klein conceded, that the extent of student gains in recent years had been much exaggerated, but it was still true that New York had done better than the state’s other big-city districts. After boosting the city’s annual education budget by $11 billion, the Bloomberg administration was effectively saying, “We’re better than Buffalo.” That isn’t much of a legacy for a once-upon-a-time would-be presidential candidate who had put his education accomplishments at the top of his political résumé."

No it isn't, and even the mayor's own payola system-using his billions to buy off opposition and nurture support-couldn't save him when snow started to fall heavily last December. Not when the folks started to realize that the entire Bloomberg achievement edifice was little more than a Potemkin Village of expensive hype: "Bloomberg’s ability to buy off potential critics partially explains why the illusion of his managerial competence and reputation as the “education mayor” lasted for so long. All the mayor’s billions, however, couldn’t protect him from the consequences of last year’s crash of the city’s test scores or his malfeasance during the Christmas weekend snowstorm. Thus the question of the mayor’s legacy is now finally open for serious debate."

In sum, Siegal and Stern give the Post readers a lot to chew on-and our only criticism would be that they did leave out the mayor's disastrous economic development legacy, one that has made him, in our view, the worst mayor for small business in our memory. But, to be fair, there is so much there to critique that one could never do complete justice to the subject in just one article.

We'll give these two mavens the last word-although we're certain that there will be more revisionism to come from a wide range of previously star struck quarters: "When Michael Bloomberg leaves office in 2014 — assuming he leaves office in 2014 — the city will be saddled long into the future with the massive borrowing and school spending he required to maintain his political reputation. Citizen Bloomberg will have a significant role in how Mayor Bloomberg is judged. Already the master of an expanding media empire, he is now setting up his personal charitable foundation, which may rival the Gates Foundation in financial assets. That foundation will no doubt have the resources to place the Bloomberg legacy of debt, boondoggles and bicycle lanes in the best possible light."

No Khan-Do

2011-03-07T04:59:00.003-05:00

With much of the public up in arms over the arbitrary actions of DOT Commissioner Sadik-Khan to unilaterally transform the NYC streetscape, it good to know that Mayor Tone Deaf has her back. The NY Post has the story: "He's got his commissioner's back. Mayor Bloomberg offered a spirited defense yesterday of embattled Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, two days after she withdrew a controversial proposal to plop down a pedestrian mall in the middle of 34th Street. "This woman has made some real innovations here in this city that will last and will be a very big deal," the mayor declared, speaking of the sweeping streetscape changes undertaken during his administration."

And Bloomberg sees her backing down-not as a result of the tumultuous public blowback-devolving from Sadik-Khan's sensitivity to the pulse of the people: "He argued that Sadik-Khan should be given credit for backing off the original 34th Street plan, saying that indicated she had listened to community concerns about closing the street to all traffic except buses and emergency vehicles between Fifth and Sixth avenues. "That's what she's supposed to do," said the mayor."

All of which is unsurprising given since it is the mayor who is ultimately to be held responsible for this runaway train-but Bloomberg's public defense of the transit czar contrasts sharply with some of his reported private remarks about the embattled commissioner. The NY Times reports on this in its profile of Sadik-Khan last week-and it is revealed in a reported exchange between Congressman Weiner and the mayor: “When I become mayor, you know what I’m going to spend my first year doing?” Mr. Weiner said to Mr. Bloomberg, as tablemates listened. “I’m going to have a bunch of ribbon-cuttings tearing out your [expletive] bike lanes.” Mr. Weiner, a brash Democrat from Queens, had expected a bit of banter with his longtime adversary. Instead, Mr. Bloomberg adopted an exasperated, welcome-to-my-world expression. “His answer was, ‘Tell me about it,’ ” said a person who was there, one of two who recounted the tale. The mayor, some guests said, made it clear that Ms. Sadik-Khan was off on her own.

If the exchange is true, however, it is an indication to us that the 34th Street backdown came right from the mayor himself-and the NY Post's observations about the need for continual vigilance over this rogue commissioner rings true to us: "City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan says she's backing off her radical remake of 34th Street -- but she's never played straight with New Yorkers before, so why take her at face value now?

The Post hones in on the commissioner's hubris: "Her plan to redirect traffic on 34th Street may also be in flux -- though it's hard to say, because with Sadik-Khan everything is a secret until it isn't. But there is no doubt that any significant traffic manipulation will create a permanent nightmare for nearby side streets."

The paper doesn't have much good to say about all of those, "innovations," that the mayor referred to: "Not that she hasn't committed a boatload of costly mistakes -- starting with turning over vast swaths of city streets to delivery boys on bikes and the occasional cool dude peddling along in his Day-Glo tights. The 34th Street plaza was a humongous mutation of her other tour de force -- the tourist refuge that cut the heart out of the former crossroads of the world, Times Square."

But what struck us most about the Post's commentary was its focus on the lack of oversight and accountability at the transit agency-something that we also have remarked on in the past: "And it's not remotely clear whether residents and businesses will continue to have curb access all along 34th Street -- or, if they do, what restrictions will remain. Sadik-Khan says she'll make more details public on March 14. If she follows form, much of it will be on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. And, if Mayor Bloomberg's past indulgence of his transportation commissioner maintains, that'll be the end of much of the discussion. Sure, the department promises to publish traffic and environmental studies later this year -- but the agency conducts such studies itself, and previous "reviews" generally have simply ratified its original proposals. In the rare instances when the studies produce inconvenient results, they are either paid lip service or ignored. So if any municipal agency has earned vigorous independent oversight, it's the Department of Transportation." (emphasis added)

Which is why all of this mishogos should be subject to rigorous environmental review-an official ULURP process where the city council hires its own traffic engineers to review any data that the DOT submits. That's what independent oversight looks like. What is accurate about DOT holds true for EDC as well-and for too long the city council has swallowed whole the drek provided by EDC's, and the leading developers'-favorite consultants, AKRF.

The blistering critique that Brian Ketcham did of EDC's traffic ramp application to SDOT dramatizes our point-and for too long the ULURP process has been suborned by fraudulent studies designed to bolster the inaccurately rosy picture of one development after the other. It's now time to fundamentally alter the entire SEQR process in this city.

Deceit Suits EDC

2011-03-04T09:09:00.000-05:00

We are now coming close to the moment of truth for EDC, the city's rogue development agency-as WPU's lawsuit is getting ready to challenge its illegal bait and switch tactics. The NY Daily News along with the Flushing Times) lays out the imminent legal battle: "The stage has been set for a legal battle between Willets Point property and business owners versus the city. Willets Point United is preparing to file two lawsuits against the city, attorneys for the group said. One challenges its use of eminent domain to wipe the slate clean for developers in the gritty industrial zone and another claims the city skipped key regulatory steps to fast-track the project."

What the suits will dramatize is the city's disregard for regulatory procedures and the basic tenets of the environmental quality review act-not to mention the lobbying and not for profit laws that started this whole process with an illegal foundation: "Noted environmental attorney Michael Gerrard, who is also representing Willets Point United, said the redevelopment cannot start until the ramps off the Van Wyck Expressway are built. But McKnight said the ramps are not needed until the first phase of the development is completed. After Gerrard read his statement, he looked to McKnight and said, "We will see you in court," prompting cheers from dozens in the audience."

EDC's assertions about the non essential nature of the ramps will be at the heart of the challenge-and all of the agency's technical memoranda that have been set forth to justify its position on this crucial variable lack one important feature: any supporting data. To our view, that's not especially surprising-this is one agency that should stay away from data generation, if its initial faulty traffic submissions to the state DOT are any indication.

And the team of Gerrard and Brian Ketcham will attack the illegal segmentation that is at the core of EDC's bait and switch: "All of their documentation shows it's a single project for which the ramps are needed," Gerrard told the Daily News after his testimony." But the EDC switcheroo should concern all of the stakeholders who were gathered together back in 2008 to support the project. If we remember back, we saw how numerous labor unions came to city hall to endorse the Willets Point project-citing concessions that, if the current EDC behavior is a guide, don't amount to a hill of beans. Our advice to some of our friends: Don't try to cash any Bloomberg promissory notes.

This chapter in the Willets Point saga was captured by the Daily News' Juan Gonzales: "Some of New York's biggest union leaders lined up on the steps of City Hall Thursday to cheer Mayor Bloomberg's new mega development plan - the $3 billion Willets Point project in Queens. One after another, they gave glowing praise to one more giveaway to real estate developers - one that had been opposed by a majority of the City Council. The labor leaders touted the "historic" concessions on future jobs at Willets Point they claim to have secured from City Hall in return for backing the project."

The essence of a verbal contract, it seems to us. But what is really striking in the Gonzales piece is the accompanying photo of none other than Claire Shulman-something that will also become an important aspect of the WPU challenge: "We're going to show how unfair this whole process has been," said Michael Rikon, one of the lawyers representing the group. Rikon said his firm completed a 62-page report yesterday detailing numerous problems with the redevelopment push at Willets Point, a 61-acre area known as the Iron Triangle currently filled with auto repair shops...Rikon's report includes what he called "an illegal lobbying effort by the mayor to use funds to sway the City Council into voting for the Willets Point project." Rikon was referring to the city's funding of a group headed by former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman to lobby lawmakers. In July 2009, Shulman's group was fined a record $59,090 because Shulman forgot to register as a lobbyist."

If we go back to that period we find that opposition to the development was beginning to really coalesce-and it was Shulman's illegal lobbying effort that brought the labor muscle into the equation; a factor that became the linchpin of the political turn around that eventually saw the project win the support of the council. Without labor, and the role that Shulman played in galvanizing its support, WPU would likely not be in the position it finds itself today-in fact, it is quite possible that the group wouldn't even exist if the project failed to gain council approval.

WPU's Rikon will also focus on EDC's invidious treatment of the property owners-as the Queens Tribune reports: "...Rikon plans to argue against the EDC's handling of property buy-outs. The process, which Rikon said should be numerically equitable in terms of price per square foot, has been stilted in favor of larger property owners - ones Rikon claims the City targeted in order to quickly reach its greater-than-50-percent target of ownership."

So, if this is an end game, the end ain't coming anytime soon. And the more that WPU uncovers-through FOIL and discovery-the more all of the city will be treated to the underhanded manner in which this rogue EDC element operates. Not everyone gets a second act in life, but in this case the property owners at Willets Point will be the exception. We feel strongly that this will not end well for the powers that be-and the mayor's legacy, whatever that is, will be forever tarnished by what has transpired during this entire process.

Sadik-Khan Blinks!

2011-03-04T05:07:00.007-05:00

In a rare victory for sanity, the Bloombergistas have apparently thrown in the towel on turning 34th Street into a vast pedestrian mall. The NY Post reports in a story aptly headlined, The Miracle on 34th Street" "City officials are walking away from their controversial plan to turn 34th Street between Herald Square and Fifth Avenue into a pedestrian plaza -- citing repeated criticism of a scheme that would have shut down yet another major Midtown intersection. "There isn't going to be a plaza . . . The changes we are talking about reflect what we have heard from the community," Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan said yesterday."

So we are finally getting some push back on the Bloombergistas' Copenhagen modeling: "The city's decision to scrap the plaza was welcomed by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer as "a step in the right direction." "Clearly, discussions between the various stakeholders are having an impact," Stringer said. Residents and small-business owners in the neighborhood were outraged by the proposal, and said yesterday they were glad the city will let traffic keep flowing through the area. "It was a silly idea to start with. Why would you need to close it down?" said Sarah Mercer, 37. "It's a busy block. I'm glad they've come to their senses."

Sometimes people need to have sense knocked into them-and the WSJ chimes in: "Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan has attracted international attention with the city's pedestrian malls. But she ran into stiff opposition on 34th Street. Residents complained the pedestrian mall would snarl traffic; businesses said they would be unable to receive deliveries if the mall were created."

We expressed our view earlier on the NYC Sadik, and the decision to pull back doesn't mitigate that sentiment in the least-although we are pleased with the pull back. She is still ill-equipped to handle the transportation department-hampered as she is, both philosophically and temperamentally. The city's about face does not represent the commissioner's newly acquired sobriety-but rather the strength of the growing opposition to her arbitrary and capricious policy making.

The NY Times reporting gets the last word-but even the paper of record understands the role played by the NY post's Steve Cuozzo (and Andrea Peyser as well) in exposing the stupidity of the plan: "The decision to abandon the plaza plan is a stark contrast to the fate of previous unorthodox ideas put forward by Ms. Sadik-Khan, who has banned cars from parts of Times, Herald and Union Squares. The 34th Street plan came under sustained attack this week in The New York Post, where one columnist deemed the project a “budding Titanic.”

Pity Bloomberg's Poor Immigrant

2011-03-04T04:45:00.002-05:00

City Room is reporting that Mayor Bloomberg is looking to devise a program to aid in the formation of immigrant businesses-this from the is he kidding department: "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced a competition Thursday aimed at helping immigrant entrepreneurs finance their businesses and overcome language barriers and other obstacles hindering their growth.The program comes as part of the city’s wide-ranging push to assist immigrant start-ups, which fail at a higher rate than businesses begun by native-born Americans. Roughly half of the city’s self-employed workers are immigrants."

Perhaps the mayor should start with discarding initiatives that put existing immigrant businesses at risk-like the Willets Point development that will shunt scores of mostly Hispanic business owners into the gutter. Or maybe, instead of encouraging the entry of Walmart into the city, he should tell the giant retailer to stay away rather than put thousands of immigrant food store operators in jeopardy.

And while we're at it, how about cancelling Flushing Commons before that mega development harms hundreds of Asian store owners in that hub of immigrant commerce? In fact, the involvement of EDC in this faux pro immigrant effort gets the Chutzpah award, since it is that agency that has launched scores of mega developments that have made it more difficult for small, mostly minority, businesses to survive. Remember the Bronx Terminal Market that housed 22 minority food wholesalers? EDC quite expeditiously dispatched these hapless little guys to make way for a Related mall.

NYC has become a center of successful immigrant entrepreneurship-in spite of city policies that have retarded its growth.The reality is that the best way for NYC to encourage immigrant entrepreneurship is to reduce the tax and regulatory burden here-something that the mayor has made much worse in his nine year tenure. In fact, the Bloomberg administration has been the most anti-small business governments we have seen in our thirty years of representing these role models.

If you own a supermarket you are a piñata for the Department of Consumer Afairs and its army of useless inspectors. How about a Korean or Mexican restaurant? Watch out for the DOH's regulators looking to brand you with a scarlet letter. If you run a fast food outlet-one of the most successful minority business niches-you have to spend thousands of extra dollars to comply with the ineffective menu labeling regulation-and so it goes. And we haven't even mentioned the mayor's jacking up of the commercial real estate tax in his first year-a huge rent increase for all neighborhood retailers.

So our advice to the mayor-and those that uncritically report his grandiose plans of misdirection-is to follow the Hippocratic Oath, and simply do no harm. Pilot programs of questionable efficacy are no substitute for sound economic, small business friendly, policies. Focusing attention on this kind of grandiose non sequitors, only serves to help Mike Bloomberg camouflage his anti immigrant business record.

Senioritis

2011-03-03T15:05:00.000-05:00

Josh Robin at NY1 has a fascinating take from Mike Bloomberg on the issue of teacher seniority-and questions the mayor on the inconsistency of his position: "Teachers Peter Lamphere and Julie Cavanagh have 19 years in the classroom between them -- enough time to believe there's no substitute for experience."All of us know that we get better at our jobs as we go along. I think it's extraordinarily true with teaching," Lamphere said. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, though, isn't so sure veterans in the classroom are the best. On the one hand, he admits seniority gives teachers the ability to learn more. But while speaking to reporters Wednesday he added, "The length of time that you have worked is irrelevant to whether or not you can do what our children need."

To which teacher Cavanagh shoots back: "If you look at the schools that Cathie Black and Mayor Bloomberg sent their own children, they boast about the number of years experience that their teachers have," Cavanagh said." Touché

But the mayor hasn't always been down on experience: "As for Bloomberg, some see a troubling irony in his knock on experience. After all, he cited just that in his successful bid to over turn term limits and win another four years at City Hall." But, to be fair, we have seen how well that argument has worked out-so maybe both sides are wrong.

But the experienced Mr. Bloomberg has shown an extraordinary ineptitude when it comes to dealing with the state legislature-something you'd expect he might have picked up in over nine years on the job. Not so says the NY Post's Fred Dicker, who accuses Bloomberg of colossal bumbling in his attempt to change seniority rules for the city's teachers.

As Dicker points out: "You'd think after nine years in office, Mayor Bloomberg would know how Albany works. But he obviously doesn't, as Gov. Cuomo made clear for all to see late Tuesday when he pulled the rug out from under a Bloomberg press conference called to crow about Senate passage of the mayor's bill ending "last in, first out" protections for underperforming city teachers. The scope of Bloomberg's miscalculation was breathtaking."

Gee, maybe he needs another term? But Mike has never done well with the old system of checks and balances-and as long as he can do things unchallenged, he does just fine. The problem in Albany for the mayor, is that their are other elected officials who are not bedazzled by his good looks and charm: "But Bloomberg's most difficult move to fathom is his ongoing attempt to get Democrat Cuomo -- battling his party's left wing on spending restraints and the "millionaires tax" -- to jam a LIFO bill into his proposed budget, a provocative assault on the Democratic-controlled, union-friendly Assembly. Cuomo has made it clear to the mayor that such an effort would be illegal, since the city-specific proposal has no direct relevance to a statewide spending plan, insiders said."

Bloomberg, however, is used to skirting the borders of legality-as we have pointed out with the Willets Point ramps and the Claire Shulman LDC. When you're living in a political echo chamber, you never get to adjust to effective cognitive dissonance: "As a source close to Cuomo put it, "Does Bloomberg really believe the governor would endanger his budget to satisfy [the mayor's] desire to lay off teachers who may not have to be fired?"

So, once again, Bloomberg falls flat on his face dealing with grown ups-and yet again we get to witness the rancid hypocrisy that has come to characterize his tenure. On the City Room blog, Fran Liebowitz expresses our view of the mayor rather eloquently: "She decried life in New York under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, accusing him of pulling off a “coup” when he undid the term limits law in 2009, and saying she had proudly informed the mayor in person that she voted against him three times. She seemed offended that after last year’s election Mr. Bloomberg had expressed anger over voting machine foul-ups, given his lack of interest in the voters’ will during the term limits debate, and suggested that he should never discuss voting or elections again, given his history."

The countdown to his imperial exit has begun-as we labor to deal with the sad fact that, "a watched pot never boils."

City Ramps Up Its Willets Point Dishonesty

2011-03-03T08:56:00.001-05:00

Last night's eminent domain hearing was the culmination of 15 months of utter frustration for the Bloombergistas-despite all of the city's huffing and puffing at NYS DOT, it was unable to move the Van Wyck ramp application that was supposed to be, and was self-described as, a prerequisite for any move to condemn properties at Willets Point. Stymied in this fashion, the city simply threw up its hands and said, the hell with waiting-hence the concocting of a Phase I for the development of Willets Point that, mirabile dictu!-doesn't need those stinkin' ramps.

The NY Times is on the story: "At the emotional hearing, opponents of the city’s plans for the $3 billion development project vowed to try to kill it in court, while city officials said they would forge ahead with plans to rejuvenate Willets Point, a 61-acre expanse of junkyards and auto-repair shops — and one resident, Mr. Ardizzone — so blighted that locals refer to it as Iraq. The four-hour hearing was the latest showdown in a four-year battle that has flared tempers and inspired furious lobbying. It was peppered by loud heckling from a crowd of Hispanic workers who say they stand to lose their jobs when the businesses at which they work are seized by the city for the project."

Mike Gerrard made the case for why the ramps are going to be the Achilles' heel of this ill conceived venture: "But opponents said Wednesday that they would fight on and that they planned to reopen a case against the city in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on the ground that the project breached environmental rules. Michael B. Gerrard, a lawyer representing a group of small business owners, said his case rested on a seemingly arcane but decisive issue: two ramps that the city had pledged to build to connect Willets Point to the Van Wyck Expressway and help offset the up to 80,000 vehicle trips a day that experts say the entire development will generate. Opponents of the development insist the city cannot use eminent domain unless the ramps are approved by the Federal Highway. Administration and the State Transportation Department. In August, the State Supreme Court in Manhattan turned down a request for an injunction by Mr. Gerrard that focused on the two ramps. But Mr. Gerrard said Wednesday that the city had reneged on its promise to gain approval for the ramps, thereby breaching its assurances to the court.

And the Times lets the city lead with its chin on those pesky ramps: "City officials said that the city’s initial pledge to build the ramps had been based on development of all 62 acres of Willets Point and that subsequent environmental assessments undertaken by the city had determined that the traffic generated during the first five-year phase of development would not make construction of the ramps necessary in the short term. “We are continuing to work toward the necessary regulatory approvals for the ramps and anticipate approval in the coming months,” Mr. McKnight said at the hearing."

Well, as we have said repeatedly, the city has never even hinted that it would proceed with a partial development of Willets Point sans ramps-not once, either in city council testimony or in its court pleadings. But what struck us the most about the statement above was the city's allegation that it, "had determined that the traffic generated during the first five-year phase of development would not make construction of the ramps necessary in the short term."

Just how ballsy is this assertion? Consider the fact that this is the same group of prevaricators that submitted traffic data to the state for the Van Wyck ramp application that was exposed as either fraudulent or woefully inadequate-take your pick. Put simply, EDC's consultants were undressed by the righteous critique of their work by WPU's Brian Ketcham-and State DOT sided with the critic.

That this same gang that can't calculate straight is now claiming that they, "have determined," the ramps are unnecessary for this new Phase I, is simply risible-as Mike Gerrard has cogently argued. The basis for the legal challenge lies with the fact that the city needs to demonstrate that its allegations have some merit-as Gerrard told Crain's: "Mr. Gerrard said if he succeeds in his attempt to force the city to compile a new environmental impact statement assuming the highway ramps were not built, the project would be set back “probably a year, at least.”

Of course, when the city brings out its bulldozers, it isn't arcane issues about ramps and environmental niceties that are most compelling-it is the people who are impacted by the land grab. At Willets Point, one man stands as a symbol to the arrogance of the mayor and his minions-and we'll give Joe Aridizzone the last word: "He came dressed as a revolutionary soldier, complete with tights and a cap reminiscent of George Washington’s. But Joseph Ardizzone, 78, the last remaining resident of Willets Point, conceded on Wednesday that the fight against the Bloomberg administration for a bedraggled piece of real estate in the shadow of the Mets’ new stadium in Queens was not a battle for the faint-hearted. “I’ve been in the same block for 78 years,” he said, accusing the mayor of a shameless land grab. “Where will I go? The city should be ashamed of what it is doing.”

Crain's Covers Willets Point Condemnation

2011-03-03T05:22:00.002-05:00

Crain's online edition is reporting on the city's effort to create a new Phase I of the Willets Point development-and condemn 13 property owners after telling one and all that no condemnation would be utilized until ramps off the Van Wyck were approved. The story does a fair job at covering the position of property owners-although we take issue with the editorializing that opined that WPU's chance of success was, "remote;" along with the header that calls this effort, "last ditch."

As Crain's points out: "Queens property owners whose land would be condemned to pave the way for the redevelopment of Willets Point announced Wednesday that they will reopen a legal challenge that they lost last summer. They did so as the city began formal proceedings to acquire their sites through eminent domain. A condemnation hearing to take testimony on the government's bid to buy blighted private property at fair market value to use it for a public purpose began at 4 p.m. Wednesday and was expected to continue for several hours."

The essence of the lawsuit is outlined: "The plaintiffs' case hinges on a pledge by the city that it would not seize any land until it got state and federal approval for the construction of two highway ramps that it considered essential to the project. Those Van Wyck Expressway ramps have yet to be approved, but the city is moving forward anyway. It argues that it can do so because it has split the redevelopment into two phases, and the first phase does not rely on the ramps."

Here's the city's argument: "Phase I will be completed and the substantial Phase I benefits will be realized even if the connections are not approved by the Federal Highway Administration and the New York State Department of Transportation,” a city official testified." But, as Mike Gerrard tells Crain's: "...the judge who dismissed their lawsuit last summer never heard of any two-phase plan. Mr. Gerrard has filed a motion with the same judge, Joan Maddon of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, to reopen the case."

Here's where Crain's gets into murky waters-conflating eminent domain challenges with what Gerrard is trying to accomplish: "Such legal challenges rarely succeed. In fact, Mr. Gerrard could not name the last time an eminent domain condemnation was successfully challenged in New York City. Despite lawsuits by opponents, eminent domain was used to remake Times Square and to clear room for a basketball arena in Brooklyn, where construction is now under way. It was also used for the proposed expansion of Columbia University."

As we pointed out yesterday-citing Gerrard's formal statement for the hearing-it is the ramp approval fiasco, the failure to get them approved, and the city's about face on the issue that faces legal scrutiny. An environmental challenge before the same court that took Deputy Mayor's sworn statement about the necessity of prior ramp approval should be worrisome to the Bloombergistas:

"The City has been pledging for years that this approval was imminent, but it has not arrived, and it is obviously nowhere in sight. Thus the City has violated its pledges to the Court and its representations in the FGEIS, and in desperation is attempting to start the project without this essential approval.It is also attempting to start the project with no one having any clear idea what impacts the project would have with the ramps. There are two prior analyses by the City of traffic conditions with the ramps -- the FGEIS and the Access Modification Report (AMR). As we have previously shown in detail, the results of these two studies were radically different."

To its credit, however, Crain's does present the legal challenge as a serious obstacle: "Still, the case is significant because it threatens a signature project of the Bloomberg administration and the most advanced attempt to redevelop Willets Point, a busy but woeful industrial backwater at the edge of Flushing that has defied efforts to improve it for more than 40 years."

So, this might not be as, "last ditch," as Crain's would have its readers believe. In fact, it may be EDC that has driven the Willets Point development car right into the ditch-stalled no because of the agency's own frustration, devolving from its disingenuousness before state and federal regulators.

In our view, what should be ditched is the city's unintended devolution into stand up comedians. Take its statement to Crain's-please: "A Bloomberg administration official testified at Wednesday's hearing that the plan is “aimed at transforming a largely underutilized approximately 61-acre site with substandard conditions and substantial environmental degradation into a lively, mixed-use, sustainable community and regional destination.”

Only total hypocrites could characterize a development that will-at the very least-generate 80,000 car trips a day as the ultimate creation of a, "sustainable community." There is nothing sustainable about the Willets Point project-least of all the arguments used to support it. We'll see if Judge Madden finds the city's comedic patter amusing-but if she doesn't, this boondoggle will be sent reeling.

Mike Gerrard gets the penultimate last word: "The current redevelopment effort began in 2001. Mr. Gerrard said if he succeeds in his attempt to force the city to compile a new environmental impact statement assuming the highway ramps were not built, the project would be set back “probably a year, at least.”

At least! And the clock is ticking on these dishonest development divas-it won't be long before Mike Bloomberg becomes the lamest of lame ducks.

There is No Public Use at Willets Point

2011-03-02T13:19:00.004-05:00

WPU is represented by attorney Mike Rikon at today's condemnation hearing in its effort to stymie the city's effort to use eminent domain for the displacement of property owners at Willets Point. Rikon, in the full statement printed below makes the distinction between the Willets Point case and the numerous other condemnation cases-from Atlantic Yards to West Harlem and East Harlem-that focused on a challenge to the designation of those areas as blighted. Here's the Rikon money quote:

"PUBLIC USE MUST BE PRESENT IN ANY CONDEMNATION IN NEW YORK STATE. THE RECENT CASES, IN OUR COURT OF APPEALS, ATLANTIC YARDS, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, UPTOWN PROPERTIES ALL WERE BASED ON BLIGHT CHALLENGES. BUT THE COURT OF APPEALS HAS MADE CLEAR OUR STATE CONSTITUTION STILL REQUIRES A PUBLIC USE BEFORE PROPERTY MAY BE TAKEN THUS FOR ANY CONDEMNATION TO GO FORWARD IN WILLETS POINT, THERE MUST BE A PUBLIC USE FOR THE PROPERTY TO BE TAKEN.

Put simply, without a developer and a plan, there is no public use-and this speculative condemnation is illegal (read the entire statement)

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL RIKON ,

ATTORNEY FOR WILLETS POINT UNITED, INC. AND

INDIVIDUAL PROPERTY OWNERS EDPL SECTION 201

PUBLIC HEARING MARCH 2, 2011

MY NAME IS MICHAEL RIKON, MY LAW FIRM GOLDSTEIN, RIKON & RIKON, P.C. REPRESENTS WILLETS POINT
UNITED, INC. AND INDIVIDUAL PROPERTY OWNERS. THIS PUBLIC HEARING VIOLATES THE EMINENT DOMAIN PROCEDURE LAW, THE CONSTITUTION AND DUE PROCESS. WILLETS POINT UNITED, INC. IS A COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION CONSISTING OF 12 PROPERTY AND BUSINESS OWNERS THE 62 ACRE PROJECT WILL AFFECT 255 BUSINESS AND SOME 55 PARCELS OF LAND.

AT THE OUTSET, THE NOTICE GIVEN FOR THIS PUBLIC HEARING VIOLATES THE DUE PROCESS CLAUSE. THE HEARING “LEGAL NOTICE” STATES THAT THE PUBLIC HEARING IS TO CONSIDER THE PROPOSED ACQUISITION BY CONDEMNATION OF CERTAIN PROPERTY IN FURTHERANCE OF THE WILLETS POINT DEVELOPMENT PLAN.

THE NOTICE GOES ON TO DESCRIBE THE AREA ENCOMPASSED BY THE PLAN AS A 61.4 ACRE INDUSTRIAL SITE. IT THEN DESCRIBES A SMALLER AREA WHICH IT CALLS PHASE I, BUT IT ONLY IDENTIFIED AND GAVE NOTICE TO THOSE PROPERTY OWNERS IN PHASE I, THIS VIOLATES THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS TO DUE PROCESS OF ALL THE OTHER OWNERS. THIS HEARING AND ANY DETERMINATION AND FINDINGS ADOPTED BASED ON THE HEARING WILL BE CONTRARY TO THE LAW.
THERE IS NO PUBLIC USE FOR THE WILLETS POINT CONDEMNATION

BOTH OUR UNITED STATES AND NEW YORK STATE CONSTITUTIONS REQUIRE THAT FOR PRIVATE PROPERTY TO BE TAKEN BY THE EXERCISE OF EMINENT DOMAIN IT MUST BE FOR A PUBLIC USE. THAT LIMITATION IS FOUND WITHIN THE FIFTH AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION. “…NOR SHALL PRIVATE PROPERTY BE TAKEN FOR PUBLIC USE, WITHOUT JUST COMPENSATION.” THESE LIMITATIONS ARE MADE APPLICABLE TO THE STATES BY THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT. PUBLIC USE MUST BE PRESENT IN ANY CONDEMNATION IN NEW YORK STATE. THE RECENT CASES, IN OUR COURT OF APPEALS, ATLANTIC YARDS, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, UPTOWN PROPERTIES ALL WERE BASED ON BLIGHT CHALLENGES.

BUT THE COURT OF APPEALS HAS MADE CLEAR OUR STATE CONSTITUTION STILL REQUIRES A PUBLIC USE BEFORE PROPERTY MAY BE TAKEN. THUS FOR ANY CONDEMNATION TO GO FORWARD IN WILLETS POINT, THERE MUST BE A PUBLIC USE FOR THE PROPERTY TO BE TAKEN

THE PROPOSED TAKING IS WITHOUT LOGIC OR REASON. IT IS NOTHING MORE THAN A FIGMENT OF MAYOR BLOOMBERG’S IMAGINATION

QUITE SIMPLY, YOU CANNOT TAKE PRIVATE PROPERTY ON SPECULATION. THERE IS NO DEVELOPER.
THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY FOR THE WILLETS POINT DEVELOPMENT PLAN FROM THE OFFICE OF THE MAYOR, DATED FEBRUARY 10, 2011 ADMITS “THERE IS NO SPECIFIC DEVELOPMENT PLAN.” THE ENTIRE DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT AS IS SET FORTH IN AN ILLEGALLY PREPARED TECHNICAL MEMORANDUM FOR THE WILLETS POINT DEVELOPMENT PLAN DATED FEBRUARY 10, 2011, IS A HOPELESSLY OBSCURE DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT WHICH CANNOT BE JUSTIFIED.

THE PROPOSED CONDEMNATION IS ALSO SPECULATIVE BECAUSE NOTHING CAN BE DEVELOPED UNLESS THE EXTRAORDINARY TRAFFIC PROBLEMS ARE DEALT WITH BY OBTAINING APPROVALS TO BUILD NEW RAMPS TO THE VAN WYCK EXPRESSWAY.

THE PROJECT IS ALSO SPECULATIVE BECAUSE THE CITY HAS INTENTIONALLY DEPRIVED WILLETS POINT OF ESSENTIAL MUNICIPAL SERVICES. THERE ARE NO WASTE SEWERS. THERE ARE NO STORM WATER SEWERS. THERE HAS BEEN TOTAL NEGLECT IN MAINTAINING STREETS AND ROADWAYS. THERE HAS BEEN NO CODE ENFORCEMENT. INDEED, THE CITY HAS INTENTIONALLY CREATED BLIGHT AND NOW WISHES TO USE IT AS A PREDICATE FOR CONDEMNATION

BUT IT IS THIS LACK OF ESSENTIAL SERVICES THAT WILL PREVENT THE IMAGINARY DEVELOPER FROM CONSTRUCTING ANYTHING IN THE PROJECT AREA.

ANOTHER PHYSICAL BAR WHICH PREVENTS DEVELOPMENT OF THE SITE IS THAT THE SOIL CANNOT SUPPORT STRUCTURES DREAMED OF WITHOUT EXTRAORDINARY EXPENSE. THEN THERE IS THE ALLEGED CONTAMINATION WHICH WOULD HAVE TO BE REMOVED. THE CITY OF NEW YORK ALSO STATES THAT UP TO 7 FEET OF FILL WOULD BE REQUIRED. WE DO NOT KNOW IF THE AMOUNT OF FILL WOULD INCREASE AFTER REMEDIATION. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT 61.4 ACRES.

WHO WOULD PAY FOR THIS? HOW MANY BILLIONS WILL IT COST THE CITY OF NEW YORK?
IT HAS NOT BEEN SHOWN THAT ANY DEVELOPER WOULD UNDERTAKE ANY PART OF THE ILLUSORY PROJECT WITH THE ATTENDANT EXTRAORDINARY COSTS. THERE IS NO PUBLIC USE OF THE LAND NOW OR IN THE NEAR FUTURE THE PROPOSED CONDEMNATION IS SPECULATIVE AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Condemning the Condemnors: Willets Point Eminent Domain Hearing Today

2011-03-02T09:02:00.002-05:00

The city is holding a condemnation hearing today for those property owners in what it has called, Phase I, of the Willets Point development. Phase is an excellent term because EDC, the city's rogue development arm, is certainly not at all fazed by bending the law-where it doesn't outright violate it. Today's hearing is a case in point.

Put simply, Phase I is a fiction that has been created out of whole cloth by EDC because it cannot easily garner approval of the ramps that the agency had claimed were a necessary prerequisite for any development at Willets Point. Here is a draft statement from Willets Point United's Mike Gerrard, arguably the city's leading environmental lawyer. Gerrard's testimony today foreshadows the legal case that WPU will bring against the city's untoward attempt to proceed with the eminent domain hearing today:

Statement of Michael B. Gerrard

Arnold & Porter LLP

On Behalf of Willets Point United and Individual Property Owners

EDPL Public Hearing on Willets Point Development Plan

March 2, 2011

The City’s proposed actions violate the law in at least four separate ways:

1. The City’s proposed actions violate binding pledges that the City previously made to the New York Supreme Court, on which the Court relied.

2. The City’s proposed actions amount to segmentation, which is impermissible under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) and City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR).

3. The City’s failure to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement violates SEQRA and CEQR.

4. The City’s proposed actions are a violation of federal law -- the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

As a result of these numerous violations of law, my clients Willets Point United and individual property owners who are members of WPU plan to institute legal action against the City in New York Supreme Court.

Violations of Pledges to Court

In the Ardizzone v. Bloomberg litigation, Robert Lieber, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, submitted an affidavit dated June 29, 2009 in which he stated in Paragraph 20, "The City will not acquire title to any property through Article 4 of the Eminent Domain Procedure Law (“EDPL”) until after ramps for the Van Wyck Expressway are approved by FHWA."

In her decision of August 16, 2010 deciding the case, Justice Madden stated (on pp. 18-19), "At oral argument [for WPU's Article 78], counsel for respondent [City] stated that if the ramps are not approved, the respondents cannot 'proceed with the plan as conceived and approved.' Transcript at 33. For the purposes of this review, this court assumes that if the ramps are not approved, additional review under SEQRA will be required."

Thus the City represented to the court, in a sworn affidavit, that it would not take my clients’ property by eminent domain until the FHWA has approved the ramps. Counsel to the City told the court at oral argument that the project cannot proceed unless the ramps are approved. The court relied on these representations. They are binding on the City.

Moreover, the attempt to condemn properties prior to approval of the ramps violates several statements made in the Final Generic Environmental Impact Statement:

“The City will not take possession of property acquired by eminent domain before the NEPA process is complete and the ramps are approved.” – Willets Point FGEIS, Chapter 29, General Comments, Response G-8, September 12, 2008.

“The City has maintained communication and close coordination with NYSDOT from the inception of the project, outlining a range of conceptual design options and working with options that NYSDOT determined were preferable. It is fully expected that such approvals will be obtained and the design will be progressed in light of design suggestions to be made by both NYSDOT and the FHWA. Furthermore, the proposed ramps are an integral part of the Willets Point Development Plan. The developer’s agreement would stipulate that following approval of the Van Wyck Expressway ramps but prior to completion of ramp construction, no buildings would be occupied unless the developer demonstrates that earlier occupancy of such buildings would not result in significant adverse impacts that have not already been described in this GEIS.” – Willets Point FGEIS, Chapter 29, Section 17 (Traffic and Parking), Response 17-6, September 12, 2008.

The FHWA has not approved the ramps. Nor has the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT), whose approval is also needed.

Segmentation

The City’s Technical Memorandum for the Willets Point Development Plan FGEIS, Updated Plan, February 10, 2011 (“TM004”), makes clear that the City intends to proceed with the full plan for Willets Point, and that the construction of ramps connecting with the Van Wyck Expressway is an essential part of this plan. (E.g., -- “the City remains committed to the new Van Wyck connections,” TM004 p. 5; “Like the Approved Plan, the Updated Plan would include new connections to the Van Wyck Expressway,” TM004 p. 7.) The City has been pledging for years that this approval was imminent, but it has not arrived, and it is obviously nowhere in sight. Thus the City has violated its pledges to the Court and its representations in the FGEIS, and in desperation is attempting to start the project without this essential approval.

It is also attempting to start the project with no one having any clear idea what impacts the project would have with the ramps. There are two prior analyses by the City of traffic conditions with the ramps -- the FGEIS and the Access Modification Report (AMR). As we have previously shown in detail, the results of these two studies were radically different. No further illumination is supplied in TM004, yet the City wants to go forward with the condemnation.

The SEQRA regulations prohibit considering only a part or segment of an action. 6 N.Y.C.R.R. § 617.3(g)(1). The City’s current attempt is remarkably similar to a situation that the New York Court of Appeals found to be impermissible segmentation, where the reconstruction of a highway interchange was closely linked to the widening of the one of the highways connecting there, but the two efforts were not considered together. Village of Westbury v. Department of Transportation, 75 N.Y.2d 62 (1989). Numerous subsequent decisions have likewise struck down the comparable segmentation of intimately linked undertakings. E.g., AC 1 Shore Road, LLC v. Incorporated Village of Great Neck, 43 A.D.3d 439 (2d Dept. 2007); Long Island Pine Barrens Society, Inc. v. Town Board of Riverhead, 290 A.D.2d 448 (2d Dept. 2002); City of Buffalo v. New York State Department of Transportation, 184 Misc.2d 243 (Sup.Ct. Erie Co. 2000).

The Appellate Division has previously endorsed the consideration of modifications to a highway access ramp as part of the underlying project. Coalition Against Lincoln West Inc. v. Weinshall, 21 A.D.2d 215 (1^st Dept. 2005), leave to appeal denied, 5 N.Y.3d 715 (2005). That was not done here, as it should have been.

Failure to Prepare Supplemental EIS

SEQRA requires a supplemental EIS whenever there are significant adverse environmental impacts not addressed or inadequately addressed in the EIS that arise from changes proposed for the project, newly discovered information, or a change in circumstances related to the project. 6 N.Y.C.R.R. § 617.9(a)(7)(i).

All of these situations are present here. The attempt to institute condemnation without the essential approvals for the Van Wyck ramps is a change to the project, and a change in circumstances; the inability to obtain the essential approvals by now, despite the City’s promises that they would be in hand, is newly discovered information. A supplemental EIS is required.

The need for a supplemental EIS is especially compelling where, as here, there have been substantial unexplained discrepancies between the City’s two prior studies of the traffic implications of the ramps -- the FGEIS and the AMR -- and the public should have a full opportunity to comment. That opportunity has not been provided under SEQRA. Making matters worse, TM004 does not provide the information necessary to understand these discrepancies, and the City has failed to fully answer numerous Freedom of Information Law requests aimed at obtaining the documents that would

illuminate this and other questions. This hearing is premature in the absence of full compliance with FOIL.

Further enhancing the need for a supplemental EIS are the admissions in TM004 that many of the significant traffic impacts of the revised project are unmitigatable (Appx. C p. 13), and that there would be numerous significant adverse impacts on the Van Wyck mainline and existing ramps (Appx. D p. 31).

Violations of NEPA

Since the Van Wyck ramps are an essential part of the project, and they require federal approval, the project is subject to NEPA. The City has long acknowledged the applicability of NEPA. See, e.g., TM004 p. 4.

NEPA, like SEQRA, prohibits segmentation. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25. That prohibition has been violated here.

We will submit more detailed comments during the written comment period.

Greg David: Willets Point Truther

2011-03-02T04:56:00.005-05:00

In yesterday's Crain's web edition, commentator Greg Davis purports to set the record straight on Willets Point with an article inaptly titled. "Important Truths about Willets Point." As the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan once remarked, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own set of facts. So, in the service of a bit of cognitive dissonance for David-someone who has demonstrated little concern or regard for any one's constitutional property rights in NYC-we offer a rebuttal.

What was particularly irksome in the David piece was his lack of interest in understanding just what it is that opponents of the Willets Point development have been arguing-something that would have been accomplished with a simple phone call to us with his questions. By not doing so, however, he makes some rather basic errors of fact.

He begins by asserting that today's eminent domain hearing is the, "end game." "It may appear Wednesday at a public hearing that there is considerable opposition to the Bloomberg administration's plan to clean up and redevelop the hazard waste site known as Willets Point, Queens. Don't be deceived. Tomorrow is the end game of a decades-long effort to made Willets Point a generator of jobs and business activity. Also don't forget that the last-ditch efforts of the few holdout businesses have extracted a steep cost: preventing the city's economy from being as prosperous as it could be.

Where to begin? As we have pointed out, the term,"holdout businesses" is simply a canard and a calumny that thoroughly distorts reality. Shame on you Greg! You can't be holding out if the city has never even given you an offer. And if there has been no offers proffered, how can these, "holdouts," be preventing anything? If there's been a delay here it is because of the city's own malfeasance and missteps.

In addition, to say there are a few businesses left is also to do violence to the truth-since there is a large majority of businesses who have not sold their property: "The opposition has been greatly overstated. In a 2007 survey, Hunter College researchers found exactly one resident in the area. At the time, there were 225 businesses, mostly auto parts and repair business. They employed 1,300 people. Most of the major businesses in the area have reached agreements with the city to relocate elsewhere, mostly to nearby College Point. The numbers of remaining businesses and workers is much smaller today."

Well, some twenty odd businesses have negotiated sales with the city-sweetheart deals, in our view-which means that over 85% of the businesses, land owned and/or tenanted, remain. Not our definition of a few at all. So what the city has tried to do is to pay through the nose for the big guys so it could be free to beat up on the woman and children left standing-but, so far, it hasn't worked out as planned.

But if the "holdouts' haven't prevented the development from proceeding, what has been the holdup? Here David remains totally confused-mangling the environmental issues in one dismissive sentence: "Meanwhile, opponents keep inventing strategies to derail the city. For a while, it was the idea that planned highway ramps somehow violated the environmental impact statement. A judge dismissed the claim summarily.

This is flat out wrong. Willets Point United brought an Article 78 lawsuit that challenged the city's SEQR review of the development-saying that the ULURP process was premature since the crucial ramps off of the Van Wyck had yet to be approved. Judge Madden ruled for the city based on the alocution-a sworn affidavit-of then Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber that the city would not do what it has started to do today: condemn any one's property before the ramps were approved. In other words, there was no harm, no foul for the aggrieved property owners because they would be able to challenge the ramp approval before having to worry about condemnation.

But the city has gone back on its word. Why? Because we have demonstrated that the traffic data submitted to the state was insufficient-fraudulent in our view. It has been over 15 months since that application was essentially bitch slapped by State DOT. This, Greg, is the holdup-and the critique we made of the city's shoddy environmental data was no invention since the state responded by utilizing the information to send EDC back to the drawing board.

Facts are stubborn things, no? The only party doing any inventing has been the EDC consultants-dummying data that proved to be inadequate. Faced with being stymied at the regulatory level, EDC decided that it would go back on its word to the court-and in all of its testimony to the city council-and begin development without a ramp approval that it claimed was essential. It is in fact, then, EDC's so-called Phase I that is the mother of all inventions-a totally new version of the Willets Point project that needs a supplemental EIS, and can't go forward without it This is the grounds for the lawsuit that WPU will file.

David also errs by saying that the opposition to Willets Point development has been overstated. It only appears that way since the relatively small band of little guys has put an effective monkey wrench into the EDC pipe dreams. In reality, the support-however misguided-has been widespread among the political class. But by refusing to truly engage with the opposition's cogent argument, what else does David have left but ad hominen attacks and mischaracterization?

David, like the blind squirrel, does find one nugget of truth, but relegates it to an almost throw away line at the end: "There are questions about Willets Point--how much can the financially strapped city invest in the cleanup, and what will the interest of private sector developers be in building the housing and commercial space the city envisions?"

Gee, Greg, perhaps we should examine this with 2011 eyes to determine feasibility-before commencing a condemnation proceeding that could lead the City of New York straight down the garden path-to New London and its fiscal fiasco post Kelo. Having introduced this nugget of wisdom, however, David shrinks back from following it to its logical conclusion-caution, not full speed ahead.

As a result, he concludes with the following: "But those are not reasons to give up and leave Willets Point as it is. Whatever happens will be better than what exists today and will create jobs and help diversify the economy."

Not having the financial wherewithal to successfully complete the development of Willets Point is no reason to give up? It's OK for David to advocate taking away people's property based on sheer speculation? Nothing could demonstrate his lack of appreciation for constitutional property rights than that conclusion.

One last reflection-on Greg David's genuflection to Mike Bloomberg: "Only Mayor Michael Bloomberg has gotten this far, which says a lot about the backbone of this administration." Not really. It is more an expression of the mayor's edifice complex, and his insouciance about any possible negative impact that his chainsaw malling of the city has wrought. And his disregard, as evidenced by EDC's extra-legal maneuvering, for honesty, integrity, and the rule of law.

The Willets Point project was midwifed in illegality by the hiring of Claire Shulman's astroturf LDC. It proceeded apace through the invidious offering of boucoup bucks to large property owners-folks represented by Peter Vallone, whose latest claim to fame was his three time endorsement of the mayor. Nothing to see there. It then moved on to fraudulent traffic submissions to NYS DOT, and now to violating sworn court testimony.

This, friends, isn't an example of backbone. It is a manifestation of a bullying administration with little regard for either legal niceties or the fate of small property owners-revealing in the process that the man who has claimed to be above special interest is, in reality, their apotheosis-a classless example of class interest.

Ketcham Calls Out AKRF and EDC

2011-03-01T05:37:00.001-05:00

We are taking the liberty of giving everyone a preview of the statement that WPU's traffic engineer, Brian Ketcham, will be making before the EDPL hearing on Wednesday. A careful perusal of Ketcham's traffic analysis will give everyone a crystal clear idea why EDC is going forward with a rampless Phase I before obtaining regulatory approval for the Van Wyck ramps-ramps that fail to mitigate the project's massive traffic generation. Ketcham's analysis will also be the crucial evidence that WPU will use to invalidate EDC's extra-legal maneuvering.

Here's Ketcham's statement:

"Nearly four decades ago William Hoppen and I took on the West Side Highway project. We did so alone. And we paid for all of our work in cash and in careers. The City, State and Federal governments spent $150 million to stop us. They could not.   Although they did torture us afterwards.

Westway was not nearly so complicated as Willets Point. Nor as divisive!   As with Willets Point, Westway was a multi-billion project. A huge land development swindle that would have made the City’s favored developers billions. Another similarity is that the Westway engineers, Parsons Brinckerhoff, were the same folks who were to form AKRF, the environmental engineering firm who botched the Willets Point environmental impact statement and have caused the multi-year delay in this project.

These engineering firms along with NYCEDC will ultimately be responsible for the collapse of the Willets Point project. In the case of Westway these environmental engineers could not make the case in support for Westway. Their efforts cost taxpayers $150,000,000 and they did not have a clue. It is incredible to think about that battle nearly 40 years later.

For Willets Point, the problem is that AKRF knows precisely what they are doing and they have to lie to make their case. They know that Willets Point is too big for the Flushing area. They know the surrounding roadway network cannot accommodate Willets Point traffic. They know that the Van Wyck Expressway and connecting expressways cannot accommodate so much additional traffic. They know there is no additional transit capacity to accommodate Willets Point and the other projects like Flushing Commons and that even more traffic will be forced onto the area than reported.

They lied and they got caught. They have lied repeatedly. Over the last 18 months we have provided NYCEDC, NYSDOT and the FHWA dozens of documents supporting these assertions, identifying the errors, omissions and outright lies that forced EDC in 2010 to withdraw its application for ramps connecting Willets Point to the Van Wyck Expressway.

While these agencies have failed to directly acknowledge these reports they have been forced, based on these documents, to delay any action on the Willets Point project. Within the next month I will be providing you with a new report summarizing the situation today, critiquing the latest efforts by EDC to sell their Willets Point project, and connecting the current problems that we have identified with all of the many reports that we have submitted over the past 18 months.

The ramps will not help reduce the impact of the Willets Point project. The surrounding roads and expressways cannot accommodate this project let alone the other 20 million square feet of new development generating more than 170,000 new car and truck trips daily. The existing transit systems cannot accommodate 200,000 more daily trips leaving most of these travelers to use their cars and add to the areas Super-Gridlock conditions.

The NYCEDC cannot meet any of the eight FHWA criteria for ramp approval and, as NYCEDC has said repeatedly, the Willets Point project will not work without the ramps. The Willets Point Development Plan is fatally flawed and must be abandoned."

Sick Transit Gloria: A Sadik-Khan Job

2011-03-01T04:57:00.003-05:00

Sadik-Khan is at it again-this time it is the arbitrary remaking of 34th Street that has her Utopian dreams all aflame. The NY Post has the editorial response: "City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan — a k a The Thing That Ate Times Square — is on her way back for seconds. New York’s bicycle belle has her eye on 34th Street this time, which she’s planning to transform into another teeming walrus wharf . . . er, pedestrian plaza. She’s planning to swipe the entire block between Fifth and Sixth avenues, permitting only buses to pass through. Nor will the chop stop there: 34th Street is to run eastbound only from Fifth Avenue, and westward from Sixth Avenue, rendering the road useless as a thoroughfare."

The Post, as we do, believes that this is asinine: "Certainly her new plan would severely degrade one of New York’s premier commercial districts, for no discernible good purpose other than to give a boost to the lawn-chair and roller-blade industries. Worse still, she’s proceeding with her $30 million scheme in secret and without a shred of real accountability."

Andrea Peyser agrees-and weighs in in yesterday's Post: "At issue is a project bigger than the detested, dangerous bike lanes and despised pedestrian plazas that have sprouted up like a cancer, to applause from Mayor Bloomberg. The new plan is Sadik-Khan's crowning achievement. Her Taj Mahal. Her Coney Island fun house. It's called the 34th Street Transitway. And as plans reveal, it's a doozy -- meant to surrender that main Midtown thoroughfare to buses while preventing passenger cars from traveling it from the Lincoln Tunnel to the Midtown Tunnel. The project is a budding Titanic -- a monstrous muddle of bus routes, bike lanes and pedestrian malls."

When we last encountered this maven of mischief she was fiddling while the the city was buried under a blizzard-but practical matters are not her métier. The Post gnashes its teeth over this inanity, but doesn't feel that there is much that can be done-aside from public caterwauling: "Which is why it is critical that the City Council exert its every power to force Madame Bike-Lady to explain — publicly and in detail — what she has in mind, and precisely what its impact will be. True, the council doesn’t have any authority over the DOT, but it can use its bully pulpit to shine a light on the department’s hush-hush maneuvers...This time, it can do something to protect existing commerce — and jobs — from the wrath of Sadik-Khan."

We disagree that the council is helpless to stop this maneuver-it may be self-checked, but it isn't powerless. What the body can do is challenge this cockamamie scheme under the rubric of SEQR-the state's environmental quality review act. Put simply, this is a massive undertaking that will have an equally large impact on the city's environment. The council should warn the mayor that it Sadik-=khan doesn't submit this to a full environmental review, it will go into court to force the department's hand. It is time for the legislature to re-assert its own oversight prerogatives.

We'll give, along with Peyser, two outspoken New Yorkers the last word: "It should be scrapped. "Oh, my God! This means all of our side streets will become tunnel-to-tunnel streets," said Marisa Bulzone, a 35th Street resident. "How many meetings do I have to go to and tell officials that 33rd Street does not go through? You'd think they'd know this. They don't!" Lisa Pyle of Manhattan griped, "This is a case of Mayor Bloomberg hiring those he enjoys as dinner guests, like [Schools Chancellor] Cathie Black. "I bet [Sadik-Khan] doesn't even own a car -- maybe doesn't even have a license." Stop her before it's too late.

Calling Out Eduardo Giraldo

2011-03-01T04:51:00.002-05:00

In yesterday's NY Times story on Willets Point there was one item that we found disturbing. Not surprising, mind you, but disturbing because it represents a pattern of dishonest representation. We're referring to the comments of Eduardo Giraldo: "While some critics have portrayed the redevelopment of Willets Point as a class battle by a billionaire mayor intent on supplanting scrap metal with sushi, the Bloomberg administration has some unlikely allies in the project. “We see Willets Point as a form of modern-day slavery in which poor people are working in conditions worse than in their home countries,” said Eduardo Giraldo, head of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Queens. “It is better to shut it down.”

This is the same Giraldo who has come out four square in support of Walmart in NYC-clearly a man whose allegiance is ruled by expedience; in this case, the cash nexus looms large. So Giraldo's concerns for the plight of the workers is suspect-and if the city does evict the businesses from Willets Point you will not find Giraldo within ten miles of helping the "exploited" workers find new work-his job will have been completed.

Giraldo has anointed himself as a spokesman for Hispanixs, but his group is a rump organization that is not a part of the official NYS Federation of Hispanic Chambers of Commerce. His grass roots support? When he ran for the city council in 2009 against Julissa Ferreras he was beaten in a landslide: "City Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst) handily defeated challenger Eduardo Giraldo to win the Democratic primary for the 21st District seat. Ferreras, the incumbent who won the seat in a special election in February after her former boss Hiram Monserrate ascended to the state Senate, had 65.9 percent of the vote compared with Giraldo’s 34.1 percent, according to city Board of Election figures. She had no known Republican opponents."

We'll give the hapless Giraldo the last word: “I think we worked hard,” Giraldo said. “We gave it 110 percent. ... I think the turnout was very low and we weren’t able to persuade the people to vote for me."

EDC's Day of Reckoning

2011-03-01T04:43:00.002-05:00

On Wednesday, the city is holding what we believe to be an illegal eminent domain hearing-which, if true, wouldn't surprise any one who has followed the Willets Point saga over the past few years. After all, when NYC government can begin the development process by illegally hiring a local development corporation to lobbying its behalf, then all the illegality that follows shouldn't be shocking. But it actually is.

Yesterday the NY Times focused in on Willets Point and underscored the extent to which the little guys are being hosed:

"Two years ago, as the mayor attended the Mets’ home opener at the new Citi Field, Adrien Nicolescue, an auto mechanic from Romania, joined a procession of honking garbage trucks to protest the city’s plans to condemn the nearby Willets Point area and build a $3 billion project of apartments, office buildings, stores, restaurants and a hotel. But as his comrades geared up for another showdown with the mayor at a public hearing on the project scheduled for Wednesday, Mr. Nicolescue decided to pack up and leave. “I am going home, back to Romania,” he said, standing on the same pothole-pocked corner of Willets Point where he has been drawing in customers for windshield repairs for 36 years. Willets Point, in Queens, is a 61-acre expanse of junkyards and auto-repair shops so squalid that local business owners compare it to Iraq. “I don’t want to leave,” Mr. Nicolescue said, “but I have nowhere to go. This may look like the third world, but it is my world.”

The Times continues: "But opponents of the Bloomberg plan counter that the project is speculative and environmentally unsound. They insist that the area, however bedraggled, has become an Ellis Island of sorts for a newly arriving underclass that depends on it to get by. They also complain bitterly that the city is shutting down thriving small businesses that have nowhere else to go."

But the efforts of Willets Point United have so far stymied EDC is its land grab-and the group will soon be arguing in court that a process that began with the illegal lobbying of Claire Shulman has now degenerated even further with the city's efforts to avoid complying with the original terms of the environmental review that was the basis for the city council's approval in 2008. Nothing is more exemplary of the corrupt nature of the process than the discriminatory manner that EDC has used against the smaller property owners-nothing more egregious than the treatment of Flushing Towing's Carlos Canal.

EDC's jaundiced outlook is given exposure by the Times: "City officials estimate that Willets Point is home to 255 businesses, which employ about 1,700 people, some in sheds made of tin or cinder blocks. Of 74 property owners, 28 have agreed to sell their land or relocate, city officials say; the city already owns 90 percent of the property where the first five-year phase of development would go."

Do the math. Less than half of the property owners have settled with the city, but that represents the largest percentagee of the property-which means that, since EDC has yet to negotiate with the others, the city has looked to buy off the big guys with sweetheart deals, and have the luxury to bully the little folks, who are treated as little more than bugs on the EDC microscope. How else to explain no negotiations in over two years with the majority of all of the property owners?

Think of it, though. There are 1700 workers at Willets Point that will soon have no place to go if this corrupt deal goes forward-and if you believe that the city will sincerely work to relocate these folks, just ask all of the Bronx Terminal market wholesalers who were treated with disdain by EDC, scattered to the four winds, as it made that property available to Related in a no bid conveyance. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

The illegality of the EDC condemnation effort will be subject to a vigorous legal challenge-but not one that rests exclusively on the eminent domain issue. How could it? There is no protection for property owners under NY law, so this challenge will be based on the EDC's violation of the environmental laws it promised to uphold, but didn't as soon as the going got too tough. Here's where the fabled Mike Gerrard comes in.

rGerard will file suit on WPU's behalf on the following grounds-and in his own words:

"1. The City’s proposed actions violate binding pledges that the City previously made to the New York Supreme Court, on which the Court relied.

2. The City’s proposed actions amount to segmentation, which is impermissible under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) and City Environmental Quality Review (CEQR).

3. The City’s failure to prepare a supplemental environmental impact statement violates SEQRA and CEQR.

4. The City’s proposed actions are a violation of federal law -- the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

As Gerrard goes on to point out-referencing the misrepresentations of then Deputy Mayor Lieber to the court: "...the City represented to the court, in a sworn affidavit, that it would not take my clients’ property by eminent domain until the FHWA has approved the ramps. Counsel to the City told the court at oral argument that the project cannot proceed unless the ramps are approved. The court relied on these representations. They are binding on the City."

So, in our view, this EDPL hearing is nothing but a sham-as EDC tries to salvage progress on the Willets Point development out of its ineptitude over failing to garner approval for the Van Wyck ramps. It is a fitting culmination-a cherry on the sundae-to an entire process characterized by abuse and illegality.

We'll give Willets Point United's Ralph St. John the last word-but EDC hasn't heard the last from WPU by any means: "Meanwhile, some small business owners are frustrated that their neighbors are getting lucrative deals from the city and they are not. Ralph St. John, whose company has built apartment buildings and parks for the city for nearly 20 years, said he had been offered nothing, and that his 18 employees would lose their jobs if he were forced to leave. City officials said that Mr. St. John’s land was not earmarked for development in the first phase, and that by the time the city was ready to make a deal with him, his land would probably have increased in value. But Mr. St. John, who is 77, does not want to live in limbo.

“If you want what I got, act like a man and come face me,” he said. “Don’t use eminent domain and steal from me.”

TINOs: Teachers in Name Only?

2011-02-28T05:29:00.002-05:00

The NY Post has a story yeterday that reported on the 1500 UFT members who are being paid not to teach as part of a negotiated union-release program: "In the city's funny math, you get only one teacher for the price of two. The Department of Education pays about 1,500 teachers for time they spend on union activities -- and pays other teachers to replace them in the classroom. It's a sweetheart deal that costs taxpayers an extra $9 million a year to pay fill-ins for instructors who are sprung -- at full pay -- to carry out responsibilities for the United Federation of Teachers."

In a time of fiscal austerity, some folks think that the practice should end: "With Mayor Bloomberg calling for thousands of teacher layoffs to balance the 2012 budget, critics say it's time to halt the extravagant benefit. "In these tight fiscal times, it defies common sense to pay two different people to do one job," said Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union, a government watchdog. "It's a waste of money."

Perhaps Dadey is right, but there's a couple of larger points that get lost in the midst of all the union focused bashing-and, ironically, it is made by E.J. McMahon, certainly no fan of labor. As he pointed out in the same edition of the Post, commenting on Wisconsin and Governor Cuomo's challenges to rein in labor costs: "It’s pointless to blame the unions themselves for this situation. After all, they are only acting the way unions are supposed to act — relentlessly pursuing the interests of their members, period. The real blame falls on the generations of elected officials who have abdicated their responsibility by creating and nurturing this system."

And the issue with the union released teachers fall on the nonfeasance of the current occupant of city hall. As the union spokesman told the Post: "UFT spokesman Dick Riley said such arrangements are common among city unions "and were instituted with the agreement of NYC government." The mayor, probably out of town, was unavalable for a comment.

It is high time for both the Post and the NY Daily News to refocus their attention on where it belongs-the mismanagement of the educational edifice by the mayor and his dearly departed ed head, Joel Klein. (These papers share in the culpability since they promoted the mayor's faux achievements uncritically.) After all, Bloomberg and Klein are the ones who larded up the DOE payroll with 16,000 additional personnel-money fro nothing in our view. And they're the ones who promoted an out sized NYC educational achiement that is turining out to be made almost entirely out of whole cloth.

Now, what may be true is that the UFT colluded for too long with the mayor's phony test score bonus regime-but the blame needs to be redirected to the man in charge of the fiasco. And can we stop with all of this LIFO propopaganda? Seniority may be a flawed system for hiring and firing teachers but, much like democracy, it might also be better than all of the alternatives-at least under the current structure of public education. In NYC, are we going to replace seniority with a system controlled by Bloomberg and his lackeys? Talk about making a bad situation worse!

The reality here is that the mayor's nine year rule has been less than stellar in regards to the educational change that he told us should be the basis for determining whether he has been a success or a failure. When we add the incredible increase in funds and personnel into the mix, the evaluation falls from a D to an F. The teacher's union has played a role in all of this, but it hasn't been a starring one. That honor goes to Hizzoner.

Voodoo Reporting

2011-02-28T05:17:00.007-05:00

On Saturday the local tabs did return to the story of the fatal Flatbush fire-but not as we hoped. Neither the NY Post nor the NY Daily News-or the NY Times, for that matter-went back to examine whether or not the city's reduced manning policies played a role in the tragedy. Not when you can introduce the possibility that voodoo sex had something to do with fire-and both the Post and the News felt this was front page importance.

Here's the Post's sensational lede: "A wild candlelit sex ritual between a Brooklyn woman and her voodoo priest got so hot and heavy, they ended up torching their clothes and sheets -- sparking the nasty fire that killed a retired teacher and left 100 people homeless last week, sources said yesterday."

The News chimes in: "A Voodoo sex romp triggered the Brooklyn blaze that killed one person and left dozens homeless when a ceremony meant to bring good luck went horribly wrong, sources said yesterday." The Times account was, as expected, a bit less lurid: "A fatal five-alarm fire that roared through a building in Flatbush, Brooklyn, last Saturday was ignited by candles arrayed around a bed for a voodoo ceremony, Fire Department officials said Friday."

Now we don't really blame the papers for reporting this-it is all quite juicy, after all. But we do expect that the press might want to focus on a critical management issue that could, if not altered, lead to more fire fatalities in the future. Only the News even bothered to mention this issue: "The firefighters union said staffing cuts contributed to the spread of the fire, but Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano, without referring to the couple having sex, blamed other errors. "This fire had so many of those elements - candles left on the floor near combustible material, one of the occupants trying to douse the flames before calling 911, and an open door, which allowed fire to spread into the hallway," Cassano said. "Hopefully others will learn from this tragedy."

We can imagine that Commissioner Cassono was relieved to have a sensational action as the proximate cause of the blaze-and we have no doubt that the failures of the occupants of the apartment played a role in the tragic results. But to state this, and this alone, is to fail to further explain that irresponsibility is all too often at the root of why fires are started-but this has absolutely nothing to do with the failure to control the blaze that led to a woman perishing; along with a total building demolition.

In our view, the manning issue is a critical one-and it points to the failure of the management priorities of the Bloombergistas. This is an administration that added 16,000 more personnel to the DOE, leading to a grand total of 23% of our high school graduates being college ready-yet it wants to pinch pennies on fire truck manning where lives are at risk.

We notice that Commissioner Cassano left out entirely any possibility that the failure to control the fire might have been a result of management failures-both manning and command decisions in the minutes leading up to the eventual fatality. That is why a thorough investigation is needed, and if the fire unions are proven correct, we can put the death of Mary Feagin right up there with the snowfu and CityTime scandals-more evidence of just how egregious it was for the mayor to usurp a third term.

Hold Up, Not Holdouts

2011-02-28T05:05:00.003-05:00

We have been inveighing against the use of the term, "holdouts," to describe Willets Point property owners who are not on;y unwilling to seel their property, but even more importantly, have yet to be approached by EDC to negotiate a sale-as is required by the Eminent Domain Procedure Law. The urgency of the issue is magnified by the fact that the city is holding an eminent domain hearing on Wednesday.

The Flushing Times has the story: "The hearing, scheduled from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. March 2 in the auditorium of the library, located at 41-17 Main St., will be the only official opportunity for Willets landowners and business owners, as well as any other concerned citizens, to voice their views about the $3 billion plans to representatives of the city Economic Development Corp. and Cornerstone Group, the firm handling relocation of area businesses."

Ah yes, the Cornerstone Group-the same pretenders who EDC put in charge of the relocation of the businesses that were thrwon out of the Bronx Terminal Market. As we pointed out five years ago about these no-bid favorites: "There is a constant reference to the Cornerstone Group as the city’s relocation expert. Still? Doesn’t our “senior counsel” realize that these dopey consultants had labored long and hard Xeroxing advertisements from the local newspapers and passed off this effort as relocation (of course she does, she just doesn’t give a damn)?"

But we digress. The issue here is the city's flauting of the very law it is sworn to uphold-and we will now rely on the wisdom of one of the foremost experts on the EDPL, Mike Rikon, to explain just how tainted this process has been ever since the city council passed the Willets Point ULURP appliocation in the fall of 2008. Once the council passed the application, the eminent domain procedures in the EDPL should have been initiated in order for the city to be in compliance with the law.

Here's Rikon's analysis: "The Council of the City of New York adopted Resolution No. 1759 on December 18, 2008. This Resolution with other related Resolutions adopted the Willets Point Urban Renewal Area. The Resolution approved the Urban Renewal Plan, the Resolution states, “the Plan requires the acquisition and subsequent disposition of property within the Willets Point Urban Renewal Area.” This is the predicate authorization to condemn."

Once the authorization is in place, then the next steps are clear-to everyone bu the city, it appears: "When the City Council authorizes acquisition of private property, the City is required to comply with the Eminent Domain Procedure Law. That law requires the appraisal of the properties to be acquired and the written offer of an amount that represents 100% of the highest approved appraisal."

Instead, the city did the complete opposite, in a move rife with favoritism and potential corruption:

"When the City Council authorizes acquisition of private property, the City is required to comply with the Eminent Domain Procedure Law. That law requires the appraisal of the properties to be acquired and the written offer of an amount that represents 100% of the highest approved appraisal. It is no secret that those owners who obtained favorable deals were also those that supported members of the City Council that wrote an “adamant opposition” letter signed by 29 members to prevent the project’s approval. But the Project was approved after the negotiated agreements were made.

The City’s improper conduct in ignoring the law’s requirement of written offers based on fair market appraisals and equal treatment to all property owners is inexcusable. The law was adopted to prevent corruption and special deals."

But, as we pointed out last week in regards to the disgraceful treatment of Carlos Canal and Flushing Towing, favoritism and inequity is at the heart of this entire process: "EDC lied to Canal-and took him through a two year sham relocation process. But Canal shouldn't feel too bad. EDC has lied to the city council, lied to the court, and lied to almost every other land owner that wasn't singled out for favored nation status-lying to Canal is part of a systematic pattern of dishonesty that will be challenged in court."

Of course, as we have pointed out continually, the city also told one and all that condemnation-a supposed last resort-would not begin until the city got approvals for those crucial ramps. That position held until it became clear that the ramp approvals-thought to be a slam dunk by EDC-all of a sudden became problematic after WPU exposed the deficiency of the traffic data submitted by the agency's compromised consultants. These so called experts, so unused to anyone challenging their work, must have been stunned when WPU's Brian Ketcham exposed it as a sham-and the agency itself has been playing catch up ever since.

So the move to the EDPL hearing, in spite of the fact that the remaining property owners have yet to even get the required appraisals, no less an offer, is one of desperation on the part of EDC-a desperation so profound that this rogue group is willing to roll the legal dice by violating what it has alocuted to the court about the ramp approvals proceeding any eminent domain process.

We'll give Rikon the last word: "Condemnation is a very significant power. It enables a condemnor to forcibly take title to someone’s land or business If this awesome power is to be used by the government, it must be used carefully, legally and only when necessary."

Questionable Calorie Counting: Part II

2011-02-28T04:53:00.002-05:00

Last week we opined about the self serving NYC DOH study of its menu labeling. In this week's Crain's we are force fed so more pablum from the agency on the topic: "The city's 2008 menu-labeling law has been criticized since the day it was implemented as being both burdensome to chain restaurants and ineffective for customers: No study had shown that posting calorie information induces restaurant patrons to make healthier selections. That could change. The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene says its new research shows that the 15% of fast-food patrons in the city who use the information eat an average of 106 fewer calories than those who don't see or ignore the calorie content."

Nah, not very likely-and who's gonna believe the department that gets to mark its own test papers? For a more realistic appraisal of the DOH self survey, listen to NYU's Marion Nestle-a proponent of aggressive intervention for healthier eating: "New York University used a similar approach in a February study of teenagers who ate at fast-food outlets. But researchers concluded that their calorie intake was unchanged. “Most studies show very, very small effects,” said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at NYU. The city's study could be significant. “It shows a small effect, but it's bigger than any other that has been seen.”

The department, of course, refused to share its methodology with Crains: "City officials refused to share further details because the study is being peer-reviewed for possible publication in an academic journal. The research project, begun in the spring of 2009, cataloged 12,000 lunch receipts at McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's and eight other fast-food chains in the city."

Well, the last effort by the department to get peer reviewed on menu labeling fell flat-and independent studies-like this one-have shown no effect whatsoever. As the authors tell us: "We examined the influence of menu calorie labels on fast food choices in the wake of New York City’s labeling mandate. Receipts and survey responses were collected from 1,156 adults at fast-food restaurants in low-income, minority New York communities. These were compared to a sample in Newark, New Jersey, a city that had not introduced menu labeling. We found that 27.7 percent who saw calorie labeling in New York said the information influenced their choices. However, we did not detect a change in calories purchased after the introduction of calorie labeling. We encourage more research on menu labeling and greater attention to evaluating and implementing other obesity-related policies."

As we told Crains: "Critics said the law is a compliance hassle for food operators and has had little measurable benefit. Richard Lipsky, a small business lobbyist who has represented restaurant owners, said the city's findings were self-serving. “They should be taken with a grain of salt,” he said. “No pun intended.”

Four Flushing

2011-02-25T14:59:00.001-05:00

As EDC proceeds in its extra-legal efforts to condemn the property of Willets Point businesses, one landowner stands out-Carlos Canal, the owner of Flushing Towing. Canal's saga dramatizes just how underhanded EDC can be when it comes to dealing with those businesses threatened by condemnation.

You see, Canal actually wanted to make a deal and move to the College Point Corporate Park-as was reported locally: "In a meeting with Community Board 7 members Tuesday night, the city Economic Development Corp. announced that it plans to move five Willets Point businesses to the College Point Corporate Park. According to the EDC plans, Feinstein Ironworks, T. Mina Building Supply Co., Sambucci Bros. Auto Salvage, Mets Metals and Flushing Towing would be moved to the Corporate Park and occupy space on two parcels of city-owned land. The EDC said it hopes to begin the public approval process on the proposal Feb. 19."

And that's what did happen. Canal's relocation to College Point went through ULURP and he, along with larger entities like Sambucci and Feinstein Iron Works, were prepared to move-until something very strange happened. According to Canal, the final phase of the approval process came at the Queens Borough Board where CB 7's Chair, Fire Marshal Gene Kelty, pitched a fit about the Flushing Towing move.

As Canal puts it, Kelty screamed at him telling the Hispanic immigrant that College Point wasn't the place for him-and perhaps he should consider a more appropriate Corona or Jamaica location. The insinuation, made right in front of EDC, was a clear one-we don't want your kind here. The Flushing Times has the sanitized version: "The original plan for moving the businesses, introduced in February 2009, would also have relocated Flushing Towing and Mets Metals, which were slated to move to the north end of the corporate park.The businesses were dropped from the proposal after they hit snags with CB 7 and the EDC. CB 7 Chairman Eugene Kelty said in May that those two companies’ futures would be hashed out at a later date."

Honest Abe, Kelty is not-and his comments about a later date obfuscate the fact that Kelty was not going to allow Canal to come into his neighborhood-and incredibly EDC and BP Marshall acquiesced to the kind of behavior that should have gotten Kelty referred to the Human Rights Commission.

EDC's collusion is manifest-as we commented last year:

"Tonight, a hastily arranged meeting between a CB7 committee and NYCEDC occurred inside the College Point Corporate Park office trailer. The purpose was to again review NYCEDC's plans to relocate 3 businesses from Willets Point to the College Point Corporate Park, prior to the votes that will be held on Monday by the Queens Borough Board. If the Borough Board approves on Monday, then NYCEDC will be legally permitted to transfer the titles of the College Point properties to the 3 Willets Point businesses to enable their relocation.

The 3 businesses represented at tonight's meeting and which will be the subject of Monday's Borough Board votes are Feinstein Ironworks, Sambucci Bros. Auto Salvage and T. Mina Supply. Those who have followed the Willets Point story may recall that last year, a total of 5 Willets Point businesses were approved by CB7, the Queens Borough President, the City Planning Commission and the City Council to relocate to property within the College Point Corporate Park. Tonight's meeting and Monday's Borough Board vote account for only 3 of those total 5 businesses. The 2 businesses that are being denied relocation at present are Flushing Towing and Mets Metals.

Although the proprietor of Flushing Towing had been invited to attend tonight's meeting, earlier today he was again contacted by NYCEDC and told that the meeting was "canceled". This outright lie seems concocted to discourage this business owner from showing up at tonight's meeting, and thereby eliminate any questions about why all 5 businesses whose relocations were approved last year by CB7, the Queens Borough President, the City Planning Commission and the City Council, are not in fact being relocated. (emphasis added)

Meanwhile, why the relocation of 2 other approved businesses is not proceeding is unknown."

Currently, Canal is in limbo-with the eminent domain hearing on Wednesday focusing directly on his property located in the fictitious Phase I. Canal, told to find his own alternative site, did find a slightly larger and more expensive location. When he asked EDC, however, for the same $400/sq. ft. that the corporation ponied up for Feinstein, he was shot down-further indication of how the current condemnation process is rife with favoritism and inequity.

In essence then, EDC lied to Canal-and took him through a two year sham relocation process. But Canal shouldn't feel too bad. EDC has lied to the city council, lied to the court, and lied to almost every other land owner that wasn't singled out for favored nation status-lying to Canal is part of a systematic pattern of dishonesty that will be challenged in court. It's just too bad that only one elected official can be counted on to stand up to the agency's outrageous conduct.

Non-Kosher Food Fund?

2011-02-25T10:18:00.002-05:00

The NY Daily News is continuing to report on the fact that a Kosher supermarket in Brooklyn has received $2 million to expand: "An angrily divided community board has voted to support a controversial tax break for a Midwood supermarket. Supporters and opponents of the $2 million tax break for Moisha's Discount Supermarket clashed at a raucous Community Board 12 meeting Tuesday night over the plan - and allegations district manager Wolf Sender lied to city officials when he said the board supported the subsidy, even though members had never considered it."

What's missing from the article, however, is the source of the funds-there is the city's Fresh Program that supports supermarket expansion; along with a similar state effort called, "Healthy Food and Healthy Communities Fund." It would be interesting to find out since the community here is not one that is typically seen as underserved.

The Karma Brooklyn Blog gives us an answer: "On February 3rd, the New York City Industrial Development Agency (IDA) held a hearing on an application to FRESH by Moisha's Kosher Discount Supermarket. The Project Description reads

Moisha’s Kosher Discount Supermarket, Inc. (“Moisha’s” or the “Company”) currently operates a 7,000 square foot retail supermarket in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Moisha’s is seeking assistance through the Agency’s FRESH program to expand this facility to create an approximately 15,000 sq. ft. supermarket with parking for 45 cars."

As the Daily News pointed out in an earlier story, the grant to Moishe's is controversial-with CM Barron being the most vocal critic:

"A politically connected Brooklyn supermarket is getting a $2 million tax break intended for neighborhoods desperate for grocery stores - even though it's got plenty of competition.Moisha's Kosher Discount Supermarket is to receive $1.93 million to double its size on Avenue M in Midwood. The money comes from the Food Retail Expansion to Support Health program - which targets neighborhoods in Central Brooklyn, northern Manhattan, the South Bronx and other neighborhoods where fresh food is hard to find. Even though Moisha's is outside the target zone, city officials say the neighborhood counts as "underserved."

To us, this means that the entire Fresh Program needs to be re-evaluated. Our own view-devloped from the experience of some of our good friends in the supermarket business-is that the effort is woefully inadequate, and will little to help assuage the city's loss of over 300 supermarkets in the past decade. The dominant question here, is how has the Fresh Program helped those areas most in need. Midwood is not one of those neighborhoods.

As the News points out, "The Daily News counted 10 markets within 5 blocks of the store, all selling fresh fruits and vegetables. Owners Moisha and Barry Binik and their families have doled out at least $41,690 in contributions to local pols in the last decade. "This is not an underserved neighborhood," said Louie Mancuso, 60, who lives across the street. "That's a fraud."

With Walmart poised to enter the city, and using the underserved food desert argument as part of their propaganda, it is important to take a look at all of the city's efforts to address the problems that local supermarkets face in their efforts to expand and become more profitable. The fact that Moisha's may have used its political influence to unfairly influence the selection process, raises questions of both equity and efficacy. In a strange way, Walmart's appropriation of the food access issue could become a catalyst to examine how effective-or not-the Bloombergistas have been in meeting the need for better access to fresh food.

Compulsive Miseducation

2011-02-25T09:24:00.000-05:00

The bad news keeps pouring in-and the Bloomberg Educational Miracle is crumbling along with it. The latest comes from the NY Times report on the national science test scores: "Only 18 percent of the city’s public school fourth graders and 13 percent of its eighth graders demonstrated proficiency on the most recent national science exams, far below state and national levels, according to results released Thursday. Alan J. Friedman, a member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees the tests, called the city’s results “a big disappointment,” particularly because New York has a number of cultural organizations devoted to science, like the Museum of Natural History and the New York Hall of Science in Queens, which he directed for 22 years."

Another sad example of how much the trumpeted Bloomberg education gains have turned into just so much hot air-something that Sol Stern and Fred Siegel document extensively in Commentary. (We plan a fuller analysis of this next week). Stern and Siegal dramatize the extent to which Kleinberg used the fraudulent state test scores to promote the mayor's remarkable educational breakthroughs-and the collusionj between the mayor and the UFT's Weingarten to cover up the growing suspicion that the scores were unreliable at best.

Weingarten got more teachers, higher salaries and better benefits-along with undeserved bonuses for her members-while the mayor got a silent partner in a fraud perpetuated on the school kids and their parents. S&S also highlight the role of Al Sharpton in the conspiracy of silence-something we have also pointed out in our, "dog that didn't bark" commentary. They underscore the correlation between the Sharpton Code of Omerta and a money trail leading directly and indirectly from the mayor to the Cash and Carry man of the cashmere cloth.

All of which makes the latest news about the science tests unsurprising-but it also reveals the extent to which, "teaching to the test," has undermined overall learning: "Nationwide, more students show proficiency in math and English than in science, and the city has scored closer to the national average on those tests than in science. Mr. Friedman, of the national board, said over all, the city’s poor performance in science suggested that the emphasis on math and English, which have been the main measures of school progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law, had come at the expense of other subjects. “It does play a big role,” he said, “and that’s one of the major problems we have.”

These national results are also further evidence that the state tests-and the city's reliance on them-are part of an outrageous fraud that has, as we have pointed out, approached Enron-like proportions: "The results also call into question the rigor of New York State’s own science exams, which are given to all fourth and eighth graders. On the most recent state exams, 80 percent of the city’s fourth graders and 49 percent of its eighth graders showed proficiency."

Of course, the results are even worse for racial minorities-as the NY Post reports: "A breakdown of the city scores by race and ethnicity saw 41 percent of white students pass, compared to pass rates of 34 percent among Asian/Pacific Islanders, 10 percent among Hispanic students and just 9 percent among black students. In eighth grade, 36 percent of Asian/Pacific Islanders scored proficiently, compared to 29 percent of white students, 6 percent of Hispanic students and 5 percent of black students."

We await with bated breathe for the righteous indignation of the rabble rousing reverend-something that will never happen as long as those checks can still continue to be cashed. All of this is strong evidence that Mike Bloomberg's tenure has been, charitably, less than stellar; and that the Stern/Siegel critique is long overdue.

Willets Point Development Defense Fund

2011-02-24T18:21:00.002-05:00

The Queens Tribune has a story today giving the defenders of the Willets Point project the opportunity to put their feet in their mouth-reacting it seems to the "reams" of publicity that WPU has garnered: "As the redevelopment of Willets Point marches onward, opponents of the plan have often successfully kept themselves in the media spotlight, staging press conferences and reacting to the City’s every move. They have garnered a consistent trail of newspaper ink and TV time in the process."

Those poor supporters! All they have is the weight of the city and the muscle of eminent domain-but apparently not a very good narrative, so let's give these neglected folks a chance to have a voice. If the stakes weren't so high, this would all be quite funny: "But less often heard are the plan’s supporters, who include elected officials and local business leaders. Each harbors specific reasons for supporting Iron Triangle’s redevelopment, which looks to transform the 62-acre patch of industrial business and junk yards into a mix of housing, commerce and community space."

Whose up first? None other than the state senator whose son was the lead lobbyist for the project: "“I’m a yea-sayer,” said Stavisky.

“When I look at the derelict, debris-ridden site, I cringe.” The area is in dire need of an economic rejuvenation, one that takes it away from its current state, according to Stavisky. “[The redevelopment] will improve the area but also make it a destination, not an area where you speed up on the highway so you don’t have to look at it,” she added."

We wonder who's writing her material? Perhaps Jackie Mason-since the senator is unaware of how ironic and comical her comments about speeding on the highway are. If she bothered to carefully examine the environmental review-and the subsequent traffic studies for ramps on and off the Van Wyck-she would discover that if this 80,000 a day car generator is actually built, no one will be speeding anywhere, since the highway will be gridlocked!

But, of course, no one would dispute her observation about the area's blight-just as to the equity and constitutionality of the city's remedy. That doesn't disturb the other booster that the Tribune calls upon-the head of the Queens Chamber of Commerce: "The project’s opposition befuddles the Queens Chamber of Commerce’s Executive Vice President Jack Friedman, who sees nothing but benefits from the plan’s completion. “Whoever is opposed to this project, God bless them, but this area is not helping anyone,” he said. The plan’s convention center remains the lynchpin (sic) of the Chamber’s support, Friedman said, but the overall economic boon redevelopment will bring sustains the group’s position. “Right now, the current situation in Willets Point is not helping anybody,” he said."

Is he serious? The area isn't helping anyone? What about the hundreds of workers who are earning a living at the site-not to mention the property owners who are paying taxes to the city for nothing in return in the way of services? But Friedman remains befuddled by people who object to the government taking their property at eminent domain gunpoint? God bless his flippant insouciance about basic constitutional rights. We suspect that he would feel differently if his own house was in the way of the eminent domain bulldozer.

All of this dragging out of the usual suspects is no accident. EDC needs the cover for its outright lying to all manner of public officials and the judiciary-a practice that, in reading the comments in the Tribune, is a habit that the agency obviously finds hard to break.

Here's the main whopper: "Opponents grew more vocal at the beginning of the month, when the EDC began formal proceedings that would eventually lead to the acquisition of the remaining land in Phase 1 through the use of eminent domain.The agency has maintained it will keep negotiations open and says the landowners will get fair market value for their property, should it be obtained through eminent domain. “As we seek to reach agreements with the nine remaining businesses, we will also begin the legal process that gives us the option to condemn these properties if needed, so that we can continue to move forward,” Wood said."

"Keep negotiations open?" How about institute them in the first place? Let's hook Wood up to a lie detector and see how the needle jumps. We won't even go into the canard about fair market value-a concept that really only has merit when one business person makes an offer to purchase another's property. A court ruling is fair only to the gun owner-and when you're commencing eminent domain before having had a single negotiation with the vast majority of remaining property owners, the entire concept of fairness is rendered obsolete-EDC's own oxymoron.

Than there's the fictitious Phase I: "Opponents have taken the EDC to task for past promises made by the City to keep eminent domain off the table until exit ramps off the Van Wyck Expressway were approved by the state’s Dept. of Transportation.The EDC maintains its new phased-in approach eliminates the necessity for the ramps’ approval, adding it anticipates their revised plan’s approval shortly. The first part of the redevelopment will include affordable housing, a hotel, infrastructure improvements, retail and two acres of open space." (emphasis added)

Who in Jack Friedman's name is going to approve this plan? Perhaps a committee of Seth Pinsky, the state senator and the former Queens BP would suffice? Seriously, though, any plan modification needs to have a new traffic study-and go through a new SEQR review. And shouldn't condemnation await this review process-as the city and the court has previously agreed?

The Tribune concludes with the following admission from EDC: "The EDC plans to release a Request for Proposals for Phase 1’s developer in April." The admission here is that there is no developer, hence no plan-which makes the entire condemnation process both speculative and illegal. The ramps have not been approved. The underlying soil conditions remain unexamined. The cost of remediation is unknown-and there is no clear indication that the city, or any potential developer, has the money to undertake this venture (or the will to do so).

That friends, is the essence of speculative condemnation. We have a mayor in his swan song on the municipal stage using his remaining power to condemn property for a use that may never come to fruition-and we're, like Diogenes, looking for the honest person to stand up and say it. The City of New York is heading on the same road as New London after it condemned poor Suzette Kelo's house for a phantom project that was never even commenced. Empty fields of bad dreams is in this city's future if no one puts the brakes on the hubris of this mayor.

Addendum

Crain's Insider is reporting that some folks (unwilling to go on the record) are upset by State Senator Tony Avella's critique of the Willets Point development: "State Sen. Tony Avella reiterated his opposition to the redevelopment of Willets Point in a Daily News column Wednesday that irked proponents of the plan. “He's carpetbagging,” an insider close to the project said. “Avella doesn't even represent the district.”

Is that you Evan? Well, whoever it is, misses the larger point-the Willets Point development, with its 80,000 car trips a day, will overwhelm the all of the surrounding communities. This is not some small project that Avella is sticking his nose into-violating normal political protocol.

As WPU's traffic expert Brian Ketcham has pointed out to us in his critique of the EDC consultants: "For Willets Point the problem is that AKRF knows precisely what they are doing and they have to lie to make their case. They know that Willets Point is too big for the Flushing area. They know the surrounding roadway network cannot accommodate Willets Point traffic. They know that the Van Wyck Expressway and connecting expressways cannot accommodate so much additional traffic. They know there is no additional transit capacity to accommodate Willets Point and the other projects like Flushing Commons and that even more traffic will be forced onto the area than reported. They lied and they got caught. They have lied repeatedly."

Given the size and scope of the Willets Point mega-project, Avella is well within his rights to open up on it-the real conundrum is, why he is such a lonely voice in the Van Wyck wilderness? The silence of the lambs on this is deafening.

Calorie Recount

2011-02-24T15:15:00.003-05:00

Crain's Insider is reporting that the NYC DOH has come up with its own "study" of menu labeling-and shockingly it shows a positive impact on customer choice: "The city's menu labeling law inspires about 15% of consumers to change their purchasing habits, leading them to eat an average of 100 fewer calories per purchase, a new study presented by the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene concludes. The results show that menu labeling, controversial when introduced in 2008, is “not going to solve the obesity epidemic,” said a city health official, but it does have an impact. The official said a Starbucks survey showed that menu labeling had no impact on sales, but purchases totaled 6% fewer calories."

We say shockingly, because the city is famous-like the old Horn and Hardart's-for self serving. Whether it is studies of bike lanes or pedestrian plazas; or ramps off of the Van Wyck-the studies always show just what the city would like us to believe. But what makes the calorie counting study peerless is that it has no peer review to bolster its credibility.

And credible it isn't since, as we have seen, there has been no independent study to demonstrate that forcing fast food operators to post calorie counts has had any real impact on customers making better choices. As City Room reported last week: "Researchers at New York University have found that calorie-posting in fast-food restaurants has little influence on the foods teenagers order. They found that more than half of the teenagers noticed the calorie postings. A quarter of the teenagers said they were weight-conscious, and 9 percent of the teenagers said the labeling made them buy lower-calorie foods. But when the researchers examined their receipts, they found that the actual calorie counts were the same before and after restaurants began posting calories. Teenagers typically bought food totaling about 725 calories."

It should be pointed out that the NYU research team is led by Marion Nestle, a proponent of menu labeling-making the results believable since Nestle is, as the lawyers say, arguing against interest. And of course it would be useful to actually see the DOH study methodology since previous research efforts by the department have been spit out by reputable journals.

As we pointed out over three years ago-in response to a NY Times editorial, the evidence used to support the regulation was never seen or reviewed by anyone outside of the DOH: "The answer is in a survey that, as far as we know, no one has seen and almost certainly was not scientifically designed and peer-reviewed. According to this survey, the customers at Subways are being informed about calorie counts and because they are, better nutritional choices are being made: "The big chains fighting the city might take a cue from Subway. The sandwich maker is using calorie counts as a marketing tool and a way to build on its reputation as a more healthful fast-food alternative. It has voluntarily posted calories where customers can easily see them, usually on the menu board."

But the Times was proved wrong-as was the moonbat judge who ruled in the city's favor, claiming that menu labeling would reduce the obesity epidemic (something that the DOH has now backed away from): "In a 27-page opinion, Judge Holwell accepted one of the city’s main arguments for posting calorie counts — that doing so would help reduce obesity, which city officials say has reached epidemic levels. “It seems reasonable to expect that some consumers will use the information” on menu boards and menus “to select lower-calorie meals,” the judge wrote. He added that “these choices will lead to a lower incidence of obesity.”

That's what you get when judges act as nutritionists and sociologists-while swallowing whole what the self servers tell them. At the end of the day, the entire experiment has fallen flat-except over at Starbucks where more health conscious higher income yuppies are leaving out the muffins while drinking their lattes and frappuccinos.

Fighting Fire With Sheer Foolishness

2011-02-24T05:12:00.008-05:00

Yesterday we commented on Mike Bloomberg's impersonation of Jim Carrey as Fire Marshal Bill-weighing in on the Flatbush fire controversy with little real awareness of how little he knows about firefighting. Marcia Kramer at WCBS New York also focused in on the controversy: "Dispatch tapes and records obtained by Kramer show that there was a problem getting water on the fire and that after battling the fire for an hour and 23 minutes firefighters knew that there was little hope of saving the building. “All members have been removed from the roof of the building. All interior members have been moved to the floor below the fire … The fire is still doubtful,” an official is heard saying on the tape."

The inability of achieving optimum fire suppression was a result of a lack of manning on the trucks-the missing fifth firefighter-but the mayor, reading a lackey's script, was having none of it: "It has nothing to do with the number of people on an engine, which is what they’re talking about,” Bloomberg said, adding when told that firefighters had to run eight lengths of hose to the fifth floor, “Miss, I’m sure they’re going to say that. That’s part of what they have to say when were in the middle of trying to find ways to do more with less.”

What a fool! Trying to do more with less? When the lives of New Yorkers are hanging in the balance? Perhaps we wouldn't be in this situation if Mike Bloomberg hadn't added more than 16,000 additional personnel to the Department of Education-an example of doing less with more. And so it has gone through nine years of mismanagement-adding on to layers of government while increasing taxes and piling on more business crippling regulations.

Sure he has to cut now-that's what happens when you have been profligate for the better part of a decade. But it is a powerful indication of just how outrageous the suggestion was that we needed this man for an additional third term because of his managerial and fiscal expertise. It was all overblown by the mayor's hundreds of millions of campaign disinformation-aided buy a chorus of media toadies who vouched for the mayor's claims.

Now, however, the snowfu and CityTime scandals are driving home the point that the, "king is in the altogether." All of which is given further credence by the mayor saying we have to. "do more with less," and threaten the lives of our citizens because he hasn't been a good steward of the city's finances. Hey Mike, we don't do less in public safety-this is the one area that should be sacrosanct; and by saying that we need to eliminate manning and cut fire houses, the mayor is basically saying that he has failed in his core responsibility of governance.

But as far as the manning issue itself, he's just flat out wrong: "Dispatch tapes and records obtained by Kramer show that there was a problem getting water on the fire and that after battling the fire for an hour and 23 minutes firefighters knew that there was little hope of saving the building. “All members have been removed from the roof of the building. All interior members have been moved to the floor below the fire … The fire is still doubtful,” an official is heard saying on the tape. Union officials said that’s FDNY lingo for “We’ve given up. The building can’t be saved.” They said that staff cuts ordered by Mayor Bloomberg three weeks ago delayed them from getting water on the fire for at least five critical minutes."

As one insider told us: "The FDNY spokesmen have STILL not mentioned the Mayday that a Ladder Company captain gave because his company was searching a fifth floor apartment fire with no water to protect them. The first hose line (E-255) was beaten back from the door by a blast from inside the apartment when the win shifted. They were forced back into the stairwell when they were just moments away from breaking down the door and rushing in. That fifth man would have helped them get into position to attack the fire and protect the Ladder company, but he wasn't there. E-255 did an incredible job, stretching 450 feet of hose lie to the fifth floor with just three men (the chauffeur must stay with the pumper)."

And there will be an investigation-as there is with any fire fatality. But, as with the fatal Deutsche Bank fire, the city always looks to avoid taking any blame on itself-a characteristic shared in extremis by Mayor Bloomberg. As Jim Slevin told Kramer: "They could have contained this fire, kept it to a one-alarm fire. Instead, the windows failed. The fire blew them down the stairs and the woman died on the top floor,” said James Slevin, the vice president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association."

Just as with the Christmas blizzard, we have a failure right at the top-a chief executive who is trying to save lives on the cheap, and as a result we have lost a building and a human life. Some cost saving! As Kramer reports: "Was the fifth man critical? “We know that if they would have got up there quicker they could have made an attack on the fire,” Uniformed Fire Officers Association Vice President and FDNY Battalion Chief George Belnavis said. The unions are furious with the mayor. “All I have to say is what is more important, okay, saving lives or saving money?” UFOA delegate Lt. James McGowan said."

And we haven't even touched on the mayor's scheme to charge New Yorkers for emrgency rescues-a further indication of a man spiraling out of control. As we said last year: "So now, after nine years of failure to reduce the size and scope of municipal government, we've come down to the outrage of folks being double billed for emergence services..."

As far as we're concerned, the mayor's credibility in this is nil-and more and more it appears that he is losing his grip as his interest in actually running the city fades along with it. But he still has hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on his pet Willets Point project-a down payment on what will eventually cots billions. Doing more with less. Indeed.

We'll give CM Crowley the last word: "City Council Fire Committee Chairwoman Elizabeth Crowley said the mayor’s budget cuts are “forcing the FDNY to roll the dice on public safety.”

Avella Blasts EDC's Dishonesty

2011-02-23T09:10:00.000-05:00

In this morning's NY Daily News, State Senator Tony Avella lashes out against the rank dishonesty of NYC EDC: "Recently, the city announced that it would commence eminent domain proceedings against nine Willets Point businesses in what has been described as Phase I of the overall plan to redevelop the 62 acres known as the Iron Triangle. What is particularly distressing about that announcement is that the city, through the Economic Development Corporation, is once again going back on its word."

Avella, however, was ahead of the curve on this land grab-voting against the ULURP application because of his principled opposition to the abuse of eminent domain: "As a former member of the City Council, I - along with many of my colleagues - was concerned that the use of eminent domain in this instance was an abuse of the process. Eminent domain should only be used to take private property for a specific public benefit not, as in the case of Willets Point, to turn the property over to a private developer who will make millions. Where is the public benefit?"

But if eminent domain is to be used in this fashion, shouldn't at least the process be a fair one? Not when EDC is involved-which brings us to the rampant dishonesty of the agency over the crucial traffic mitigating ramps: "Following the city's approval, Willets Point United, a group organized by area business owners, hired a traffic consultant, Brian Ketcham, to review the city's environmental review of the impact this massive project would create. It was discovered that the city, in order to mitigate very serious traffic congestion issues, had proposed the creation of several ramps off the Van Wyck Expressway. The city had argued in the environmental review that the ramps were the linchpin of the project, primarily because the development was estimated to generate 80,000 car trips a day."

But the ramps proved to be deficient: "Without the ramps, the Willets Point development would overwhelm local streets and would be environmentally unmanageable. Nowhere in any of the environmental documents was there a scenario whereby the project in whole or in part could proceed without these crucial ramps. However, the ramp design is faulty, and necessary approval from the state Department of Transportation has not been forthcoming."

Never mind! Scrap the ramps, and full speed ahead-in spite of all that EDC had assured the council concerning the timing of any condemnation process: "As part of public comments, EDC had promised that eminent domain would be used only as a last resort, and it would not be used prior to the approval of the ramps. Well, despite the unresolved ramp issue, EDC is moving to condemn family-owned businesses. In essence, EDC, stymied by a difficult state and federal approval process, is looking to make an end run around this impasse and create an entirely new project - one that has never been properly reviewed by the Council."

Which is precisely why we have called for a re-review by the council-and Avella agrees with this assessment: "In my view, this is a complete violation of the land use review process and requisites that the Council approved in 2008. EDC alleges that the ramps are not necessary for the first phase of the project, a phase that encompasses 20 acres and will include, according to EDC, a retail corridor, hotel and housing. But since no study was done on this partial development, the assertions of EDC are without merit or credibility."

Nothing new there. EDC also promised that eminent domain would be used as a last resort, but the 53 businesses that have yet to sell their property to the city-most because they don't want to-have never been approached to negotiate a sale. In typical bully fashion, EDC paid through the nose to get the large land owners to sell, and now want to muscle the little guys out-violating the environmental law, and all of its promises, at the same time.

What Avella wants, and what the council should be demanding, is for a new SEQR to be instituted for the never before seen Phase I: "There is simply no way that the city can argue that the first phase does not need these ramps. As a result, the only credible alternative is for the Council to demand a new environmental review and a completely new land use application to determine if what EDC is arguing has any validity. The public must have an opportunity to comment on this new plan."

But the council remains curiously silent so far-even in the face of huge budget cuts and a multi-billion dollar price tag for the mayor's speculative legacy project. Avella deserves the last word: "The entire Willets Point development has taken a turn for the worse. It now needs to be reevaluated in light of the city's current fiscal situation and the questionable nature of the ability of the project to mitigate huge and potentially disastrous environmental impacts. If this reevaluation doesn't occur, the city is in grave danger of bequeathing to future generations an empty field and significant loss of business/sales tax revenue."

Business Groups Conflicted on Walmart

2011-02-23T05:16:00.000-05:00

Crain's is reporting that the city's various chambers of commerce are divided over the Walmart question: "The Manhattan Chamber of Commerce will not take a stance on Walmart's potential entry into the city after a poll revealed a split between members favoring the nation's largest retailer and those opposing it.The Chamber asked members—most of them small-business owners—one question: Are you in favor of Walmart opening a store in New York City? Among the more than 300 respondents, 53% favored the retailer coming to town, and 47% opposed its arrival."

Now the Manhattan group represents a range of businesses-both large and small-and its internal survey undermines the credibility of the Walmart sponsored poll that found widespread small business support for the retail giant. But the Manhattan Chamber wasn't alone: "The issue of Walmart puts the city's chambers of commerce in a tough spot. They typically take pro-business stances, and Walmart recently joined all five boroughs' chambers of commerce. But because of the company's perceived impact on small retailers, which comprise a vocal portion of their membership, it's tough for the groups to speak out on the issue. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn got a loud ovation last year at a Crain's small business forum when she spoke forcefully against Walmart coming to town."

Of course, all of this remains theoretical without a clear understanding of specific sites-location being the sine qua non of opposition to any large retail development. But, as Crain's points out, the Walmart move into Chicago and NYC may be borne of desperation: "The attempt to keep Walmart out of the city comes at a time when the retailer needs to expand into New York and other urban areas. Fourth-quarter sales at U.S. stores open at least a year were down 1.8%, company executives reported Tuesday, worse than they expected. Overall domestic sales fell in the fourth quarter by 0.5% to $71.1 billion. Shares in Walmart were down nearly 4% in afternoon trading."

But location only counts when it triggers a land use review and gives the council oversight-leaving the city vulnerable to scores of as-of-right locations. That's why there is an effort to craft legislation that would raise the barrier to entry for the Walmonster: "Also this week, Walmart opponents are continuing with efforts to craft legislation in the City Council that would make it difficult for the company to open stores in the city. Any legislation would have to be approved by Ms. Quinn before gaining traction. Because of the powerful role of pro-Walmart Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the zoning process, the legislation would likely focus on labor practices, wages or working conditions, according to Richard Lipsky, a lobbyist for the retail workers union. It would not necessarily be specific to Walmart."

This is, however, all speculative since there are scores of legislative suggestions and initiatives being entertained. What this indicates is that there is growing and intense opposition to Walmart's efforts to rescue its bottom line by flooding this city with Big and Little Wallies-and they have not seen the half of it yet.

Fire Marshal Mike

2011-02-23T05:06:00.001-05:00

As the NY Times is reporting, there is an ongoing controversy over whether the FDNY could have responded better to a fire in Brooklyn on Saturday night-the Times leads with the official city version: "Firefighters were briefly delayed in putting out a fire in Flatbush, Brooklyn, on Saturday night because an engine that had been sent to the blaze was already at another emergency, attending to a police officer who had accidentally shot himself in the leg, the Fire Department said Monday. The fire eventually took the life of a 64-year-old woman living on the top floor."

The UFA, however, sees it differently-and places the blame on a loss of manning: "On Sunday, Steve Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York, the firefighters’ union, said that staff cuts imposed by the Bloomberg administration were responsible for the serious delays in getting water on the fire. Three of the first six engine companies to respond had only four firefighters."

So, one woman died and 64 families have been left homeless because of a one minute dispatch error? The FDNY's spokesman elaborates: "The delay lasted “over a minute,” until dispatchers discovered the engine’s whereabouts and sent another one to the fire, on East 29th Street, said James Long, a Fire Department spokesman. He said the department could not say if the delay caused the death of the resident, Mary Feagin, a retired guidance counselor...But Mr. Long denied that the lack of a fifth firefighter led to the spread of the blaze. “A combination of factors contributed to the intensity and the advance of the fire,” he said, including high winds and a door left open in the apartment where the fire began. But the dispatching error did delay getting water on the fire, he said."

OK, but what were the chances that the Department would agree with the union on this? And does its assertion have credibility? In fact, if the FDNY agreed with the UFA on the role of reduced manning, it would have been a real shocker, now wouldn't it? This would seem to call for an independent review so that the city doesn't get to cover up the extent to which the full complement of firefighters might have prevented the blaze from demolishing the entire building.

The one thing no one should rely on is the know nothing assertions of Mike Bloomberg, doing his best Jim Carrey turn as Fire Marshall Bill. As Daily Politics reports, the mayor is absolutely sure that manning wasn't a factor: "Unfortunately, that’s just not the facts. The fact of the matter is it had nothing to do with staffing. First engine showed up in a very acceptable time. The second engine did not and we’re investigating why."

Of course, the first responding engine was handicapped by being short staffed, now wasn't it? Not according to Fire Marshal Mike: "It has nothing to do with the number of people on an engine, which is what they’re talking about." But the number of men on the first truck is an important variable in the ability to get the water on the fire-and with a full complement of firefighters, two lines can be formed for rapid water response-underscoring that the mayor needs to leave the comedy to comedian Carrey.

But we shouldn't lose sight of the bigger picture here-and the city is also looking to chop 20 firehouses away, risking the public safety in the process. CM Liz Crowley highlights the danger: "Once again, the Mayor’s budget is forcing the FDNY to roll the dice on public safety. The State is being unfair in its distribution of funding to the City but it is the Mayor who decides what to cut and what to keep. At a time when the City has dumped billions of dollars into a failed 911-system upgrade -- and will spend millions more to have NASA try to fix it -- the Mayor is reducing FDNY staffing and proposing to close 20 fire companies. Simply put, it doesn’t matter how fancy our 911-system is if there’s no one at the firehouse to answer your emergency call. As we can see from the deadly fire in Brooklyn last Friday, closing companies at a time when our fire services are responding to more emergencies than ever before will jeopardize the lives of New Yorkers."

Let's get real here. One woman was killed and twenty firefighters were sent to the hospital-and 100 people were made homeless. It's not often that we lose an entire building to fire in NYC. The exit question here, one that needs to be asked after an independent review of the fiasco is conducted is, How much is the Bloomberg administration compromising the safety of the public with its austerity methods that, in effect, makes the FDNY no different than HRA?

McManus Calls Out Lee Bollinger

2011-02-22T13:20:00.000-05:00

Following our train of thought this morning is the NY Post's Bob McManus-and he calls out Columbia's President Lee Bollinger for the outrage perpetrated against a CU freshmen who is a decorated veteran: "But this doesn't relieve university President Lee Bollinger of his own debt of honor regarding former Staff Sgt. Anthony Maschek. The young man's sacrifices on behalf of the United States of America are undeniable, and his treatment at the hands of his fellow students was shameful. For the moment, that shame resides solely with the students. But if Bollinger lets the matter stand unresolved -- without a measure of disapprobation for the students and without a public apology to Maschek -- then very soon the shame becomes Columbia's. And Bollinger's.

To us, the Bollinger apology is the first step-the next one being the full reinstatement of ROTC on campus. After all, shouldn't Columbia be Pro Choice? In addition, however, we believe that the mayor should wade right into this dispute on the side of ROTC. After all, he was quick to chime in on the GZ mosque (a decision that's looking somewhat shaky nowadays), and the defense of the right of students to go to school and pursue a commitment to serve our country is as important as the freedom of religion issue that Bloomberg championed with the mosque.

It could be argued, and we will do so, that those precious freedoms the mayor championed are rendered nulll and void without the ability of our country to protect them-something that the student miscreants at Columbia should be taught to understand. One final point. If the city is going to go out of its way to literally pave the way for the university's expansion by supporting the condemnation of local properties on its behalf, than the mayor should be prepared to publicly chide Bollinger on the treatment of Staff Sgt. Maschek.

Crain's Falls on EDC's Ramps

2011-02-22T05:19:00.002-05:00

This week's Crain's focuses on the continued fight being waged by Willets Point United against the EDC's bait and switch over the need for ramps to be built off of the Van Wyck before any property at the 62 acre site can be condemned: "WPU hired lobbyist Richard Lipsky, who helped kill the huge Kingsbridge Armory development in the Bronx last year. The group has also hired Washington law firm Arnold & Porter. In the past two weeks, the group has fired off letters to city officials and held a press conference keynoted by state Sen. Tony Avella, D-Queens, a longtime opponent of the project. In the near term, the group is focusing on the EDC's failure to gain approval for a key ingredient of the project—access ramps for the Van Wyck Expressway—as the weak point in its armor."

As we have been harping on, the ramp about face exposes, not only the city's dishonesty, but its desperation-having been stymied by WPU and state regulators in the ramp approval process: "The city represented to the court in a sworn affidavit that it would not take my clients' property by eminent domain until it had received approval for ramps for the Van Wyck,” said Mike Gerrard, senior counsel with Arnold & Porter. The EDC points out that its latest plan envisions building the project in phases, and that the first of those does not require new ramps. In the meantime, it is proceeding as if the ramp approval were a formality. It plans to issue a request for proposals in April to select a developer." (Emphasis added)

Well put, Crain's-but if the approval is a formality, why has EDC been spending millions to revise a ramp report for State DOT? And why has the "formality" dragged on for over 15 months? We could add, why has the city gone back on a sworn court affidavit submitted by then Deputy Mayor Lieber in the WPU's Article 78 challenge to the Willets Point ULURP, one that made ramp approval the linchpin for the commencement of any condemnation proceeding?

The reason lies with the fact that this ramp formality has become a royal pain in the ass for EDC-and rather than go through the process, one that is fraught with uncertainty, the agency has decided to go back on its sworn statements in order to bogart the entire process. The reality being that the ramps simply don't work as mitigation for the 80,000 daily car trips that the development will generate-and they certainly will lead to the degradation of the Van Wyck, a deal killer for state and federal regulators.

Facing this losing hand-one made worse by the original fraudulent traffic data submitted to the state by EDC's consultants-EDC made the decision to break its word, its EIS protocols; and contradict all of the testimony it gave before the city council in 2008 during ULURP. EDC did this because it feels that creating momentum will make it impossible for the regulators to turn the ramp application down-and in the process, it feels that rolling the dice legally is worth the risk because of WPU's less than robust resources.

It, is, however, a shameful abuse of power-exacerbated by the silence of the lambs at the city council. Isn't it bad enough that the council gave over its regulatory authority on Willets Point to the mayor-having no idea who would develop the area and what the exact plan would be? Now, having snookered the body, EDC adds insult to injury by basically saying, "It really doesn't matter what we promised to get your approval, you are now irrelevant?

But it isn't only the property owners getting skewered-Willets Point is the home of hundreds of immigrant workers and tenant business owners. The Queens Courier makes the point: "Many years have gone by and they have neglected our community by not cleaning the streets,” said Marco Neira, 12-year shop owner of Master Express Deli and president of the Willets Point defense committee. “They want one way or another, to remove us.”
And there's more: "In addition to the scrap yards and auto body shops, Willets Point has several family-owned businesses which have been operated for many years. Ecuadorian-born Olger Rogel, manager of a local restaurant, noted, “I agree with the progress of the city to make the neighborhood look good, but if the businesses will be closed, there will be many without jobs, especially for the Hispanics.”

So let's hear it for the immigrants and all of the small businesses-poster children for great campaign speeches and ritual obeisance when it is convenient. But what is really needed here at Willets Point, is for all of the talk to be transcended by concrete action-because there are real live small and immigrant businesses being readied for the development slaughter house, victims of the gap between political rhetoric and sincere action.

Columbia Disgrace!

2011-02-22T05:07:00.000-05:00

When we last discussed Columbia we were commenting on the disgraceful use of eminent domain to transfer Nick Sprayregen's property over to the ubber property owning university. Megan McCardle at the Atlantic captured the unfairness:

"In the case of Columbia, there's a tangible public loss--they're going to tear down one of the few gas stations in Manhattan in order to give Columbia's privileged students more space. And what public benefit does the city get? We're talking about taking taxpaying private properties and transferring them to a non-profit which will not pay taxes, and will turn a large swathe of Manhattan into a quasi-compound for some of the wealthiest and most privileged people in the city.

Which is, of course, the most sick-making aspect. I am not against eminent domain for public uses like hospitals or railroads. But by no stretch of the imagination could Columbia University be called a public accommodation. One's gut and one's social conscience rebel at the seizure of private property which is taken precisely because it serves, or is owned by, poorer people. One's gut and one's social conscience positively riot at the thought of taking this seized land and handing it over to wealthy private institution that almost exclusively serves the affluent class.

I don't understand why this is an issue that only fires up libertarians. Can't we all agree that it would be better to live in a world where Columbia cannot do this sort of thing? I guess not, though."

The case for Columbia was bolstered by its president who seemed to make the audacious claim that the university needed the Sprayregen property so that it could go ahead in its research to cure cancer, among other things: "Columbia plans to meet this challenge by assembling one of the greatest and most diverse concentrations of brain power anywhere in the world. A key part of the university's proposed expansion in the Manhattanville area of West Harlem will provide the opportunity to add approximately 500 new researchers, who will collaborate across traditional academic boundaries to address the signal challenges of our time."

Poor Sprayregen, thinking that his property rights are more important than curing heretofore incurable diseases. But now comes some even more disturbing news about the indispensable university and the homunculi it enrolls as its students. The NY Post reports the horrendous story: "Columbia University students heckled a war hero during a town-hall meeting on whether ROTC should be allowed back on campus. "Racist!" some students yelled at Anthony Maschek, a Columbia freshman and former Army staff sergeant awarded the Purple Heart after being shot 11 times in a firefight in northern Iraq in February 2008. Others hissed and booed the veteran."

This is all representative of the new civility, we guess-but to us, it raises once again the question of why anyone would consider this privileged bastion a receptor for the property of hard working New Yorkers? And let's not forget that this is the same university that invited the Holocaust denying Ahmadinenjad to speak-and the place where the Minutemen were shouted down and prevented from speaking by all of Columbia's civil libertarians.

But disrespecting a wounded war vet is probably the university's low point-and we have yet to see Dr. Cancer Cure say a word about the outrage. But then again, a university that will use the power of the state to throw people off of their land-and continue to gentrify the locals out of the West Harlem neighborhood where it resides-are not the kind of folks for which shame is a handy emotion.

But the real shame is Mike Bloomberg's-a leader for whom property rights applies only to a certain class of people-his own.

Bring in the Auditors-Along With a Refund for the Voters

2011-02-22T04:54:00.003-05:00

Last week we discussed the Bloomberg education record in the context of a cost/benefit analysis-and we questioned whether the excessive increase in spending, almost doubling the 11 billion dollar ed budget, has been worth it. Now we find some more evidence that the Bloomberg achievements have been a lot less than meets the eye-as the DOE brings in the auditors.

As the NY Times reports: "New York City school officials said Friday that they would introduce a new, rigorous system of auditing the test scores, grading practices and graduation rates of the public high schools, appearing to acknowledge rising concerns that some schools might be manipulating the statistics they are judged by."

Phony test scores, manipulated results-is there any reason left to credit Bloomberg with the Great Leap Forward? Think back to the fall of 2009, however, and we recall how the editorial boards of the NY Daily News and the NY Post excoriated the Bill Thompson record as president of the old Board of Ed-and, at the same time, emitted some of the most fulsome, and spurious, praise of the Bloomberg record. The papers owe New Yorkers an apology-and the News has to stop pointing fingers at the state ed officials while ignoring the complicity of Kleinberg in this Enron style fraud on the public.

What is revealed, after all of the phony hoopla is exposed for the misdirection that it is, is woeful performances and serious underachievement-in spite of the 16,000 more educational personnel that have been added in the Bloomberg Error-which is why the auditing is quite ironic: "The move comes as the city and the state have sought to raise standards to better prepare students for college and careers, and as mounting evidence has cast doubt on whether even the current standards are being met. In at least the past two years, an unusually large number of students have obtained exactly the minimum score needed to pass state Regents exams, which are often graded by their regular teachers. City officials say the anomaly existed even before Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg took control of the city’s schools in 2003."

If this were Enron, the US Attorney would be slapping the whole crew down at Tweed with RICO indictments-in our view, defrauding the public is a serious offense: "But observers of the school system, including those who have been skeptical of rising test scores and graduation rates, said officials seemed to acknowledge issues with some of the data. “It seems to me that the D.O.E. is realizing that they have a credibility problem with their numbers and they’re trying to address that,” said Kim Sweet, executive director of Advocates for Children of New York, which has questioned whether some schools tally dropouts incorrectly to help graduation rates."

This is further dramatized by Susan Edelman's commentary in Sunday's NY Post-where she goes after the failures at State Ed, and the DOE's collusion. Here's the money quote, with a reference to one of the righteous, Board of Regents member, Betty Rosa: "Then came even more spectacular, and suspicious, 2009 results. “Why are we celebrating these scores as a miracle, when there is no miracle?” Rosa said she asked."

The answer lies with the political advancement of the mayor-and why the RICO analogy is a strong one: "Another insider said Big Apple officials were urged not to “exaggerate” the results. But Mayor Bloomberg hailed the increase in 2009 as an “enormous victory.” At the time, he had a lot riding on the scores — he was seeking a third term and pushing for legislation to extend mayoral control of the schools.

City officials “got very angry,” the insider said, when Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch publicly downplayed the results, citing “troubling gaps” between the stellar state scores and lackluster outcomes on national exams."

Critics like Andy Wolf have been on top of this for years-and the situation is so egregious that voters in the city should be given a do-over for the fraudulent election of Three Term Mike. Given the amount of money that the mayor spent to pump up his phony achievements and denigrate Bill Thompson, the role played by the Post and News in acting as an arm of the Bloomberg campaign was even more shameful-it prevented any real countervailing information from reaching the less motivated voters.

And the endorsement of the mayor by the NY Times, in spite of how much his spending made a mockery of the paper's signature campaign finance law, puts that paper right up there with the two other journalistic co-conspirators. Here's the money quote we love: "Public education is better over all ..." All three publishers-billionaires in concert-helped fellow billionaire Bloomberg make a mockery of the local democratic process. (Although, in hinsight, the Times editorial has an even bigger howler: "What makes the mayor stand out is not his political skill, although he has come a long way since his first clumsy days in office. He has run the $60 billion government with a keen attention to accountability and efficiency.")

And the dummying up of the city scores is a direct result of DOE malfeasance-allowing teachers to grade their own students' exams. But why should we be surprised by this? After all, the DOE had to know-given the disparity between the state and national tests-that something was not Kosher. Yet silence reigned because it was politically expedient.

So now we have auditors. But something important is missing. When the average person is audited by the IRS, and discrepancies are found, it ends up with the unlucky subject paying back the money with interest. Now that we have seen how the NYC DOE-in partnership with State DOE-has defrauded the public all to the benefit of a sitting mayor, where do we go to get our money back?

Neither Hindsight nor Oversight is 20/20 at the City Council

2011-02-18T15:21:00.001-05:00

We have been highlighting the compelling need for the city council to exercise-and regain-its oversight role over the development at Willets Point. Put simply, the legislature was snookered by EDC and the city when it abdicated its land use oversight role by approving a project that lacked any specificity-or, better yet, even a developer. The money quote comes from former land use committee chair, Melinda Katz: "Well, just so it's clear, my issue in the last hearing and this one is clearly that if we do the ULURP process first, it takes the New York City Council out of the process as we move forward. It historically is not done that way. Historically we do the RFP first, the developer is chosen, then you do the ULURP process..."

Having given the mayor carte blanche in 2008, there is little the council can now do to oversee what actually does get put into those 62 acres at the Iron Triangle-a Walmart, perhaps, or an unwanted developer like Related. Now, however, EDC has unwittingly provided the council with a way out of its self imposed dilemma. By going back on its pledge to hold off on any eminent domain use until the Van Wyck ramps were approved-and initiating a new development scheme not previously vetted by SEQR at the same time-EDC has opened the door to a city council revisit.

But opening the door apparently does not insure that the council will actually walk through it-and our efforts are foundering because of the reluctance of some council members to re-open the Willets Point can of worms. Which reminds us of Ibsen's great drama, "An Enemy of the People." For those unfamiliar, the plot revolves around a righteous local Doctor Stockman who discovers that the village spa-a tourist attraction and key economic stimulus for the town-is contaminated. He goes to the village leaders expecting that they will close the facility down, only to be greeted by hostility-and the good whistle blowing doctor is eventually run right out of town.

And so it goes with Willets Point United-and the irony here is that, while it is Willets Point that stands accused of contamination, it is the EDC and its environmental consultants who have contaminated the review process-breaking their word and proffering tainted data to the regulatory authorities. When the egregious breach of trust is brought before the council, some of the village elders became resentful-not wanting to expose the duplicity of those who came before it lacking in honesty and integrity.

Which brings us right to the nub of all this-a phony, "Phase I," along with disappearing Van Wyck ramps that appear as appetizing as mystery meat at the school cafeteria. The Flushing Times has the story:

"Lipsky and Avella said the move to initiate the eminent domain process violates statements by the city in court documents indicating that it would wait until after a pending state Department of Transportation review of ramps on the Van Wyck Expressway. Lipsky, who represents Willets Point property owners, and Avella contend the ramps must be built to handle the 80,000 extra car trips per day they say the project will create.

“They’ve worked long and hard to develop their businesses and they serve the greater Queens and New York City community. The city now wants to take their property,” Avella said at the protest last week. “[The EDC] made a commitment — because there’s an issue with the ramps the state DOT has not approved what the city is suggesting — that until that issue is resolved they would not proceed with eminent domain. Well, guess what? Once again the Economic Development Corp. has lied, has lied to these business owners, lied to the elected officials and lied to the people of this city.”

But it is not only the owners who have been lied to-and the council should be taking umbrage over this insulting end run. But it doesn't appear to. It should, not only to protect its own integrity and oversight role, but to stand up for the small businesses being threatened by EDC's tactics.

Just read Tom Angotti's seminal study of the area: "The Willets Point triangle is an active business district with 225 firms and an estimated, 1400-1,800 jobs." That a lot of small businesses-and they aren't theoretical straw men-they are real life folks who are threatened with extinction.

Put as simply as possible, the EDC claim that the ramps are unnecessary should be the red flag: "The EDC maintains that proceeding with the first phase of the project does not require building the ramps. The first phase of the project is expected to include 1.3 million square feet of development, including affordable housing, retail, a hotel, 2 acres of open space and necessary infrastructure improvements."

How much traffic will this generate, no one really knows? Inquiring minds want to know if the spa's contaminated. Here's hoping that the request for an inquiry doesn't end up with all of WPU's Dr. Stockmans being run out of town.

Costly/Benefit Analysis

2011-02-18T14:11:00.003-05:00

Nicole Gelinas has one of her usual trenchant analyses of the mayor's budget in the NY Post today, and the education numbers jumped out at us: "This year, city spending jumped 11.5 percent -- even though some departments (including police, fire, sanitation and parks) will see their operations spending fall. Why? First, there's education. The city's own-funds spending on the schools will rise by a whopping 22.8 percent this year -- from $6.4 billion to $7.9 billion. That's because Albany is yanking $1 billion here -- even as the feds, done with stimulus, are pulling back $900 million. But that's a risk that Bloomberg took. This year, New York will spend $22 billion on education from federal, state and city funds -- up from $11.6 billion when the mayor took office."

The NY Post editorialists also weigh in on this today-going after the Bloomberg beg for $600 million from the state: "For one thing, Cuomo didn't cut $600 million in local aid to the city. The money wasn't in last year's state budget, and Bloomberg's claim on it is vaporous. Second, the mayor's budgeteers found enough local cash to fund a 12 percent hike in locally funded spending -- from $44.8 billion to $49.9 billion. This stands in sharp contrast with Cuomo's proposed 10 percent cut in state operating outlays."

And then there's the education outlay specifically: "Even with the proposed teacher layoffs, the Department of Education's budget stands to go up by more than $1.8 billion -- having soared nearly 50 percent since he took office, largely on the basis of a 16,000-plus increase in the number of education employees and dramatically higher teacher salaries and benefits."

Which brings us to the point that we have been making for quite some time-in all of the discussion of the mayor's educational achievements, as it were, there has been little in the way of any attempt to do a cost/benefit analysis. But there should be, because any of the putative gains that have been made in the last nine years have come at a huge cost-and now we are cutting police and fire budgets for education, adding more fuel to the pressing need for analyzing whether or not we are getting a good bang for all of the spending.

Gelinas provides the numbers: "New York City chose, for example, to hike teacher salaries by nearly 50 percent over the last decade and increase the education workforce by 16,360 people. Today, we spend $17,923 per student -- 69 percent more than Seattle and more than twice as much as Houston. For most of that time, the state helped out with extra money -- but it was always a risk that someday the state would pull back, leaving us holding the bag and with no flexibility to cut salaries or lay off less productive teachers.

Now the city is doubling down on its bet. As the mayor put it, "We've moved money from everything else over to education."

Of course, we have been able to raise the college ready cohort of high school graduates to a whopping 23%! Not bad for an increased spending level that now hovers around a 100% increase.

Is this in any way sane, given the mayor's paltry record in the educational area? As Gelinas says-and we concur: "Bad move. The mayor should say that, after having doubled the budget, it's time to make sure we're getting results on what we're already spending..." Which brings us to the person that the mayor has put in charge of all of this money-the truly unqualified Cathie Black.

The other day, Andrea Peyser inveighed against this dumbfounding selection: "In the annals of Really Bad Ideas, a few stand out as stupendously dumb. Bike-lane proliferation. Sen. Al Franken. Charlie Sheen's in-mansion rehab. The installation of Cathie Black to the post of city schools chancellor has devolved over seven weeks into a brand-new category of managerial screw-up. Mayor Bloomberg has to know he made a mistake. Well, mismatching a shirt and tie qualifies as a boo-boo. Hiring Black to run a school system of 1.1 million kids, the nation's largest -- a job for which she is not temperamentally suited, intellectually qualified or, from the look on her scowling face, interested in performing -- is akin, in terms of political trauma, to hiring a BP executive to explain an oil spill."

So, as the Gelinas analysis underscores-at least for us-the city is spending huge sums on education; and bloating the overall municipal budget to such an extent that the mayor's looking to cut essential services. All of which highlights the gap between the image of Bloomberg as a fiscal maven, and the reality of his poor stewardship of the city's finances. As the educational steamship continues to take on more revenue ballast, Captain Black is brought in to steer it forward-compounding an already shaky situation. Is there anything left of the mayor's incredible shrinking reputation for expertise?

We'll give the Post the last word on the Myth of Mike: "But overall city spending during the Bloomberg years has leapt up by fully 57 percent, against an inflation rate of just 23 percent, and there is little in his proposal that fundamentally reverses that trend...Tough times linger, but the document proposed by Bloomberg yesterday is hardly an austerity budget."

Local Outrage at EDC Arrogance

2011-02-18T04:42:00.002-05:00

The Queens Chronicle weighs in on the EDC eminent domain switcheroo-covering last week's presser out at Willets Point: "On one of the coldest days of winter, members of Willets Point United came out in full force Thursday, expressing their anger with Mayor Bloomberg over the city’s plan to begin eminent domain proceedings there. The rally was held at the Sunoco gas station at 127-48 Northern Blvd., which marks one of the borders of the city’s $3 billion mixed-use project for the area. Also in attendance at the protest were civic groups, workers and elected officials."

The Chronicle focuses in on a subject that EDC would rather avoid-those troublesome ramps off of the Van Wyck: "In order to accommodate the large amount of traffic, the city said it must build two ramps for the expressway before work can begin. The state and federal government must first approve the ramps, but that has not happened yet. However, the city still plans to proceed with the construction."

EDC, for its part, would have done well in the old Soviet Union-where the rewriting of history was done on a daily basis. Here's agency flack Julie Woods doing her realistic Pravda imitation: "Julie Wood, spokeswoman for the Economic Development Corp., said last week the project has evolved over the years and is now going to be done in phases and the first part does not require approval of the ramps."

That, of course, is a bold faced lie-and contradicts sworn court testimony from the former deputy mayor. Out to Lunch Lieber. State Senator Avella hones in on this outrage: "State Sen. Tony Avella, (D-Bayside) said he is displeased with the way the city is treating business owners in Willets Point. Avella, who has supported the WPU since the project was first announced, said it is the American dream to have the opportunity to work, own land and own a business, but the government is taking away the dream from these people. “Once again the EDC has lied,” Avella said, vowing, “Mike Bloomberg and the EDC, we’re gonna fight you. Why the City of New York refuses to listen to common sense is beyond me.”

Juniper Park's Robert Holden went even further: "Protester Robert Holden, the president of the Juniper Park Civic Association in Middle Village, claimed City Hall houses a “gangster government,” that buys elections, and that Mayor Bloomberg needs to be impeached. “They tell us one thing and do another thing,” Holden said."

What some folks tend to lose sight of is the many tenant businesses that will be displaced-and there is no plan to relocate them; another example of EDC duplicity. One of the tenant leaders spoke at the presser: "One person that the government’s eminent domain procedure will affect directly is Marco Neira, the president of the Willets Points Community of Defense. Neira, who has owned an auto repair shop in Willets Point for 22 years, said his life is being ripped out from underneath him. “We feel frustrated,” he said. “The city is lying to us.” He said he and members of Willets Point United are honest, hard-working people who pay taxes and have families, but the government is treating them like “criminals.”

Of course, EDC simply tries to ignore the ramp-ant dishonesty of its actions, but the statement of Ms. Woods lets the cat out of the bag: "The Bloomberg administration is committed to making considerable progress at Willets Point, transforming an area that generations have sought to change and improve into New York’s next great neighborhood. In 2011, we will reach several milestones, including the release of the RFP for the first stage of development, significant regulatory approvals and the beginning of construction of infrastructure that will link this isolated neighborhood to one of the most vibrant parts of Queens.”

Interpreted into English, what this means is that EDC-stymied by an inability to get the approvals for these ramps-is desperate to show progress this year. So desperate that it will violate sworn testimony and environmental protocols that the agency itself had put forth as essential for the development's ability to proceed. And if Woodsy the Owl is so confident about achieving, "significant regulatory approvals," this year, why not wait until you do before condemning property of small land owners?

Her prophecy about being able to start construction of linking infrastructure-if by that she means ramp-is hallucinatory. Don't be surprised if the courts throw this arrogant and lawless bunch back to square one. In a letter to the Ridgewood Ledger, the legendary Ben Haber nails the duplicity:

"An integral part of the Bloomberg administration’s misguided Willets Point project is the use of ramps to and from the Van Wyck Expressway to handle the expected huge increase of vehicular traffic the project will cause. Even without the project the Van Wyck and Grand Central Parkway are currently often clogged. The traffic issue as yet has not been resolved nor approved by the Federal Highway Administration.

Previously, Bloomberg officials have gone on record that no attempt to acquire Willets Point property through the eminent domain procedure law will be made until the Van Wyck ramps have been approved by the FHA. In the typical devious manner in which the Bloomberg administration has proceeded, notwithstanding that the ramp issue is still open, The Wall Street Journal reported Feb. 3 that Seth Pinsky, president of the city Economic Development Corp., threatened to begin condemnation of Willets Point properties last week. Whether this was a fact or just another attempt to intimidate the small business people in the area, I do not know, but clearly it does not comport with good government standards."With the Bloombergistas, good government standards are an oxymoron.

As we told the Chronicle: "Richard Lipsky, the Willets Point United spokesman, said the development will destroy lives and businesses in the area. Lipsky claimed the city and Mayor Bloomberg have left the employers of Willets Point with only one choice, “my way or the highway.” “Don’t lie to property owners,” he added. “The city doesn’t have money to spend on bad dreams. The city will never take property from the fat cats, only the skinny kittens.”

But, alas, when it comes to Willets Point, the dispossessed don't even get the highway-or the ramps that lead to it.

Timely Observations on Bloomberg's Disappearing Acts

2011-02-17T15:24:00.000-05:00

We post the following with some sense of trepidation. We have been hectoring one and all about the need for Mayor Mike Bloomberg to let us peons know when he's leaving town-and now the NY Times endorses the legislation that we had suggested CM Vallone put forward: "Everybody deserves some corner of privacy, even the mayor of New York City. The problem comes when there is a big event — like a Christmas snowstorm — and the mayor has gone away (destination secret) and the deputy mayor is unavailable as well. The president, the governor and other mayors share their travel plans with the public and press. Mayor Michael Bloomberg should do the same. This is too big a city to be left on cruise control."

Or, as Gerson Borrero said on NY1 the other night, if Mike wants his privacy he should resign and we'll all leave him the hell alone. This all goes back, of course, to the mayor's in absentia performance during the Christmas blizzard: "The whole snowstorm mess has come up again because newly released travel logs show the Bloomberg airplane fleet making numerous trips to Bermuda and London and Paris. The mayor has refused to reveal when he has been on board those planes — including the one that went to Bermuda on Christmas Day and returned the next day just before the airports closed."

And the mayor's absence created a leadership vacuum that turned out badly for New Yorkers: "The City Charter says that when the mayor leaves the city’s five boroughs, he can turn the job over to the public advocate, currently Bill de Blasio, (which will never happen) or designate a deputy to take charge. The mayor has designated Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris, and if she is not in town, the job goes to another deputy mayor, Stephen Goldsmith. When the blizzard hit in December, Mr. Goldsmith was in Washington, and it was unclear where Ms. Harris was. As the storm bore down, nobody seemed to have the authority or the willingness to declare a snow emergency, when that obviously was needed to stop people from clogging the streets with private cars."

Which gets us to CM Vallone's suggestion-and may he keep a stiff upper lip on it: "City Councilman Peter Vallone Jr., of Queens, has promised a bill that would require City Hall to inform the public who is in charge while the mayor’s away. But even Mr. Vallone does not say the mayor must tell the city exactly where he is on those weekends. It is no invasion of Mr. Bloomberg’s privacy for him to announce when he leaves the city, where he’s going and exactly who’s in charge while he is away. Mayor of the City of New York is, after all, a public job."

But we have an additional suggestion-even though we do favor Borrero's helpful hint. If the mayor wants to leave town and is undecided about just who should lead in his place, than why not have Watson the Computer lead? He certainly could do no worse than those clueless clowns who couldn't simply say the magic words; snow emergency.

Ends and Means at Willets Point

2011-02-17T05:53:00.001-05:00

The Flushing Times has an editorial on Willets Point that wonders about the use of eminent domain: "The use of eminent at Willets Point may prove to be legal, but it is also chilling. Don’t get us wrong: At the moment Willets Point is an eyesore, a flooded-out junkyard. It detracts from the ballpark and other facilities in Flushing Meadows Corona Park and is crying out for massive redevelopment. For many reasons we hope that the project can move forward. But it is regrettable the city could not find some way to persuade the holdout property owners to relocate without resorting to eminent domain. It is also the case that many of the problems in Willets Point are the result of the city’s neglect. The roads filled with potholes caused by constant flooding are the city’s responsibility."

We're always a bit bemused by editorial writers who are "torn" about the basic unfairness of certain things-only to support their implementation. In the case of the Flushing Times, it seems that being torn is just a rhetorical device that doesn't signal any real misgivings about what the city is doing to property owners at the Iron Triangle. How could it when the paper never really bothers to dig below the surface, and is content with being fed and mislead by EDC press releases lacking any semblance of truth.

Yes it would be, "nice," if there was another way to,"persuade," the property owners to give up their land-and that goes double when the blight is city-caused. But the paper fails to point out-because it never bothered to ask the owners-that the absence of persuasion wasn't the only thing missing in this land grab. In fact, for over two and one half years many of the 52 remaining property holders have not ever been contacted by EDC to negotiate sales of their land-a gross violation of everything that the agency pledged at hearings on the project before the city council.

It is time for everyone, but particularly the city council that was flim flammed by EDC's misrepresentations in 2008, to take a second look at Willets Point through 2011 eyes-not only because of the current state of the city's collapsed finances; but also because of the egregious failures of EDC to comply with the key environmental provision needed to make the massive development work: approval of ramps off of the Van Wyck.

If we were the editorialists at the Flushing Times and we knew that the city's economic development agency had gone back on so many of its important promises to the city council-promises that were beguiling to the body and enticing to its support-we would not be making fatuous statements like this: "We find ourselves torn. We are enthusiastic about the redevelopment of Willets Point but unenthusiastic about the steps being taken to allow this to happen."

Given the behavior of EDC, and the fact that a massive deception has and continues to take place concerning the fundamental assurances offered by the agency to garner approval for Willets Point, it wouldn't be just the steps being taken that would upset us-it would be the entire development fiasco itself. It is up to the city council to shed some sunlight on the EDC bait and switch at Willets Point.

Bloomberg's Fourth Estate Taxed

2011-02-17T04:45:00.001-05:00

The Politicker is reporting that more and more of the media is pushing back on the mayor-and we say, it's about time, and welcome aboard the Mom and Pop express: "That the city's political press corps is now answering a mayor who has thrown verbal brickbats their way (he called an Observer reporter a "disgrace"; embarrassed a disabled reporter who was unable to reach a tape recorder which had gone off during a press conference) for close to 10 years with some brickbats of their own is something of a new development. For two terms the Bloomberg administration enjoyed, even seasoned reporters acknowledge, a relatively easy go of it in the press, and an even easier time among the editorial boards."

That's right, the mayor's been on easy street with the press-and it is the dreaded third term blues that has altered the equation to at least some extent. But it's certain reporters who have signalled the change of weather: "There has been a demarcation," said one reporter. "There is a certain sense that Mike Bloomberg's string has run out."The clearest evidence of this, political observers say, is the suddenly negative coverage the mayor has received from two columnists perceived as newsroom weather vanes: Clyde Haberman of The New York Times and Bob McManus of the New York Post. Over the past several years, Mr. Haberman has written various upbeat stories, including "Bloomberg Travels to the Old World In Search of New Ideas" and "Scenes from the Blue Room: A More Flexible Tone is Heard," but last month, the columnist openly wondered whether or not the whiz kids at City Hall were capable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. Mr. McManus meanwhile wrote recently that the mayor was guilty "of a spectacular failure of field leadership."

As we have also pointed out, when the NY Post, and to a lesser extent the Times, is going after Mike Bloomberg-after touting heavily his third term-we know that things have changed: "And the editorial pages of both papers, which cheered the mayor when he overturned term limits two years ago, have likewise begun to sing a new tune. "Nobody likes Mike these days," wrote the Post, and The Times called the mayor's recent initiative to ban smoking in parks "a civic disaster."

Of course the snowfu was a major catalyst: "The sharpened tone has been seen in the news pages as well. A few years ago, if the mayor was out of town during a snowstorm, the press would have pestered him about it, and then, after some stonewalling, moved on. "Editors sent the signal that they would not back you in a fight with City Hall," said one local political hack. "It became less about getting them and more about getting handouts, and Bloomberg was really effective at getting the press corps to play who likes me best. I think now reporters feel betrayed by their papers."

As they should, since the mayor's achievements have been, charitably, grandly overstated-and the beat reporters have become enraged and engaged, particularly when the snowfu is seen in conjunction with the CityTime scandal. In tandem, these events undermine the myth of the mayor's managerial acumen: "Now, two months after the mayor was AWOL as snowstorm clouds were approaching the city, the press continues to hammer him on his whereabouts, and have shown no sign of letting up."

And the managerial failures themselves, need to be placed in the context of the third term outrage-after all, it was the editorial chorus that claimed we needed the steady Bloomberg hand in a crisis: "Reporters and editors say they first noticed a change after the mayor pushed through his bid to overturn term limits in 2008. The mayor has been assiduously cultivating the city's press barons for years, and they ultimately were the ones who were cheerleaders for the move on their back pages. "Every reporter was freaked out by the term-limit thing, and they got much more critical after that," said one political reporter."

All of which says to us, however, that the fourth estate has a lot of catching up to do-even to the extent of re-evaluating the Bloomberg education effort that was similarly overly hyped by the editorialists. The Bloombergistas, after all, handed out bonuses and crowed from the roof tops about their educational achievements, based on what turned out to be fraudulent test scores (and spent billions more to reach rather meager gains).

So, all we can say once again, is welcome. We suggest that you peruse the website on a wide range of diverse issues-from small business policy and taxation, eminent domain abuse, to all of the crazy health experiments-so that you can begin to see the mayor through a clearer lens. It is the right time for the media to disenthrall itself from the Myth of Mike.

Saving Private Enterprise

2011-02-16T05:20:00.003-05:00

Liz Benjamin posted yesterday on our relationship with the Committee to Save New York: "Sensitive to the class warfare criticism of its effort to assist Gov. Andrew Cuomo that has emerged in recent weeks, the business-backed Committee to Save New York is trying to diversify its membership by employing the services of a well-know lobbyist for the small business set: Richard Lipsky."

To us, it was important of demonstrate that Governor Cuomo's reform agenda to restore fiscal sanity to New York was something that resonated beyond the upper echelon of the state's business elite-as it certainly does. We have been talking to business groups and local chambers of commerce all over New York, and the response to the Governor's call for the restoration of a business friendly environment has been universally applauded.

We appreciate the kudos from CSNY's Bill Cunningham as well: "He’s got a network of people around the state that have a lot of experience with the taxing policies of the state of New York – the small business guys, people who are trying to make a living running small businesses and they run up against the policies they think make life difficult for them,” Cunnginham explained. “…He’s going to fill that niche for us. He’s helping us sort of activate that network of small business owners.”

What is clear to us is that the policies that slow business growth and impede job development impact more severely on the state's smaller business owners-and this is even more true for the so-called millionaire's tax that would put a real crimp on hiring. And, as the Committee has pointed out: "In fact, 76% of those who pay the tax aren’t even millionaires; they’re small business owners and hard-working middle class families trying to make it in New York."

These are those folks we have labeled the skinny cats. As we told YNN: "I certainly agree with the governor’s agenda and have been blogging consistently, I don’t know how many years, about reducing the size of government,” Lipsky told me. “A lot of my clients – particularly all the small business groups believe the same. I thought it was a natural fit as far as that’s concerned…There have been a lot of ‘fat cat’ attacks. The fact is there’s a lot of skinny kittens that are affected by government regulations and the tax environment in New York.”

As we pointed out yesterday in response to a Times Union Op-ed, the idea that government should be seen as a job generator is to view economic development from a fun house mirror. We need government to do much less-and to extract less from the job generators in the process. The governor has started off on the right foot. Now it is the job of all of us who want to grow New York's economy to support his efforts to make our state a better place to start a business in.

Calorie Counting: A Colossal Waste of Time and Money

2011-02-16T05:17:00.001-05:00

City Room put up an unintentionally hilarious post on how teenagers ignore the calorie posting on fast food menus-but what was really funny about the post that was titled, "The Calories Are Listed, but Teenagers Don’t Care," was that teenagers are just one of almost all groups surveyed on this topic who couldn't care one whit about this inane effort to educate the unwashed.

As City Room tells us: "Researchers at New York University have found that calorie-posting in fast-food restaurants has little influence on the foods teenagers order. They found that more than half of the teenagers noticed the calorie postings. A quarter of the teenagers said they were weight-conscious, and 9 percent of the teenagers said the labeling made them buy lower-calorie foods. But when the researchers examined their receipts, they found that the actual calorie counts were the same before and after restaurants began posting calories. Teenagers typically bought food totaling about 725 calories."

But what about others less footloose and fancy free than today's teens? Not much different it seems: "A similar study released in 2009 by some of the same researchers found that 28 percent of adults said they had been influenced by calorie posting. But when the researchers checked receipts, they found that the adults had, in fact, ordered slightly more calories after restaurants began posting calorie counts. The study also looked at parents buying food for their children, and found that their calorie purchases remained the same, about 600 calories, before and after calorie posting."

This is all pretty much what we predicted four years ago when we lashed out against this effort by the Bloombergistas to regulate us all into health-an effort that was fermented over at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a rabid anti-fast food advocacy group. Also pointed out was the fact that the cockamamie calorie counting concept had never ever been subject to a single trial-making the experiment an expensive shot in the dark lacking legitimacy.

In addition, unlike the three year FDA effort to evaluate nutritional package labeling, there was no attempt by the NYC DOH to gauge what impact-if any-the calorie posting would have on the profitability of local fast food franchises. After all, compliance with these regs means that local food outlets will incur considerable extra expenses. The wacky health commissioner, however, simply never cared about this rational weighing of the efficacy of his untested idea.

As a result, we get an unmitigated regulatory failure-another example of how government enacts rules and procedures that seem like good ideas, but end up being wasteful, ineffective, and expensive for small businesses to comply with. The DOH also underestimated the ignorance of the fast food customers-assuming that posting calories would easily be understood and processed: "The vast majority of teenagers — more than 70 percent — said that taste was the most important consideration in their fast-food purchases, followed by cost. The study found that most teenagers underestimated the number of calories they were consuming, some by up to 466 calories."

So, now that we have determined that this entire regulatory scheme is a gigantic waste of time and money, can we look forward to it being rescinded? Not on your life. This has been such a successful failure that it has been incorporated right into the heart of ObamaCare-demonstrating conclusively how nothing succeeds like failure when it comes to a government program

Regaining City Council Oversight Authority

2011-02-15T09:42:00.000-05:00

We have been arguing strenuously about the need for the city council to exercise rigorous oversight over EDC's efforts to change the rules of the game governing development at Willets Point. We made this point three years ago when we questioned the wisdom of the council giving the development agency what basically amounts to a blank check-owing to the fact that, after it gives the city its approval, the council cedes all control over the project to the mayor.

With no developer and no consequent development plan, the council approved, just what exactly did it approve? We don't know what, but what we do know is that the council took itself out of the crucial decision making prematurely-and in the process drastically diminished its key governing responsibility over the land use process.

So, when EDC now alters its direction and contradicts testimony it made before the council concerning the key issues of traffic and eminent domain, the council is left with little more than regrets about what it has squandered-unless it gathers the courage to revisit the approval based on the fact that EDC has essentially created a new development in its Phase I plan.

But the issue of council ceding its authority shouldn't be a shock to anyone who followed the Willets Point debate-and it was an assortment of council members who raised the red flag over the diminution of power that the body was willfully ceding to the mayor. During 2007 and the start of the ULURP in 2008, Council members openly resented that the manner in which EDC chose to proceed with the Willets Point ULURP -- i.e., without any developer presenting itself to the Council, to be vetted together with a specific plan which that developer would be responsible for implementing -- meant that the Council was being expected to cede its final land use authority as specified in the Charter, to EDC and Mayor's Office, who would then select one or more developer firms and a specific project plan, only after the City Council approved just a proxy "master plan," and thereby concluded its role in the process.

The concerns expressed by Council members at the time about this were not incidental, but quite grave. The late Tom White referred to this as an "institutional issue" with implications for the Council's future retention of its power. We excerpt a few of these other prescient comments:

(1) Council Member Thomas White, Chairperson, Economic Development Committee – City Council Economic Development Committee and Land Use Committee Joint Hearing, November 29, 2007:

"After the ULURP procedure is completed, the plan is to issue a Request for Proposal to developers. … This process differs from the usual process in that the City will issue the Request for Proposal only after the ULURP procedure has been completed, as opposed to prior to the ULURP process. This can be seen by some as an encroachment of the Council Land Use authority granted as a result of the 1989 Charter Revision …"

"I think that it would be important for our colleagues, as well as the City, to understand that this is an institutional issue and not a specific issue related to who is for and who is against. The history and the Charter revision section on Land Use states in 1989 that the Supreme Court ruled that the Board of Estimate violated the one person one vote mandate. In response, the new Charter abolished the Board of Estimate and provided for the redrawing of the City Council district lines to increase minority participation on the Council. It also increased the number of members from 35 to 51. The Council was then granted full power over the municipal budget, as well as authority over zoning and Land Use and franchises. Under the 1990 Charter revision, the Council acquired the power to review Land Use issues and approve zoning changes, housing and urban renewal plans, and community development plans, and the disposition of City-owned property. This power gives the Council the most significant voice in the growth and development of the City."

(2) Council Member Melinda Katz, Chairperson, Land Use Committee – City Council Economic Development Committee and Land Use Committee Joint Hearing, November 29, 2007:

"Well, just so it's clear, my issue in the last hearing and this one is clearly that if we do the ULURP process first, it takes the New York City Council out of the process as we move forward. It historically is not done that way. Historically we do the RFP first, the developer is chosen, then you do the ULURP process, and the reason that the community and the Council and the community boards are normally involved in the process, is because we have to vote on it. And, so, what's happening now, and the fear that I have, is that as we move forward and we do the ULURP first, I'm not sure what mechanism will be in place to assure community involvement. And to assure that the project goes forward in a way that makes everyone satisfied."

(3) Council Member Helen Sears – News conference statement, April 9, 2008:

"What we are being asked to do, is to bypass a very key part of the process; allow the certification of what they wish to do, and not do what we have to do to make that certification viable; to have it comply with the law; and move on to another step in the process. Now I ask you: Can any one of you give us a reason why the City Council should give up that major prerogative, which has a major effect on anything future in the development of the City? To give that up, which is a key part of the checks and balances of the government of the City of New York? Any one of you – Can you give me a reason, why? And none of you can, so as a result, you know why we are standing here today. Because when you begin to chip away at what those pieces are that weigh the scales of justice, you begin to chip away at what the rights are of everyone in the City of New York."

(4) City Council Speaker Emeritus Peter Vallone Sr. – City Council Subcommittee on Planning, Dispositions and Concessions Hearing, October 17, 2008:

"It took many, many years for the United States Supreme Court to declare the Board of Estimate unconstitutional and to say that only the City Council, only the City Council, has jurisdiction over land use. And while the Administration may propose, as it does a budget, this Council has to dispose." …

"So now you have a situation where they're asking the Council to say yes, you have land use power, but we will – the Executive Branch – we will make this so much better." …

"I can't believe that the Council would say to the Administration oh, hey, okay, take over. You're – forget our jurisdiction. You take it over 'cause you know better than us."

These are only a few of the comments surrounding this key issue of the cessation of the council's charter mandated authority-but, when read today, they do have a haunting quality to them. Whether its CM Ferreras' concern about a possible Walmart at Willets Point; or former CM, now state senator, Tony Avella's concern about EDC's abuse of eminent domain, it all comes back to the council's fatal decision to write the mayor a blank check in 2008-and, as former CM Katz pointed out, disregarding all land use precedent in the process.

As we have argued, however, the EDC end around Phase I gives the council the opportunity to undo the damage that was done in 2008. It should treat this de novo- from the beginning, as it were. But first an oversight hearing that brings in EDC to explain itself-its thinking and its plans. From there, a demand for a new SEQR review that sees this new phase of EDC's-along with the entire plan-with new eyes. It's not the same world in 2011 as it was when the council wrote the mayor that ill fated check, and there's no reason why it can't cancel it now-legitimately so-for insufficient funds.

Willets Point "Holdouts"

2011-02-15T05:09:00.005-05:00

The NY Daily News reports on the EDC driven effort to jump start the Willets Point development project: "THE CITY'S attempt to create a blank canvas for its sweeping Willets Point mega-development is set to kick off this week. But holdout landlords and business owners in the gritty industrial zone are vowing not to go without a fight."

Of course, to describe the property owners as, "holdouts," is to view this controversy from the perspective of those who are doing the holdup-using an eminent domain gun at the heads of recalcitrant property owners as a means to, "negotiate." And how is it that folks can be characterized as holdouts if they have yet to be contacted by EDC? Let's refrain from using the language of the oppressor-it becomes an inappropriate defining moment.

Language is very important here-as should be the depiction of the total lack of good faith by the city's development agency in regards to the use of eminent domain: "EDC officials said they have reached a deal with nearly 90% of the landowners in the area designated for the first phase of the project. There are nine holdouts. "As we seek to reach agreements with the nine remaining businesses, we will also begin the legal process that gives us the option to condemn these properties if needed," said EDC spokeswoman Julie Wood.

The News fails to mention the fact that, at WPU's Friday press conference, it was clearly pointed out how EDC has gone back on its word about the use of eminent domain-before crucial ramps off of the Van Wyck are approved-and the ramps remain invisible to the News as well. But they shouldn't be, since EDC has labeled them the linchpin of the of the entire development scheme. Their evanescence-both in the story and in the EDC phony new development phase is all telling-as we have pointed out.

And, of course, it is not only the property owners that are impacted-hundreds of immigrant workers and their tenant business owners are faced with walking the plank-dependent only on the good will and good faith of an agency lacking in both qualities. As the Queens Courier reports-underscoring the issue here: "In addition to the scrap yards and auto body shops, Willets Point has several family-owned businesses which have been operated for many years. Ecuadorian-born Olger Rogel, manager of a local restaurant, noted, “I agree with the progress of the city to make the neighborhood look good, but if the businesses will be closed, there will be many without jobs, especially for the Hispanics.”“The city needs this area for the benefit of the community,” said Hector Ospina, 20-year owner of Colombia Auto Glass. “Many of us will be losing our jobs and the city has not found a space for us.”

But as far as EDC is concerned, condemn it must so it can gain momentum lost because of the delay over approval of those nettlesome ramps. This is the old end around play, and while deceit in strategic planning for success in football may be acceptable, the same should no be true for government. We'll give 78 year old Joe Ardizzone-the lone resident of the Iron Triangle-the last word: “Total horror,” said Ardizzone. “Total lack of democracy, every move the government is making is dictatorial.”

Too Rich For His Blood

2011-02-15T05:03:00.002-05:00

There's a wonderfully inapt commentary at the Albany Times Union that goes after Governor Cuomo's campaign to restore fiscal sanity to the state. One Fred LeBrun sees the governor acting as some kind of shill for big business: "Take, for example, Cuomo's latest barnstorming political speech, the budget message. He led off with a most provocative comment that sounded good. He said New York is "functionally bankrupt." What does that mean? We can't pay our bills? We're in receivership? A court-appointed guardian is handling the state's affairs? Of course not. Many large states are far worse off financially than New York. Now, do we need to rein in our spending so that it does not exceed our revenues? You bet, but that's not what he said. He oversimplified to a fault, in the process pandering to the public's innate distrust of government to make himself look like a shining knight coming to the rescue. That's fine for a political campaign, in which baloney is the daily featured item, but that's not the way to establish credibility as a governor of all the people."

Oh, good grief. How's this for a rallying cry? "We're better off than California!" And LeBrun is wrong if he thinks that the governor's resort to the bully pulpit is only, "fine for a political campaign." It is, in a climate where the state is hold hostage by interests that feed off of the government's trough, appropriate for the governor to try to rally the folks-and polling indicates that the response to his message is overwhelmingly positive.

As the NY Post opines: "Just days after Gov. Cuomo proposed a budget that critics all but likened to the Apocalypse, New Yorkers are giving him extraordinarily high grades. To put it mildly. Clearly, he's on the right track. Fully 77 percent of voters -- more than three out of four -- view Cuomo's performance favorably, a Siena College poll released yesterday shows. And get this: Of the roughly 700 times the pollsters surveyed voters over the last six years, only once did a politician score higher: President Obama, at 81 percent, in January 2009." Lot of fat cats in that Sienna poll.

But LeBrun reveals his bias in the following: "So it's jobs, jobs, jobs he told us, and New York is dead last in the nation for business climate. Yet one of his arm-twists in that same speech is the threat of laying off 9,500 state workers if he doesn't get his way with the public employee unions. So let me get this straight. These aren't jobs? Unemployment at recession levels threatens to stay with us in New York for another two or three years. What Cuomo is really advocating is destabilizing communities in which these workers live, and encouraging the younger among them to vote with their feet and leave the state. Exactly the opposite of what he's saying

he advocates."

Well, he hashed this out in the campaign where candidate Cuomo laid out his belief that the high cost of government-and the taxes needed to support it-was the root cause of NY's economic doldrums. If state jobs were the panacea, why not raise more taxes and hire more workers? Gee, wasn't that the federal stimulus that has thrown the country into record debt with barely making a dent on the overall unemployment rate?

Current state government has grown way too large, and is not supported by the state's dwindling tax base-triage is a necessary first step; LeBrun isn't buying the rap, however, and sees all of this as a stealth rich guys campaign: "Then there's the pro-business Committee to Save New York and its rump group Partnership for New York City, working on behalf of Cuomo's budget ideas. Gotham high-rollers who are telling us the millionaires' surcharge tax will chase the rich out of the state and won't do a thing for the deficit. Double baloney to that. Well in excess of $1 billion is at stake in tax revenues. The surcharge is a pittance and certainly not a deal-breaker for those who want to live in the city. There is, after all, only one New York City, and it's a magnet to the world. Why shouldn't we tap into that desire?"

A total fabrication on LeBrun's part-the Save NY message isn't that the "millionaire's tax" is gonna drive the high rollers out of the state, but cripple the job creation that we rely on small business for. And wouldn't he be less disingenuous if he labeled the tax accurately? After all, it starts at $200,000 and doesn't just apply to NYC. There are a lot of farmers and small business owners that won't be hiring as many folks if that tax is retained.

LeBrun concludes, as he began, dishonestly depicting the struggle as one between lowly workers and fat cat millionaires: "But, again, look at the inconsistency here, if not outright hypocrisy, in what the governor has been telling us. If it's a public employee union advocating for its members, it's a craven special interest at work. But the rich advocating for tax reductions in the most shameless way, which Cuomo has endorsed by letting the surcharge sun set, is fair and honest public debate and deserves our consideration."

What is left out in this poorly reasoned piece is just how bad the NY State business climate has become because of the righteous lobbying of certain public employee unions-and the fact that it is the private sector, not the government, that is the true job generator. Cuomo, to his credit realizes this-and we'll give LeBrun's ad hominen attack on Cuomo as an appropriately disgraceful last word: "At this point, we have a supposedly populist governor taking the side of the wealthy, and getting away with it. That is some neat trick that deserves respect and recognition. But I do find it a little bit scary."

Air Bloomberg

2011-02-15T04:46:00.001-05:00

It is refreshing to see conscientious reporting on the mayor's sojourns. We'll begin with the WSJ's account of the flight patterns of Air Bloomberg: "Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who often takes weekend trips outside the city, has generated controversy by declining to say where he's going. He recently came under fire for being away at the start of the December blizzard that snarled the city for days. Clues to his travels can be found in flight records of Mr. Bloomberg's fleet of private planes, operated by his private financial-information company, Bloomberg LP, and also used by the mayor."

And Mike is a frequent flier-even though he doesn't need the free miles: "The planes flew to Bermuda, where Mr. Bloomberg owns a home, 16 times last year and 54 times in all from 2007 through 2010, according to Federal Aviation Administration records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. On 41 trips, the aircraft left New York and spent all or part of the weekend in Bermuda. One overnight trip there coincided with the December blizzard, according to flight records."

And what would be Air Bloomberg without an air of arrogance? "The records also show that the Bloomberg fleet has been the single largest user of scarce slots allocated to private aircraft at La Guardia airport. The flights continued apace even after the mayor two years ago called for curbs on small commercial planes at La Guardia and other area airports to reduce congestion."

Fancy that-another example of how the mayor views congestion reduction for thee, but not for me. Here is not someone who practices what he preaches-not unexpected from someone with one of the world's largest carbon footprints. And when the blizzard was bearing down on the city, the mayor barely made it back: "Flight records show that a Dassault Falcon 900 jet operated by Bloomberg Services left La Guardia Airport for Bermuda at 9:02 am on Christmas Day, then returned the next day at 2:49 pm, as the storm was growing fierce. The Bloomberg jet was the last private plane to land at La Guardia that day, according to the FAA records. The mayor appeared at a storm-related press conference shortly afterward."

CM Vallone, who has taken the lead on ankle braceleting the mayor, appears to be back peddling some now: "City Council Member Peter Vallone Jr., who endorsed the mayor's re-election, has been one of the most vocal critics of the city's response to the post-Christmas blizzard. He is examining legislation that would require the mayor to notify the city clerk whenever he leaves the city. The legislation wouldn't require the mayor to disclose his exact location. "I'm working with (the) administration now to possibly get this resolved without legislation," Mr. Vallone said, "but am prepared to move forward if that can't be done."

In our view, introduce the legislation first, and don't get into a weaselly compromise like the one Scott Stringer got into over Columbus Avenue bike lanes. The people have a right to be informed, and it is beyond ridiculous for the mayor's privacy to be more sacrosanct than the president of the United States. It is high time for the mayor to be held to a simple standard that all mayors have been held too-if he wants his privacy, there's the door.

A Willets Point Warning Sign

2011-02-14T09:06:00.002-05:00

As we have been arguing for quite some time, the NYC EDC is acting in an arbitrary and, we believe, extra legal manner in its desperate effort to try to get the Willets Point development off of the ground. We have also argued that, owing to this arbitrary behavior-actions that contradict what the agency has consistently said about its intentions for the Iron Triangle-the city council needs to re-assert its oversight role over the project.

Now comes this report from WNYC/NPR that underscores exactly what we have been trying to convey: "The city has started notifying holdouts in the Willets Point, Queens, development area of eminent domain proceedings. According to the Economic Development Corporation, there are nine businesses in the 20-acre Phase 1 area that haven't agreed to relocate. The issuance of letters on Friday, according to EDC spokesperson Julie Wood, is "the first step of the condemnation process," adding that negotiations with business owners would continue. A public hearing on the matter is set for March 2, at the Flushing branch of the Queens public library."

What negotiations? The blatant disregard for the truth by these unelected bureaucrats is absolutely breathtaking-there have been no negotiations with these property owners, nor with the other forty that simply don't want to hand their land over to a grasping city agency. But let's cut to the proverbial chase-EDC is doing a 180 on everything it said it would do when the Willets Point ULURP application was debated at the city council. And, as a result, the agency is not only courting a legal challenge, but is inviting an environmental disaster as well.

As we told NPR: "But Richard Lipsky, a lobbyist for Willets Point United, a group of business owners fighting relocation, said the city can't initiate eminent domain proceedings until it gets environmental impact clearances for critical on and off-ramps for the Van Wyck Expressway. The ramps would eventually bring thousands of cars in and out of the area, adjacent to Citi Field. "If the ramps aren't approved, this project is an environmental disaster," said Lipsky."

Listen, however, as EDC changes the tune it has hummed all along about eminent domain: "While acknowledging the importance of highway ramps to the overall project, Wood said the eminent domain process can continue independently." But what happens if the ramps don't receive the necessary approvals? If that happens, we might end up with what many council members were worried would happen if eminent domain was triggered prematurely-the city could end up with empty property and no development.

Consider the original FGEIS: " "The City will not take possession of property acquired by eminent domain before the NEPA process is complete and the ramps are approved." – Willets Point FGEIS, Chapter 29, General Comments, Response G-8, September 12, 2008."

Consider the affidavit by Deputy Mayor Lieber before the Supreme Court: "The City will not acquire title to any property through Article 4 of the Eminent Domain Procedure Law (“EDPL”) until after ramps for the Van Wyck Expressway are approved by FHWA." -- Affidavit of Robert Lieber, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, June 29, 2009, filed with Supreme Court of the State of New York (WPU's Article 78 case)."

Precisely we we have labeled the EDC cohort a "liar's choir." But there's a larger issue at stake here. and it relates to the city council's role in the land use oversight process. Willets Point was approved for redevelopment over two years ago under certain conditions laid out by the city-and those conditions included the proscription of the use of eminent domain before the crucial ramps were approved. The ramps were considered the linchpin of the development-and there were no scenarios considered that excluded these traffic mitigators.

Now, because EDC is stymied by the approval process for the ramps, they seek to initiate a different phase of development that was never vetted by the city council-or properly reviewed by SEQR. What will this development be, and what kind of impact will it have? Who knows. But we are now being told the following by the economic deception corporation: "The EDC intends to put out a Request for Proposals for Phase 1 in April, which would comprise a retail corridor, hotel and housing, all of which the city hopes to complete by 2016. A completion date for the entirety of the Willets Point redevelopment, a 61-acre project approved in 2008, hasn't been set yet."

A retail corridor? What a great place for a certain big box store. In the original FGEIS, however, it was the retail component that generated the huge traffic impacts. What about the retail in the bogus Phase I? Since we don't know what's in the mix we can't know what kind of an environmental impact it will all have-and whether or not the ramps remain as crucial for this phase as they do for the project as a whole.

All of this cries out for a city council review-and the body needs to get back its oversight mojo. If many of the members have been complaining about Related's bait and switch tactics over Walmart at the Gateway II site, what about the even more egregious bait and switch tactics of the city itself? The time for council action is now.

Focus on East New York

2011-02-14T05:32:00.004-05:00

We have been commenting on the behind the scenes effort to pressure Related to abandon its Walmart dreams for East New York. On Saturday the NY Times focuses attention on the often neglected community: "It isn’t much to look at, just a big empty lot packed with snow and some struggling cattail plants sandwiched between the Starrett City apartment complex and a shopping mall. But a field in the East New York section of Brooklyn has become one of the most hotly debated spots in New York City. All because it may — possibly, one day— be home to the city’s first Wal-Mart store."

But, as we have pointed out earlier, Related is feeling the heat-still, all of this has an air of unreality to it because of the uncertain nature of the developer's plans: “It’s a little bit of Kabuki theater on both sides,” said Richard Lipsky, a lobbyist for small businesses who is helping lead the campaign to keep Wal-Mart out of New York. Not having a specific site to focus on, he explained, “makes it more difficult to hone in on an organizing strategy.” “But in spite of that,” Mr. Lipsky said, “the organizing is going forward.”

Indeed it is: "Lining up against the retail giant are a wide range of people who say the expansion will hurt small businesses and their employees, including elected officials like City Councilman Charles Barron, who represents East New York, and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, immigrant groups, clergy members, unions representing retail workers, and small-business owners."

The Times argues that all Walmart needs to do on the site is sign a lease-owing to the as-of-right nature of a site that went through ULURP without a whiff of the Walmonster's potential presence. But we demur: "In East New York, all that Wal-Mart would need to do is sign a lease. A store there would become part of a huge project that has already been approved by the Council and includes several thousand units of housing and an expansion of the existing Gateway Center shopping mall. Wal-Mart’s opponents are crying foul, saying the plan approved by the Council in 2009 did not include the chain. “It was a total bait and switch,” said Bertha Lewis, the former chief executive of the community organizing group Acorn who is helping to organize the opposition throughout the city."

It may, however, not be as simple as a simple signature-since the status of 20 acres of state owned land remains murky. This property is in the middle of the development, and nothing could proceed on the site without the state's conveyance of the land-although current records indicate a byzantine back and forth between NYS OGS and Related. If there is anything untoward in this land acquisition process, a simple signature would not be sufficient to bring Walmart to Gateway.

Willets Point and EDC Dishonesty: The Compelling Need for Legislative Oversight

2011-02-14T05:05:00.003-05:00

We have been commenting on the actions by EDC regarding development of Willets Point-and the two key issues revolve around the need to gain approval of ramps off of the Van Wyck prior to any development; and the promise to the city council (one contained in the FGEIS) that there would be no condemnation action until the ramps had been approved. This latter point was because of the city council's concern that a premature condemnation action would create a, "New London situation," whereby the properties in question would have been condemned but lay fallow because the development couldn't proceed.

What follows is a summary of the key oversight issues:

(1) EDC has decided that it can develop Willets Point without the ramps that it has always said are essential to the project;

(2) The agency spent millions of dollars devising a ramp report for NYS DOT so that an expeditious approval could be garnered to build theses ramps;

(3) When Willets Point United challenged the efficacy and veracity of the EDC consultants on the ramps, the DOT forced them back to the drawing board for a revised ramp report;

(4) That was over 15 months ago, and as the NY Times has reported diligently, the revised report was not received by the DOT with open arms-particularly after WPU's Brian Ketcham had so thoroughly discredited it;

(5) In October, it was made clear to us by DOT that a revised ramp report and environmental assessment would be available and subject to a hearing process in the near term. EDC stonewalled showing the documents to WPU;

(6) Three months passed with no news until last week when EDC went to the WSJ to announce that it was going to commence building Phase I of the Willets Point development without the ramps-that were deemed unnecessary for this initial phase;

(7) No aspect of the original development plan, or the concomitant EIS, envisioned doing any development without ramps off of the Van Wyck;

(8) In testimony before the city council and in a court affidavit, Deputy Mayor Lieber said that there would be no acquisition of property via eminent domain until ramps are approved;

(9) EDC has scheduled an EDPL hearing (eminent domain) for March the 2nd;

(10) There is no developer or any concrete development plan for Willets Point and the city has drastically cut back its capital spending-yet the Bloomberg administration will need to spend billions of dollars to buy out existing businesses and insure infrastructure and remediation for Willets Point. This is reminiscent of what happened in New London after Suzette Kelo house was taken-the land there lies fallow and the city is out around $100 million.

The original Times coverage of Willets Point-post city council approval-was Ray Rivera's stories about how the city paid Claire Shulman's not for profit $500,000 to lobby for the project-an almost prima facie violation of the law that proscribes lobbying for this kind of entity. Rivera followed up with the news that then AG Cuomo had launched an investigation of this ostensibly illegal lobbying. No conclusion to the investigation has been reached and, as we all know, Cuomo has moved on. But in our view this was an early indication that EDC was not going to scrupulously adhere to either law or ethics in its desire to promote a development of Willets Point.

Fernanda Santos followed up by exposing the rough give and take between EDC and state DOT-and a subsequent email revealed that NYC transportation commissioner Sadik-Khan apparently was threatening DOT because of the agency's alleged foot dragging. The following email is from Region 1 director Eng to then commissioner Gee: "JSK noted that she will be sending me a letter holding me personally responsible for holding the Willets Pt project hostage. I'm okay with that as we need to ensure that we have thoroughly reviewed the issues and that they are resolved satisfactorily. I told her that we need to have our staff meet (sometime next week) including NYMTC and go over the concerns raised by the city and bring them to a resolution."

Now, however, all of this time and effort on the ramps is being discarded in order to go to a Phase I that has never been vetted by anyone at the city council or DOT. But why has EDC radically shifted gears? In our view, it is because WPU has stymied it on the ramps and the agency needs not only to make an end run of the ramp process, but regain momentum lost by our derailing of the ramp approvals.

In addition, there are some serious questions over whether EDC can legally precede in this way without first obtaining ramp approvals. As WPU's legal counsel stated in a letter to the agency, the city has maintained that it would not proceed with condemnation before the ramps were approved-and the city council relied on this representation in the FEIS as a precondition of its approval.

The representation contained within the FGEIS, that eminent domain would not be used until after ramps are approved, was relied upon by Council members when evaluating the key PUBLIC POLICY QUESTION of when eminent domain is justified. Recall the great controversy during ULURP surrounding the use of eminent domain for this project, and the repeated expressions by Council members of concern regarding eminent domain for economic development purposes. Council members sought assurances that condemnation in Willets Point would not result in the same sort of vacant lots that now exist in New London, post-Kelo.

The representation within the FGEIS, that eminent domain would not be used until state and federal ramp approvals are obtained (thereby making it permissible to actually implement the development described within the FGEIS) made it more likely that New London-type vacancies would not result from condemnation in Willets Point.

Now all of this is forgotten as EDC-with the city flat broke-desperately looks for a way to salvage this white elephant of a project. This is a scandal, and a reckless development agency that began with illegally paying a not for profit to lobby itself, now looks to disregard all of its prior assurances and representations to the city council and the court in order to promote a project it simply doesn’t have the money to pay for.

EDC Outdoes Itself on Willets Point Chicanery

2011-02-11T15:21:00.003-05:00

Business owners from Willets Point United joined with State Senator Tony Avella, workers and members of assorted civic groups yesterday to protest the actions of EDC in regards to the proposed development at Willets Point. NY1 has the story: "The city's Economic Development Corporation says they will use eminent domain to seize the property in the area near Citi Field. Protesters say it will change the dynamic of the neighborhood and force small businesses out. "To take these businesses, and again, people have built it up for years. These are family-owned businesses, and give it to a private developer who's gonna make millions of dollars, that is simply un-American," said State Senator TonyAvella."

But it isn't just the fact that EDC will be employing eminent domain that has bugged a wide array of folks-it is the underhanded manner and outright lying that has really riled those impacted businesses and their workers. As we said the other day:

"Talk about putting the cart before the horse! What EDC is trying to do here is to make an end run of the crucial approval process for ramps off of the Van Wyck ramps that it has said are the linchpin of the development's viability: "Opponents of the project have argued that the city isn't permitted to construct entrance ramps to the Van Wyck Expressway nearby that are called for as part of the project. Richard Lipsky, a lobbyist who represents business owners at the site, says that the eminent domain action was "an absolute disgrace."

In response, EDC’s Pinocchio Pinsky told the WSJ:"Mr. Pinsky said the city's position is that it isn't required to build the ramps—which would mitigate traffic congestion on the local streets—until later phases of the project."

As a falsehood, this ranks up there with the mayor's, "Christmas bonus," canard about police and fire pensions. Here's the reality. After the final EIS was completed, EDC drafted three technical memos-two of which addressed the possibility of scaled down plans: "Here's a money quote from Memo 003 (even the "Adjusted Plan" involves ramps!):

"Like the proposed Plan, the Adjusted Plan would include new connections to the Van Wyck Expressway in the northeast portion of the District. Because this development scenario would not include the early acquisition of all northern and eastern properties in the District, it is anticipated that the configuration of the new ramps would conform to the existing street network. Figures 2 and 3 show the potential configuration of the new ramps under the Adjusted Plan. The new connection to the Van Wyck Expressway would require federal (FHWA) and state (NYSDOT) approval of a Freeway Access Modification Report under both the proposed Plan and the Adjusted Plan." (p. 3)

In sum, EDC put out four separate plans that can be described thusly: "

The FGEIS pertains to a full build-out of 60+ acres. Ramps required (per EDC)? YES.

• The FGEIS also pertains to a "Staged Acquisition Alternative", which emphasizes the western side of the triangle, from Roosevelt all the way to Northern Boulevard. Ramps required (per EDC)? YES.

• Tech Memo 003, dated a year after the Council's ULURP vote, pertains to an "Adjusted Plan" which emphasizes the western side of the triangle, from Roosevelt to 34th Avenue (ONE block shy of Northern Boulevard). Ramps required (per EDC)? YES.

• The present "Phase 1" (recently distributed map) emphasizes the western side of the triangle, from Roosevelt to 35th Avenue (TWO blocks shy of Northern Boulevard). Ramps required (per EDC)? NO!

So EDC has shrunken the project, enough for it to, in its own jaundiced view, get away with building the project minus the ramps.

We know of no EDC traffic analysis that supports EDC's conclusion that Phase 1 does not require ramps. Wouldn't there have to be such an analysis? As no NYSDOT or FHWA action is required if EDC is NOT building ramps, would those agencies even have been involved in vetting such an analysis? NYSDOT and FHWA-as well as the city council-should be concerned with the traffic volume that Phase 1 will generate, even if the agencies are not being asked to approve. It seems to me we should be looking into all of this, aggressively. It is the corruption of the AMR, all over again.

Also, EDC now believes that if it does not intend to build ramps for Phase 1, then it is not bound by the representation made by Deputy Mayor Lieber in his affidavit, promising no acquisition of property via eminent domain until ramps are approved. Stated differently, Lieber's affidavit was made at a time when the ramps were presumed to be necessary, but EDC is now alleging that the reduced scale of Phase 1 makes that no longer the case.

Consider this: When we last left off in the back-and-forth with EDC, the agency had prepared an Environmental Assessment for the ramps, which was delivered to NYSDOT and FHWA on October 28, 2010. EDC indicated there would be a public hearing regarding that EA, either by the end of 2010 or very soon. So, the ramps were considered to be essential, until very recently. While WPU has been off worrying about the EA hearing, EDC has been prepping condemnation. But any way you slice it, EDC is drastically shifting the nature of the project, probably as a result of fact that WPU put a substantial roadblock into the agency's ability to get approval for the Van Wyck ramps.

What this all indicates is that EDC is operating with extreme subterfuge to go forward on this development by ignoring all of its representations to the city council and the court. Its, “Phase 1,” is a fictional invention that has no substance to it-no one knows what will be built within these 20 acres. But without knowing-and EDC doesn’t explicate any of this-how can the agency assert that no ramps will be needed?

As we said to one elected official’s office: “Yet the so-called Phase 1 lacks any detail or traffic analysis that would serve to justify the conclusion that the ramps are not necessary Remember that this phase is still huge-and encompasses 20 acres of property; which would easily hold a Walmart and thousands of additional square feet of traffic generating retail. This all needs re-review under SEQR according to WPU’s attorney Mike Gerrard.”

The City Council never considered this current EDC development configuration-and there is no environmental review extant that considers any manner of Willets Point project that excludes the necessity of ramps off of the Van Wyck. This is a bold attempt by an agency, whose ramp consultants were exposed as duplicitous, if not outright fraudulent in their traffic analysis, to try to rig the game at the eleventh hour-avoiding proper environmental review and sneaking an unsustainable development in through the back door at a time when the city is flat broke.

If this Category 6 level of chicanery doesn’t compel a new city council and SEQR review, than no manner of underhandedness ever would. The ball is, or should be, in the council’s court-or perhaps in state supreme court where EDC’s representations have proved to be egregiously untruthful.

Fire in the A-Hole

2011-02-11T13:28:00.000-05:00

We have already commented on the crackpot idea of the mayor's to go after a pension benefits of both police and firefighters-and now the NY post chimes in with more abuse of the tone deaf Bloomberg: "If Mayor Bloomberg hopes to wrest from Albany the pension-reform goals he seeks and the city sorely needs, he should stop trying to pick the pockets of retired firefighters and cops. As has been amply documented in The Post for months now, New York's public-pension liabilities have brought the city to the brink of bankruptcy. Change is mandatory. But targeting retired firefighters and cops is no way to go."

Of course it isn't, but the mayor remains clueless to the need to treat public safety differently then less vital areas of government service. And what could be more dastardly then going after current retirees who served with the expectation that their benefits would be in place for their retirement: "But he swiftly trained his sights on current retirees -- folks who served the city honorably, in the full expectation that the cash would be there when they retired."

And the Christmas "bonus" canard is exactly what union leaders characterized as a, "lie," since it is certainly nothing like those excoriated bonuses that the Wall Streeters and lawyers get around the holidays: "So while the mayor almost sneeringly dismisses the payment as a "Christmas bonus" -- it's distributed at year's end -- it's anything but a bonus. It is, de facto, a negotiated benefit."

What all of this underscores quite nicely is the fact that the mayor has been stripped of his veneer of fiscal experise-and is forced to grasp at straws like charging for EMS service because he allowed his budget to bloat for nine years, even with his additional taxes and confiscatory regulations. Once again, stealing the pensioners' money dramatizes the extent to which the Master of the House isn't the lover he thinks he is.

Hearing Things

2011-02-11T04:53:00.002-05:00

Greg David has some wild speculation concerning Walmart, Mike Bloomberg and the Related Companies-apparently seeing things that no one else can. David sees, in the mayor's selection of Related for the development of Hunters Point South, a message for Walmart foes: "As the opponents of Walmart continue their campaign to prevent the company from opening stores in New York, it remains a mystery how they intend to do that. The City Council has no power to intervene in leases signed at existing retail locations, and the company seems more determined than ever to take on the Big Apple...Another possibility is that labor unions and their allies will raise such a ruckus that landlords will have second thoughts about leasing space to Walmart. After all, any future help a developer needs from city government will run into trouble, right? No, or at least not as long as Michael Bloomberg is running the show."

Who in their right mind would have ever thought that Mike Bloomberg would act as a Walmart retardant mayor? If there would be any impediment to a developer, it would have to come at the city council-which last we heard still has oversight over the city's land use process.

But the really risible observation from David is that the selection of Related for a city development has any more meaning beyond the fact the the city has dropped its draws for this company ever since Deputy Dan Doctoroff (a good pal of Related CEO Steve Ross) deeded over Bradhurst Avenue development and the Bronx Terminal Market to Related (without any competitive bid in the latter case).

This makes the following David observation about the Hunters Point award a great comedic foray: "That's the message from yesterday's announcement that Related, the company in talks to bring a Walmart to its Gateway project in Brooklyn, won the hotly contested competition to build affordable middle class housing in Queens. Let's accept the administration's position that Related and its partners offered the best proposal. It is also clear that this is a message that Related will not be penalized for doing business with Walmart."

Not penalized by the Related-fawning Mike Bloomberg? This is all simply a process that Dan Janison has labeled, "patricianage;" the awarding of favors to well connected friends of the Bloombergistas-a phenomenon that we don't recall hearing any critical Greg David comments about; even though Doctoroff and Ross were friends and long time business partners. It says nothing about the ability of the council-should it choose to exercise it-to warn off developers looking to engage with the Walmonster.

Fire Sale: Mayor Copping an Attitude

2011-02-10T14:53:00.002-05:00

We were bouyed by the wonderful absence of civility in the attack levied by Pat Lynch and Steve Cassidy on the mayor's effort to take away what he described as a, Christmas bonus." The NY Times reports: "On Wednesday, Patrick J. Lynch, president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, and Stephen J. Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, vowed to fight the proposal with lobbying efforts, an advertising campaign and their own voices in the news media and at grass-roots levels. Their display on the steps of City Hall is a low point in a relationship that has mostly been cordial, even as the city has pushed to cut rookie classes and has reduced engine company staffing to save overtime costs. But on Wednesday, Mr. Lynch and Mr. Cassidy accused the administration of spreading false information to steal their members’ money. They used the words “liar,” “lie” and “lying” at least 23 times in characterizing the mayor’s efforts to depict the annual payments as akin to a Christmas bonus."

We want to make one thing clear-and both Lynch and Cassidy did a good job doing this on NY1 the other night-police officers and firefighters are in a class by themselves and shouldn't be lumped with any other government workers. Not only is public safety the preeminent role of any government, but those who act on our behalf in this capacity put their lives on the line everyday-and it is, in our view, sacrilegious to compare these brave men and women to, let's say, clerks at the MVB.

It is the expansion of government way beyond this core responsibility that gets us upset-and the fact that Mike Bloomberg is looking to shaft these folks is really beyond the pale-as Michael Daly points out in the NY Daily News today: "Retired NYPD Detective Bob Gates wants to report an attempted robbery. He describes the perp as a white male, 5-foot-7, medium build, 60- to 70 years-old, known to be tan even in winter. The perpetrator is seen around City Hall on weekdays, where he is often addressed as "Mr. Mayor." He is said to frequent the Mid Ocean Club golf course in Bermuda on weekends."

Now if the alleged perp was any kind of real manager, he wouldn't find himself so far behind the fiscal 8 ball-with inappropriate threats based upon, well, lying isn't too strong a word. The Times tells us: "The unions and the city agreed through collective bargaining to create a financing arrangement that allowed for a portion of their pension funds to be invested in the stock market, rather than exclusively in bonds, which are more conservative, said Robert W. Linn, a former director of labor relations for New York City. If the riskier investment resulted in a return greater than the bond investment, the difference went into a variable supplement fund, which was used to pay retirees a varying lump-sum amount at the end of the year. However, in the mid-1980s, Mr. Linn and others pushed through a change so that retirees agreed to a fixed annual benefit that would be paid regardless of the market’s performance. That change meant that if the market outperformed expectations, the city was only obligated to pay the fixed benefit; any excess money would go to the city, Mr. Linn said."

Hardly a Christmas bonus, and certainly not something that can be unilaterally denied through any mayoral whim. The problem for Mike is that he has skated on an undeserved reputation for fiscal acumen over the past nine years-meeting his only real challenge in 2002 by raising real estate taxes through the roof (earning the undying love of the Times editorialists). No Andrew Cuomo he, Bloomberg increased the size of government with all of the concomitant health and pension benefits.

So now he is left woofing about firehouse closings and pension thievery for our bravest and finest municipal workers-while at the same time looking to spend billions to redevelop Willets Point (not to mention those three Gracie Mansion cooks). This is why we have labeled the lame chief executive, John Vliet Bloomberg.

We'll give Daly the last word here-and his calling the mayor a perp is spot on. Now all we need to see is Mike Bloomberg being forced to perp walk out of city hall-all the way to Bermuda: "The shadowy perp seeks to justify stealing the duly negotiated $12,000 by calling it a "holiday bonus," as if it were akin to the Wall Street bonuses that fueled such public fury during the financial crisis.This from a guy who considered Wall Street excesses good for the city because they generated tax revenue. Now he wants to use the lingering public anger over Wall Street to win support for grabbing money from cops and firefighters. "He acts like it's a freebie," Gates says. "He knows how we got it." Should the scheme succeed, Gates will receive only his $20,000 a year pension. His financial analysis sounds like what it is, a guy reporting an attempted robbery. "They want to take my f-----g money!"

Put that Ankle Bracelet on the Mayor!

2011-02-10T10:03:00.000-05:00

The NY Post doesn't think much of the city council's suggestions for improving snow removal during a blizzard-calling them, "micromanaging." But there is one suggestion that the paper thinks is a keeper: "On the other hand, Queens Councilman Peter Vallone has been touting legislation requiring the mayor to designate a chain of command before he leaves town -- anathema to Bloomberg, but a commonsense response to perhaps the most embarrassing moment of his entire tenure. So just move the Vallone bill, and be done with it."

Hear, hear! It's about time that His Arrogance is given a bit of a humility lesson-and the Post is right for supporting the Vallone bill.

EDC's Liars Choir on Willets Point's Denounced

2011-02-10T07:55:00.002-05:00

As we have pointed out, the NYC EDC-last seen retaining an LDC to illegally lobby on behalf of development at Willets Point-has not completely gone back on its word about commencing eminent domain action against the businesses in the path of this massive and costly development. It is quite clear now, that anything the agency says isn't believable-and that is why the businesses and workers at Willets Point will be joined by State Senator Tony Avella and a number of community and civic organizations to denounce EDC's dishonesty and call for a moratorium on eminent domain proceedings until ramps off the Van Wyck are fully evaluated; as EDC promised in representations to the city council and in court.

Now, however, EDC claims it doesn't need to wait for ramps to be approved before starting what it laughable calls, "Phase 1." But here is what it has said on the public record:

(1) "The City will not take possession of property acquired by eminent domain before the NEPA process is complete and the ramps are approved." – Willets Point FGEIS, Chapter 29, General Comments, Response G-8, September 12, 2008.:

(2) "The City has maintained communication and close coordination with NYSDOT from the inception of the project, outlining a range of conceptual design options and working with options that NYSDOT determined were preferable. It is fully expected that such approvals will be obtained and the design will be progressed in light of design suggestions to be made by both NYSDOT and the FHWA. Furthermore, the proposed ramps are an integral part of the Willets Point Development Plan. The developer’s agreement would stipulate that following approval of the Van Wyck Expressway ramps but prior to completion of ramp construction, no buildings could be occupied unless the developer demonstrates that earlier occupancy of such buildings would not result in significant adverse impacts that have not already been described in this GEIS." – Willets Point FGEIS, Chapter 29, Section 17 (Traffic and Parking), Response 17-6, September 12, 2008."

(3) "The City will not acquire title to any property through Article 4 of the Eminent Domain Procedure Law (“EDPL”) until after ramps for the Van Wyck Expressway are approved by FHWA." -- Affidavit of Robert Lieber, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, June 29, 2009, filed with Supreme Court of the State of New York (WPU's Article 78 case)."

(4) And consider the comments of Judge Madden, the jurist who heard the original Article 78 case, about the city and the ramps: "At oral argument [for WPU's Article 78], counsel for respondent [City] stated that if the ramps are not approved, the respondents cannot 'proceed with the plan as conceived and approved.' Transcript at 33. For the purposes of this review, this court assumes that if the ramps are not approved, additional review under SEQRA will be required."

As can be clearly seen in the second quoted excerpt above, the FGEIS does not envision any circumstance in which development occurs and ramps are not at least APPROVED. There is also an implicit expectation that ramps will actually be built, exemplified by the text "prior to the completion of ramp construction". It is hard to see how the FGEIS provides in any way for the development to proceed -- at any scale, Phase 1 or otherwise -- without there being ramp APPROVAL. Nowhere in the FGEIS are the ramps said to be any less "integral", depending on the particular phase of the project to be implemented.

As we pointed out last week: "Talk about putting the cart before the horse! What EDC is trying to do here is to make an end run of the crucial approval process for ramps off of the Van Wyck-ramps that it has said are the linchpin of the development's viability: "Opponents of the project have argued that the city isn't permitted to construct entrance ramps to the Van Wyck Expressway nearby that are called for as part of the project. Richard Lipsky, a lobbyist who represents business owners at the site, says that the eminent domain action was "an absolute disgrace."

In response, EDC's Pinocchio Pinsky told the WSJ: "Mr. Pinsky said the city's position is that it isn't required to build the ramps—which would mitigate traffic congestion on the local streets—until later phases of the project."

All of this dishonesty needs to cease and desist-or else the city will find itself back in court to explain why it simply can't tell the truth. But the rationale for all of this is fairly simple: the proposed Van Wyck ramps-no matter how the EDC consultants gyrate-can't be made to work in order to accommodate the 80,000 car and truck trips generated by this massive over-development. In order to avoid admitting this, and starting from scratch, EDC now wants to do an end run around the environmental requirements and build this project on the sly-one block at a time.

Press Release

Senator Tony Avella to Keynote Willets Point Press Conference

Willets Point United, Local Civic groups, Workers and Elected Officials to Speak Out At Press Conference Against Illegal EDC Eminent Domain Action on Willets Point

As a result of the efforts of the Willets Point United group, EDC has been unable to gain approval for key ramps off of the Van Wyck Expressway. In spite of the fact that the agency-both publicly and in court documents-has stated that it would not commence any eminent domain proceedings against local businesses until the ramps were approved-and a developer selected, but none has yet been.

As State Senator Tony Avella points out: "What is going on in Willets Point is a disgraceful abuse of power and process by the Bloomberg administration," stated Avella. "EDC repeatedly stated in news reports and court documents that it would not use eminent domain to acquire land before the ramps were approved. The fact that EDC is beginning the condemnation process without resolving the ramp issue only demonstrates the agency’s lack of credibility and total disregard for the impact this development will have on the community."

When: February, 10, 2011

Where: 127-48 Northern Blvd.

Time: 12 Noon

The proposed Willets Point development will be a massive 10 million sq. ft project that will include over 5500 apartments, and the city’s largest-auto dependent-retail mall, some 1, 7 million sq. ft. Naturally, a development of this size will generate considerable traffic-and EDC’s own estimate is that the vehicle trips will come in at around 80,000 a day.

In order to accommodate this huge influx of traffic, the city has said that it is necessary to build two ramps on and off of the Van Wyck Expressway-ramps that are needed to funnel traffic off of already congested local streets. In fact the ramps are so important, that the city has argued in court papers that the entire Willets Point project-one that will involve the use of eminent domain to remove scores of businesses and thousands of workers-cannot go ahead without the ramps.

In spite of the importance of these ramps, the issue of their construction-in particular the approval process needed to give the city permission to build them-was never brought up in the land use review conducted by the city council three years ago. In fact, council leadership, when questioned at a press conference, expressed total ignorance about this linchpin issue.

So, while all of those interested in the fate of Willets Point assumed that the issue was more or less resolved with the council vote-minus the minor inconvenience of evicting the property owners-the question of the feasibility of building these two ramps moved front and center. But as press reports highlight, the NYS DOT has many reservations about the feasibility of the ramps

Now, however, the WSJ says that, “Seeking to kick-start a massive Queens real-estate development project conceived in the boom years, the Bloomberg administration is moving to seize a portion of the site from private property owners. Next week, the city plans to initiate the eminent-domain process on holdout owners who own property in the first 20-acre phase of the 62-acre project. The city also is planning to solicit bids from developers in the spring, according to city officials."

What about those pesky ramps? “Mr. Pinsky said the city's position is that it isn't required to build the ramps—which would mitigate traffic congestion on the local streets—until later phases of the project." What rot!

If the ramps are essential and their approval is in doubt, how can the city proceed? What EDC is trying to do-emulating the underhanded tactics of the grasping Robert Moses-is to make the project a fait accompli; so the ramps, however flawed and unable to really mitigate the massive traffic influx, become necessary to approve just to avoid a calamity of an even greater magnitude.

But the egregiousness of EDC's actions doesn't stop with the ramp detour. Put simply, the city is broke-tapioca city-and doesn't have the funds and can't possibly justify this land grab under the current economic conditions. As WPU’s lobbyist Richard Lipsky told the Journal: "The city is going ahead with a project that no one knows what it will cost, with a developer that no one knows who it will be, and with ramps that no one knows whether they can be built," Mr. Lipsky says."

The Willets Point project has been cut down into what EDC feels are more manageable smaller slices-but it is the overall massive negative impact that remains; and this can't be camouflaged by EDC's piecemeal approach. As Governor Al Smith would have said, "No matter how you slice it, it is still baloney."

The community groups joining WPU on Thursday include the Bay Terrace Community Alliance, the John Bowne Civic Association, the Flushing Coalition for Responsible Development the Malba Gardens Civic Association and the Juniper Park Civic Association. All of the local organizations are opposed to the EDC land grab and its irresponsible avoidance of a public review of the ramps. In their view, even with the ramps, the 80,000 car and truck trips generated every day by the Willets Point project will-along with projects like Flushing Commons-create havoc on Queens streets and roads-while simultaneously severely clogging the mass transit infrastructure.

That EDC is trying to proceed in a manner that it told the court it wouldn't do, only underscores the complete lack of honesty and integrity in an agency that should be better known as the Economic Deception Corporation.

Contact: Richard Lipsky (914-572-2865)

Related to Whom?

2011-02-10T05:25:00.004-05:00

In another example of how the Related Companies and the Bloombergistas are joined at the hip comes this latest news from Crain's: "A team made up of Related Cos., Phipps Houses and Monadnock Construction was selected Wednesday to develop the first phase of a huge project on a 30-acre waterfront parcel in Long Island City, Queens,, a site that was once envisioned as home to an Olympic Village for the 2012 games."

We guess that lying to the city council isn't a disqualifying factor for the mayor. But lie Related did when it told CM Barron that Walmart was not going to be included on the expansion of the Gateway Mall-a designation that was sole-sourced, with no competitive bid, by the free market loving Bloomberg-just as was the case with the Bronx Terminal Market. And it must be pointed out that this wasn't the first time that this developer had a seriously flawed relationship with the truth.

If you remember back to 2008, it was Related that put in the "winning" bid on the Kingsbridge Armory by pledging to exclude a supermarket, since a local food store was right across the street from the proposed development-and had serviced the community wonderfully for fifty years. When the company finished its EIS, however, there was the supermarket-underscoring that Related is unrelated to veracity. That project went down to deserving defeat.

And now, once again, Related is moved to the front of the queue by Free Market Mike. As the NY Times points out: "Rival developers complained privately that the city would favor Mr. Ross because of his close ties to the Bloomberg administration. City officials went to great lengths to explain why the Related team was chosen. Rafael E. Cestero, the city’s housing commissioner, said that the Related-Phipps-Monadnock team had submitted the lowest-cost bid and adhered most closely to the city’s design guidelines. Indeed, it was the only one, he said, that offered to build all the apartments for poor, working- and middle-class families. The city will be subsidizing only 75 percent of the project because of financial constraints on its part, Mr. Cestero said."

The open question, however, is how does the council feel about the Hunter's South designation of Related, and will the members make it clear to the mayor that this developer-given its track record of dishonesty-can't be trusted when it makes any representations before the body? One thing is crystal clear to us: when Related is involved there is little relationship between the RFP and the finished product-and the city council is best off finding a way to tell Related and the mayor-in good Johnny Paycheck fashion-to, "take this job and shove it!"

Philosophical Battle Engaged on Cuomo's Reform Agenda.

2011-02-09T16:09:00.001-05:00

As the NY Times is reporting, the groups who stand the most to lose if government retrenches, are fighting back: "Faced with devastating budget cuts from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and a deeply hostile electorate, New York’s most influential public-employee unions have unexpectedly shifted their strategy for defending cherished government programs and worker benefits. Put off for now are the angry denunciations and millions of dollars of advertisements, chiefly from hospitals and a health care union, that have traditionally begun haunting governors in early February. Instead, two coalitions of labor unions and their allies are mounting campaigns aimed chiefly at persuading Mr. Cuomo to extend the so-called millionaire’s tax, a state surcharge on high-income New Yorkers that is scheduled to expire in December. The tax, which Mr. Cuomo wants to eliminate, could bring in billions of dollars in revenue in the next few years, cushioning cuts to schools and Medicaid."

If so, this is purely face saving on the part of these groups-that's because the, "millionaire's tax," is just a drop in the bucket, and if extended wouldn't put a dent in the deficit reduction needs of the state. But let's stop for a second and question the honesty and integrity of the tax's label. This is a tax that hits a great many small business owners and farmers in New York-and it is a deterrent to economic development as a result.

But the coalitions fighting the governor see things differently-and don't believe that the government has grown too large and expensive. In fact, they see this whole budget crisis as a, "revenue," problem: "Both coalitions argue that the debate over New York’s budget crisis has unfairly scapegoated public workers while virtually ignoring the role that Wall Street risk-taking, and the accompanying financial collapse, played. They also say that what Mr. Cuomo has described as an epidemic of overspending is as much a revenue crisis driven by tax cuts for the wealthy from the Pataki era."

So, we guess that these groups think we are under taxed-which would be a shock to the small businesses and tax payers groaning under the current tax burden. But the opposition to the governor is relying on tar babying Wall Street in a nice example of misdirection: "Indeed, an early radio ad script from the group does not mention Mr. Cuomo at all. Instead, it assails “bankers, brokers and money managers” on Wall Street for collecting record pay and bonuses in the midst of a state fiscal crisis."

What's missing from the opposition's narrative is a recognition of the extent to which NY State has become uncompetitive because of its high cost of doing business-and this is especially true for the small business community. The Small Business Survival Index places NY 49 out of 50 in this regard.

In our view, these new tactics reflect the concern for the governor's legendary ability to kick butt and take names-but the grass roots strategy does make some sense because it helps the groups avoid a major backlash from a fed up public: "Some union officials and their allies say the change in strategy also reflects a recognition that the traditional winter ad wars are not without cost to themselves, both in dollars — 1199 alone has spent as much as $10 million a year out of a joint fund with the Greater New York Hospital Association — and in public relations backlash. “We have had enormous experience with the old way,” said Kenneth E. Raske, president of the hospital association. “The old way leaves a sour taste in our mouth, too. We’ve seen what happens in the past. We didn’t like the process and we didn’t like the outcome. You get some restorations, but you still end up with some difficult cuts.”

All of this means that the battle is being enjoined, and those of us who believe that the survival of the state rests on the restoration of fiscal sanity, have our work cut out for us. We can't keep spending money that we don't have, only to resort to tax policies that insure we won't have even more money to spend going forward-as businesses and even middle class tax payers flee the state.

The era of tax and spend government is over, but the rear guard action of those for whom government is a benefactor has not been defeated by any means-and we could see a reversion to the failed policies of the past if we aren't organized to do battle on these core issues. Game is definitely on-and we will be there, along with many other warriors, for the struggling small business sector.

Getting Out the Sludge at the DEP

2011-02-09T09:44:00.000-05:00

Who would have ever thought it possible? The NYC DEP is beginning to get the sludge out of its policy making process to suggest some innovative responses to waste disposal. The NY Times has the startling story: "New York City’s sewage presents a daunting and costly challenge: it creates foul odors and often contaminates waterways. But the city is now casting its sewage treatment plants and the vast amounts of sludge, methane gas and other byproducts of the wastewater produced by New Yorkers, as an asset — specifically, as potential sources of renewable energy."

About time-as we have been arguing for years, the disposal of food waste could become a valuable resource, either from composting, or from its use in a waste to energy process. And the University of Florida agrees in its discussion of biogas: "Through diverting food waste from landfills to anaerobic digestion, two beneficial products are produced. Biogas can be used on-site to remediate energy costs or sold to the grid. Biofertilizer can be sold to farmers and gardens or used on-site for gardens and landscaping. Food waste will no longer be thought of as a waste, but a resource to generate additional revenue."

And our land fills will become less toxic: "A major source of this organic material in landfills is food waste, and by diverting food waste, methane emissions can be significantly reduced. In addition to methane, food waste in landfills can cause nutrient problems in leachate and odor and vermin problems, along with taking up unnecessary space in the landfill."

As we have also argued, the reduction of food waste at its source-in the city's restaurants, green grocers, and supermarkets, is a major cost savings and will promote the greater economic viability of these businesses. U of F agrees with us: "Hauling and landfilling food waste represents a direct cost to businesses and many external costs to society with no economic benefits."

Which is why we have been advocating the use of commercial food waste disposers for the better part of a decade-and hitherto fore without any cooperation from the DEP, which has held fast against the disposer concept. Things appear to be evolving, however-as the Times points out: "For the city’s Department of Environmental Protection, which is to issue its strategy on Wednesday, it is a shift. Until now, the agency has mainly played the role of water utility and environmental steward rather than energy producer. But like other cities around the country looking to reduce both the costs of sewage treatment and disposal and the heat-trapping greenhouse gases emitted in the process, New York is beginning to look at its waste as an untapped resource."

The DEP is moving in the direction suggested by the university: "City officials, who hope to have a contract by 2013, said the solid could be harvested for gases that produce clean energy and could be used in more traditional ways, too, as fertilizer or as paving and building materials. The biggest potential source of energy, officials said, is the methane gas from sewage treatment plants’ digesters. About half of the methane produced by the city’s plants is already used to meet about 20 percent of the energy demands of the city’s 14 sewage plants, whose electric bills run to a total of about $50 million a year. Now the city wants to market the other half, which is burned off and wasted."

If this is pursued correctly, it could become a major breakthrough in the city's solid waste management strategy-currently stalled because of an inability to economically raise the current paltry recycling rates. But in order to truly maximize this energy producing resource, the city will need to enhance its accumulation of food waste-and here's where food waste disposers come in on both a commercial as well as residential level.

Even the NRDC is on board with the change: "If what you’ve got is lemons, of course you try to make lemonade,” said Eric. A. Goldstein, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York who monitors the environmental agency. “It’s taking existing infrastructure and outfitting it to help solve other city problems.”

The potential here is enormous-and not only for energy production. If we can divert food waste on all levels we can further reduce the contamination of the rest of the garbage-making source separation and recycling that much more efficient and economical. In the process-and of crucial importance in these cost cutting times-we can reduce the number of costly waste transfer stations needed to process the city's solid waste.

The elimination and diversion of food waste at the source also has other environmental and public health benefits-rodent and insect reduction through the elimination of their food supply. As we pointed out last year: "It is time for the city to admit its mistakes on the issue of commercial food waste disposers. The current rat and bed bug epidemic underscores just how imperative it is for NYC to become more innovative and less hidebound in this crucial area of organic garbage. If it does, we will see a dramatic improvement of city recycling and neighborhood public health-and an equally dramatic reduction of garbage exporting. It's past time for the city to start thinking outside of the garbage can."

It looks as if that is exactly what is happening. What the DEP is proposing is a seismic shift that should lead to a full re-evaluation of the city's SWMP-a shift that will, if properly implemented, reduce costs while increasing the levels of recycling way beyond current possibilities. The potential tapping of waste for additional energy sources makes all of this a win, win, win scenario-and we need to start to implement these changes right away.

We'll give the University of Florida the last word: "Food waste will no longer be thought of as a waste, but a resource to generate additional revenue. Food is one of the most essential elements for life, and therefore we should have an ethical and moral obligation not to waste it. With all the issues of unsustainable agriculture and global hunger, we should not be needlessly throwing good food into the landfill. Therefore we must simultaneously reduce the food waste that is produced while putting to good use that food that is not consumed."

Educational Enron

2011-02-09T04:58:00.003-05:00

It is looking more and more like all of the hoopla over mayoral control of the schools-Bloomberg edition-has been dramatically misplaced. The WSJ has the story: "New York state high-school students' college and career readiness lags far behind the graduation rates that most school districts post, according to data from the state Department of Education...The state education department said that in New York City, only 23% of graduating high-school students meet the college- and career-ready standard, compared with a graduation rate of 65% among general-education students."

Oh, good grief! Is this why we had to be subjected to all of the tabloid vitriol when some elected officials questioned the need to grant the mayor a blank check in reauthorizing mayoral control? But there is a silver lining here-NYC did beat Buffalo! The news for the racial disparities gap was not good either: "While statewide the published graduation rate among black students is 62%, only 15% are considered college- and career-ready."

Let's not forget that the city spent almost twice as much money in achieving these breakthrough results-but we are heartened to find out that the DOE-like Inspector Clouseau-is right on top of this; nine years later: "City officials said they are already ahead of the state in recognizing the problem. "Well before the state announced this plan, we told schools we would begin including robust college readiness metrics to school progress reports," said Shael Polakow-Suransky, the city's chief academic officer. In 2008, the city's DOE formed a partnership with City University of New York to track how its graduates were doing in city colleges, and began sharing that information with the graduates' high schools so they could address deficiencies."

What a load! We didn't hear a peep about this-and if anyone said anything publicly it must have been drowned out by the hallelujah chorus over those phony test results that the mayor used to run for a third term. The NY Times also weighs in on this: "The new statistics, part of a push to realign state standards with college performance, show that only 23 percent of students in New York City graduated ready for college or careers in 2009, not counting special-education students. That is well under half the current graduation rate of 64 percent, a number often promoted by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg as evidence that his education policies are working."

Kind of like, the operation was a success, but the patient died, don't you think? Chancellor Tisch tells it like it is: "The move parallels a decision by the Regents last year to make standardized tests for third through eighth graders more difficult to pass, saying that the old passing rates did not correlate to high school success. “With three through eight, we ripped the Band-Aid off,” Dr. Tisch said in an interview last week. “The thing we said then, in looking at the business world, is that if you sit on this, you become the Enron of test scores, the Enron of graduation rates. We need to indicate exactly what it all means, especially since we’ve already said that college-ready should be the indicator of high school completion.”

Someone should be going to jail for this kind of fraud-and if the case was undertaken under a RICO indictment, Bloomberg and Klein should be in handcuffs by now: "State and city education officials have known for years that graduating from a public high school does not indicate that a student is ready for college, and have been slowly moving to raise standards. But the political will to acknowledge openly the chasm between graduation requirements and college or job needs is new, Dr. Tisch; David M. Steiner, the state education commissioner; and John King, the deputy state education commissioner, said in interviews last week."

All of which underscores that the graduation rates were a scam as well: "In New York City, roughly 75 percent of public high school students who enroll in community colleges need to take remedial math or English courses before they can begin college-level work. City education officials said the 23 percent college-ready rate was not a fair measure of how the city would do if graduation requirements were raised to a higher standard, because students would work harder to meet that new bar."

Who are these officials, and how can they get away with pointing fingers at anyone but themselves? After bullspiting the public for nine years, we now are told that things wouldn't be so bad if the graduation requirements were raised? Why weren't these, "city educational officials," screaming at the top of their lungs about this? Oh, of course, they were too busy handing out phony bonuses and misleading the public-this is way beyond Knucklehead Award stage.

But the NY Post and NY Daily News-twin culprits in the docket on this massive deception-are both off on the teacher seniority kick; as classic a case of scapegoating and misdirection as you will ever find. Here's the Post audaciously allowing the mayor to style on this issue: "The state includes a 'last in, first out' provision . . . which would force us to lay off some of our very best teachers, while keeping some of our worst. To lose the best and keep some who aren't carrying their weight is just a travesty. These layoffs, incidentally, would be most heavily felt in the city's poorest neighborhoods, where schools tend to have the newest teachers."

If the current data is a true indication of the real extent of the, "Bloomberg educational miracle," than the most gracious thing Mike Bloomberg can do on this subject is take a vow of silence-and the tabloids should either offer a mea culpa; or follow suit in silence. But we get a big kick out of the closing the barn door after the horse have left approach down at Tweed: "While it has not gone so far as to calculate an alternative to graduation rates, the city has already begun tracking how each high school’s students fare in college, and in 2012 it will begin holding principals accountable for it."

Just in time to promote the mayor's fourth term?

Shoprite, Wal-wrong

2011-02-08T16:35:00.001-05:00

The battle between Walmart and Shoprite over the site in the expanded Gateway Mall in East NY is heating up-and the Brooklyn Paper has the story: "Walmart may be eying Brooklyn, but ShopRite is eying Walmart. Representatives for the supermarket chain say they want to open a store at the proposed Gateway II shopping center on the Belt Parkway in a move that could keep Walmart — and the intense competition it would bring — out of the borough. “We are interested in the Gateway II location,” said ShopRite spokeswoman Karen Meleta, referring to the site near the border of Queens where Walmart could set up shop without city approval."

So, now we know definitively that there is a very good alternative to the Walmonster-one that wouldn't obliterate the retail playing field and generate car trips from over five miles away. Which means that the building trades need not be concerned that their folks won't get to work-and, in fact, with Shoprite having no controversy attached to it, their folks may actually get to work much more quickly.

CM Barron, for one, wants Shoprite: "ShopRite is much better than Walmart because the workers are unionized,” said Councilman Charles Barron (D–Canarsie), who has not been shy about bashing Walmart, though not other big-box stores that already operate with no controversy in his district."

Another point of emphasis is that what makes some people like the Walmonster is exactly why it poses such a threat to the existing small business infrastructure-and the giant sucking sound you'll hear is the sound of all of the business being siphoned right off of all the neighborhood shopping strips: "According to Walmart’s website, one of the main reasons 76 percent of Brooklynites would welcome the superstore is its convenience, as it’s a one-stop-shop for everything from clothes to food to DVDs — and many products that ShopRite doesn’t sell. In addition, Walmart wants to utilize the entire Gateway Plaza land parcel, which is about the size of three football fields. If ShopRite ends up winning the duel for Gateway II, it would only be as large as one football field."

Leaving nothing for anyone else.

Biking Up the Wrong Tree

2011-02-08T05:12:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we had a commentary on the arrogance of the bike lane imposition process-and pointed out the double messages and outriight hypocrisy of the policy: "What is lacking is the very democracy that the mayor felt was lacking in all those unruly parents who protested the school closings last week. It seems that this dearth of democracy is in reality an endemic problem for the Bloombergistas. What the bike lane plans lack, is public review of their efficacy and desirability-something that any land use review process provides."

In yesterday' NY Post the paper reported on the push back the city has gotten from the Columbus Avenue bike lanes-another favorite peeve of ours: "The city Department of Transportation has agreed to change gears after its controversial bike lane on the Upper West Side came under fire from businesses and neighborhood residents. The bike lane -- a car-free strip that runs southbound along the eastern edge of Columbus Avenue from 96th to 77th streets -- has caused a series of headaches for shop owners since it opened last fall. They claim the neighborhood lost 67 parking spots, which impacted their delivery trucks. Residents have griped about snowplowing, garbage collection, confusing road signs and the lack of parking."

Of course, a great deal of this tsuris could have been avoided if there was an actual review process in place-and in our view, the amelioration falls short of the ideal: "The grievances prompted a group of elected officials, led by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, to survey business leaders and residents last fall about how to solve the bike-lane issues. The group, called the Columbus Avenue Working Group, released the survey results yesterday, along with a new model for the bike lane. Stringer said the effort has led to a breakthrough in talks with the DOT about bike lanes. "We are going to make concrete recommendations, and we are going to get results from the DOT," he said. "This is the model. This is the breakthrough moment."

What is the change sought? A long list of complicated things-such as: "Restoring parking on selected blocks by banning left-hand turns"; and, "Working with the NYPD to enhance enforcement of violations such as misuse of the new loading zone, double parking and misuse of city-issued parking placards." Plus our definite favorite: "Altering signs to reduce confusion."

Blah, blah. This is all way too complicated-and the real breakthrough would be breaking through the concrete barriers and selling them for scrap. Put simply, the lanes don't belong, and the measures are purely palliative-an example of crackpot realism that leaves the underlying irrationality of the policy unchallenged. We're with Nancy Reagen on this-Stringer should follow her example and, "Just say no!"