Hard of Hearing

The City Council, when we last checked, purports to be a deliberative body, but when you get really close to examine how it really functions you come to understand that it is deliberately obtuse when it comes to the interests of small businesses, and communities impacted by mega-development. Take the ULURP application for the slyly named Willets West-a project that emerged like Rosemary’s Baby from the failure of the original Willets Point development that passed under a false flag in 2008. If what we have seen so far is any indication, the council is preparing to roll over because of an inordinate obsequiousness to the interests of Joe Crowley and the Queens County Democrats.

In the first case, the initial hearing is scheduled for September the 3rd, the first business day after the Labor Day holiday. Acting like folks who want to remain inaccessible and perhaps even incognito, the notice for the hearing was posted on Thursday the 29th, leaving a single day before the holiday for the word to get out.

When it comes to the hearing itself, the Subcommittee on Zoning and Franchises is signaing that it really doesn’t want to have a vigorous debate on a project that remains promiscuously controversial considering the illegal lobbying that drove the original council approval five years ago. It is doing so first by shutting down the request from Willets Point United to present a 20 minute power point that deconstructs the numerous erroneous assumptions from EDC - an entity that was forced to reconstruct itself after orchestrating the aforementioned illegal lobbying.

There’s really no excuse for doing this since WPU has been willing to forego the time of five or six of its testifiers so that the power point could be presented. The only conclusion an impartial observer can draw from this is that the committee is trying to tamp down the opposition’s ability to make its case. Will the committee limit the developers to 2 minutes? No, we don’t think so - and Chairman Weprin needs to explain why he needs to act as a homer for the developers.

In addition, the time being allotted to each speaker has been reduced to 2 minutes! - another example of favoritism since the developers, being the prototypical special interests, normally have fewer people coming to testify. Two minutes for some of the folks who stand to lose their businesses and their property if this corrupt deal is approved is the quintessential example of the stacked deck.

The committee is also showing its true colors by disrespecting the expected testimony of many of the Hispanic immigrant workers and business owners. No Spanish translator will be provided at this hearing – despite the ULURP application that is at issue requiring that 100+ businesses vacate the premises that are owned and operated predominantly by people who speak Spanish. The City previously failed to provide any Spanish translator at the eminent domain hearing which was widely criticized at the time. Apparently the City has not learned any lesson and is content to steamroll the 100+ immigrant businesses without hearing them at the Council. And why hasn't Julissa Ferreras, the home rule council member who has been working for years with the tenant businesses, demanded interpretation services for her constituents, or spoken out against the skulduggery being perpetrated by the City against Willets Point land and business owners?

The above points, taken all together, demonstrate the City Council's active contempt for public testimony about the proposed Willets West mall / Willets Point Phase One ULURP application. Speaker Quinn, Land Use Committee Chair Leroy Comrie, and subcommittee Chair Mark Weprin should be ashamed of themselves. These latest examples of bias come a year after the Mayor's Office and NYCEDC selected Sterling Equities and Related Companies, and their plan to expand the development from 62 to 108.9 acres including constructing a shopping mall on parkland, in a private process that shut out the Queens-based Willets Point Advisory Committee from the developer selection process, contrary to multiple written promises. The fix appears to be in; let the Council now show us - and all New Yorkers - otherwise.

Political Corruption and Willets Point: The Christine Quinn Story

Wayne Barrett-as per usual-has a riveting expose of the unlikely rise of Christine Quinn to the Speakership of the City Council in 2005. The rise of this former community activist and neighborhood scourge was predicated on some good old fashioned insider trading-relying on the quid pro quo support of three of the city’s Democratic County bosses: Joe Crowley, Jose Rivera and the now disgraced Vito Lopez.

As Barrett points out:

“It was December 2005 and 39-year-old Christine Quinn, an obscure one-term Chelsea councilwoman, was on her way to the Westchester Square headquarters of the Bronx Democratic County Committee to close the deal that would make her speaker, second only to the mayor in the power she would wield in City Hall. Her path to the Council leadership—positioning her to shape the city’s fiscal and development policies for the next four, and ultimately eight years—was, by city charter design, an inside game.”

And it was a game she played well-and continued to play well as certain special interests feasted on their special relationship with the former enfant terrible of community organizing. This was seen right off the bat in 2006 when Quinn took over and rolled over for the Bronx Terminal Market and Yankee Stadium deals midwived by the Bronx political bosses:

“Just a couple of months into her speakership, in February 2006, Quinn was embroiled in the Council’s consideration of the two projects that meant more to Jose Rivera than any others in his reign as Bronx Democratic leader: the redevelopment of Yankee Stadium and the construction of the nearby Gateway Center Mall. They were giant projects – and, hence, opportunities to gather campaign contributions and political sway. (One measure of the value: between 2004 and the end of 2008, when Rivera was ousted as leader, his varied campaign committees collected $58,625 from the Yankees and the Related Companies, which built the mall).”

When both deals were concluded, the developers of the BTM and the Yankees got the goldmine and the tax payers got the shaft-a trend that was to characterize Quinn’s entire tenure as council speaker:

“The Yankees wanted a new Metro North train stop at the stadium and didn’t want to contribute a cent to the project, even though there was no money in the MTA budget to pay for it. In the final 24 hours of pre-vote negotiations at the Council, they got it, outraging The New York Times editorial board.

The size of the project meant that new parks would need to be built near the stadium, replacing old community parks. At the Yankees’ urging, the Council agreed to pay the entire cost of these parks, which would escalate from $116 million to $190 million over the life of the project. The Yankees also made it a condition of the deal that the city would pick up the cost of a 9,300-space parking garage, which totaled $100 million in direct subsidies and $278 million in tax-exempt bonds.”

The Terminal market became terminal for the 23 mostly minority wholesalers who were evicted in the ultimate sweetheart deal-these entrepreneurs were scattered to the four winds and most have gone out of business after losing the synergy of the market and its location. The developer Related, however, did a tad better owing to the close friendship between Deputy Mayor Doctoroff and Related boss Steve Ross:

“The Related Companies’ no-bid contract for the mall, approved by the Council a few weeks before the Yankees’ deal in early 2006, did not require any percentage payments to the city geared to mall revenues, unlike many projects on city-owned land. Instead, while Related earns $27 million a year from its current mall tenants, it is only paying the city $800,000 as compensation for the project. The justification is that it generates jobs – a point that Yankees President Randy Levine has made repeatedly, at one point saying critics “should be encouraging us to create jobs instead of engaging in political grandstanding.” But the pay averages $8 an hour, a thin reed on which to justify such a huge subsidy. The Council rubber-stamped these terms, and Related became one of Quinn’s biggest financial supporters, having bundled or donated $58,254 to her campaigns since 2006.”

This, as we shall see, was a harbinger of the Willets Point deal that came later.

”Roll the calendar forward to 2009. That’s when Queens leader Joe Crowley surfaced at the Council with a project of his own to champion. A member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Crowley rarely gets involved in Queens controversies. But he interjected himself into the debate over another Related Companies project: the $3 billion redevelopment of Willets Point.”

Here’s where insider trading gave way to outright corruption-with Quinn paddling along with the tide:

“It didn’t help appearances that the project was a bit of an ethical mess. Claire Shulman, the 83-year-old former Queens borough president, had set up a nonprofit local development corporation, Flushing Willets Point Corona LDC, to build grassroots support for the project. The LDC was underwritten by a $250,000 city grant and real estate interests, including Related’s co-developer on the project, Sterling Equities, the real estate arm of Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz. But Shulman had failed to register the group as a lobbyist with the city clerk and was fined $52,000 for the omission. Then she registered it, and a storm ensued, since LDCs are barred by law from lobbying the Council. The Times quoted her saying that “we lobbied the city for the city,” a statement that eventually resulted in a state attorney general’s finding that the LDC had “flouted the law” and a settlement that barred it from lobbying the Council. Quinn did not criticize the grandmotherly Shulman at the time - indeed, she shared stages with her, beaming about Willets Point – and remains silent on the lobbying gaffe.”

A true partner in crime-and Quinn made sure that the council did not do any real over sight of the Willets Point development even though it became obvious that the illegal and unethical actions of the city and its consultants were polluting the development process:

“As quickly as the cheering died down, the angry Willets Point businesses sued the city to block the project. The case dragged on until May 2012, when on the eve of an appellate review of elements of it, the Bloomberg administration suddenly withdrew its plan. The winning lawyer said: “The city knew it was going to lose.” Among other things, the city had presented two conflicting environmental impact statements, one saying that traffic on a new expressway ramp to be built for the project would boom by 50 percent, the other estimating a 15 percent increase. It held a public hearing on the project without a Spanish interpreter, though the room was filled with clamoring Hispanic businessmen.”

At every corrupt step of the way, Quinn shot down any oversight or council review-she was all in for Joe Crowley from the beginning and was not going to abandon him in his hour of need; and the EDC’s fraudulent environmental/traffic review could not garner a council oversight hearing with Quinn’s thumb on the scale.

This is depressingly similar to the deal making in the Bronx-even more so now that Related has been injected into the Willets Point deal with predictable conclusions: gone is the affoirdabkle housing, replaced by-what else?-another mall:

“Now, a revised project is back before Quinn, slated to come to a Council vote in October. Critics note that it cuts the affordable housing units in half, and that the developers may not have to build any if they delay the housing project for a decade, which they are permitted to do under the deal. The emphasis now is on a huge mall, an echo of Related’s Gateway development in the Bronx.”

This brings us to the present and the City Council’s first hearing on Willets Point scheduled for Tuesday. The signs are indeed ominous with Quinn still at the helm-but with a great deal of hope that current mayoral frontrunner will put the kibosh on this corporate welfare deal when and if he gets into office in January (Or that Bill Thompson will also set it aside when he finds out all that went into this toxic farrago).

Making things even more foreboding is that the land use subcommittee is balking at letting WPU do a 20 minute power point presentation at Tuesday’s hearing. The power point is a devastating takedown of the city’s proposal and we can understand why proponents of the project would balk at its use. But why would the council committee not want it shown? After all, the city gets unlimited time for all of its phony dog and pony shows.

Our main concern goes back to Barrett’s original thesis: the unseemly role of the county leaders in the selection of the speaker. That hasn’t really changed, and Joe Crowley still wields enormous power and he definitely doesn’t want a public exposure of all the unethical and illegal maneuvers that he has spawned and continues to sanction.

Exit question: are the aspirants for speaker blocking the Willets Point presentation for tawdry political reasons and not simply housekeeping logistics? If so, they are putting their own political ambitions before the needs of the residents of Queens, the businesses of Willets Point, and the tax payers of NYC-just like Christine Quinn has done for 8 years.

Willets Point Eminent Domain Hearing: And the Dog that Didn’t Bark

The local media did a nice job of covering the Willets Point eminent domain hearing the other week, but we all were struck by a glaring omission. As the Queens Tribune reported, a number of elected officials came out to cheer lead for the project: “Among the redevelopment’s supporters were various elected officials who represent the area, including U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley (D-Jackson Heights), State Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Flushing) and Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn (D-Flushing). “Willets Point is a gem of a resource that has gone underutilized even as more than 4 million people annually visit the attractions immediately surrounding Willets Point,” Crowley wrote in submitted testimony.”

The glaring omission? None other than the Grand Dame of Queens politics, the venerable Claire Shulman. And surely she should have been there to bless the project that, without her illegal lobbying help, might never have gotten off the ground.

But we were not surprised to see Senator Stavisky step up-after all, her son Evan the lobbyist has been making some nice money representing the Shulman illegal lobbying scheme. “These advocates included U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley (D-Jackson Heights), state Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Whitestone) and state Assemblywoman Nettie Mayersohn (D-Flushing), all of whom submitted written testimony that was read aloud by staffers. “It’s time to put Willets Point on track to become the economic hub it’s destined to be,” Stavisky said in her testimony.”

Didn’t the state senator think that she should recuse herself because of a conflict of interest? In Queens, we guess that everything is relative-including ethics.

As for the hearing itself, WPU came out in force: “Attorneys Michael Rikon and Michael Gerrard laid out a legal case against the City’s plan, promising to file a petition in an appellate-level State court shortly after the EDC’s response to the public hearing. Their clients approached the microphones after them, clutching papers with written testimony. They introduced themselves by name, then block and lot numbers. It gave a jarring, self-dehumanizing effect to their testimony, but was largely done for legal purposes.”

What’s also interesting from the Tribune’s report is that it isn’t only the Phase I property owners who are in jeopardy: “Jake Bono and Jerry Antonacci, of Bono Sawdust Supply and Crown Container respectively, drew attention to EDPL Section 401, Subset 3 Subset c. The 93-word, one-sentence paragraph gives the EDC a potential 10-year window to condemn all the remaining unsold property within Willets Point, like Antonacci and Bono’s, without subsequent public hearings.

The option becomes available if the EDC successfully sees through the condemnation of Phase 1’s still-unsold properties within three years after all legal challenges have been settled. In essence, Antonacci and Bono argued their land, though outside of Phase 1, was part of the evening’s discussion. The EDC never told them. “I was not notified the hearing would also include future condemnation of my property,” Bono said.”

But even if the state and federal regulators don’t approve the ramps, the city can still condemn all of the other properties. Does this make any sense? This entire scheme is badly in need of unraveling-something that will hopefully happen when the WPU court challenge comes down.

However, as we have said before, law enforcement should be involved because the entire development scheme has devolved from the illegal Shulman advocacy. That dog wasn’t heard at the hearing the other night, but the echoes of her previous barking nonetheless reverberated through the Flushing Library halls.