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.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Reckless Lane Change
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Van Wicked
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.
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
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.
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.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Commissioner Arrogance
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.
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
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.
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
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."
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."
No Khan-Do
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."
Friday, March 04, 2011
Deceit Suits EDC
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.
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!
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."
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."
Pity Bloomberg's Poor Immigrant
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.
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.
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Senioritis
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."
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."
City Ramps Up Its Willets Point Dishonesty
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.”
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
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
There is No Public Use at Willets Point
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)
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 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
"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.
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
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 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
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