[via The Daily Gotham - Chuck Schumer at Stuy-Town Press Conference]

Upon reviewing these video clips, there's one thing that I just realized about Schumer's shpiel : He's calling out MetLife's possible use of public land for free due to eminent domain as a playing card in the negotiations.

Does this mean, if it is true they did not pay for the land, that there are potential grounds for demanding from the company to pay what is owed to the city and with interest? Could there actually be any repercussions to MetLife's weaseling out of paying for the land they used to develop Stuy-Town?

More importantly, what effects, if any, could this have on development projects like Atlantic Yards and Williamsburg?

Hmmmmm.

You can find this clip at YouTube as well.

[via YouTube - The Daily Gotham - Stuy Town Press Conference - Dan Garodnick]

An anonymous tipster alerted me of this press conference and so, I was part of ... ahem ... New York City's media taping the whole thing. It was fun to see Dan in all his incumbent glory dealing with the heavy issue of the selling of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper.

Dare I say he sounds ... ahem ... mayoral. This is a guy NYC Democrats ought to keep an eye on for taking back City Hall in 2009.

Go.

Read it.

NOW!

[via Bloomberg.com: Opinion | Hillary Clinton Betrays Brooklyn at Grass Roots]:

In an expansive interview with the local papers at the Sunset Park Senior Center last month, Clinton explained her views. ``Public land should be public land,'' the Brooklyn Paper, a weekly, reported her as saying. ``If parks had to be self-sustaining, would anybody have ever built a park?'' Another paper reported Clinton as saying that ``by definition, a park should be enjoyed for recreation.''

Clinton said it was a ``a little disingenuous'' to build luxury condos, concluding, ``I think we can do better than that.''

She is running for re-election, and she had just finished reading the autobiography of a Kenyan Nobel Prize winner, the environmentalist Wangari Muta Maathai. Clinton said of Maathai that ``one of her great accomplishments was stopping luxury housing in Uhuru Park in Nairobi.''

[...]

.... within a few days, Clinton had adjusted. In a mid-August letter to Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp., she wrote of the importance of a ``revenue stream'' for such parks, saying, ``I do not support legal action to oppose the park.'' The senator didn't give a reason for her transformation to Development Democrat, but pro-development officials were visibly lobbying her.

If we do, here's a fantastic reminder created by National Geographic and made available to the public through www.video.google.com :

I agree with the National Trust for Historic Preservation : Don't build anything until all details for preservation are sorted out.

Herewith are the paraphraghs that boggled my mind.

[via Donations Slow for Memorial at Ground Zero - New York Times]:

The foundation is preparing an ambitious worldwide marketing campaign to raise the remaining $197.7 million to cover the costs, at a time when many groups are continuing to solicit donations to aid victims of the Asian tsunami, two Gulf Coast hurricanes, the Pakistani earthquake, the Philippine mudslide and other disasters far more recent than the 2001 terrorist attacks.

"I would say this is a challenging goal, because the foundation can't now rely on the shock value of the original tragedy," said Leo P. Arnoult, a fund-raising consultant not connected with the memorial. "But given the magnitude of the event, perhaps the fund-raising could be presented as something very affirming."

First, what does it say of our government that it won't pony-up the money for a memorial?

Second, what does it say of NGOs or non-profit organizations that, and I quote, "rely on the shock value of the original tragedy" to justify their existence? And let me add to that, rely on the marketing of a tragedy to pay the bills?

The US government should have covered the cost of the memorial and then have a foundation manage it. What does it say about the Bush administration that they could care less about what goes on at Ground Zero?

That they knew it was a necessary loss to further their dreams of Empire? That 2K Americans are dispensable in the quest of untold riches in the Middle East? That a hole in the ground in New York City is a little loss --good thing we don't have something like the war that has destroyed Iraq? Or that, what's the rush since more calamities will be coming our way anyhow?

Mr. President, what does your administration's silence over the fate of Ground Zero really, truly mean?

Ferrer:

(1) Ensure every dollar of the consession money goes back into the parks.

(2) Minimum staffing and maintenance standards
(3) Compeltely clear & transparent way for people to judge the city in its maintenance of its parks

"Lovely to have wifi but we first need the benches."

Fields
(1) Funding would be a priority .. that's why I signed the 1% pledge

(2) Planning, so that when decisions made about development, parks are on the table

Miller
(1) Reclaim bottom 50 parks

(2) $10 million for maitenance & $25MIL capital

(3) Enforce maintenance & make sure there's security

(4) Create relationships with private funding

Ognibene
(1) The first thing I would do is to rethink my position about community gardens

(2) I went to all the community organizations and the most important thing to do is to find out what they need and what they want and make sure they interact with the new parks commissioner ... there's no reason why every park has people's input

The Villager
http://www.thevillager.com/villager_111/organizationalmeetingon.html
Volume 75, Number 4 | June 15- 21, 2005

Organizational meeting on downzoning and landmarking on the Lower East Side
By David Katz

People, politicians and community organizations who have been active in zoning and landmarking issues on the Lower East Side have been invited to an educational forum at the Clayton Gallery, 161 Essex St., on Mon., June 20 at 6 p.m.

"This will not be a rally," emphasized organizer and gallery owner Clayton Patterson. "It is strictly an informational meeting in which groups involved in the struggle to preserve our communities will speak, and in which the politicians who have shown up at their rallies will also be invited to comment, and state what they think can be done about the situation."

Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, which is spearheading the movement for downzoning the Far West Village to prevent out-of-scale construction from destroying the character of the neighborhood, will speak about the lessons learned there, and how they can be applied to the East Village. Richard Kusack, of The Committee for Zoning Inaction, will address "Trojan horse zoning," the bait-and-switch process by which developers misuse or misrepresent their projects as community facilities and dormitories in order to erect hotels and luxury housing; also invited are representatives from L.O.C.O; the Ludlow-Orchard Community Organization, who have been involved in the fight against the construction of a 24-story luxury hotel directly opposite a proposed 15-story luxury condominium on Orchard St. between Houston and Stanton Sts.; the East Village Community Coalition, involved in the fight to preserve St. Brigid¹s church and annex on Avenue B and the old P.S. 64 on E. Ninth St.; and representatives from 4 E. Third St., 47 East Third St. and 81 E. Third St., sites of recent protests over such issues as overdevelopment and construction not conforming with Buildings Department guidelines.

You are invited to a very special and informative NDM General Meeting this coming Monday, June 13th, 7:30 PM, at the New Tank, located at 208 West 37th Street (between 9th and 10th).

The 2005 campaign is upon us, with petitioning for the various races now underway. We’ll spend the first, shorter part of the meeting addressing petitioning – with the goal of turning you into a more effective advocate for the candidates you support. There are great candidates in this race who really need your help – please come out to support them.

Then, we’ll address a huge issue that is rising on the city’s radar screen. If you thought the West Side stadium was a bad idea, you’ll be interested to hear about Atlantic Yards: the Forest City Ratner project in downtown Brooklyn to build a basketball arena on MTA rail yards, take private property by eminent domain and throw people out of homes and businesses in order to build 30- and 40-story apartment and office towers in a low-rise neighborhood. By the way, you’re paying for it, to the tune of $2.1 billion in public funding.

We’ve invited the following speakers to help us understand this issue better:

City Councilwoman Letitia James, a leading opponent of Atlantic Yards
Chris Owens, Candidate for Congress
Reverend Clinton Miller, Brown Memorial Baptist Church
Norman Titus, Candidate for City Council

Please join us for this informative evening. While you’re there, you can take action immediately: we’ll have letter-writing supplies handy, plus contact info and talking points on Atlantic Yards, on the current debate about voting machines in New York, and, last not least, the Downing Street Memo. It’s going to be a very full and exciting evening of progressive activism, and we look forward to seeing you there.