The NY Times has a wonderful feature story on Pasiana Rodriguez the sole female auto mechanic working at Willets Point:
"IT is a men-only club, these auto-repair hawkers who battle for your business as you bump your way down the pothole-pocked streets of Willets Point in Corona, Queens. At least until you get to Dacar Auto Radiator, a wedge-shaped repair shop located where — this is so Queens! — Willets Point Boulevard, 127th Street and 37th Avenue converge. Suddenly there is Pasiana Rodriguez, 43, a woman in a form-fitting jumpsuit. She waves you over and begins bargaining for the repair job before you even stop."
Pasiana and her husband Dario Carro are partners in their auto repair business and both will be ousted from their livelihood if the city exercises its eminent domain strategy at the Iron Triangle-something that Pasiana thinks is a disgrace:
"Ms. Rodriguez is like a big sister to the only other women who can be seen regularly working in this neighborhood: Latinas selling food and ices from pushcarts, and Chinese immigrants selling bootlegged DVDs from shopping bags. She is also an outspoken critic of the city’s use of eminent domain to clear out the auto businesses here, to make way for a mammoth development project. “They’re taking away our business — I may be driving one of those things soon,” she said, pointing to a man selling meat on a stick from a mobile lunch counter that he pedaled like a bicycle."
Pasiana and Dario represent hundreds of immigrant entrepreneurs that the city wants to evict from this hotbed of entrepreneurial activity-a place where hundreds of immigrant workers make a living at a useful trade. The disgrace is compounded by the fact that Mayor Bloomberg claims to be a big supporter of immigrant rights. Try telling that to the Dominican born Pasiana and her Colombian husband Dario. In every single economic development project of the mayor's-Gateway Mall in the Bronx, Flushing Commons and now Willets Point-the city is targeting immigrant businesses for extinction on behalf of rich real estate interests.
This coming Thursday Willets Point United will be having a press conference on the federal legislation that would restrict the use of eminent domain. Our own Irene Presti who owns property at the Point will be there and we are hoping that Pasiana Rodriguez will be able to join with us-because property rights is a woman's issue!
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Friday, April 6, 2012
WPU's Letter to Borough Board: Deny Willets Point Approval
In this week's Whitestone Times WPU's letter to the Queens Borough Board forcefully states that the Board should turn down the approval for Willets Point because of all of the decepotive practices and drastic changes made to the development by EDC. The Board's role is crucial because the City Council had abdicated its oversight role:
"Your role in this process is important, because during 2008 the City Council, which ordinarily would have vetted the qualifications of the proposed developer firm and its proposal, ceded its authority to do so with the understanding that the QBB would have the final say in this matter."
Here are some of the key issues we raised:
(1) Ability of the developer to actually fincnace and complete the project; With New London and Kelo fresh in our minds this is not an insignificant issue. We don't think it is wise to take away people's property only to end up with a vacant lot-as what happened to SSuzette Kelo and her neighbors;'
(1) Ability of the developer to actually fincnace and complete the project; With New London and Kelo fresh in our minds this is not an insignificant issue. We don't think it is wise to take away people's property only to end up with a vacant lot-as what happened to SSuzette Kelo and her neighbors;'
(2) City's use of an illegal lobbying effort that deprived property owners of their political rights to fair representation by funding real estate companies with a vested interest in taking away their properties;
(3) The removal by EDC of the promise of a living wage;
(4) The reneging by EDC of its promise to develop the entire 62 acres without segmentation. The creation of a "Phase I" that was never envisioned when EDC submitted the original plan for approval. As the letter states: "But the proposed Phase 1 would remediate only 12.5 acres of the entire site, leaving nearly 50 unremediated acres purportedly with the potential to recontaminate the remediated property. Phase 1 also has no provision for new Van Wyck Expressway access ramps and the city admits that the adverse traffic impacts of Phase 1 without the ramps may be as severe as those of the entire development with ramps;"
(5) The fact the Barry Grodenchik is currently deputy borough president and was a principal lobbyist for the plan; "To the best of our knowledge, Grodenchik has neither recused himself from involvement with the board’s evaluation of prospective Phase 1 developers and Willets Point property disposition, nor sought any conflict-of-interest ruling — although we believe Grodenchik should have done so."
(6) The use of eminent domain for something other than a public use: "Finally, the city is attempting to exercise eminent domain to forcibly acquire privately owned property to facilitate the proposed Phase 1. Forty-four states other than New York have enacted their own legislation to prohibit or curtail the use of eminent domain for such purposes."
As our letter concludes-urging that the borough board disapprove the project: "Thus, the proposed Phase 1 project that requires the approval of the board not only fails to realize benefits that were intended by the Council, but relies upon eminent domain abuse that violates basic constitutional rights and is contrary to public sentiment throughout this country."
Baseless Baseline
We have been trying to figure out how and why the FHWA went so thoroughly in ther tank for NYC EDC in its unprofessional approval of ramps off of the Van Wyck-and the only thing we can figure out to explain it is political interference-something we have been witnessing ever since AG Cuomo tanked the Claire Shulman investigation after Mike Bloomberg's gracious endorsement of his candidacy for governor.
Previous to that endorsement the two had been engaged in an often bitter battle over material that Cuomo's office had subpoenaed pursuant to the Shulman probe:
"Instead of complying with the records request, the city’s chief lawyer, Michael A. Cardozo, demanded a meeting with the attorney general’s office. Mr. Cuomo said that his investigators wanted to review the records before meeting with city officials. Mr. Cardozo balked. Mr. Cuomo said that if necessary, he would issue a subpoena. In one of the many exchanges between the city Law Department and the Attorney General’s office, a Bloomberg administration official said that a subpoena from the state would be seen as a hostile act, and would be remembered next year, when Mr. Cuomo is expected to run for governor."
Ah, but what a difference an endorsement makes! Not only did the Cuomo relegate the Shulman investigation to the ash heap, he went one better by appointing an old EDC hand to head the State DOT-triggering a political sea change in the agency that ran roughshod over all of the technical objections to the ramps that we had uncovered in our FOIA requests.
So we are fully aware of the mayor's boarding house reach-and how the mayor's billions impact all of this. Just last month he had a private little chat with the president:
"They traded thoughts about education, ruminated on the state of immigration and discussed the federal deficit. But most intriguingly, they talked about the future. Over a long private lunch at the White House, President Obama posed a question to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg: what are you interested in doing next? Mr. Bloomberg’s precise response is unknown. But their meeting a few weeks ago, confirmed by aides to both leaders and previously undisclosed, was potentially significant for both men, as Mr. Obama seeks support for his presidential campaign and Mr. Bloomberg ponders his post-mayoral career." (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/nyregion/at-a-private-lunch-bloomberg-and-obama-discuss-the-future.html)
"Oh, and Mr. President, there is that small matter of some ramps off of a highway in Queens. Do you think you could expedite that for me?" That couldn't have happened. Of course not. And the overturning of term limits came about because of the outpouring of popular support-right?
Which gets us to the issue of that baseline analysis. In EDC's Environmental Assessment (EA) the agency analyzes the Willets Point project with and without the ramps-even though the project cannot be built if the ramps are not approved. They never analyze the comparative impacts of the development with ramps-and no project with no ramps at all!
This is what's known in popular jargon as, "The fix is in." Is there nothing that Mike's millions can't corrupt?
Previous to that endorsement the two had been engaged in an often bitter battle over material that Cuomo's office had subpoenaed pursuant to the Shulman probe:
"Instead of complying with the records request, the city’s chief lawyer, Michael A. Cardozo, demanded a meeting with the attorney general’s office. Mr. Cuomo said that his investigators wanted to review the records before meeting with city officials. Mr. Cardozo balked. Mr. Cuomo said that if necessary, he would issue a subpoena. In one of the many exchanges between the city Law Department and the Attorney General’s office, a Bloomberg administration official said that a subpoena from the state would be seen as a hostile act, and would be remembered next year, when Mr. Cuomo is expected to run for governor."
Ah, but what a difference an endorsement makes! Not only did the Cuomo relegate the Shulman investigation to the ash heap, he went one better by appointing an old EDC hand to head the State DOT-triggering a political sea change in the agency that ran roughshod over all of the technical objections to the ramps that we had uncovered in our FOIA requests.
So we are fully aware of the mayor's boarding house reach-and how the mayor's billions impact all of this. Just last month he had a private little chat with the president:
"They traded thoughts about education, ruminated on the state of immigration and discussed the federal deficit. But most intriguingly, they talked about the future. Over a long private lunch at the White House, President Obama posed a question to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg: what are you interested in doing next? Mr. Bloomberg’s precise response is unknown. But their meeting a few weeks ago, confirmed by aides to both leaders and previously undisclosed, was potentially significant for both men, as Mr. Obama seeks support for his presidential campaign and Mr. Bloomberg ponders his post-mayoral career." (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/12/nyregion/at-a-private-lunch-bloomberg-and-obama-discuss-the-future.html)
"Oh, and Mr. President, there is that small matter of some ramps off of a highway in Queens. Do you think you could expedite that for me?" That couldn't have happened. Of course not. And the overturning of term limits came about because of the outpouring of popular support-right?
Which gets us to the issue of that baseline analysis. In EDC's Environmental Assessment (EA) the agency analyzes the Willets Point project with and without the ramps-even though the project cannot be built if the ramps are not approved. They never analyze the comparative impacts of the development with ramps-and no project with no ramps at all!
This is what's known in popular jargon as, "The fix is in." Is there nothing that Mike's millions can't corrupt?
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Virginia Joe Screws Queens
In this morning's Crain's we get a further report on the FHWA's boneheaded and indefensible decision to approve the Van Wyck ramps-against the wishes of every single Queens civic group that we have spoken to. What struck us the most was just how clueless Congressman Virginia Joe Crowley is about all this:
"The state Department of Transportation will need to approve design and construction of the ramps, but the federal approval was seen as the much bigger hurdle. Rep. Joseph Crowley played a key role in keeping the ramp issue high on the agenda of the Highway Administration and state Department of Transportation, a spokeswoman for the congressman said. Mr. Crowley stressed to them the job creating impact the project would have for Queens."
We understand why someone who lives in Virginia but who gorges at New York City feasts would be interested in all of those jobs-ca ching! We can hear all of the change being counted down at the headquarters of the Queens Democratic Party. Contractors, real estate developers, construction unions-everyone but the residents of the borough who will suffer through the gridlock that this project will create if it ever goes through. But Virginia roads will still be quite passable, thank you Joe.
But what the Crowley comment underscores is how ass backwards the regulators are. The Congressman understands that the development is contingent on the ramp approval-and by doing so dramatizes just how badly wrong the FHWA is when it accepts as its baseline the building of the development and its ridiculous assertion that the 62 acre project won't have any significant impact "on the human environment." Maybe not in Virginia.
Civic groups representing 10,000 households have resolved that the FHWA sghould hire an independent consultant to review the ramp impacts-a belief shared by the NRDC. NY's leading environmental group. But clearly, as the Crowley crowing points out, the federal agency put politics above people and it will be up to the court to put the feds in their place.
There is, however, an election in November, and it will be an opportunity for Queens' residents to put Joe Crowley in his place-right back in Virginia where he lives and belongs.
Bay Terrace, Independent Review Signed Resolution
Monday, April 2, 2012
Ramp Tramps
City Room is reporting on the FHWA's ramp approval:
"The Federal Highway Administration has removed a major obstacle to the Bloomberg administration’s plan to turn a waterlogged enclave of crumbling shops and sheds near Citi Field into a major development site. In a decision long awaited by both supporters and opponents of the project, which is to cost about $3 billion, federal officials found that it would have “no significant effect on the human environment.”
Can you imagine a decision any more clueless? 80,000 daily car and truck trips will have "no significant effect on the human environment.” If you read that and can't understand that this was a politically engineered hijacking of the regulatory process than your comprehension has been retarded by brain damage. As WPU's Mike Gerrard says:
“This decision flies in the face of the city’s own traffic studies showing that the ramps would allow intolerable traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway,” said Michael B. Gerrard, a Columbia University law professor who is also representing property owners. “We will examine the documentation underlying this action and consider our legal options.”
Indeed we will. After Kelo 44 states-but not New York-changed their eminent domain laws because they knew that the court's wrongheaded decision paved the way for crony capitalists to hot wire the local development process across the land. Now we have a stark example of that in NYC-along with a federal agency beclowning itself on behalf of a rich parvenu like Bloomberg. The stunning incompetency of the state and federal regulators is about to be exposed. Stay tuned because the fat lady has yet to even clear her throat.
"The Federal Highway Administration has removed a major obstacle to the Bloomberg administration’s plan to turn a waterlogged enclave of crumbling shops and sheds near Citi Field into a major development site. In a decision long awaited by both supporters and opponents of the project, which is to cost about $3 billion, federal officials found that it would have “no significant effect on the human environment.”
Can you imagine a decision any more clueless? 80,000 daily car and truck trips will have "no significant effect on the human environment.” If you read that and can't understand that this was a politically engineered hijacking of the regulatory process than your comprehension has been retarded by brain damage. As WPU's Mike Gerrard says:
“This decision flies in the face of the city’s own traffic studies showing that the ramps would allow intolerable traffic on the Van Wyck Expressway,” said Michael B. Gerrard, a Columbia University law professor who is also representing property owners. “We will examine the documentation underlying this action and consider our legal options.”
Indeed we will. After Kelo 44 states-but not New York-changed their eminent domain laws because they knew that the court's wrongheaded decision paved the way for crony capitalists to hot wire the local development process across the land. Now we have a stark example of that in NYC-along with a federal agency beclowning itself on behalf of a rich parvenu like Bloomberg. The stunning incompetency of the state and federal regulators is about to be exposed. Stay tuned because the fat lady has yet to even clear her throat.
Federal Crimes and Misdemeanors
We have been informed that the FHWA has approved the proposed ramps off of the Van Wyck-in a letter sent by the local FHWA office to NYS DOT (of which we have gotten a copy of). Apparently the basis of the agency's decision is that the ramps will mitigate traffic on the highway but, in making that assertion the Feds are using the Willets Point development as a given. Without getting too technical the FHWA is using the built project as its baseline for making the judgment that the ramps will mitigate rather than exacerbate highway traffic.
Lost in this spectacularly inane judgment is that the ramp approval is itself the linchpin of the ability of the city to go forward with the Willets Point project-and the FHWA needed to use the "no build" scenario as its baseline. if it did there is simply no way that the ramps can pass the federal agency's own rigorous criteria.
Think of it. If you assume that the project is built-putting the ramp approval cart before the project being built horse-than anything that the city does-including building a stairway to heaven-can be seen as mitigating of the 80,000 daily car and truck trips. With this logic you don't need any stinkin' traffic studies-and the back and forth between the DOT and the FHWA for the past three years has been a pathetic sideshow.
Make no mistake the FHWA's decision is an example of agency incontinence and the result is that the regulators have befouled themselves and open themselves up to a massive lawsuit that will expose their incompetence as regulators as well as the way in which this process has been politically hijacked by the mayor and the governor acting in collusion.
Ever since the mayor endorsed AG Cuomo on September, 6, 2010-and the governor elect went on to appoint Joan McDonald (a former VP for transportation at EDC)-we knew that the fix was in. This in spite of the fact that five local civic associations representing 10,000 households have called on the FHWA to conduct an independent study of these traffic clogging ramps.
So we will do what we must and the NYSDOT-now a wholly owned subsidiary of Mike Bloomberg-and the Feds can expect a federal lawsuit that will expose the way in which the regulatory process has been hijacked by behind the scenes skulduggery. In New York the crony capitalist rule but their day may be waning as the Congress looks to pass the Private Property Protection Act. Until it does no one's property in NY is safe from Blomberg, Cuomo and their rich cohort of friends.
Lost in this spectacularly inane judgment is that the ramp approval is itself the linchpin of the ability of the city to go forward with the Willets Point project-and the FHWA needed to use the "no build" scenario as its baseline. if it did there is simply no way that the ramps can pass the federal agency's own rigorous criteria.
Think of it. If you assume that the project is built-putting the ramp approval cart before the project being built horse-than anything that the city does-including building a stairway to heaven-can be seen as mitigating of the 80,000 daily car and truck trips. With this logic you don't need any stinkin' traffic studies-and the back and forth between the DOT and the FHWA for the past three years has been a pathetic sideshow.
Make no mistake the FHWA's decision is an example of agency incontinence and the result is that the regulators have befouled themselves and open themselves up to a massive lawsuit that will expose their incompetence as regulators as well as the way in which this process has been politically hijacked by the mayor and the governor acting in collusion.
Ever since the mayor endorsed AG Cuomo on September, 6, 2010-and the governor elect went on to appoint Joan McDonald (a former VP for transportation at EDC)-we knew that the fix was in. This in spite of the fact that five local civic associations representing 10,000 households have called on the FHWA to conduct an independent study of these traffic clogging ramps.
So we will do what we must and the NYSDOT-now a wholly owned subsidiary of Mike Bloomberg-and the Feds can expect a federal lawsuit that will expose the way in which the regulatory process has been hijacked by behind the scenes skulduggery. In New York the crony capitalist rule but their day may be waning as the Congress looks to pass the Private Property Protection Act. Until it does no one's property in NY is safe from Blomberg, Cuomo and their rich cohort of friends.
The Quintessential Hypocrite
We did a commentary last week on the hypocrisy of Speaker Christine Quinn, the newly minted crony capitalist of NYC-and her outrageous exemption of living wage from the Hudson Yards project: "A large portion of the Hudson Yards project, a 26-acre mixed-use development along the city’s Far West Side, is specifically excluded from the proposed so-called living wage legislation in a draft that was written by Ms. Quinn’s office and is now circulating among supporters of the bill."
We also pointed out that the exclusion of retail tenants from the bill was another bennie to Related and its trade association best bud, the NYC Partnership. Well, it's nice to see that the NY Post has noticed this as well-first in yesterday's column by Michael Goodwin:
"Quinn ducked the bill for nearly two years, but now endorses a compromise measure that would not cover the workers of tenants in the developments, including retail workers. That was the first straddle.The second is the plan to exempt part of Hudson Yards being developed by Related Companies. The New York Times reports that Related employees contributed $34,200 to Quinn’s campaign. Probably just a coincidence, right?"
Now the Post editorial board jumps in and points a finger at the mayoral wannabee's hypocrisy:
"To the surprise — and consternation — of some, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has moved to exempt part of a major Manhattan development project from her economically corrosive “living wage” bill.The Related Cos. won a carve-out from the bill for a significant chunk of Hudson Yards, the 26-acre mixed-use development along the West Side.The bill would require developers like Related and other companies that receive city subsidies to pay their workers at least $10 — and as much as $11.50 — an hour, far above the state’s minimum wage.Why the special treatment for Related in this instance?"
It's pretty simple: "Well, it certainly doesn’t hurt that the firm has taken quite a liking to mayoral wannabe Quinn, with its employees thus far donating $34,200 to her campaign." And the crony capitalism stinks to high hell:
"Her proposal plays both sides of the issue — scoring points with the unions, who desperately want the bill, while covering the back of a key developer and campaign supporter.But, not to coin a phrase, her approach protects the 1 percent of developers — big players like Related — while forcing the 99 percent to carry the burden of the bill’s business-stifling effect."
But this is exactly what the mayor and the speaker did when they colluded on eliminating the living wage provision from the Willets Point development-after all the council negotiated this benefit as part of its approval for the massive project. But when EDC took it out of phony Phase I Speaker Quinn was in her room recovering from lockjaw. (http://www.willetspoint.org/search?q=living+wage)
All of this explains why it is so important for the US Senate to pass H.R. 1433, the Private Property Protection Act-a bill that would prevent the use of eminent domain for economic development projects like Willets Point. If the city did use condemnation for this it would face the loss of all federal economic development funds-and so would NY State, if the bill becomes law.
With crony capitalists like Bloomberg and Quinn, small property owners and all homeowners are unsafe-and their possessions are fair game for the condemners. We will soon see who will stand up for property rights. Senator Gillibrand has yet to answer our letter but a reckoning will soon be coming.
We also pointed out that the exclusion of retail tenants from the bill was another bennie to Related and its trade association best bud, the NYC Partnership. Well, it's nice to see that the NY Post has noticed this as well-first in yesterday's column by Michael Goodwin:
"Quinn ducked the bill for nearly two years, but now endorses a compromise measure that would not cover the workers of tenants in the developments, including retail workers. That was the first straddle.The second is the plan to exempt part of Hudson Yards being developed by Related Companies. The New York Times reports that Related employees contributed $34,200 to Quinn’s campaign. Probably just a coincidence, right?"
Now the Post editorial board jumps in and points a finger at the mayoral wannabee's hypocrisy:
"To the surprise — and consternation — of some, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has moved to exempt part of a major Manhattan development project from her economically corrosive “living wage” bill.The Related Cos. won a carve-out from the bill for a significant chunk of Hudson Yards, the 26-acre mixed-use development along the West Side.The bill would require developers like Related and other companies that receive city subsidies to pay their workers at least $10 — and as much as $11.50 — an hour, far above the state’s minimum wage.Why the special treatment for Related in this instance?"
It's pretty simple: "Well, it certainly doesn’t hurt that the firm has taken quite a liking to mayoral wannabe Quinn, with its employees thus far donating $34,200 to her campaign." And the crony capitalism stinks to high hell:
"Her proposal plays both sides of the issue — scoring points with the unions, who desperately want the bill, while covering the back of a key developer and campaign supporter.But, not to coin a phrase, her approach protects the 1 percent of developers — big players like Related — while forcing the 99 percent to carry the burden of the bill’s business-stifling effect."
But this is exactly what the mayor and the speaker did when they colluded on eliminating the living wage provision from the Willets Point development-after all the council negotiated this benefit as part of its approval for the massive project. But when EDC took it out of phony Phase I Speaker Quinn was in her room recovering from lockjaw. (http://www.willetspoint.org/search?q=living+wage)
All of this explains why it is so important for the US Senate to pass H.R. 1433, the Private Property Protection Act-a bill that would prevent the use of eminent domain for economic development projects like Willets Point. If the city did use condemnation for this it would face the loss of all federal economic development funds-and so would NY State, if the bill becomes law.
With crony capitalists like Bloomberg and Quinn, small property owners and all homeowners are unsafe-and their possessions are fair game for the condemners. We will soon see who will stand up for property rights. Senator Gillibrand has yet to answer our letter but a reckoning will soon be coming.
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