"Major League Soccer is in discussions with the M.T.A. and local elected officials to determine where it can build a new park to replace the piece of Flushing Meadows Corona Park where it would like to create a $300 million, 25,000-seat professional soccer stadium."
The website has a subtitle that is an apt description of the events here: "This is How New York Works." Precisely so-behind the scenes and against the public interest. Tragically, this is being spearheaded by a pair of jocksniffing pols whose advocacy for soccer puts the efforts of Rusy Giuliani on behalf of the Yankees to shame:
"The league is working on a detailed memorandum of understanding right now, according to State Senator Jose Peralta, who is privy to the negotiations.
The transfer of public land to a private party is no easy task. Not only must the state formally "alienate" the land, but Major League Soccer must replace it with other parkland. "The closer the better," Peralta told me."
Perlata, who we have labeled, "El Muñeco," is actively working against the local community he is supposed to represent-something that this subpar website has omitted in its entirety-even while it cites the possibility that the proposed exchanges will fall short of ideal. So much for journalistic integrity:
"And that process, which is bound to be a politicized one, has only just begun. The league has its eye on M.T.A. land that falls along the western bank of Flushing Creek, the body of water that travels south from Flushing Bay, past Willets Point to the west and paralleling, at times, the Van Wyck
That land may be composed, at least partially, of wetlands, according to the M.T.A.
And while the Parks Department's portfolio encompasses wetlands, it's hard to imagine that community members will be satisfied with a new park if they can't use it..."
Of course, where tweedle dee Perlata is, tweedle dum Moya can't be far behind: "I believe this is a great project for the community," said Assemblyman Francisco Moya, one of the principal advocates for the stadium, who called from Barcelona, where he had flown to watch his favorite soccer team (Barcelona) play Real Madrid. "I believe that Major League Soccer will do everything that they can do make sure that there is community input and that they replace the parkland that is taken away," he said."
So what we have are two Queens elected officials abandoning the needs of their constituents. The more things change the more they stay the same in this borough of the insider deals.
