Bidding Adieu to Christine Quinn

As Malcolm said in Macbeth, so we can say about the departing Speaker Quinn: “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it.” Her departure is most welcome for those of us who have had the distinct displeasure to watch as she has devolved form a somewhat principled community activist into a blatant shill for the real estate industry-from the Bronx Terminal Market to Willets Point, she has never taken a stand for either small businesses or communities under siege from over-development.

Even when Quinn did take a stand in her career-joining opponents of Costco in Hell’s Kitchen and those fighting the Kingsbridge Armory development in the Bronx-she did so by being dragged, almost kicking and screaming, into the ranks of the opposition; compelled to do so be sheer political expediency. Her temperament and intellect were ill suited to any chief executive role, and the more the electorate got to know more about her, the greater the distaste she evinced.

Of course, her signature betrayal of the voters on term limits earned her the sobriquet, Quinnberg-and her actions through eight years simply enforced the perception that she was Bloomberg’s mini-me. It is fitting that the two of them leave office in tandem.

When it comes to the upcoming decision on Willets Point, no one should doubt that she is looking to bequeath one last gift to her patrons at Related-but that doesn’t mean that the other council members are obliged any more to follow her perverted priorities and ratify a deal that is a spit in the face of city council oversight. It is a moment when the council can recapture its independence from a mayor and a speaker that the voters have vehemently rejected. Let’s see if they are up to the task.

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.

Willets Point and Living up to the Terms of the Deal

As we have been pointing out, the terms of the original agreement concerning the fate of Willets Point have been shredded by an administration whose word has no weight. One of the key provisions that has been discarded concerns the issue of living wage-an issue that CM Diana Reyna felt was crucial in the casting of her vote in favor of the project.

WPU has now written to Reyna to request that she vote against the newly configured development in order to signal that she won’t be played by dishonest negotiators from the Bloomberg administration. And we will be asking her-along with Public Advocate (and likely next mayor) Bill de Blasio-to stake out a firm position opposing the bait and switch at Willets Point. As we wrote to Reyna:

“When the proposed Willets Point development was first evaluated by the City Council during 2008, labor unions promoted the fact that they had negotiated "historic agreements" with the City administration, specifically to include a living wage provision in the RFP pertaining to the Willets Point development. The living wage provision would affect retail workers at the future development, and is distinct from and in addition to the prevailing wage provision that had also been negotiated, which pertains to construction and other workers.”

And we went on to point out:

“You then led the questioning of a panel of union officials concerning the "historic" project labor agreement. The key hearing excerpts below culminate in the unions guaranteeing you and other Council members that the agreed labor standards – including the required living wage provision – will be "included in the Request for Proposals" and "contractually binding". Moreover, the unions commit to providing a copy of the project labor agreement to the Council for the record…”

On the day of the hearing the president of the Central Labor Council stood on the steps of City Hall with other labor leaders and announced this “historic” agreement:

"Organized labor negotiated several months ago with the City of New York an agreement regarding this project, where prevailing wages were guaranteed in the RFP, living wages are guaranteed, there's issues in there for retail …" – Gary La Barbera, President, New York Central Labor Council

"What is significant about the way that Willets Point will be developed is the assurance that broad labor standards will be met by the chosen developer and contractors. It won't just be thousands of jobs; it will mean thousands of construction and permanent jobs that pay prevailing wages and living wages." –
Stuart Applebaum, President, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union

"We are proud to be here today with our brothers and sisters from organized labor. And we're not just proud because we've negotiated an agreement on Willets that provides prevailing wage and living wage jobs. We're proud to be here because the Willets Point project should be a model for economic development going forward." – Kevin Doyle, Executive Vice President, Local 32BJ. “

What this means is that the “historic” agreement is, well, history-or rather relegated to the dustbin of history as just another devious example of how the current mayor is not a man of his word. As we wrote to Reyna-with a copy to de Blasio as well):

“Despite all of the above-quoted clear statements and testimony to the Council concerning the agreed living wage provision, in 2011 NYCEDC issued a Request for Proposals pertaining to Phase One of the proposed Willets Point development that completely omitted the required living wage provision. Consequently, developer firms responding to the RFP were never required to explain how their proposed tenanting plans would maximize the number of jobs that meet living wage criteria. Now we see the final result: The term "living wage" is nowhere to be found within the project contract dated August 1, 2012 between NYCEDC and the selected developers.”

Reyna is not alone in this-the entire city council was played and this indicates once again why negotiated “deals”-just like the phony community benefits agreements-need to be backed by legal sanctions if they are to have any meaning. But the city council-along with the likely new mayor who was also duped when he voted for the deal in 2008 as a member of the council-has been given a second chance.

The disappearance of living wage is only one reason why the deal should be defeated and left to the new administration to reconfigure it after the New Year. No affordable housing-another failed promise-but also illegal lobbying and crony capitalism and corporate welfare. Of all of the development deals put forward by the Bloomberg administration in 12 years this is by far the most dishonest-and the worst for the citizens of the city.

We urge CM Reyna and her colleagues to send a message to the mayor: Your time is up and we will no longer rubber stamp the dishonestly bad deals you have crafted to benefit your rich friends.

NY League of Conservation Voters: It’s worse than what we said

We made a mistake in our original post - and the mistake actually exacerbates our critique of Marcia Bysytryn and LCV. In our original criticism below, we said that, “So, no one should be surprised that two of our city’s leading environmental groups - organizations who were duped into supporting the original Willets Point plan, have nothing to say about the new iteration - a mall built on parkland! Hard to believe this kind of dollars induced lockjaw.”

Not true, as it turns out because it now seems true that when you buy the League, you own it lock, stock, and barrel. We have been told that the League actually testified in favor of the mall and the parking lot to be built on parkland. But even if it didn’t, League president Marcia Bystryn penned an effusive, and misleading, Op-ed in support of the development in the spring:

“The time has come to transform Willets Point from a toxic wasteland into an environmentally conscious, 21st century community.

In an area that is clamoring for open space and recreational opportunities, the cleanup and redevelopment of Willets Point means that the waterfront on Flushing Creek and Flushing Bay will finally become safe and accessible to the community.”

Bystryn said this by way of a critique of housing advocates who denied that there was widespread contamination-apparently avoiding their concerns that the promise of affordable housing has been shelved for, chorus please, a huge mall and a parking lot. There is no other certainty here other than that the Mets and partners will receive a windfall courtesy of the tax payers.

As for the contamination, shouldn’t we rely on science rather than the developer driven hyperbole that is being passed off as such? After all, we are giving Related/Sterling Equities upwards of $400 million without really knowing the levels of contamination at the Iron Triangle. If those levels are lower than asserted by EDC, than the idea of handing over property for nothing loses a bit of luster, doesn’t it?

Bystryn goes to great mendacious lengths in her shilling on behalf of her patron-and no one should take a single word she says seriously until she returns every single dime that the mayor has given her organization.  And she should publicly state how much she has been given by her generous benefactor. This is what is known in the bribery business as a quid pro quo.

What is truly disgusting, however, is her use of mayoral talking points to eviscerate any pretense that her organization has to speak on behalf of the environment. Her are the Orwellian comments:

“This is also a great opportunity to redesign Willets Point in a smarter and more holistic manner. Willets Point is close to the No. 7 train, so people can leave their cars at home more often. And it’s near major highways, meaning that people can get in and out of the neighborhood quickly without further straining traffic in downtown Flushing. The development will also create approximately 12,000 construction jobs and 7,100 permanent jobs, as well as lead to a $3 billion private investment.”

Is Bystryn really serious? Does she not know that the 7 Line is already at overcrowding and that the mall-sans the Van Wyck ramps-will crush the daily commute with tens of thousands of car and truck trips a week? This will definitely not mean that, “people can get in and out of the neighborhood quickly without further straining traffic in downtown Flushing.”

Getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments apparently makes the idea of any real environmental due diligence a silly and quaint notion. The reality here is that the “holistic” planning that the League applauds is being done at the expense of actual property owners who don’t want the city to steal their land from under them. That it also is being done at the expense of the environment is something that a truly independent environmental organization would have little trouble recognizing.

Where are the League of Conservation Voters and the Environmental Defense Fund?

Five years ago, the League of Conservation Voters and the Environmental Defense Fund came out swinging on behalf of the city’s mega-plan to transform Willets Point into the New York’s “first green neighborhood.” In fact, Andrew Darrell, VP, Regional Director, Environmental Defense Fund and Marcia Bystryn, Executive Director, New York League of Conservation Voters both signed on to a letter of support for the Willets Point project that was circulated by "non-lobbyist" Claire Shulman and her bogus grass roots LDC. In part, the letter claimed, "This project offers perhaps the greatest return: the rehabilitation of a 60-acre brownfield which has been abused for decades into a sustainable 21st century LEED community."

As far as the NYLCV is concerned it is, as the Marxists say, no accident. In May 2010, the mayor was the League's keynote speaker-a reward for the group's supine response to the assault of the Bloomberg economic development team on the city's air quality-and we could find no public comment from League director Marcia Bystryn about the alarming DOH air quality study from the previous year.  

But the League has been played by Bloomberg for awhile, and it would be interesting for the press to track the money trail from the mayor's sources. This is still a, "not for nothing," city-and there are enough things that the Bloombergistas have done for an independent environmental group to criticize.

As for EDF, who was more outspoken than this group about the mayor’s congestion pricing tax? All of a sudden the group had a $500,000 budget to lobby and do ads for the plan. If anyone else but the mayor had done this, a criminal investigation would have been launched. Instead, the DAs and the US Attorneys cringe with fright when it comes to tackling the really rich and powerful.

So, no one should be surprised that two of our city’s leading environmental groups-organizations who were duped into supporting the original Willets Point plan, have nothing to say about the new iteration-a mall built on parkland! Hard to believe this kind of dollars induced lockjaw.

In response, we have Henry Euler’s testimony at last week’s city council hearing-where the august body spent roughly three minutes on the parks issue. Euler is vice president of the  Auburndale Improvement Association, a Queens civic with over 600 families. As Euler told the council:

“Today you are considering the proposal dealing with the 1.4 million square foot mall to be constructed on the parking lot to the west of Citi Field.  This land is parkland and should be off limits to any private development. Parkland is sacrosanct.  It belongs to the people, not private developers. With the rate of intense development in Queens, we need all of the green space we can spare.

The asphalt on the unused part of the parking lot to the west of Citi Field should be removed and trees and other vegetation should be planted on the site in order to make it look more like a park once again.  There is no shortage of people living in close proximity to the park, or even further away, who could use that refurbished parkland.

Have you seen how many people use Flushing Meadows Corona Park?  It is staggering.  How could anyone think of usurping land for private gain when people living in overcrowded neighborhoods look to the park as their backyard and a source of relaxation, exercise and tranquility?  This park should be a New York City landmark, just as Central Park is in Manhattan and Prospect Park is in Brooklyn.  Queens is tired of being ignored!”

This should inspire public outrage and the leading mayoral candidates should be on this like the proverbial white on rice. Instead we get silence - aided and abetted by the kept menagerie of subsidized environmental groups - and we can add the Sierra Club that received a huge influx of funds from the mayor for its anti-coal campaign. 

We’ll give Euler the last word-although we believe that the real last words will be heard in court:

“There are so many questions to consider in this case, and so many concerns.  We stand with the coalition known as Save Flushing Meadows Corona Park and our neighbors in western Flushing and Corona.  No mall in this location!  Just preserve the parkland and find additional funds to sustain and maintain our precious park. Thank you!”

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

A mall to spur housing?

The Times Ledger - (and doesn’t Joe Anuta do a good reporting job on Willets Point?) - has a good story on Tuesday’s City Council hearing; and the report exposes the inanity of the developer’s rationale for the development. Here’s the description of the reason why the mall is precursor to all of the things originally promised for Willets Point:

“The partnership contends this sequencing is essential to ensure the entire vision can be realized. They have repeatedly said the only way to develop Willets Point according to the 2008 plan was to create an economic engine to drive the project, namely the 1.4 million square foot retail and entertainment complex proposed for the west of Citi Field.

“We believe strongly that the project makes economic sense,” said Jesse Masyr, land-use counsel to the partnership.”

Now we have always admired Masyr’s ability to spin a yarn, but let’s deconstruct this particularly tall tale. In order to afford to build housing, there is a need to build the largest mall in NYC so as to create a destination that makes the housing affordable-and not affordable in the way the term is now understood:

“Basically, the joint venture needs to have the mall and a proposed retail strip along 126th Street up and running to not only offset other costs of the project, but to create a destination to make the housing component more attractive.”

Crazy, no? Everyone wants to live in the neighborhood immediately contiguous to the city’s largest retail center? Even if you believe the traffic reports from consultants who have demonstrated a very thin regard for professional accuracy, this rationale is tough to accept. Can you imagine trying to and from work with tens of thousands of daily and weekly car and truck trips clogging the streets and access roads to you home?

WPU’s Jerry Antonacci has more credibility when he points out the likely scenario here:

“But opponents have long contended that the city and developers only want the mall and do not want to build the housing, which includes 875 affordable units. The partnership would be required to pay a $35 million penalty for not building the housing, contracts show, but the city is also not contractually obligated to build the ramps. If the ramps never get built, then the joint venture is off the hook.

By obtaining this current permit, they will have made the parking lot legal, which would not have been permissible under the special zoning written in 2008. According to Iron Triangle property owners, this is all part of the plan.

“Mark my words: No housing is ever going to be built,” said Jerry Antonacci, a member of opposition group Willets Point United, who spoke in an informational video about the project and testified at City Hall Tuesday.”

All of which makes this the Wimpy deal we have described it as-with the developer’s gladly paying Tuesday (for housing years from now), for a mall (the Wimpy hamburger) they get today. And those two thousand units of affordable housing, what happened to them?

“But opponents have long contended that the city and developers only want the mall and do not want to build the housing, which includes 875 affordable units.” So not only do the developers get the land for free-in spite of the fact that the city promised the city council in 2008 that it would be reimbursed by the developer eventually selected-but they also get to put off the linchpin of the original approval to years from now when many of us will n longer be around.

The fact remains-and should be indisputable-an administration that has already lied to get this plan approved in 2008, and won’t be around in the middle of the next decade to be held accountable, should not be believed about any of the assertions it has made concerning the eventual end game at Willets Point.