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The Atlantic Yards Hearing: A View From the Outside
Our babysitter was sick today so my wife and I split childcare duties. So, I decided I would go over to the Atlantic Yard's hearing today...the ONLY public hearing on the project the state is deigning to allow.
Well a quick subway trip took us to Metrotech. It was immediately clear to me that one hearing really was not enough. The line to get in went around the corner and was still growing. Well, I was with a nearly 2-year old baby and my chances of getting through that line without risking a large tantrum was pretty low. But I decided to see if it was worth it. I went around to the front only to see that the crowd got so thick that no stroller would make it through. I am pretty certain that was also indicative of how crowded it was likely to be inside. So, the one and only public hearing pretty much excluded families with children. Typical. Now maybe if I had come back later it would have been better, but families have something called a routine. I had to get back home to cook dinner and after that are bedtime rituals. So, it seems like the one and only public hearing was hard for families to navagate.
But I did get a chance to poke around. Yassky, Suozzi and Diamondstone all had signs up. Well, at least Suozzi and Diamondstone have taken stands on the issue. Yassky has been a fence sitter, so not sure who he was playing to. Perhaps everyone. The only person more ambiguous on his stand has been Hakeem Jeffries. Yassky at least has the excuse that he is running for Congress, not a body that will have Atlantic Yards as one of its major issues (so why does he have signs up?). Jeffries does not have that excuse.
I guess I should also note that having those signs up is, of course, illegal, but maybe their campaigns removed them afterwards.
Now let's talk about the crowd. It is clear that the unions were doing their best to pack in early. Fine, I am all pro-union. But then the unions have decided to take a hostile attitude and one that involves lying. Sorry to the unions, but I have to differ with you on this one.
I was wearing a Chris Owens and a Bill Batson button and my son was wearing his "Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn" tank top (a shirt that reminds me of what my Japanese friends called a "middle aged man's shirt"). The union people sneered at us and were outright hostile. That, I think, is a big mistake.
I have always been pro-union. My wife was a union organizer for a while at Columbia. I have been sypathetic to unions my whole life. My whole family has been pro-union. I currently work in the building where the American union movement got its major start--the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory (actually the Asche building...the factory was only the top three floors). I was supportive of the TWU when they chose to strike despite the difficulties it caused me. Yet the unions are vilifying me and sneering at me for what? For the benefit of a wealthy developer and his pet project! They are alienating their support base for Bruce Ratner. They are behaving hostile to supporters of Chris Owens and Bill Batson, who would be solid labor supporters. This is one major problem I have with the union approach to Atlantic Yards. They are hostile to you if you oppose Atlantic Yards even if you are a union supporter. I should also point out this is not the first time I have encountered this hostility from union people because I was anti-Ratner. This seems to be a habit of theirs and honestly it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. If they think it is reasonable to vilify people who have been their allies for years just because a wealthy developer with a poor record of creating solid union jobs promises them jobs, then they are not thinking strategically.
The second thing that bothers me about the Ratner supporters, and here I include ACORN as well as the union support, is that they claim opposition is due to NIMBY and a hostility to job creation and affordable housing. THAT IS ABSURD! That is the worst kind of straw man arguement. No opponent of Ratner's that I have ever met is opposed to development in the footprint or opposed to jobs creation or opposed to affordable housing. To claim otherwise is wrong and dishonest. Yes. ACORN and the unions are being dishonest about this.
The opposition to Atlantic Yards is opposition to a process that is at its very heart corrupt cronyism. And here is where people like Marty Connor has it wrong. He claims he doesn't care about it because it isn't in his district. So what he is saying is that corruption and cronyism that involve City Hall and Albany damned well should be of concern to Marty Connor. His claim otherwise shows a willingness on his part to accept cronyism and corruption.
And that is why this is an issue that people running for Congress, including David Yassky, should take a strong stand against. Corrupt cronyism is not just an issue at City Hall and Albany. It is an issue going right up to the White House and if a politician is not willing to take a stand against corruption and cronyism here in NYC how can I expect that politician to take a stand against it in Washington.
There is an alternate plan to Ratner's. That is what ACORN and the unions are being dishonest about. When they claim that opposition to Ratner is opposition to jobs and affordable housing they ignore the fact that there is an alternate plan that ALSO creates jobs and affordable housing but does it with MORE GUARANTEES and less scarring of Brooklyn. The alternate plan is what Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and Letitia James and most other Ratner opponants advocate. The alternative plan is also a major development project that creates jobs and affordable housing. It is simply more in line with the historical soul of Brooklyn, that unique heritage that we all like about Brooklyn. And it has, to date, involved no cronyism and corruption.
So support Ratner's plan if you want, but don't lie to me and the public. Don't ignore the alternative plan. Don't try to railroad the plan through secret or inadequate meetings. And stop supporting a process that has been rought with corruption.
only public hearing?
That was the only public hearing? I thought there was a second one scheduled for Sept. 12th, which is inconveniently the night of the primary, when most of us will be otherwise occupied. Or did they cancel that one? No way they should be scheduling hearings on election day, encouraging people to skip voting so they can get a seat at the hearing...
Only one, I think
That is what everyone is saying, at least, including NY1. If another has been scheduled, I haven't heard. But there is pressure to do so, including by Eliot Spitzer.
Only One Hearing
There is a "community forum" scheduled on primary day, September 12. Here is what NoLandGrab.org had to say yesterday 8/23:
This morning AM NY reported that "state officials rebuffed questions about the forum -- such as what time doors will open and how overflow will be handled -- by treating them as requests under the Freedom of Information laws."
We hardly believed it, until we read it for ourselves. Here's the skinny:
On Monday, Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods Co-Chair Therese Urban sent an email to Jessica Copen, Director of Communications of the Empire State Development Corporation, asking several questions about today's public hearing and the purpose of and rules for the September 12 "community forum."
These questions weren't exactly hardball, mostly questions that Brooklynites and bloggers have been pondering aloud, i.e.:
* What is a 'community forum'?
* What is the difference between a 'commmunity forum' and a 'public hearing'?
* At what time will the doors open?
* Can you sign up to speak and then leave the building? (including for a telephone call or a smoke)
These are relatively benign questions, to which, one must assume, the ESDC and Forest City Ratner already have the answers (Forest City will conduct their own presentation at today's hearing).
Copen's response (emphasis added) illustrates the adversarial posture taken against the public by the State agency, which stands in stark contrast to their "collaborative" (their word, not ours) relationship with the developer:
We are handling this as a Freedom of Info request and will respond to you in the next couple of days.
union interlopers
the thing that made me the most incensed about the whole event is that NONE of those union people live anywhere near the neighborhood. None of them care one bit about any of the negative impacts, and further, none of them will likely be moving into ratnerville if it happens.
they've been so brainwashed by their unions and acorn that they are willing to speak for a project they really know nothing about.
disgusting.
good questions
the problem is that the ratner people could easily have paid their own "members of the public" to show up and monopolize as many of the speaking spots as possible. Thereby limting the ability of the opposition to debate.
If the gathering on election night is a "community forum" does that mean that it carries less importance to speak there than at the "public hearing"?
Not sure
I haven't had any time to look into the Sept. 12th event. I think Public Hearings do carry more weight in that the comments become part of the public record of the decision making process. Community Forums may be more PR events or unofficial ways to let the community feel involved without actually being a real "on the record" event. But I am not sure.
Tell Them Last Night Just Wasn't Enough
Last night just wasn't enough.
Perhaps it's time for everyone to drop a note or email to the Mayor and Marty (again) protesting the lack of community input because the powers-that-be will point to this event and call it community input.
I thought I was the only one but it's clear that t a)nobody knows what the Public Hearing really is and b) there's not enough community input to the Ratner plan if indeed it is going forward in any event
And, most importantly c) we need an alternative plan and better process.
One wonders whether Marty's comment on the news about maybe the project could be scaled down is a precursor to some "tidbit" that the Ratner company might toss the crowd, to calm everyone down? Just speculation.
Last night's DEIS hearing
The hearing on September 12th carries no weight. Comments from that hearing will not be included in the DEIS process.
The ESDC has done everything it can to hand this project to Ratner on a silver platter -- the silver paid for by taxpayers. So our comments last night don't carry any more weight than the ones on the 12th.
But just to be official about it, last night's comments were entered into the record. On the 12th, they won't be.
Written submissions are being accepted by the ESDC through September 22.
Intimidating a two-year-old
Now, mole333, as a critic of the Atlantic Yards and all its wonderfulness, you must've done something "shrill and vitriolic," even subconciously, to provoke the union members into their sneering hostility.
Because we all know that proponents of Atlantic Yards are all polite, cordial, reasonable and all-around swell people*, whose aw-shucks demeanors are frequently affronted by the crude words and actions of the horrible anti-development kooks and screamers who would say and do anything to preserve their precious rail yard and dilapidated slum of a neighborhood.
Maybe your kid looked cross-eyed at Bruce Bender or something.
As for the September 12th "community forum," the ESDC has told the Brooklyn Papers that it would carry the same weight as yesterday's "public hearing." Which would then beg the question: why isn't it a "public hearing?" Bottomline, I wouldn't believe a word from the weaseling ESDC unless you see something on their letterhead. Oops, there I go again with the shrill vitriol.
* Full disclosure: the two iron workers I stood next to and spoke with in line were nice gentlemen, and one of them turned out to live not far from me in Park Slope.
Reactions to last nights hearing
I agree with Mole333's opinion on the unions hostility. And who are we kidding their basic death threats to a crowd of people last night. I have felt so out of sorts and deeply sad all day from what I witnessed yesterday. Community? Acorn and Build preaching like it was a church, and the sermon? If you are poor and lived in Brooklyn for 35 years, we can talk, if you are white and have an opinion, well if we could we'd probably kill you. But if you are Bruce Ratner who can't even sit through a hearing let alone LIVE in Brooklyn, somehow, that is a rich white Jewish man we can get behind. A man who has no social service background is going to end racism, classism and health issues....and yet we can't be civil in the slightest. No need to worry about asthma folks, we're gonna have a health center! Two wrongs apparently make a right. But who am I to belittle what they believe in I suppose. And the Unions? Yea I'm sure they are really concerned about the needs of a formerly incarcerated underemployed black men. Any other forum and the slurs would be racing between them. And this infront of the youth in the room that we all supposedly care about.
I have thought myself a pro union person. I even had some training through the AFLCIO. But I just rode the subway home tonight and found myself being first politely "hit" on and then mostly harrassed by two of these caring union guys. And when the word Atlantic Yards came out of one of the iron worker's mouth, I must have given a look of disgust. "Oh they's gonna build it. Its gonna be Manhattan, we have more money than you. We gonna make thousands of 1800 a month apartments, all apartments should be that. {well too bad you won't be able to afford it so don't get too excited yet, I say} I'm gonna own them" And on and on with an evil look in his eye - and the switch blade in his shoe that he had previously taken out as a "joke" with in my view. I mouthed off in my best new yawk tough bitch way, but to what point really. This is a game of legos to this guy, he doesn't care about anything but a pay check. Maybe I have seen too many movies? Maybe I have made myself a paranoid person. The union has the power, that used to be a saying I could stand with. Now I am scared, I am truly frightened by the brainwashed, blindsighted views, down right hateful behavior that was so apparent last night. A breakdown in society I fear is underway. Melodramatic? I think not.
I like to fancy myself as someone who advocates for the needs of the poor, I believe in empowerment and being at the table. And yet I find myself in a quandry when I see the beyond childish, towards hateful, racists, ungodly, down right scary behavior of the PROPONENTS of this project. If this is "letting the people decide," maybe I have to rethink my beliefs, I don't know.
Exactly what community am I even figthing for anymore, I simply and sadly don't know.
Maybe someone out there can lead me back?
The thing that pisses me off
The thing that pisses me off is: basically a message of hope has been held out to people who have little (the proponents) and they are clinging to it for dear life, and no one is asking the question why? Why are they so desperate for housing, a health center, day-care, etc? The answer is that social services have been woefully cut. Why not take the 421a tax exemptions that condo buyers will get and put that money into these social services? Don't get me wrong -- I'm not advising a return to days of Lindsayian mismanagement. But both Bloomberg and Ratner know damned well that these communities are underserved and are cynically manipulating them. And the bottom line is: these communities probably won't get much housing, nor yet the construction jobs (housing downturn is coming, folks, and you bet your behind the union is going to operate on seniority). The cynical racial divisiveness is appalling.
Good point. One guy went up
Good point. One guy went up there and kept talking about the system keeping everyone out of housing, the cut of section 8 and federal housing...well exactly who do they think the folks they are working on "at the table with are?" The folks to who keep people out of the housing system and the people who did NOTHING to save section 8. Rev. Doughtry wants to know where everyone was during every fight in Brooklyn. Where was Ratner, where was Pataki and by gosh where were the Unions when people were trying to save Section 8, save mitchell lama housing. WHERE WERE THEY??
not everyone got to speak
The Times article say that not nearly everyone got to speak, and that anyone who didn't get to speak gets first crack at speaking at the community forum on election night. The thing is that by paying people to show up and hog all the speaking spots, and guaranteeing that there's not gong to be enough time for the opposition to speak at even two meetings, the Ratner folks are effectively controlling debate on the issue.
not everyone got to speak
The Times article say that not nearly everyone got to speak, and that anyone who didn't get to speak gets first crack at speaking at the community forum on election night. The thing is that by paying people to show up and hog all the speaking spots, and guaranteeing that there's not gong to be enough time for the opposition to speak at even two meetings, the Ratner folks are effectively controlling debate on the issue.
not everyone got to speak
The Times article say that not nearly everyone got to speak, and that anyone who didn't get to speak gets first crack at speaking at the community forum on election night. The thing is that by paying people to show up and hog all the speaking spots, and guaranteeing that there's not gong to be enough time for the opposition to speak at even two meetings, the Ratner folks are effectively controlling debate on the issue.