Willets West Mall on Parkland

Memo to Council Members Ferreras, Comrie and Weprin:

Crain's is reporting your last-ditch maneuvers to make the city "guarantee payment of $70 million to erect ramps" to and from the Van Wyck Expressway, without which NO housing may be built at Willets Point.

Apparently, you are DISREGARDING a primary objection of the community to the entire proposed project: the 1.4 million square foot shopping mall that would be built on 30+ acres of Queens parkland. Opposition to that mall on public parkland includes the Queens Civic Congress, which consists of 100+ civic associations throughout Queens; the Roosevelt Avenue Community Alliance, which recognizes that a mall at that location will destroy and displace numerous family-run businesses in Corona and Jackson Heights; and Queens Community Board 3, which voted 30-1 to DENY this application in part because CB3 opposes the mall on parkland; among many other groups that are opposed because of the MALL.

Regardless of whether or not the City provides $70 million for highway ramps, the community DOES NOT WANT THE PROJECT, because of the mall on parkland. Therefore, if you respect the will of the people, you will vote "NO".

But even if you succeed in obtaining an ironclad guarantee from the City of $70 million for highway ramps – and we don't believe an ironclad guarantee is possible now – that alone still does NOTHING to guarantee the housing and affordable housing, which a large sector of project opponents wants to see built. That's because regardless of the
availability of $70 million, the project contract between Sterling/Related and NYCEDC still allows Sterling/Related to pay a cost-of-doing-business penalty of $35 million (in 2025), and build NO housing. Moreover, simply setting aside $70 million for highway ramps does not alter the text of the contract which states: "For the avoidance of doubt, in no event shall EDC or the City be required to construct the Ramps as part of the Development." [Contract Section 3.3.]

As long as those two clear contract provisions remain in effect, there still is NO CLEAR PATH to construct any housing or affordable housing at Willets Point. Thus, if you insist on ignoring the community's outrage over a mall being constructed on 30+ acres of Queens parkland, and want to push for housing, then you must not only obtain $70 million that is necessary for the Van Wyck ramps, but you must also REQUIRE that the project contract be revised so that the City guarantees to construct the Van Wyck ramps, and so that NO option exists for Sterling/Related to buy their way out of constructing the housing by paying a penalty. The construction of the ramps and the housing must
be guaranteed.

We repeat – Obtaining $70 million for highway ramps does not address the overriding problem with this project: the construction of a huge mall on parkland; AND, it alone does not and cannot guarantee that any housing will ever be constructed, because the project contract still contains escape clauses. It is the project contract that will
determine, years from now, what the parties are actually obligated to do.

The pending ULURP application of Sterling/Related has been rushed to coincide with the end of Mayor Bloomberg's final term, and the integrity of the Willets Point project originally approved by the City Council in 2008 – which involved NO mall on parkland – has been sacrificed. None of that is necessary. Denying this ULURP application of Sterling/Related will allow the next City administration to take a fresh look at this project, and to ensure that its goals – including
prioritized affordable housing – are respected, not evaded by a developer.

Sincerely,

The membership of Willets Point United Inc.

Haber’s Sound Advice: Ignore Julissa Ferreras

In this week’s Times Ledger Ben Haber issues some sound advice to the city council: Ignore Julissa Ferreras because the violation of law involved in the current city proposal to build a mall on CitiField’s parking lot is too egregious to allow one council member’s lack of intelligence to prevail:

“For too long there has been an unwritten law that in connection with legislation pending before the New York City Council, the Council member whose district encompasses the area on which there may be an impact has the say on whether the legislation should be enacted or rejected. Not only does this not comport with legitimate democratic processes, but it ignores the fact that a single Council member does not speak for all the residents of a district and ignores the fact there may be an impact upon an entire borough as well as the city.”

The question of whom Ferreras actually speaks for is an open one, but we can discount any notion that she speaks for the public interest. Her apparent support of a mall on parkland is a case in point:

“To allow this deception is to sanction the taking of a huge section of Flushing Meadows Corona Park land on which the current lot sits and to sanction a significant land use change without the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure. All Council members, guardians of the public’s interests, must protect the integrity of ULURP and land use change for the entire city. To ignore that duty is to lay the groundwork for further intrusions in the future in other Council districts.”

Haber goes on to underscore why Ferreras is wrong about Willets West:

“While I am uncertain as to where Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst) stands on the issue, from what I have heard her say, she supports the mall. If she does, I urge all Council members to make an independent judgment and not accord Ferreras any greater weight. Not only should they give great weight to the attempt to bypass a mall ULURP and land use change requirements, they should consider the effect a shopping mall will have on the hundreds of small merchants and existing malls throughout Queens and the city and the traffic congestion it will cause on the Grand Central Parkway, the Van Wyck Expressway, Northern Boulevard and Roosevelt Avenue.”

Her lack of sensibility on this issue is highlighted by her support of a BID in the contiguous commercial areas around the proposed mall-a proposal that has drawn the fire of local merchants:

“Some business owners are saying no to the expansion that would bring a business improvement district (BID) to the Jackson Heights and Corona area for fear of losing what makes the community diverse.
The 82nd Street Partnership, a non-profit group promoting the current local BID covering four blocks and over 160 businesses, announced in March it would be extending all the way through 114th Street as part of Councilmember Julissa Ferreras’ New Deal for Roosevelt Avenue to form the Jackson Heights-Corona BID.”

The crackpot idea that promoting a BID will mitigate the impact of a 1.4 million square foot mall as a neighbor gives a god indication of the lucidity of the council member’s thinking process. In fact, the BID-by raising the rents of store owners-will only exacerbate a bad situation and make it that much worse:

“The commercial rents are extremely high,” said Ruben Pena, a liquor store owner and community activist. “The community is going to get hurt. They are fighting to make ends meet.” The BID expansion is a component of Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras’ “New Deal” for Roosevelt Ave., which focused on cleaning up the corridor, which cuts through several Queens neighborhoods. Ferreras cites safety issues, poor lighting and cleanliness as the top complaints among residents.  

“The current problems on Roosevelt Ave. hurt everyone,” Ferreras said in a statement. “This is why I believe a business improvement district is a solution to this problem.” 

Ferreras is, unfortunately, going nowhere for the next four years. But that doesn’t prevent more intelligent members of the council from interceding in an intervention to promote good government. Haber is right, and he deserves the final word:

“If great weight is to be given to a particular area, the Council should take note that Ferreras’ district contains Community Board 3, which, after conducting a ULURP on the amendment to allow a parking lot at Willets Point, rejected the application with a vote of 30-1 with 1 abstention. That rejection made clear the board was not going to allow a phony amendment to the 2008 plan as a cover-up for a 1.4-million-square-foot shopping mall.

It is CB 3 that speaks for the community and not Ferreras. I believe all of the above are good reasons why allowing a single Council member to decide if a bill should or should not be enacted has no place in our Council.”

Julissa Ferreras, Honor, and the Dereliction of Responsibility

We are winding down towards the final City Council determination of the fate of the city’s bastardized Willets Point development, and the whereabouts of the local accidental council member, Julissa Ferreras are unknown. Ferreras has flown the coop-at least as far as the property owners from the area are concerned-and has refused to meet with the representatives of Willets Point United. Even her staff has stonewalled the meeting. Not only that, but it seems that Ferreras has encouraged other council members to do the same because WPU has found it hard to get meetings with her colleagues.

Frankly, we’re not really surprised since we have known that Julissa is simply over her head, and the less frequently she meets with principled opponents of the project, the less likely the world will be apprised of her inadequacies. Here is someone who owes her job to the since departed Hiram Monserrate and at the first sign of trouble for her former boss, simply threw him under the bus, Character she doesn’t have. But what about those Hispanic businesses that she is “championing?”

Ferreras makes a great deal about these immigrant workers and entrepreneurs-posturing mightily at the recent land use hearing about their plight, and excoriating city officials for their failure to do what they said they would for the relocation of the businesses and their employees. But no one really takes the scarecrow seriously and we wouldn’t be surprised if they break down in guffaws when they repair back to their offices. Ferreras isn’t someone that they have any regard for, and her threats are little more than meaningless woof tickets.
That is why the community came out so strongly on Sunday to give Ferreras an ultimatum on the Willets Point bait and switch giveaway. El Diario has the story:

“Community leaders and residents of Corona, Queens, marched yesterday to protest the planned construction of a large shopping center in Willets Point, who say it would not consider the needs of this largely Latino community. The demonstrators claimed not to protest because they are opposed to urban development, but by the lack of assurance that the promoters keep the promises they had made initially to improve conditions in the area.”

The protest was about the removal of the affordable housing component of the development plan-and the negative impact of yet another mall:

“One of the biggest complaints is that it ensures that it will build over 2,000 units of affordable housing, as stated initially, and also that the City has not taken into account the possible negative impact this construction will have for the small businesses in the area. "Right now I'm not doing business, and if they build the mall would be my death," said Luis Gonzalez, who runs a bodega on Avenue 41, a few blocks from Willets Point. "They said that if they build it would create jobs, but I do not trust anything."

Other residents complain that there are enough malls in the area and that another would not create the kind of jobs that are needed.”

What the residents realize-and what the original city council approval recognized-was that minimum wage retail is not real economic development-and that was why the council included an “historic” living wage provision in the original approval. That provision is now truly historic because it has been relegated to the dustbin of history-eliminated as another aspect of the city’s bait and switch. Listen to the wisdom of the residents-some of whom would make a better elected official than the current cero a la izquiereda:

“I know from my own experience that the mall jobs are not good for families," said Maria Alvarez, who works as a clerk at JC Penney in Queens Mall shopping center and took part in the march as a member of Make the Road."Most workers only earn minimum wage and have to have two or three jobs to live.”

Ferreras knows all of this but has no backbone-or the wherewithal to actually lead a real opposition that would extract significant concessions. Hiram Monserrate did any number of things that deserve our scorn-and putting Julissa Ferreras in as his replacement ranks right up there at the top of his many failings.

A Really Bad Bid

The Daily News is reporting that CM Ferreras is looking to create (expand) a Business Improvement District in Jackson Heights/Corona-and the store owners, as they should be, are not enthralled with the idea:

“An ambitious proposal to create one of the city’s largest business improvement districts in mostly immigrant Jackson Heights and Corona would hasten gentrification and spoil the area’s Mom and Pop character, business owners charge.

The 82nd St. Partnership currently encompasses eight blocks and 125 businesses — but the proposed Jackson Heights Corona BID would cover Roosevelt Ave. from 82nd St. to 114th St. and include roughly 1,000 businesses, said Partrship executive director Seth Taylor.”

These BIDs were the brainchild of former Bronx assemblyman John Dearie, and they were designed to augment the declining city services that were so emblematic of the decades of the 1970s and 1980s. What they do, however, is to tax the store owners for those services that the city itself should be supplying-a double taxation at a time when small stores are under siege. In addition, the merchants are afraid that the effort will eventually lead to their displacement through gentrification:

“That potential expansion has some immigrant merchants concerned they will be priced out of the neighborhood and the area will lose its trademark character.

“They are going to standardize Roosevelt Ave.,” crowed Freddy Castiblanco, owner of Terraza 7, a bar and jazz club. “They want to clean Roosevelt Ave. of that diversity.”Castiblanco and other local Hispanic entrepreneurs formed the Roosevelt Avenue Community Alliance to block the BID plan.”

But this all goes back to the issue of rising rents and the city’s record high levels of store closings and bankruptcies:

“The group rallied Sunday against the sweeping overhaul — which would require each shop owner to pay a fee for sanitation, security and other services once provided exclusively by the city with regular tax money. “The commercial rents are extremely high,” said Ruben Pena, a liquor store owner and community activist. “The community is going to get hurt. They are fighting to make ends meet.”

CM Ferreras is pushing this deal, but should be careful of alienating those store owners who look to their Hispanic leadership to protect their interests. Her “New Deal” for the area could, like urban renewal, help real estate interests while hurting the store owners who truly represent the immigrant American Dream:

“The BID expansion is a component of Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras’ “New Deal” for Roosevelt Ave., which focused on cleaning up the corridor, which cuts through several Queens neighborhoods. Ferreras cites safety issues, poor lighting and cleanliness as the top complaints among residents.

“The current problems on Roosevelt Ave. hurt everyone,” Ferreras said in a statement. “This is why I believe a business improvement district is a solution to this problem.”

The problems may be real, but the solution offered may be worse than the disease if it leads to the loss of these immigrant businesses. We have just concluded an election where Speaker Quinn got thrashed because she forgot her roots. Ferreras should view that as a cautionary tale.

Park and Deride: City Council Confronted on Parkland Issue

One of the more powerful moments in last Tuesday’s hearing - no, it didn’t come from CM Ferreras’s desultory and confused questions designed to cover up her intentions to throw all of the opponents under the EDC bus - came when Geoffrey Croft testified about the parkland issue. His testimony seemed to capture the attention of Chairman Comrie-and underscores the importance of the letter WPU has sent to Council legal eagle Elizabeth Fine asking that she render a legal opinion on the assertion by Corporation Counsel that a Robert Moses-inspired 1961 memorandum obviates the need for the land in question to go through the alienation process. Here is Croft’s testimony:

Good Afternoon,

My name is Geoffrey Croft, president and founder of NYC Park Advocates.

It is truly a sad day when we are talking about a plan that seizes 48 acres of public parkland in Flushing Meadow-Corona Park to allow one of the country's largest developers to build the largest mall New York City. 

Sounds inconceivable right?  Just when you thought this administration couldn't get any lower here we are today. 

The 48 acres of public parkland was NEVER part of the original plan in anyway. In any way and it certainly was never approved by the City Council.  This is nothing but an end run around the law and City Council will be complicit when you/if you rubber stamp its approval.   

If the 48 acres of public park land they are attempting to seize for the project are no longer needed for parking than it should revert back to its original use. This is what our elected officials should be pushing for instead allowing our public spaces to be given away to politically connected developers. 

The City Council has a legal obligation to protect public parkland and that certainly includes not giving it away to private developers.   There are a number of legal issues surrounding the attempted disposition of this public land.  Last week we were signatures on a letter, along with Willets Point United, which was sent to City Council lawyers Elizabeth Fine and Gary Altman requesting a legal opinion from the Council on these issues, a copy of which I have provided today.  

The City Council has a legal obligation to do its due diligence on this important issue before any decisions are made. It's telling that less than three minutes have been spent talking about the parkland during this hearing.  

Let's be very clear:  The 1961 statute that the city and the applicants are so desperately trying to rely on in order to justify being allowed to develop the public parkland for non-park purposes does not permit a shopping mall, much less a 1.4 million square foot mall.    

Administrative Code 18-118 explicitly states that any monies gained from a temporary lease on the property must go back into the property. Back Into The Property not line the pockets of Related or Sterling Equity. 

To quote the law directly, the revenue must aid "in the financing of the construction and operation of such stadium, grounds, parking areas and facilities, and any additions, alterations or improvements thereto, or to the equipment thereof." 

Clearly this is not the case unless the applicant is representing that this is being done to off-set unfortunate investments made by the Wilpons.  Is that the plan?

Clearly the intention of the law was not to allow any project to make a permanent claim on the parkland or its facilities, because the revenue was supposed to fund the property.

The law simply does not authorize the Willets West project. It does not enable use of the parking lot or authorize retail stores - and certainly something that is primarily a shopping mall.

The bill does say trade and commerce, but that obviously refers to conventions, not stores. Obviously a shopping mall was never intended as the bill language states.

The park land we are talking about here today for this irresponsible project was never alienated as required under state law nor are they planning to nor are they planning to replace it if approved. 

By law PARKS ARE NOT allowed to be used for such non-park purposes. In fact State law -which our elected officials have taken an oath to uphold - prohibit such commercial development.

If ever there was a poster child for non-park purposes-building the city's largest mall would be it. 

This is public park land and it does NOT belong to Mayor Bloomberg or to Seth Pinsky, the Related Companies or the Wilpons - it belongs to the people of the city of New York. 

The proposed giveaway of public park is being done simply to sweeten the deal for Related so they have a guaranteed revenue stream "up front" in order to help them off-set their investments in building the rest of the Willets Point.  

This is disgraceful.   This plan is about greed pure and simple. It is a nightmare for the residents of Queens in so many ways and for the city's taxpayers at large who are greatly subsidizing this project. 

The corporate welfare must end. 

Thank you

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.

The Cornerstone of Deception

As the WSJ is reporting, some significant snags have been developing over alleged relocation plans to help the tenant businesses over at Willets Point:

“A cluster of several hundred auto-body repair shops and junkyards near Citi Field in Queens has proven resilient to changes that have transformed other parts of the city, but that too could soon come to an end.

About 90 tenants in the so-called Iron Triangle have received letters offering them a payment equal to a year's rent at their current location if they leave by the end of November to make way for the first phase of a more than 60-acre redevelopment of Willets Point that will eventually include a school, retail and housing.” 

The deal, however, is fool’s gold and is little more than a bus ticket out of town for these immigrant Hispanic business owners:

“City officials have long said that relocation would be necessary to realize the redevelopment vision. But some tenants have been pushing to relocate in a large group or groups and to recreate elsewhere in the city their unique ecosystem of shops that change tires, reupholster seats and repair mufflers.

Tenants said they fear the money is being offered in lieu of such a plan.”

And they are right, because EDC has retained (with no bidding of course) the Cornerstone Group to aid in the relocation effort:

“The city appointed Cornerstone Group, a real-estate firm, to help with individual and group relocation. The company has shown tenants about 140 sites suitable for one or multiple businesses.

But some tenants complained that those sites have been unsuitable. Many said their current rent is less than $1,500 a month, but rents for typical industrial sites are several times that.

"A $1,250, $1,300 rent—what would it help? Nobody wants to give us a $1,300 place," said Vijay Kumar, the 38-year-old owner E.T. Tires.”

As Yogi Berra might have said, this is déjà vu all over again. Cornerstone was assigned the task of relocating the wholesalers in the Bronx Terminal Market-and in the seven years since the eviction of the businesses very few remain in operation. Why? Because their success was predicated on their synergy-their ability to piggyback on each others’ customer traffic. Left alone, they went under. 

And history is repeating itself-the Willets Pointers should be aware of the tactic to get rid of their nuisance presence:

“To get the full amount, they would need to leave in four months, which they said doesn't give them time to find a site that could accommodate dozens of businesses, much like a large relocation of the Fulton Fish Market.

"In order to actually avail themselves of the funds they need to give up where they are currently operating and move to some fictitious place that does not exist," said Ted De Barbieri, an attorney at the Urban Justice Center who represents 55 businesses that want to relocate together.

Tenants said remaining together is essential to their continued survival because it will help ensure customers continue to frequent the group of businesses, which have become famous for offering below-market-price car repairs to customers that they say come from Queens, Long Island, upstate New York and even Pennsylvania.”

Let’s keep in mind that the city is giving away to the mayor’s cronies (Related and Sterling Equities) the land it had purchased for $200 million! That’s not all. The city is also ponying up an additional $99 million for “remediation”-all of this money was supposed to be put up by the eventual developer when the city council approved this development in 2008. So, once again, Related (and Sterling) get the goldmine, and small minority businesses get the shaft.

Put simply, the relocation is a fiction designed to remove the “eyesore” while pretending otherwise. Even the money is questionable-with CM Julissa Ferreras claiming credit for funds obtained five years ago by her former boss Hiram Monseratte:

“City Council Member Julissa Ferreras, who represents the area and is credited for helping to find the $3.5 million for relocation, has been a vocal advocate for group relocation. A spokeswoman said she remains committed to finding a site for tenants to move in large groups.

"I have always advocated for the EDC to relocate the Willets Point businesses as a group," Ms. Ferreras said. "There are ongoing negotiations to make sure that these businesses are given a fair deal by the EDC and any potential developers."

What does this actually mean? Will CM Ferreras urge her colleagues on the city council to vote down the project-one where affordable housing is a player to be named later? If Julissa really wants to take credit here she needs to show some real backbone and insist that this sham development be laid over for the next mayor and City Council Speaker to decide. Will she?

The plight of the tenant businesses-and at one point there were over 200 such firms and over 2,000 workers at the Iron Triangle-is just one glaring example of the mess that the Bloomberg administration has created at Willets Point.

The use of condemnation, illegal lobbying, fraud about the nature of the deal-the laundry list of deception is a long one. And now, the icing on the cake: the Cornerstone Group brought in- like Kabuki theater-to pretend to help the existing auto businesses when its actual goal is to make these struggling immigrants simply disappear.

Crain’s Corrects

In the Tuesday edition of the Crain’s Insider, the newsletter had alleged that the cause of Willets Point United lacked any community based support. After WPU contacted Crain’s, the following was reported: “Property owners fighting a proposed redevelopment in Willets Point dispute yesterday's Insider report that “no community groups stand against the project.” Six Queens groups sent letters in early 2010 objecting to elements of the development. They called for an independent review of the Van Wyck Expressway ramps proposed for the project. Several letters oppose the ramps and call for a moratorium on the use of eminent domain, which may be necessary to clear the project site.”

In addition, the newsletter had also alleged that no council member was supporting the property owners. Certainly, if CM Halloran’s comments at the eminent domain hearing from the other week, he most assuredly can be placed squarely in the corner of WPU in its effort. But what of the other elected officials?

It is quite true that Halloran, and to some extent CM Ferreras for the WP workers, has been a lone voice. But is this a result of the inability of the lobbyist? Or is it something other than that? After all, to see so many elected officials remain silent in the face of injustice is their shame, one that can’t be shared with anyone else.

Whither Claire?

Speaking of injustice, why is no one pursuing the “open” investigation of the former borough president? After all, it was the former Attorney General that allegedly opened it, but allowed it to languish all the way up and through the endorsement of Mayor Mike Bloomberg-and beyond into the new administration of AG Schneiderman.
The investigation of corruption apparently is a quite selective process. We read this morning that the new attorney general is on the corruption beat-going after one of his former state senate colleagues. As Daily Politics points out: “Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has slapped subpoenas on education outfits with ties to Queens state Sen. Shirley Huntley, the Daily News has learned. Our Ken Lovett brings us this exclusive report in today's editions: One subpoena seeking the nonprofit's paperwork went to Huntley's daughter, Pamela Corley, who heads the Parent Information Network, said a source familiar with the probe. A second went to Vanessa Sparks, president of the Parent Workshop, which Huntley created before becoming a senator, the source said.The subpoenas are said to seek information on how the groups used state grants.”

There is, however, no more obvious an illegality than the one committed by Claire Shulman-committed in the name of EDC as it happens. To review: Claire Shulman has admitted to the NY Times: "That was the whole idea. We lobbied the City for the City." (Rivera, Ray. 2009. New York Paid To Lobby Itself, Group Claims. New York Times, August 21, Sec. A.)

Mayor Bloomberg has admitted to the TimesLedger newspapers: "These groups [local development corporations] are designed to lobby. I don't know if they technically broke the law." (Duke, Nathan and Gustafson, Anna. 2009. Bloomberg defends Shulman in Willets Point flap, TimesLedger, August, 27.)

Notwithstanding the clear admissions of Shulman and Bloomberg: The attempt by Shulman's local development corporation ("LDC") to influence the City Council's legislative adoption of Resolutions approving the Willets Point development (including authorization to use eminent domain to acquire property) is contrary to both §1411 of the NYS Not-For-Profit Corporation Law under which all LDCs are organized as well as the Certificate of Incorporation of Shulman's LDC. NYCEDC is likewise an LDC which is subject to the absolute prohibition of attempting to influence legislation that is imposed by §1411, and that is also reiterated within NYCEDC's Certificate of Incorporation.

And there’s strong evidence that not only was Shulman was successful, but that she was the linchpin of the ULURP application being approved. Now, we can’t say for certain what would have happened if EDC hadn’t illegally hire her, but her impact was undeniable-as Juan Gonzales reported at the time.

Claire organized the unions to support the Willets Point development, and their support proved to be a turning point-something that then CM Monseratte has admitted. The bottom line here is that Shulman’s LDC was set up almost exclusively as a lobbying entity, and this crass violation of the law is being allowed to stand-although it could soon become an integral thread in upcoming lawsuits brought against the city.

However, it shouldn’t be up to small property owners like ourselves to bring this issue before the court. Our message to AG Schniederman is a simple one: Please enforce the law without fear or favor.

Willets Pt. invasion targeted area businesses

Letter to the Flushing Times:

The well-known dialogue between Joseph Welch and then-U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the U.S. Army hearings, when Welch finally toppled McCarthy by accusing the senator of having no shame or decency in his treatment of a young Army lawyer, has been referred to on many parallel occasions when public officials have acted in an outrageous manner.

To those officials I nominate Mayor Michael Bloomberg for his abominable conduct in the case of Willets Point. In pursuing this questionable project for the benefit of his fat cat real estate friends, Bloomberg has been indifferent to the fact that hundreds of small businesses with thousands of their employees and their families will be thrown to the winds, he has failed to live up to his claim that other locations and jobs will be made available and he will prostitute the time-honored fact that eminent domain is only used for a public purpose and not for the benefit of real estate moguls.

To cap it all off, on Dec. 8, in a banana republic fashion, the antithesis of good government, the mayor unleashed his storm troopers onto Willets Point in an obvious attempt to harass and intimidate the small businesses and their employees and customers. Julie Wood, a city Economic Development Corp. spokeswoman, denied the invasion was to target the small businesses, saying, “That’s not how the city does business.”

That is nonsense because that is how the arrogant Bloomberg administration does business (“Ferreras looking into raid at Willets Point,” Flushing Times, Dec. 16-22).

At long last, Mr. Mayor, have you no shame? Have you no sense of decency?

Benjamin M. Haber
Flushing

Lies fed to us by the City

From Queens Crap:

The City's Economic Development Corporation and City Council Member Julissa Ferreras are telling property owners, business owners and workers not to worry about the letter that will be going out soon that will notify them of an eminent domain hearing (which is still going to happen, but has been postponed). They are telling affected parties that the letter sounds scarier than it is because of its official wording and that it doesn't mean that their property will be seized anytime soon.

----REALITY CHECK----

According to the Institute for Justice:

"ALL evidence must be submitted at this first hearing. Anything not submitted at this hearing can't be used as evidence in later proceedings. It is absolutely critical that every single piece of information that shows the city's purposeful neglect of Willets Point be submitted at this hearing."

Unlike some others, we weren't fooled and we'll be ready.