In a letter to the Ridgwood Ledger News, writer Margaret Oddo totally fails to understand the concept of eminent domain-and demonstrates a complete lack of respect for property rights that are supposed to be protected by our Constitution. Here's how she misconstrues the entire debate over the issue at Willets Point:
"Years ago, my grandfather, an immigrant from Norway, had to give up a beautiful, two-family home due to eminent domain for the building of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, which ended up going right through the house. He had to give it up for the betterment of the community.
I never heard him complain because he knew what had to be done. His family was uprooted, so we all had to move to other parts of Queens. This area across from Citi Field is unsightly, dirty and dangerous and needs to be improved."
If the city was looking to expand the Van Wyck Expressway through Willets Point Ms. Oddo's analogy would make some sense. But that, as they say, is not the case, and she should be mindful of the difference between building a road or a school and handing over some one's land to another private interest.(And trusting this mayor to protect the public good is a bridge too far)
But Ms. Oddo makes one good-although contradictory-point: "The consistent building up of commerce and apartments in Flushing in and around Main Street seems to ignore congestion, traffic, parking and quality-of-life concerns, although I am happy to hear that finally the RKO Theatre will be restored and hopefully a construction company will be chosen carefully, considering the past history of neglect."
If she had been made aware of just how much the Flushing developments were in the process of ruining the "good of the community,and and how the over development of Willets Point would be the nail in the coffin of any possible quality of life that she seems to value, we believe that Ms. Oddo would not be calling on the property owners to cease and desist in their efforts to resist condemnation.
No, she would be calling on the mayor to put a halt on this harebrained scheme that will overwhelm Flushing, Corona, Whitestone and all of the surrounding communities that are in the eye of the Willets Point storm. Knowledge is power, but ignorance can be tragically dangerous, as Ms Oddo's letter proves.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Bloomberg Self Love Not Shared
Over the weekend the NY Times did a report on just how much Mike Bloomberg admires himself as mayor-the rest of us New Yorker, not so much. What got us is just how much Mayor Mike believes that his strength lies with, "doing what's right," rather than doing what is driven by polling data. What Bloomberg doesn't quite get is that his decisions lack any basis in good public policy rationale, let alone true empathy for the folks that he has purchased to govern:
"I’m going to do the best job I can,” the mayor told Chris Wallace on the Fox show. “Hopefully, the public will like it, but even if they don’t, I’ve got to look in the mirror. What I see in the mirror is somebody, I hope, that has the courage to do what’s right, not what is politic. And afterwards, people will look back and say whether or not he was a good mayor or a bad mayor.”
The mayor confuses courage with an obstinacy that has been nurtured by his isolated, class-biased, background-leavened with the almost complete lack of public policy understanding that he brought with him from his business experience. What the Times characterizes as, "short term stumbles," has allowed the public to see right through the Bloomberg PR driven mirage:
"But at home, Mr. Bloomberg faces an abundance of negative sentiment, much of it a result of New York City’s botched response to a snowstorm in December, his ill-fated decision to appoint Cathleen P. Black to lead the public school system and lingering unhappiness over his bulldozing of term limits in 2008."
We did, of course, get a kick out of the following mischaracterization: "The data-driven mayor, who has spent many millions of dollars on polls for his campaigns, has tried to bolster his public standing with a rare nonelection-year advertising campaign."
Data driven? What a crock! This is a mayor whose has exploited corrupted data-under the cover of a false image of fact base policy making-more than any chief executive in the city's history. Dummied up school test scores, phony "scientific" analyses of calorie counting, and self serving bike lane and pedestrian mall studies that bear little resemblance to anyone's understanding of scientific rigor demonstrates the extent to which Bloomberg's data driven image is a creature of his-and sometimes the media's-imagination.
Nothing, however, compares to the mayor's solipsistic amour propre:
“I’m going to do the best job I can,” the mayor told Chris Wallace on the Fox show. “Hopefully, the public will like it, but even if they don’t, I’ve got to look in the mirror. What I see in the mirror is somebody, I hope, that has the courage to do what’s right, not what is politic. And afterwards, people will look back and say whether or not he was a good mayor or a bad mayor.”
Two days later, speaking with Mr. Smiley, Mr. Bloomberg offered a similar refrain. “The public may be upset,” he said, “but in the end, you’ve got to like what you see in the mirror.”
This friends is a clear example of arrogance that has been nurtured by a vast fortune that has insulated Bloomberg from any constructive criticism from the toadies that surround him. Speaking of toadies:
"But Ester R. Fuchs, a Columbia political scientist who advised Mr. Bloomberg from 2002 to 2006, said the mayor looked at opinion polls as only one data point, never as an overriding factor.
“People call him arrogant, but it’s not a question of not listening,” Ms. Fuchs said. “The real truth is that he’s not making any policy decision based on poll numbers. He’s willing to sacrifice short-term standing in the polls for what he believes to be in the best interest of the city.”
His beliefs and the reality of the public interest-in spite of the fawning of Professor Fuchs-run on parallel tracks.He simply does what he pleases-as the Black appointment fully exposed.
This takes us to our own struggle at the Iron Triangle where the data driven mayor is once again, in Master of the House fashion, "rookin' the guests and cookin' the books." Here,as much as with the city's school test scores, is an outright fraud being perpetrated on the citizens of the city.
Unable to present honest traffic data, the mayor and his EDC thugs has resorted to a three card monte game of phony traffic reports and political hardball designed to push an ill conceived development through on a foundation of deceit. We dare this data driven charlatan to put the EDC numbers up for independent review. They won't last a New York minute.
So the Mike Bloomberg myth is eroding in the harsh light of the little man's limitations. In looking at the mayor's achievements we have to conclude, much as Gertrude Stein quipped about Oakland, "There's not much there there."
"I’m going to do the best job I can,” the mayor told Chris Wallace on the Fox show. “Hopefully, the public will like it, but even if they don’t, I’ve got to look in the mirror. What I see in the mirror is somebody, I hope, that has the courage to do what’s right, not what is politic. And afterwards, people will look back and say whether or not he was a good mayor or a bad mayor.”
The mayor confuses courage with an obstinacy that has been nurtured by his isolated, class-biased, background-leavened with the almost complete lack of public policy understanding that he brought with him from his business experience. What the Times characterizes as, "short term stumbles," has allowed the public to see right through the Bloomberg PR driven mirage:
"But at home, Mr. Bloomberg faces an abundance of negative sentiment, much of it a result of New York City’s botched response to a snowstorm in December, his ill-fated decision to appoint Cathleen P. Black to lead the public school system and lingering unhappiness over his bulldozing of term limits in 2008."
We did, of course, get a kick out of the following mischaracterization: "The data-driven mayor, who has spent many millions of dollars on polls for his campaigns, has tried to bolster his public standing with a rare nonelection-year advertising campaign."
Data driven? What a crock! This is a mayor whose has exploited corrupted data-under the cover of a false image of fact base policy making-more than any chief executive in the city's history. Dummied up school test scores, phony "scientific" analyses of calorie counting, and self serving bike lane and pedestrian mall studies that bear little resemblance to anyone's understanding of scientific rigor demonstrates the extent to which Bloomberg's data driven image is a creature of his-and sometimes the media's-imagination.
Nothing, however, compares to the mayor's solipsistic amour propre:
“I’m going to do the best job I can,” the mayor told Chris Wallace on the Fox show. “Hopefully, the public will like it, but even if they don’t, I’ve got to look in the mirror. What I see in the mirror is somebody, I hope, that has the courage to do what’s right, not what is politic. And afterwards, people will look back and say whether or not he was a good mayor or a bad mayor.”
Two days later, speaking with Mr. Smiley, Mr. Bloomberg offered a similar refrain. “The public may be upset,” he said, “but in the end, you’ve got to like what you see in the mirror.”
This friends is a clear example of arrogance that has been nurtured by a vast fortune that has insulated Bloomberg from any constructive criticism from the toadies that surround him. Speaking of toadies:
"But Ester R. Fuchs, a Columbia political scientist who advised Mr. Bloomberg from 2002 to 2006, said the mayor looked at opinion polls as only one data point, never as an overriding factor.
“People call him arrogant, but it’s not a question of not listening,” Ms. Fuchs said. “The real truth is that he’s not making any policy decision based on poll numbers. He’s willing to sacrifice short-term standing in the polls for what he believes to be in the best interest of the city.”
His beliefs and the reality of the public interest-in spite of the fawning of Professor Fuchs-run on parallel tracks.He simply does what he pleases-as the Black appointment fully exposed.
This takes us to our own struggle at the Iron Triangle where the data driven mayor is once again, in Master of the House fashion, "rookin' the guests and cookin' the books." Here,as much as with the city's school test scores, is an outright fraud being perpetrated on the citizens of the city.
Unable to present honest traffic data, the mayor and his EDC thugs has resorted to a three card monte game of phony traffic reports and political hardball designed to push an ill conceived development through on a foundation of deceit. We dare this data driven charlatan to put the EDC numbers up for independent review. They won't last a New York minute.
So the Mike Bloomberg myth is eroding in the harsh light of the little man's limitations. In looking at the mayor's achievements we have to conclude, much as Gertrude Stein quipped about Oakland, "There's not much there there."
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Inhuman Trafficing
The NY Post comments today on the duplicity of the NYC DOT in regards to the traffic impact of all of its anti-car experiments:
"In a City Council Transportation Committee hearing last week, Chairman James Vacca got Department of Transportation officials to admit that they have no real clue as to the full impact pedestrian plazas are having on surrounding streets. The plazas — such as those at Times and Herald squares — seem second only to bike lanes on Department of Transportation chief Janette Sadik-Khan’s anti-automobile agenda.The eventual goal is to have at least one plaza in every one of the city’s 59 community boards. Fourteen are in the planning stages — at the “request” of locals boards, so the DOT says."
Before we get into the breathtaking hypocrisy of Sadik-Khan's efforts to supposedly reduce the city's carbon footprint by eliminating as much vehicular traffic as possible, let's examine the agency's data veracity:
"DOT officials assert that traffic flow at Times and Herald squares has increased efficiency since the plazas were installed two years ago. The city also insists that local air quality is improved. But why believe them? The agency’s data on this issue, as well as bike lanes, have proven questionable at best — undermined even by its own numbers, to say nothing of independent studies."
What gets us is that all of these officials-from the mayor on down-claim to be data driven; and then they proceed to cook the books by releasing self serving statistics that can't hold up to any independent review. Sound familiar?
It's the same phenomenon over at Willets Point-with a shoes on the other foot quality. There EDC is pushing forward with an Environmental Assessment of ramps to the Van Wyck that is nothing short of a giant Con-with the development agency relying on political muscle instead of science to bogart the state and federal regulators.
Put simply, the EDC traffic mavens have not proffered any new data that would diminish or debunk WPU's original put down of the first fraudulent traffic analysis that the agency submitted to SDOT all the way back in 2009! Back then the state was on the verge of rubber stamping the report until WPU intervened. A year and a half later, SDOT is once again looking like it's going back to its original craven posture in spite of all of the solid contradictory data that demonstrates the chaos that will ensue if the ramps are built.
But let's get back to the blatancy of Sadik-Khan's hypocrisy. First, here's Michael Goodwin's take on the City Council hearing:
"It's taken a while, but a city councilman nails the problem with street plazas. James Vacca, a Bronx Democrat, gets to the heart of complaints when he asks, "How do we make sure that we're not just shifting and diverting traffic and that the problem we had in one spot moves to another?" City officials don't have a good answer because they don't care about cars and delivery trucks. In a perverse way, they see congestion as their friend because, they hope, it will encourage people to give up driving. What it actually does is encourage people to give up on the city."
Yet this same bicycle helmet for brains commissioner is cited as the bad cop brow beater of SDOT. For what, you may ask? For not expediting the project (by ignoring contradictory data) that will generate 80,000 cars trips a day onto the Van Wyck and all of the local streets surrounding the proposed Willets Point development.
What links all of this? The city's reliance on fraudulent stats to promote nay and all of its projects. Whether its car reduction or car promotion, the one thing you can rely on with the Bloomberg crew is unreliable numbers-often intentionally so.
We'll conclude with an observation made by the Post about this chronic unreliability. The paper's reference to pedestrian plazas can easily be transposed to the Willets Point ramps:
"Vacca wants the DOT to produce real data of the spillover effect for every community board where a pedestrian plaza is to be installed. Hope he’s not holding his breath; he’ll turn bright blue before the city coughs up the data. And should it ever do so, he’d do well to double-check every tittle and jot."
"In a City Council Transportation Committee hearing last week, Chairman James Vacca got Department of Transportation officials to admit that they have no real clue as to the full impact pedestrian plazas are having on surrounding streets. The plazas — such as those at Times and Herald squares — seem second only to bike lanes on Department of Transportation chief Janette Sadik-Khan’s anti-automobile agenda.The eventual goal is to have at least one plaza in every one of the city’s 59 community boards. Fourteen are in the planning stages — at the “request” of locals boards, so the DOT says."
Before we get into the breathtaking hypocrisy of Sadik-Khan's efforts to supposedly reduce the city's carbon footprint by eliminating as much vehicular traffic as possible, let's examine the agency's data veracity:
"DOT officials assert that traffic flow at Times and Herald squares has increased efficiency since the plazas were installed two years ago. The city also insists that local air quality is improved. But why believe them? The agency’s data on this issue, as well as bike lanes, have proven questionable at best — undermined even by its own numbers, to say nothing of independent studies."
What gets us is that all of these officials-from the mayor on down-claim to be data driven; and then they proceed to cook the books by releasing self serving statistics that can't hold up to any independent review. Sound familiar?
It's the same phenomenon over at Willets Point-with a shoes on the other foot quality. There EDC is pushing forward with an Environmental Assessment of ramps to the Van Wyck that is nothing short of a giant Con-with the development agency relying on political muscle instead of science to bogart the state and federal regulators.
Put simply, the EDC traffic mavens have not proffered any new data that would diminish or debunk WPU's original put down of the first fraudulent traffic analysis that the agency submitted to SDOT all the way back in 2009! Back then the state was on the verge of rubber stamping the report until WPU intervened. A year and a half later, SDOT is once again looking like it's going back to its original craven posture in spite of all of the solid contradictory data that demonstrates the chaos that will ensue if the ramps are built.
But let's get back to the blatancy of Sadik-Khan's hypocrisy. First, here's Michael Goodwin's take on the City Council hearing:
"It's taken a while, but a city councilman nails the problem with street plazas. James Vacca, a Bronx Democrat, gets to the heart of complaints when he asks, "How do we make sure that we're not just shifting and diverting traffic and that the problem we had in one spot moves to another?" City officials don't have a good answer because they don't care about cars and delivery trucks. In a perverse way, they see congestion as their friend because, they hope, it will encourage people to give up driving. What it actually does is encourage people to give up on the city."
Yet this same bicycle helmet for brains commissioner is cited as the bad cop brow beater of SDOT. For what, you may ask? For not expediting the project (by ignoring contradictory data) that will generate 80,000 cars trips a day onto the Van Wyck and all of the local streets surrounding the proposed Willets Point development.
What links all of this? The city's reliance on fraudulent stats to promote nay and all of its projects. Whether its car reduction or car promotion, the one thing you can rely on with the Bloomberg crew is unreliable numbers-often intentionally so.
We'll conclude with an observation made by the Post about this chronic unreliability. The paper's reference to pedestrian plazas can easily be transposed to the Willets Point ramps:
"Vacca wants the DOT to produce real data of the spillover effect for every community board where a pedestrian plaza is to be installed. Hope he’s not holding his breath; he’ll turn bright blue before the city coughs up the data. And should it ever do so, he’d do well to double-check every tittle and jot."
Friday, May 6, 2011
EDC's Crap Shoot, Crain's Revises
EDC is moving forward with its ill advised public review process for the ramps to the Van Wyck-with a hearing now scheduled for the Flushing Library on June the 8th. As ill advised as the EDC action is, however, it pales in comparison to the blatant malfeasance of the NYSDOT, the state regulatory agency that has the statutory mandate to protect the public interest.
Put simply, the agency's decision to approve the Environmental Assessment for public review is a violation of any conception of ethical standards and a manifestation of base political motivation: the SDOT commissioner made a political decison that can't be supported by any professional environmental standard or rationale. It is a decision that we intend to expose for what it is-a craven bending to the political will of the Bloomberg administration.
At least Crain's has walked back its original story that we critiqued yesterday: "Correction: The state Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration have given approval for the city to proceed with a public review of two proposed off-ramps for the Van Wyck Expressway at Willets Point, Queens. The nature of the permissions was misstated in the summary of an earlier version of the article "City gets key Willets Point approval," published May 5, 2011."
The Crain's correction was made after WPU's Mike Gerrard had offered the following comments to the reporter:
"I want to point out two factual errors. The first is in the subtitle -- “State and federal officials granted permission for the construction of two highway ramps…” That is not correct. The action that was announced today was the approval of the Environmental Assessment, which is an interim step on the way to construction of the ramps. Several more actions are needed before the ramps are fully approved -- there must be a public hearing; NYS DOT must grant a final approval; the FHWA must decide whether to require a full EIS; and (if it decides not to), it must grant its own final approval. (The fourth paragraph accurately states the situation.)
The second error is the statement in the second paragraph, “A court hearing next month on that question now appears moot.” It is NOT moot, because only this interim step has been taken, not the final approvals."
What this means is that the tainted review process is going to be exposed-either in the review process itself or in a court of law where the actions of EDC and Commissioner McDonald will be fully disinfected by sunlight. The commissioner in particular is on shaky ground given her failure to recuse herself for an obvious conflict of interest.
To us it looks as if Willets Point is headed directly into Westway territory-with fraud exposed and the commiters of fraud brought to justice. But let's not make a mistake here. The original sin was the illegal lobbying instigated by EDC-and the mayor's attempt to whitewash it as something other than what it was. As we go into this review process, EDC should be very concerned about its actions and their consequences.
Put simply, the agency's decision to approve the Environmental Assessment for public review is a violation of any conception of ethical standards and a manifestation of base political motivation: the SDOT commissioner made a political decison that can't be supported by any professional environmental standard or rationale. It is a decision that we intend to expose for what it is-a craven bending to the political will of the Bloomberg administration.
At least Crain's has walked back its original story that we critiqued yesterday: "Correction: The state Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration have given approval for the city to proceed with a public review of two proposed off-ramps for the Van Wyck Expressway at Willets Point, Queens. The nature of the permissions was misstated in the summary of an earlier version of the article "City gets key Willets Point approval," published May 5, 2011."
The Crain's correction was made after WPU's Mike Gerrard had offered the following comments to the reporter:
"I want to point out two factual errors. The first is in the subtitle -- “State and federal officials granted permission for the construction of two highway ramps…” That is not correct. The action that was announced today was the approval of the Environmental Assessment, which is an interim step on the way to construction of the ramps. Several more actions are needed before the ramps are fully approved -- there must be a public hearing; NYS DOT must grant a final approval; the FHWA must decide whether to require a full EIS; and (if it decides not to), it must grant its own final approval. (The fourth paragraph accurately states the situation.)
The second error is the statement in the second paragraph, “A court hearing next month on that question now appears moot.” It is NOT moot, because only this interim step has been taken, not the final approvals."
What this means is that the tainted review process is going to be exposed-either in the review process itself or in a court of law where the actions of EDC and Commissioner McDonald will be fully disinfected by sunlight. The commissioner in particular is on shaky ground given her failure to recuse herself for an obvious conflict of interest.
To us it looks as if Willets Point is headed directly into Westway territory-with fraud exposed and the commiters of fraud brought to justice. But let's not make a mistake here. The original sin was the illegal lobbying instigated by EDC-and the mayor's attempt to whitewash it as something other than what it was. As we go into this review process, EDC should be very concerned about its actions and their consequences.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
EDC Misinforms-Again! Ramp Approval Not Imminent
The NYC EDC is at it again-misinforming the public about a phantom approval for ramps that will do nothing but make Queens highways even more impassable. As Crain's reports: "Late Wednesday, the Bloomberg administration took a significant step toward the redevelopment of Willets Point, Queens. The state Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration approved the Economic Development Corp.'s environmental assessment of off-ramps proposed for the Van Wyck Expressway. The city, which has called the ramps essential to the massive Queens project, can now go ahead with a required public review process."
While this may be a short step for EDC it isn't any giant leap for NYC-and as Crain's reports a bit later: "Once public comments are received, the city will resubmit its assessment for final state and federal approval." So what is left out is that there is still a public review process that EDC would like everyone to believe is a mere formality because it was able to coerce its former executive-new DOT Commissioner McDonald-to green light its Environmental Assessment.
This will prove to be a false step by the head of an agency that should never have been allowed to oversee an agency whose project she likely had some involvement with back in 2007 when she was still at EDC. It will prove to be even more so after WPU's Brian Ketcham demonstrates that the new EA is as rancid as the original fraudulent submissions that the agency sent back for revision in February of last year.
In fact, what the press should do is give Old McDonald a call up at her farm and ask her how many calls and meetings she and her staff have taken with EDC and its minions since she arrived in January. And while they're at it, the press should track down the former commissioner to see what he thinks about the SDOT's abrupt about face.
As Jake Bono told Crain's: "The current review process for the Van Wyck ramps has been tainted by deficient and fraudulent data that the regulatory authorities are well aware of,” said Jake Bono, a small business owner and member of the opposition group Willets Point United. “There is no way that the ramps can qualify and be approved under the Federal Highway Authority guidelines. We will be advancing this before any review panel and before the courts if it becomes necessary to expose any malfeasance.”
So DOT is walking on very thin ice and malfeasance is a mild characterization of what has transpired in the ramp review process.
While this may be a short step for EDC it isn't any giant leap for NYC-and as Crain's reports a bit later: "Once public comments are received, the city will resubmit its assessment for final state and federal approval." So what is left out is that there is still a public review process that EDC would like everyone to believe is a mere formality because it was able to coerce its former executive-new DOT Commissioner McDonald-to green light its Environmental Assessment.
This will prove to be a false step by the head of an agency that should never have been allowed to oversee an agency whose project she likely had some involvement with back in 2007 when she was still at EDC. It will prove to be even more so after WPU's Brian Ketcham demonstrates that the new EA is as rancid as the original fraudulent submissions that the agency sent back for revision in February of last year.
In fact, what the press should do is give Old McDonald a call up at her farm and ask her how many calls and meetings she and her staff have taken with EDC and its minions since she arrived in January. And while they're at it, the press should track down the former commissioner to see what he thinks about the SDOT's abrupt about face.
As Jake Bono told Crain's: "The current review process for the Van Wyck ramps has been tainted by deficient and fraudulent data that the regulatory authorities are well aware of,” said Jake Bono, a small business owner and member of the opposition group Willets Point United. “There is no way that the ramps can qualify and be approved under the Federal Highway Authority guidelines. We will be advancing this before any review panel and before the courts if it becomes necessary to expose any malfeasance.”
So DOT is walking on very thin ice and malfeasance is a mild characterization of what has transpired in the ramp review process.
WPU Statement re: News Concerning the EA for Van Wyck ramps
Contrary to information apparently being disseminated today by NYCEDC, and contrary to certain erroneous news reports, the reported progress with the Environmental Assessment does NOT constitute approval of the proposed Van Wyck ramps. It is approval of the Environmental Assessment document merely for the purpose of holding a public hearing pertaining to it, which is the next step for NYC EDC; but the public hearing has yet to occur and will include expert submissions from WPU, then a subsequent decision by NYS DOT on whether to approve the ramps, a decision by FHWA on whether to require a full EIS, and then a decision by FHWA on whether or not to approve the ramps.
WPU is taking all appropriate steps to challenge and prevent the approval of ramps, and will continue to do so.
WPU is taking all appropriate steps to challenge and prevent the approval of ramps, and will continue to do so.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Bloomberg and His Consultants
Juan Gonzales continues to do his Pulitzer Prize winning reporting on the out to lunch out sourcing of the Bloomberg administration. In his latest installment he focuses on the DOE, the mayor's signature agency of managerial achievement:
"A top Department of Education official who supervised a major computer contractor is under investigation for "potential corruption and conflict of interest" with an owner of the firm.
In an April 14 interview under oath with probers for Special Commissioner on Investigation Richard Condon, the school official "denied having a personal relationship" with one of the two principal officers of Future Technology Associates (FTA), a Florida-based consulting firm with a $43 million contract to service the schools' computer system."
Yet another consultant running amok unsupervised. Gonzales should now set his sights on Willets Point and the fraudulent actions of EDC's traffic consultants-something we have tirelessly been pointing out. There is simply no way that the engineering firm AKRF should be allowed to get away with submitting two separate and contradictory traffic reports-one to the City Council for the FGEIS, and the other to SDOT for the Van Wyck ramps.
As WPU's own consultant Brian Ketcham has pointed out: "The fact that AKRF was in charge of both the WP FGEIS and the Van Wyck ramps EA/AMR and approved reports on the same project that provided diametrically opposite results raises the question whether or not an engineering firm (not so independent) that also works on projects within New York State can be relied upon to produce honest results. In my opinion NYSDOT should fire AKRF and find an engineering firm that can provide the required review functions but that has no conflicts of interest—that is an engineering firm that does no work within 500 miles of New York State and that is unlikely to be influenced by either private sector or public sector clients."
Here is a treasure trove for the intrepid Gonzales, who should pursue the following questions:
(1)How could AKRF submit the two contradictory reports and was it simply negligent or acting in a fraudulent manner on behalf of its client EDC;
(2)What did EDC know, and when did it know it? Was the agency aware of the potential fraud and simply ignored it, or did it just fail to exercise oversight;
(3)Why did EDC, once it had been nade aware of the discrepant reports continue to employ the consultants that had done the work?
(4)Why has NYSDOT apparently shifted gears and now appears poised to approve the EDC ramp application? Is the sea change a result of a new commissioner-Joan McDonald-who used to be an EDC executive?
(5)Why hasn't this entire ramp project been put out to bid for an independent contractor, as NRDC has requested?
These are just a few of the outstanding questions that Gonzales should pursue-and we haven't even touched on the Claire Shulman scam that he knows a great deal about. We feel strongly that if JG digs deep enough here there is another Pulitzer waiting. Willets Point is major sandal build on a foundation of scheming dishonesty.
It's time to clean the muck out of the stables!
"A top Department of Education official who supervised a major computer contractor is under investigation for "potential corruption and conflict of interest" with an owner of the firm.
In an April 14 interview under oath with probers for Special Commissioner on Investigation Richard Condon, the school official "denied having a personal relationship" with one of the two principal officers of Future Technology Associates (FTA), a Florida-based consulting firm with a $43 million contract to service the schools' computer system."
Yet another consultant running amok unsupervised. Gonzales should now set his sights on Willets Point and the fraudulent actions of EDC's traffic consultants-something we have tirelessly been pointing out. There is simply no way that the engineering firm AKRF should be allowed to get away with submitting two separate and contradictory traffic reports-one to the City Council for the FGEIS, and the other to SDOT for the Van Wyck ramps.
As WPU's own consultant Brian Ketcham has pointed out: "The fact that AKRF was in charge of both the WP FGEIS and the Van Wyck ramps EA/AMR and approved reports on the same project that provided diametrically opposite results raises the question whether or not an engineering firm (not so independent) that also works on projects within New York State can be relied upon to produce honest results. In my opinion NYSDOT should fire AKRF and find an engineering firm that can provide the required review functions but that has no conflicts of interest—that is an engineering firm that does no work within 500 miles of New York State and that is unlikely to be influenced by either private sector or public sector clients."
Here is a treasure trove for the intrepid Gonzales, who should pursue the following questions:
(1)How could AKRF submit the two contradictory reports and was it simply negligent or acting in a fraudulent manner on behalf of its client EDC;
(2)What did EDC know, and when did it know it? Was the agency aware of the potential fraud and simply ignored it, or did it just fail to exercise oversight;
(3)Why did EDC, once it had been nade aware of the discrepant reports continue to employ the consultants that had done the work?
(4)Why has NYSDOT apparently shifted gears and now appears poised to approve the EDC ramp application? Is the sea change a result of a new commissioner-Joan McDonald-who used to be an EDC executive?
(5)Why hasn't this entire ramp project been put out to bid for an independent contractor, as NRDC has requested?
These are just a few of the outstanding questions that Gonzales should pursue-and we haven't even touched on the Claire Shulman scam that he knows a great deal about. We feel strongly that if JG digs deep enough here there is another Pulitzer waiting. Willets Point is major sandal build on a foundation of scheming dishonesty.
It's time to clean the muck out of the stables!
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