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.

Ratner Must Pay Up: And So Will NYC for Willets Point United

As Develop Don’t Destroy is reporting:

“A judge today ruled that the Empire State Development Corporation ("ESDC") is liable for legal fees incurred by community groups that sued successfully to compel a supplemental environmental impact study (SEIS) for the second phase of Forest City's controversial Atlantic Yards project.  She referred the parties to a referee to determine the amount of the award, which under an agreement with ESDC, Forest City Ratner will then have to pay.”

Good for them! Just another example of how Big Real Estate cheats their asses off and expects the politicians and the courts to turn the other way:

"Justice Friedman's ruling today is another reminder of the sordid 10-year history of the Atlantic Yards project, which to this day has largely failed to deliver on the promises that were used to sell it to the people of New York," said Candace Carponter, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's legal director.  "We're gratified by today's decision, but the fact remains that, as Justice Friedman suggests, had the ESDC and Forest City Ratner not knowingly misrepresented the facts to the court, the entire Atlantic Yards project, including the heavily subsidized Barclays Center, would never have gotten off the drawing board."

Too often, these kinds of vindications come posthumously-and what should be seen as criminal or civil liability ends up being simply throwing coins at beggars. Willets Point United is facing the same situation-with the criminal activity being exposed and little or no consequences for the perps. But when the city pulled its eminent domain proceeding-fearing the exposure of massive corruption-they opened the tax payers to being on the hook for all of the WPU legal fees. As the Daily News reported:

“A group of Willets Point property owners want the city to pay their hefty legal fees after pulling plans last week to take over their land through eminent domain proceedings. The city halted its controversial approach because it was instead nearing a deal with a developer to overhaul the industrial cluster of auto body shops and scrap yards next to Citi Field.”

Show us the money-the city must be made responsible for putting the property owners through a living hell. All for nothing, as the News points out:

"Michael Rikon, an attorney representing about two-dozen WilletsPoint business owners, said he will file a petition for the city to repay his clients’ legal fees. Willets Point United members have shelled out more than $300,000 in legal fees since 2008, he said. That number is on top of the money group members paid to attorney Michael Gerrard, who represented them in their fight against new exit ramps on the VanWyck Expressway. Rikon said his clients are entitled to the money under section 702 of New York State eminent domain law."

The $300,000 is really chump change when seen in the context of a $400 million boondoggle-and still escalating fraud-but it is symbolic of the disregard of the plutocrats for the fate of the peons. The City Council has now been given the opportunity to give this bait and switch the bum’s rush, but given the total lack of character of the leadership-and their obeisance to Big Real Estate (not to mention the complete lack of competency of the local council member)-this is as unlikely as the sun setting in the East. It will be up to the new mayor to take a look at all of the unethical and criminal behavior involved in this mayoral grift-and decide if there really will be a new day for New Yorkers.

Crony Capitalism as Economic Development

Ben Haber, the Socrates of Queens County, has penned a prescient letter to the Ledger calling on the City Council to vote the current Willets Point project down. As Haber points out, the bait and switch has yielded a huge mall that will feather the nest of the mayor’s rich friends while causing heartache to the residents of Corona, Jackson Heights and Flushing:

“The amendment that seeks to build a parking lot at Willets Point is a ploy to sneak through the back door a transfer of the Citi Field parking lots to allow construction on the vacated lots a 1.4-million-square-foot shopping mall. This is without a Uniform Land Use Review Procedure and replacing parkland, since Citi Field is on land that is part of Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Affordable housing will not be built until 2015, if ever.” 

Now we think that Ben means 2025, because there will be no housing without the Van Wyck ramps that will be built on the 12th of Never. But Haber gets to the root of the sham when he ridicules the idea that the billionaire owners, and mayoral BFFs, of Related and Sterling Equities couldn’t afford to develop the rest of Willets Point with the affordable housing and the other goodies unless they got to build their mall:

“At the top of the list of deceptions that have accompanied the application is the claim for requiring a prioritized Citi Field shopping mall as a financial engine to generate enough funds with which to construct the original Willets Point plan, suggesting that without it the original plan cannot be accomplished.  

Ignoring its speculation, it is untrue and a ploy to have the mall, which is what the application is all about. Related Cos. are the developers of the $20 billion development underway over the Hudson Yards in Manhattan. The claim that these multibillion-dollar companies — which are being given the Willets Point land the city has acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars and more in the future for $1 and a subsidy of $99 million — do not have the financial wherewithal to build Willets Point without a huge shopping mall is an in insult unworthy of belief and a reason to reject the application.”

Haber goes on to question whether the city council represents the people-a rather droll inquiry that has an unfortunate answer:

“The original Willets Point plan approved by the Council in 2008 is one thing. A deceptive huge shopping mall is something different and unacceptable. It remains to be seen if the word from the Council is that its constituents are not just billionaire real estate moguls but the little people, the poor, the middle class and small businesses, which are the backbone of an urban society and reject the application.”

We know where the formerly Mighty Quinn stands, but what about the supposed progressives on the city council? And what about the Public Advocate? When it comes to real estate it seems that the pols represent the 1%-unless we see a radical departure from the Permanent Government script.

What’s a New Mayor to Do? Bill de Blasio and Willets Point

We have been speculating about what a Mayor de Blasio might do with the development of Willets Point when/if he gets into office in January-arguing that he is under no obligation to rubber stamp a skewed Mike Bloomberg vision.

We have been buoyed by his statements concerning thecorporate welfare give away to Fresh Direct: “Fresh Direct would never have gotten more than $100 million in government subsidies to stay in New York City if he ran City Hall, Bill de Blasio said Thursday. The Democratic mayoral nominee said his administration would remove subsidies from large companies such as Fresh Direct and “give them to smaller companies.” This is a sign that de Blasio sees economic development in a radically different light. 

But if a Mayor de Blasio would balk at throwing $100 million tax payer dollars at a crony of his predecessor, than how about $400 million for two cronies? That’s the subject of our Op-ed in yesterday’s NY Daily News:

“In the first place, the development at Willets Point was intended to be one of Mayor Bloomberg’s signature legacy projects – the “first green neighborhood,” and all that palaver. Instead, owing to the good work of the team assembled by Willets Point United, the original mega-deal was derailed and the current Rosemary’s Baby was given birth. Instead, of all the essential public benefits that were originally negotiated — affordable housing, a living wage and traffic relieving ramps — we have been given the city’s largest retail mall built on parkland. The property taken under the threat of eminent domain is now earmarked for a parking lot.” 

Any original whiff of public good has been aerosoled out by this stinky new sweetheart deal

“Make no mistake about it. When the original Willets Point deal was proposed by the city, there were over 30 council members who had signed a letter opposing the project — and one of the strongest bases for that opposition was the city’s threat to use condemnation to take away property that had, in many cases, been in families for decades.

This opposition was only overridden when the Central Labor Council negotiated a “historic” living wage provision — and the council negotiated a deal for 2000 units of affordable housing. This was the linchpin of the compromise that enabled the council to overcome their strong objection to the use of eminent domain.”

And then there’s the corporate welfare to dramatize just how far from the public interest this gift to the Wilpons and Steve Ross really is:

“All of these promises have been tossed aside in the city’s current Willets Point proposal — along with the sworn assurances from Deputy Mayor Robert Lieber that the city would be compensated for the $200 million it paid for the property purchased under the threat of condemnation. Instead, the city is gifting the property to the developers for $1!”

Only in Mike Bloomberg’s NYC, could gifting be so easily turned into grifting-and as far as gifts are concerned, this is one that keeps on giving for all of the critics of the mayor’s penchant to bend the rules when it concerns him and his friends:

“Making a bad deal that much worse is the fact that it has now been revealed by the Attorney General of the State of New York that the original compromise that led to the city council’s approval of the development in 2008 was advanced by an illegal lobbying scheme devised by the Economic Development Corp. and a local development group made up of real estate interests. The entire land use process was tainted by illegality.”

Bill de Blasio has made a purposeful effort to let the city know that he will not be doing any gratuitous giveaways to the 1%; and Willets Point affords him the opportunity to make a real forceful demonstration of how different he will be:

“So, Mayor de Blasio, send a signal to the city that there is a new sheriff in town and things are going to be done differently. We are not going to unceremoniously shunt aside hardworking small businesses to aggrandize the interests of the 1%. Say No to Willets West and set the tone for a different kind of politics.”

But Willets Point United has not been alone in this fight-and the NYC Parks Advocates and the Queens Civic Congress have been outraged by yet another aspect of the bad deal at Willets Point-the use and abuse of parkland. Bob Harris makes this point in the Times Ledger:

“The Council is holding hearings on the proposed Willets Point West Mall, which would use the parking lot adjacent to Citi Field. This land was originally parkland, but was leased to the New York Mets’ owners to be used as a parking lot for baseball fans. Now the Mets owners want to build this large mall for private economic development. If this parkland was not needed by the baseball team, then it should have been repurposed and used by the community people who come here to play and relax.

Fighting this “giveaway” was the Queens Civic Congress, the Flushing Meadows Corona Park Conservancy, the Fairness Coalition of Queens, Save Flushing Meadows Corona Park, New York City Parks Advocates and other groups.”

Harris also points out that the mall will have a great deal of collateral damage for small business in Queens-something that the merchants of Jackson Heights and Corona are very much aware of: “The Queens Civic Council, an umbrella organization of about 100 civic associations in Queens, testified that if this mall is built, it will harm many small mom-and-pop stores in surrounding communities as well as struggling malls in other parts of Queens.”

So we urge the next mayor of the great City of New York to send the right signal to all of the beleaguered small businesses, parks advocates, and threatened property owners-and to the real estate barons who have been feasting in Mike Bloomberg’s New York. As another Brooklynite might put it: Do the Right Thing!

Fresh approach to Fresh Direct

The all but assumed elevation of Bill de Blasio has been given a distinct flavor for opponents of the corporate welfare deal orchestrated by Mike Bloomberg for his friends the Ackermans at Fresh Direct. De Blaio has no love for this kind of cronyism:

“Fresh Direct would never have gotten more than $100 million in government subsidies to stay in New York City if he ran City Hall, Bill de Blasio said Thursday. The Democratic mayoral nominee said his administration would remove subsidies from large companies such as Fresh Direct and “give them to smaller companies.”

But is it too late to stop this obscene give away? No one is sure-not even the opponents of the subsidy:

“It would be difficult — if not impossible — for de Blasio to rewind the clock on contracts signed and sealed by the Bloomberg Administration. But de Blasio could try to undo deals still in the pipeline after 2014 if he becomes mayor. Fresh Direct is receiving $89 million from the city and $38 million in other government funding to build a 500,000-square-foot warehouse in the South Bronx that is scheduled to open in 2016.”

The NY Daily News is skeptical:

“It’s highly unlikely that a Mayor de Blasio would be able to kill the deal. Contracts have been signed, and the company’s new facility, in the South Bronx, is slated to open in 2016. A Fresh Direct spokesman defended the deal, saying it would “create 1,000 new jobs in the nation’s poorest congressional district.” 

The job creation is pure smoke and mirrors because, as is the case with all of these boondoggles, there’s never any cost analysis done-and subsidizing a delivery business will take away revenue from neighborhood markets. There is also the fact that there is a state subsidy as well-and a Mayor de Blasio could negotiate this away if he wants to play a little hard ball with the governor.

But all of this, of course, raises questions about whither the Willets Point deal under a new mayor. Will de Blasio be comfortable giving away $200 million worth of property for a mall with low wage retail workers not protected by a living wage agreement? That’s an interesting questions that awaits an answer from the working class warrior headed to Gracie Mansion.

Will Bill de Blasio Really Fight NYC’s Permanent Government?

For those of you who got carried away with all of the hope and change rhetoric in 2008-only to be gob smacked by the continuation of the anti-terror policies of George Bush-please be on your toes for the expected mayoral reign of Bill de Blasio, another elected official who we believe understands Machiavelli’s dictum that it’s better to appear good than to be good. All of de Blasio’s populist campaigning may only be part of a bait and switch that, at least when it comes to real estate, will simply be a continuation of the three terms of Mike Bloomberg. As Crain’s reports:

“It wasn't just the Afro that put Bill de Blasio over the top. The impressive hair of his son, Dante, featured in the Democratic primary's most memorable campaign commercial, was certainly a factor. But campaign cash from deep-pocketed industries that have nurtured Mr. de Blasio's rise in politics over the years ultimately helped the public advocate emerge as the favorite to become mayor.

But it isn’t only the cash that should make us leery. Daniel Goldstein is someone who should know:

“Critics say that despite his anti-Bloomberg campaign theme, Mr. de Blasio represents continuity with the mayor's pro-development agenda. "He was the same as Bloomberg, at least while he was in the City Council," said Daniel Goldstein, a community activist who battled Atlantic Yards for a decade.

On that project, Mr. de Blasio helped hammer out a community-benefits agreement with Forest City Ratner calling for union construction jobs and 2,000 units of affordable housing, none of which has been built. Forest City Executive Vice President Robert Sanna later gathered more than $13,000 in donations 

That is why we have seen the fate of Willets Point as a harbinger of understanding who is the real de Blasio:

“True, the public advocate has spoken harshly about real estate during the campaign. In July, he said, "Last time I checked, it wasn't the real estate industry's town and we were just living in it." And at his victory party after the Sept. 10 primary, Mr. de Blasio decried "luxury condos" replacing "community hospitals." He has pledged to require developers to include affordable housing in their projects.

But he has raised almost $300,000 from the industry—about 9% of his total—and his history reflects a more conciliatory approach to it. He bucked local opposition in Brooklyn to support the Atlantic Yards project, a Toll Brothers luxury-apartment plan along the Gowanus Canal and high-end condos in Brooklyn Bridge Park.”

What has been wrong with Mike Bloomberg’s development policies has been the promotion of tax subsidized crony capitalism-is there anyone who sees the good policy sense in the tax subsidized move of Fresh Direct from Queens to the Bronx? As we pointed this July:

For Mike Bloomberg it never gets old to reward his friends and billionaire cronies-and the award of huge subsidies to FreshDirect is just the latest example:

“The city has delivered a sweet deal to FreshDirect. The Industrial Development Agency voted Tuesday in favor of the online grocer's controversial plans to relocate from Long Island City to the Bronx — thanks to $127 million in public subsidies.  

The company has promised to use the money to build its new facility in the South Bronx, convert its truck fleet to green energy, and to hire local workers. A spokesman for FreshDirect told residents the move to Port Morris would create 1,000 new jobs over 10 years, a third of which were promised to go to borough residents.”  

FreshDirect is run by a young man named Jason Ackerman, whose uncle, hedge fund guy Peter Ackerman, is a partner in some of the mayor’s political action ventures. Peter, a former associate of Mike Milken, is naturally a financier like the mayor and the subsidies for his nephew’s company is emblematic of what passes for economic development under the billionaire mayor.” [Crains]

The same pattern is being repeated at Willets Point-with $200 million worth of property simply gifted to Related/Sterling Equities, in spite of the testimony given by Deputy Mayor Lieber to the contrary in 2008. So a kind of gauntlet is being laid down for de Blasio. The fate of the Iron Triangle’s corrupt new deal-absent the important affordable housing that the Public Advocate voted for in the council-hangs in the balance.

If de Blasio speaks out and lets the council know that he opposes this obscene corporate welfare deal, then we will be alerted to the possibility of real change from the last 12 years. On the contrary, if he remains silent, de Blasio will be loudly proclaiming the wisdom of the old French philosophy:

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose