Hypocrisy in Brooklyn: Bill and Marty
[UPDATE: Typos corrected! Put this out too quickly for spelling's sake! Thanks to a kind proofreader!]
I have to call BS on Bill de Blasio and Marty Markowitz. I really do. On Marty it's easy. He has gone from populist to Ratner yes-man and doesn't seem to understand that helping Ratner destroy Brooklyn is NOT what he was elected for. But Bill...Bill is smarter and I am surprised he would put himself in a position of such utter blatant hypocrisy.
Let's start with Marty Markowitz. Turns out the community is all just a bunch of fanatics who are filled with hatred for poor, misunderstood Marty Markowitz. In an interview for City Hall, poor little Marty whines about the hostility his support of Ratner's project is generating. Does he realize that we resent the fact that Ratner was the low bid but still got the contract? That isn't capitalism! It's cronyism (Ratner was a law school buddy of then-Governor Pataki...did that help his low bid get noticed?). Does he realize that we resent the fact that now every tax payer in NYC is being asked to pay to purchase the land for Ratner? Ratner's low bid was $100 million. Blooomberg has asked the city to pay $100 million in land acquisition for Ratner. Hey...maybe it's a GOOD thing they went with the low bid! Does Marty realize we resent the backroom deals that have promised Ratner MORE land surrounding the current controversial project? Does Marty realize we resent private property owners being kicked out by the government so that another private property owner can make a profit? Does Marty realize we don't want MORE traffic along Flatbush, we don't want MORE traffic down 7th Ave, 5th Ave, etc.? Does Marty realize that we resent being asked to pay higher energy bills so that Con Ed can anticipate the energy needs of Ratner's project? Does Marty realize we resent our tax money being POURED into a project that was approved without even a business plan?
No...Marty attributes the hostility he is getting to unreasonable people who can't compromise. NO, you little schmuck! We all want development! That is what we have been saying for years now. But we want COMMUNITY input into the process (and we don't mean community input where anyone who objects is kicked out of the process by a mean, angry Marty Markowitz). We want a process that is fair and above board. We want a process that ensures our basements won't fill with sewage because Brooklyn's sewers are ALREADY overflowing BEFORE Atlantic Yards. And we want honesty, not pamphlets that leave out huge parts of the plan, replacing them with a park that will never be.
And poor, misunderstood little Marty is leaving out the very public scenes he has recently been making yelling at people and at crowds of people in his petty rage that the community would DARE to question his motives in supporting such a corrupt and secretive process.
But hypocrisy is nothing new for Marty. The man who endorsed Republican Bloomberg for mayor rather than Marty's own party's candidate went on to rage at people who supported Green Party candidate Gloria Mattera over himself. What a goddamned hypocrite, Marty! And a whiny one at that. All I have to say about Marty is Feh! What a schmuck.
Oh...and according to the Brooklyn Paper, Community Board 6 member Joseph Porcelli, who survived Marty's purge, also thinks Marty is a schmuck and resigned from the Community Board in protest.
“We are supposed to be appointed to represent independent opinion. As soon as we did, people were whacked,†Porcelli said, referring to the strong position CB6 took against Atlantic Yards, which Markowitz strongly supports...
He said the dismissals by Markowitz and DeBlasio (D–Park Slope) render “the whole community board process meaningless.â€
“These were people who were extremely knowledgeable and dedicated to presenting the community’s issues fairly and democratically,†he said.
Then there's Bill de Blasio. Bill is not Marty. Marty is not bright, not savvy and pretty much a bully. I have had disagreements with Bill and he plays his cards very differently. Bill is far more honest with people than Marty and he is someone who I have found it easy to agree to disagree with. And I do disagree with Bill on many things, but I have never really held it against him.
But now I have to say Bill has done something that strikes me as so blatantly hypocritical than it is hard not to call BS on him.
Bill is one of Ratner's biggest cheerleaders. He fully supports Ratner's project that will abuse eminent domain to uproot an entire chunk of Brooklyn that was once called "up and coming" to replace it with a giant monstrosity which will suck a huge amount of taxpayer's money from the state and local levels and won't really deliver affordable housing...or at least not housing that is considered affordable even by the definition used in Manhattan.
Fine. Bill supports something I don't. We agree to disagree on much of it.
Now Bill turns around and suddenly plays community activist against an evil developer. As reported in the Park Slope Courier, Ratner's biggest cheerleader on the City Council is playing his own NIMBY game with a different developer.
Councilman Bill de Blasio stood outside the subway stop at the corner of Smith Street and Second Place this week and vowed to stop architect Robert Scarano from constructing a new building that many say doesn’t belong in Carroll Gardens...
“What we have is not only a particular plan for development that doesn’t fit our community, but we have a bad actor,†de Blasio said, “an individual who has proven that he does not have the interest of the community in mind and is willing to cheat and any way he can advantage himself against the interest of the community.â€
Ummm...I got news for you Bill. Ratner is worse. Ratner's plan is far larger, goes BEYOND being inappropriate for the community and simply uproots a community, and has proven that the only interest Ratner has in the community is to squeeze it for $100 million to buy the land for a project he is far too lazy, or devious, to provide a business plan for.
I have no problem calling BS on Markowitz. He is so full of BS these days it is frightening. But Bill...I thought you at least were smart enough not to get caught in such BLATANT hypocrisy. Give us some credit, man. You might even be right about Scarano, but when you decided to back the corrupt process behind Ratner, you gave up your right to play community defender.
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Atlantic Yards | Bill de Blasio | Marty Markowitz
Err...not really
Submitted by mole333 on 16 June 2007 - 12:04pm.
Like I said, he may well be right about Carroll Gardens. But he is not applying the same standards of community concern with regards to Prospect Heights.
My main disagreement with you is that you are implying an acceptance of two myths that Ratner wants everyone to believe: 1.) that there is some sort of altruism at the heart of Ratner's proposal that will greatly benefit the community, thus justifying eminent domain, massive tax breaks, accepting a low bid, and outright buying him the land; and 2.) that our choice is either Ratner's plan or nothing. You do not outright say either of these, but I think your comments to some degree assume them...and Ratner certainly wants everyone to believe them. Neither is true.
Low bids, tax breaks, eminent domain are all well and good...in the public interest. But NOT in terms of boosting the profits of a private developer. From Sean Patrick Maloney to Tish James to Ron Shiffman to David Yassky people are increasingly feeling that all of this state and city level gifts to Ratner really do nothing but profit Ratner and represent the kind of crony capitalism that we have grown to detest in the Republicans and that create the kinds of messes in New Orleans and Iraq when Bush engages in it.
Ratner's plan offers NOTHING that is guaranteed that benefits the community. There are vague promises of jobs and affordable housing. Neither promise comes with any substantial guarantee and Ratner has a very poor (or no) record of accomplishing either. And since he has never filed a business plan, we have no idea how these promises would fit into his business plan.
In terms of job creation, one part of that promise was a job training program. That has turned into little more than another front organization cheerleading for Ratner that exchanged support for Yassky (or at least support of the program's head) for a proposal by Yassky that the city should pay for the program instead of Ratner. So much for Ratner's promises. Now Yassky seems to be more suspicious of Ratner and his promises these days, but back then Yassky seemed willing to encourage the city to relieve Ratner of the burden of his promises.
The affordable housing plan in particular seems bogus. The offer STARTS at a level that is not even considered "affordable housing" by Manhattan standards. And the cost of the "affordable housing" will start rising almost immediately probably making the already not really affordable housing unaffordable within 5 years.
So where is the community benefit that would justify all the state and city level gifts (at massive taxpayer expense!) to Ratner? No one has given me ANY clear explanation of how the community benefits. Vague mention of affordable housing (when the reality isn't very affordable for very long) and jobs (when Ratner has a very poor record of job creation) doesn't cut it.
So in theory I see what you are saying, but it does not in any way seem apropos to Atlantic Yards and de Blasio's hypocrisy. And I am willing, quite often, to give Bill the benefit of the doubt when it comes to such things even though I will argue against him. But I don't think I have called him a hypocrite before.
Marty I have called a hypocrite since he whined about disloyalty when people supported Mattera...AFTER he chose to support Bloomberg. THAT was one big giant pile of stinking hypocricy laid down by Marty and he seems to have continued the stinging trend.
oy -- and these math problems suck too
Submitted by Gothanonymous Reader (not verified) on 16 June 2007 - 6:53pm.
You seem to share with your old nemesis, Buddy Scotto, a belief that the correctness of your views is so self-evident that to disagree, one must be either stupid or corrupt (his words about Jerry Nadler). Bill may or may not be one of those, and Marty may be both, but the fact that they (wrongly) see Atlantic Yards differently than you do does not make them either, even if it does makes them both wrong. Further his position on the Yards vs. Scarano, is not, in and of itself, game set and match on the issue of whether Bill is a hyprocit, even though that is admittedly not impossible, and on some other issues, even a likelihood.
Community awareness
Submitted by sidnora on 16 June 2007 - 11:10am.
You'll be glad to know that the community seems at least somewhat aware of what these two have been trying to foist on them. At the opening night of the Celebrate Brooklyn concert series in Prospect Park, Marty was pretty soundly booed by the crowd. He had to shout to make himself heard.
Bill, not so much. Probably a combination of the fact that he hasn't been as high-profile (or nearly as rude) in his support for AY, and that he had his kid on stage with him.
Heh...
Submitted by mole333 on 16 June 2007 - 12:39pm.
I am sure he still has his supporters. He spent a long time building up an image of the amiable man of the people. That facade had some pretty big cracks in it, but many Brooklynites still cherish their old memories of Populist Marty. But can he patch up that facade on the campaign trail?
Marty is the Clown who wants to be Mayor. There is no way in hell he can even come close if he doesn't have pretty solid support in Brooklyn. If he is booed in the heart of what used to be his support base, that bodes very ill for his chances of coming out of a mayoral race without being seriously, embarassingly trounced.
It will be a crowded field for mayor. Wiener is a likely strong contender. Marty would be plowed under easily by Weiner. It would be no contest. Betsy "Useless" Gotbaurm is more Marty's league. They'd make a good team of do-nothing losers in their bids to run NYC. Many other names are being kicked around including some barely suspected yet. Marty has nothing to offer. Neither does Betsy. They will have their asses handed to them if they run.
Marty being booed in what once was the heart of his support base may be finally introducing him to reality.
The Mr. Bill Show
DeBlasio's honesty is often refreshing; he once told a friend he didn't put him on the Community Board because he supported someone else in the election, told him to draw the obvious conclusion. And DeBlasio's been the only one honest enough to admit he has no problem using the powers of his office to implement the policies he been elected to advocate, even if it means bumping folks off the Community Board. Since DeBlasio was pro-Yards before the last election, and had no primary, and beat an anti-Yards Green handily in the general, he can even claim he's following his mandate. When I read someone like Pauline Blake complaining that the failure to reaapoint her again and again to the Community Board, for lives in being plus 21 years is somehow undemocratic, I feel like shouting, "and who the fuck elected you, dear?
Also I am puzzled by your obsession with bids. The conveyance of government property need not always be based purely on price. Certainly, progressives should not object to RFPs wherein land is offered with the hopes of facilitating a particular type of public purpose through semi-private means. While one can onject that an arena is not such a great thing, it is not insane to argue the opposite. Holding out only for the highest bidder is not necessarily conducive to community friendly uses; it may even be the opposite.
Likewise, the anathema against eminent domain may be misplaced. Using eminent domain to facilitate uses which eventually involve private ownership is as old as the republic itself (e.g., the railroads, the Erie Canal); of course, so was slavery, and we abolished that. But, while always troubling, eminent domain is sometimes necessary, and not inherently evil. Unless, I've wandered into a site for Libertarians, and I don't think I have.
Anyway, Billy D Wilhelm's charmingly reckless candor alternates with snakelike insincerity without warning, and sometimes seemingly without reason, which is probably why he's not Council Speaker. I'm not sure the City's benefitted, but my guess is that if he was trusted instead of hated, he'd be the one in the chair.
But, although I agree with you that Atlantic Yards, because of its size, is more troubling than anything proposed by Scarano, I don't think it's inherently unresonable to argue the opposite. Let's play devil's advocate for a moment.
First of all, whatever you think of the adequacy of the "affordable" element of Ratner's plans, that element exists in some form. Second of all the arena is arguably an independent public benefit of its own. Neither of these things can be said of anything propose by Scarano.
Moreover, Carroll Gardens is a quiet low-rise area; preserving it as such is not hypocitical just because you think other areas are appropriate for hi-rise development.
Certainly, if any areas of Greater Brownstone Brooklyn is appropriate for large scale high-rise development (and I'm not sure any are), an open pit at the corner Flatbush and Atlantic, easily accesible to multiple means of mass transit, would seem to be at or near the top of the list.
Such determinations are not per see hypocritcal; they are the essence of rational urban planning. You may disagree with DeBlasio's conclusions, or ascribe them to political motivations, and you may very well be correct on both counts, but I hardly think this is as obvious as you make out to be.
I think this probably is just one more area where you and Bill disagree. Bill can be a first class phony, but I'm not sure these are matters where that is necessarily the case