Public Scoping Session for Willets Point "West"

The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Economic Development-and not ECDC-has issued a public notice for a scoping session for the supplemental environmental impact statement for the latest iteration of the Willets Point development. The session will be held late on Thursday afternoon on September 27, 2012 at at PS 19 Marino Jeantet, 98-02 Roosevelt Avenue. The notice The notice says the city posted the EAS on the OEC website.

This gives concerned stakeholders very little time before having to comment on the city's plans-and given the city's slipperiness with the facts we're going to need every minute to delve into the assumptions that are put forward in the EAS. One thing is very clear, however. This is a massively new undertaking-with so-called Willets West having one million square feet of "leasable" space. Hello box stores.

The most risible statement in the public notice is the assertion that the project would, "...incorporate a development substantially similar to that anticipated and analyzed in...," the 2008 original FGEIS. Pure poppycock! This is only true if everyone undergoes a pathological suspension of disbelief.

This is a mall, pure and simple-and everything else, to borrow a baseball phrase, is a player to be named later. That is why we have called this a wimpy deal-because the upfront deal is for the Mets Mall and everything else will come later, much later if at all. So what the city is asking is that people simple trust its good intentions over a development that has been lied about more than a teenage boy's sex escapades.

Everyone who is concerned about the bait and switch tactics of EDC and the rest of the characters involved in this deal-we're talking about you Claire-need to come out in force for the public hearing. WPU will be there but this time all interested parties need to join with us so that EDC doesn't get away with this charade.