According to Adam Lisberg at the NY Daily News, Mayor Mike Bloomberg hasn't gotten the memo about the need for the city to reduce its use of outside contractors: "Perhaps Mayor Bloomberg didn't get the memo. Literally. On his Friday radio show, he was asked about a new shift in city policy that had been in the newspaper for two days running - and didn't seem to know it had happened. It's a shift on something that had been a sore point for Bloomberg's critics - outside contractors paid six-figure salaries for tech projects that blow deadlines and budgets, like the scandal-ridden CityTime system."
Bloomberg, still operating on Bermuda time, went on to regal the John Gambling audience of about three people about the wonderful benefits of outsourcing: "On the radio, WOR-AM host John Gambling tossed Bloomberg a softball about it. But instead of explaining the new company line on insourcing, the mayor defended outsourcing. "People say, 'Oh, you're spending too much money on outsiders.' If you didn't do that one contract outside, you'd have to have those people permanently on your staff," the mayor said. "The consultants, they say, 'Oh, they charge a lot more.' Well, because that's the business," he continued. "They don't work all the time, so they have to get paid more. And sometimes they have expertise you don't have in-house."
Can this man really be serious? Hasn't he seen how unsupervised outsiders can rip the city off? Lisberg feels that it could be the result of inattention: "Or perhaps it's a sign of something more worrisome, of a third-term mayor who has delegated the nuts and bolts of government to new aides like Goldsmith but isn't paying enough attention to what they're doing. Those who work closely with City Hall - even Bloomberg's allies - have seen signs of third-term drift. His attention is on national and world issues, not day-to-day business like plowing snow or rewriting tech contracts."
In our view, the CityTime scandal indicates that there is great danger in unsupervised outsourcing-and that the reliance on outside consultants when the city lacks the expertise to monitor the quality of their work, can lead to disastrous, and expensively disastrous, results. Case in point: AKRF and its traffic subcontractors URS and Eng Wong Taub.
For years, AKRF has exercised a virtual monopoly over the environmental work in this city-and as we saw with Columbia, often has found itself on both sides of an issue. This is not in the public interest, primarily because the consultant cabal is singing in the Big Real Estate choir-and when they aren't, they are seen busily tailoring their data to the interest of city economic planners. Which, when we come to think of it, is virtually interchangeable with their first allegiance. So, who gets hurt? Why all of the communities and small businesses that aren't given a fair analysis of what kind of impacts a project will have on their quality of life or ability to survive and prosper.
Occasionally the city council wakes up from its narcolepsy-as it did on the Kingsbridge Armory, or with Wal-Mart at Gateway-and asks an honest broker like Brian Ketcham for a second opinion. When that happens, we get a rare glimpse of just how dishonest the monopolists at AKRF really are.
Of course, the severe consequences of the city's reliance on this team of self servers at AKRF has been revealed in the ongoing fiasco over Van Wyck ramps at our own Iron Triangle home. Crain's honed in on the situation early last year: "The original environmental impact statement, or EIS, showed the massive Willets Point project would generate heavy traffic, but a recent report on the proposed ramps showed a much sunnier picture. The ramp study—an “access modification report,” or AMR, which is technical documentation to support federal and state decisions on whether to approve the ramps—is being redone after Mr. Ketcham used traffic data from the environmental impact statement to demonstrate that the ramps would make a bad situation worse. The entire redevelopment, with 9 million buildable square feet, is projected to generate 80,000 vehicle trips daily."
Simply put, the AKRF team-not expecting any independent review of their work-fudged the data to diminish the projected traffic impact on the Van Wyck. And the two traffic reports-one for the original EIS and the other for the AMR-flatly contradicted each other. How could that happen, other than because of conscious fraud, if the general contractor on both projects was none other than AKRF.
As a result of the fraud, and the curative intervention of WPU's Ketcham to call it out for SDOT, EDC was forced to revise the AMR-and went right back to the fraudsters to do the work!
But check out the comments of EDC on how expeditious this process would be: "“We will be submitting a revised draft in the upcoming weeks that is responsive to the comments and issues raised by state DOT and the Federal Highway Administration, as well as those from Willets Point opponents,” said David Lombino, a spokesman for the Bloomberg administration’s Economic Development Corp., the lead agency on Willets Point...Mr. Lombino says no significant delay is expected."
The Crain's story was in February of last year-indicating that the Lombino observation was a tad optimistic. But what of the millions of dollars of additional expense here because of consultant error-not to mention the potential fraud against the interests of the members of WPU? Shouldn't Comptroller Liu be on top of this outsourcing scandal as well?
And considering that now EDC is trying to avoid ramp review entirely, shouldn't the comptroller be looking to lock arms with the new attorney general and put a halt to all of this malfeasance?
The use of unsupervised and corrupt outsourcing is, therefore, not a simple one time-or CityTime, as it were-occurrence. A pattern of unethical and corrupt behavior is at the core of the entire Willets Point development as well.
Lisberg, for his part, sees the mayor's legacy as in flux: " On TV, on the radio and in the newspaper, the signs are clear for Bloomberg that his legacy as mayor is still unfinished and the ending is very much in flux." But it is Willets Point that is viewed as the Bloomberg legacy project.
Given all that has gone on here, the illegal lobbying, the corruption of data, and the lying to the city council and the courts, Willets Point is currently the perfect Bloomberg legacy, one that dramatizes the extent to which he has consistently disregarded the public interest in the service of his cohort of billionaire real estate moguls.
Showing posts with label akrf. Show all posts
Showing posts with label akrf. Show all posts
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Monday, July 26, 2010
Garbage in, garbage out
From the Neighborhood Retail Alliance:
...there has been a great deal of prattling on about how the Willets Point development will somehow become the culmination of Mike Bloomberg's 2030 vision of sustainable development-and much of the prattling is unmoored from any sense of what kind of impact the project-as it is currently envisioned-will have on the immediate surrounding neighborhoods; as well as on Queens County as a whole.
Just a cursory look at what is planned for the site-and a concomitant look at the site itself-should instill a note of caution to anyone with sustainable development dreams (and that includes some misguided-and perhaps deluded with some incentives-environmental groups that rushed to the mayor;'s side to sing praises to the EDC-driven new Willets Point vision).
Now for a reality check. Willets Point, unlike, say, Battery Park City, isn't a nice short walk from not only the city's financial sector, but to as many mass transit options as any Transportation Alternatives aficionado could ever want. Willets Point is relatively isolated, and the major mass transit option-as we have been writing about in respect to the Flushing Commons project-is the already overcrowded 7 Line. The same goes for the myriad bus lines that move in and out of the Flushing transit hub.
Now, according to the Willets Point EIS-which will have to stand in for a definitive document until something a bit more accurate can be commissioned-the development will generate around 80,000 car and truck trips a day onto the already gridlocked intersections that plague the surrounding communities of Corona, East Elmhurst and Flushing. Now keep in mind boys and girls that this 80,000 trip estimate devolves from a methodology that projects almost half of all the Willets Point activity will be somehow effected through the use of the aforementioned over-capacitied train and buses.
The three card monte scammers at AKRF-through the active collusion of its subcontractor Eng Wang Taub-came to this conclusion by the use of a neat methodological sleight of hand: basing the car trip generation on the assertion that only around 70% of Queens residents own cars (and not the over 90% that NYMTC concludes). You get it? Garbage in, garbage out.
...there has been a great deal of prattling on about how the Willets Point development will somehow become the culmination of Mike Bloomberg's 2030 vision of sustainable development-and much of the prattling is unmoored from any sense of what kind of impact the project-as it is currently envisioned-will have on the immediate surrounding neighborhoods; as well as on Queens County as a whole.
Just a cursory look at what is planned for the site-and a concomitant look at the site itself-should instill a note of caution to anyone with sustainable development dreams (and that includes some misguided-and perhaps deluded with some incentives-environmental groups that rushed to the mayor;'s side to sing praises to the EDC-driven new Willets Point vision).
Now for a reality check. Willets Point, unlike, say, Battery Park City, isn't a nice short walk from not only the city's financial sector, but to as many mass transit options as any Transportation Alternatives aficionado could ever want. Willets Point is relatively isolated, and the major mass transit option-as we have been writing about in respect to the Flushing Commons project-is the already overcrowded 7 Line. The same goes for the myriad bus lines that move in and out of the Flushing transit hub.
Now, according to the Willets Point EIS-which will have to stand in for a definitive document until something a bit more accurate can be commissioned-the development will generate around 80,000 car and truck trips a day onto the already gridlocked intersections that plague the surrounding communities of Corona, East Elmhurst and Flushing. Now keep in mind boys and girls that this 80,000 trip estimate devolves from a methodology that projects almost half of all the Willets Point activity will be somehow effected through the use of the aforementioned over-capacitied train and buses.
The three card monte scammers at AKRF-through the active collusion of its subcontractor Eng Wang Taub-came to this conclusion by the use of a neat methodological sleight of hand: basing the car trip generation on the assertion that only around 70% of Queens residents own cars (and not the over 90% that NYMTC concludes). You get it? Garbage in, garbage out.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Why the Columbia decision should be upheld
From Reason:
New York’s Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in Kaur v. Urban Development Corporation. At issue is the state’s controversial use of eminent domain on behalf of Columbia University, which wants free rein to build a sweeping new 17-acre research campus in the West Harlem neighborhood of Manhattanville. To that end, Columbia joined forces with the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), the powerful yet little-known state agency authorized to bypass zoning laws and seize private property via eminent domain. In July 2008 the ESDC declared Manhattanville to be “blighted,” the state of severe economic disrepair required to trigger an eminent domain taking under state law.
But Columbia’s schemes came to a halt last December when a state appellate court struck down the ESDC’s actions. Writing for a majority of the Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department, Justice James Catterson denounced the ESDC for being “biased in Columbia’s favor” and condemned the agency’s blight determination as “mere sophistry.” It’s now up to the Court of Appeals to decide whether Justice Catterson got it right.
He did. As lead attorney and former New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Norman Siegel has been able to prove thanks to reams of documents retrieved via the state’s Freedom of Information Law, Columbia and the ESDC actively colluded in order to produce the very conditions of blight that would then allow the ESDC to seize property on the university’s behalf. This documentary record, which Siegel carefully details in the legal brief he submitted to the Court of Appeals, offers a convincing and damning portrait of government malfeasance on behalf of an elite private institution.
In sum, a powerful state agency secretly colluded with a powerful private university in order to trample constitutional rights, violate the letter and spirit of the law, and force law-abiding tenants out of their homes and businesses in order to manufacture self-serving blight conditions that disfigured an otherwise livable and commercially viable neighborhood. If there was ever a case where New York’s highest court should intervene against eminent domain abuse, this is it.
New York’s Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in Kaur v. Urban Development Corporation. At issue is the state’s controversial use of eminent domain on behalf of Columbia University, which wants free rein to build a sweeping new 17-acre research campus in the West Harlem neighborhood of Manhattanville. To that end, Columbia joined forces with the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), the powerful yet little-known state agency authorized to bypass zoning laws and seize private property via eminent domain. In July 2008 the ESDC declared Manhattanville to be “blighted,” the state of severe economic disrepair required to trigger an eminent domain taking under state law.
But Columbia’s schemes came to a halt last December when a state appellate court struck down the ESDC’s actions. Writing for a majority of the Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department, Justice James Catterson denounced the ESDC for being “biased in Columbia’s favor” and condemned the agency’s blight determination as “mere sophistry.” It’s now up to the Court of Appeals to decide whether Justice Catterson got it right.
He did. As lead attorney and former New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Norman Siegel has been able to prove thanks to reams of documents retrieved via the state’s Freedom of Information Law, Columbia and the ESDC actively colluded in order to produce the very conditions of blight that would then allow the ESDC to seize property on the university’s behalf. This documentary record, which Siegel carefully details in the legal brief he submitted to the Court of Appeals, offers a convincing and damning portrait of government malfeasance on behalf of an elite private institution.
In sum, a powerful state agency secretly colluded with a powerful private university in order to trample constitutional rights, violate the letter and spirit of the law, and force law-abiding tenants out of their homes and businesses in order to manufacture self-serving blight conditions that disfigured an otherwise livable and commercially viable neighborhood. If there was ever a case where New York’s highest court should intervene against eminent domain abuse, this is it.
Willets Point United Inc. supports Kaur plaintiffs; Recognizes fundamental similarities with Willets Point land grab
New York, New York – For Immediate Release
Members of Willets Point United Inc. ("WPU") have traveled to Albany to support the plaintiff property owners in Kaur v. Urban Development Corporation, and to attend the oral arguments. The circumstances of the Empire State Development Corporation's intended use of eminent domain in West Harlem to benefit Columbia University, closely resemble the City of New York's intended use of eminent domain at Willets Point to benefit an as-yet-unnamed private developer.
Self-made "blight": In West Harlem, Columbia acquired a number of buildings via private transactions, and then deliberately allowed them to sit vacant and deteriorate, thereby establishing self-made "blight" that has become a questionable basis for the use of eminent domain. Similarly, at Willets Point, the City of New York has systematically deprived the neighborhood of municipal services and infrastructure for several decades, while allowing the public property there to fall into a state of self-made disrepair, which the City believes constitutes "blight" that may become a basis for the City's use of eminent domain.
Same "blight" consultant: When authoring the West Harlem "blight study", consultant Allee King Rosen & Fleming, Inc. ("AKRF") was not a neutral party, and its report – instead of being impartial – was designed to promote a pre-ordained conclusion that benefitted Columbia University. The same firm – AKRF – also authored the Neighborhood Conditions Study that pertains to Willets Point.
No "public use": Although the Fifth Amendment requires a "public use" when property is acquired by eminent domain, in West Harlem the exercise of eminent domain is to benefit Columbia University, a private institution. At Willets Point, the exercise of eminent is to benefit an as-yet-unnamed private developer; or perhaps even a sports team franchise, as has recently been rumored.
WPU is a coalition of more than 20 Willets Point property owners who are actively opposing the City of New York's attempt to acquire their land. WPU believes that the outrageous attempts to exercise eminent domain in West Harlem and at Willets Point clearly underscore the urgent need for reform of New York State's eminent domain law, as has already been done by more than 40 other states in response to the notorious 2005 Kelo eminent domain decision. WPU calls for a moratorium on all use of eminent domain within New York State, until such time as the Eminent Domain Procedure Law has been revised to define "blight" and "just compensation"; to provide for full judicial review, including cross-examination of witnesses; and to prohibit the use of eminent domain to condemn property to facilitate development by new and favored private owners who seek merely to replace one existing use of the property with another.
Members of Willets Point United Inc. ("WPU") have traveled to Albany to support the plaintiff property owners in Kaur v. Urban Development Corporation, and to attend the oral arguments. The circumstances of the Empire State Development Corporation's intended use of eminent domain in West Harlem to benefit Columbia University, closely resemble the City of New York's intended use of eminent domain at Willets Point to benefit an as-yet-unnamed private developer.
Self-made "blight": In West Harlem, Columbia acquired a number of buildings via private transactions, and then deliberately allowed them to sit vacant and deteriorate, thereby establishing self-made "blight" that has become a questionable basis for the use of eminent domain. Similarly, at Willets Point, the City of New York has systematically deprived the neighborhood of municipal services and infrastructure for several decades, while allowing the public property there to fall into a state of self-made disrepair, which the City believes constitutes "blight" that may become a basis for the City's use of eminent domain.
Same "blight" consultant: When authoring the West Harlem "blight study", consultant Allee King Rosen & Fleming, Inc. ("AKRF") was not a neutral party, and its report – instead of being impartial – was designed to promote a pre-ordained conclusion that benefitted Columbia University. The same firm – AKRF – also authored the Neighborhood Conditions Study that pertains to Willets Point.
No "public use": Although the Fifth Amendment requires a "public use" when property is acquired by eminent domain, in West Harlem the exercise of eminent domain is to benefit Columbia University, a private institution. At Willets Point, the exercise of eminent is to benefit an as-yet-unnamed private developer; or perhaps even a sports team franchise, as has recently been rumored.
WPU is a coalition of more than 20 Willets Point property owners who are actively opposing the City of New York's attempt to acquire their land. WPU believes that the outrageous attempts to exercise eminent domain in West Harlem and at Willets Point clearly underscore the urgent need for reform of New York State's eminent domain law, as has already been done by more than 40 other states in response to the notorious 2005 Kelo eminent domain decision. WPU calls for a moratorium on all use of eminent domain within New York State, until such time as the Eminent Domain Procedure Law has been revised to define "blight" and "just compensation"; to provide for full judicial review, including cross-examination of witnesses; and to prohibit the use of eminent domain to condemn property to facilitate development by new and favored private owners who seek merely to replace one existing use of the property with another.
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