Gotham Gazette

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Opinion

‘Done Deal Democrats’ Push Misguided Land Grab


friends of roosevelt park

photo: Friends of Roosevelt Park


New York City is ruled by political elite, based in the Democratic Party. Elected officials regularly run unopposed or win re-election by margins that approach those of one-party regimes. They nominate and appoint community board members. They endorse each other’s re-election. They co-sponsor bills, attend party fundraisers, and work together to restrict the citizenry’s right to be heard and influence policy. Nowhere is this anti-democratic approach clearer than in the case of the American Museum of Natural History’s planned annexation in Margaret Mead Green and Teddy Roosevelt Park.

The museum, a private institution, wants to erect a giant, gas-fueled building in a public park. And, its “done deal” allies in government are all-too-willing to help them. For a year, the Manhattan borough president, the local City Council member, the community board chair, the city comptroller, the local Assembly member, and the city parks commissioner have told everyone that the project was, “a done deal.” Without a public hearing, before any community board dialogue, these “representatives” spread the word that the annexation was a forgone fact.

However, park preservationists, environmentalists, educators and neighbors have objected. They describe the plan as toxic, because, well, the museum wants to build on top of a toxic waste site and because it would spew millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide into the air. More than 4,000 people have picketed and signed petitions arguing against this eco-cide. They’ve pointed out that the neighborhood is already glutted with cultural institutions (e.g. Lincoln Center, the Historical Society, the Manhattan Children’s Museum) while other neighborhoods suffer a lack of cultural resources (The Bronx has only two museums for a borough of 1.5 million people.).

Those who live closest to the site worry about an additional 800,000 people each year flooding the tiny park’s pathways to gain access to a new gift shop, restaurant, and event space. Finally, everyone became outraged when a local journalist revealed that the Done Deal Democrats had appropriated nearly $100 million of taxes for this project.

Opponents of the plan went to Community Board 7 to urge its neutrality and to request that information from both sides of the issue be placed on the board’s website. Instead, the only material that appeared was provided by the museum, which wrote glowingly about its own proposal. For nine months, opponents of the plan asked the board to hold a public hearing before the city budget was approved and millions more allocated. Instead, the board officially joined a “working group” organized by and at the museum, so it could work out the kinks of the plan’s implementation.

And, when the community board finally got around to holding a hearing on the plan, the museum was allotted 45 minutes to make its case while opponents were given one minute each.

How has the museum been able to secure such enthusiastic support for this project from these public servants? Why have all these government officials been so generous with our tax dollars? In a word, lobbyists.

The museum has hired at least half-a-dozen lobbying firms to ply millions from our state and local treasuries. Seems surreal but true: public servants giving a private institution an enormous sum of our money to plunder our public asset, Teddy Roosevelt Park. The process is well-documented on the website of the state’s Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) and OpenSecrets.org. One firm is hired to influence the borough president, the mayor, the comptroller and the City Council. Another is hired to lobby government officials at the state level. And, yet a third set of influence-peddlers work on the federal level.

In an age when cities around the world are striving to reduce greenhouse gases, our city is indulging this fossil foolishness of the museum’s expansion. In an era when citizens are manifesting a gross distrust of government, New York City is operating like an autocracy. And, in a neighborhood rife with segregation and inequality, these Done Deal Democrats are reinforcing those disparities.
In the names of Teddy Roosevelt and Margaret Mead, we can do better.

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Dr. Cary Goodman has lived on the Upper West Side for four decades and has been active in the community throughout.

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Building in the Wrong Places: A Pivotal Choice


hudson river park aerial

photo: Hudson River Park Trust


Building sites for so-called "parks" or other misplaced uses in or over the water offshore is a ruinous policy. Unprecedented proposals now before the City Council to help finance such in-water construction by selling legally dubious "air rights" (supposedly unused development rights) from sites in the lower Hudson River--starting with Pier 40--or other public waterways to mega-developers would magnify this harmful policy's potentially catastrophic citywide impacts.

Joanne Witty's Dec. 2 op-ed contained misrepresentations used by both the Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT) and the Brooklyn Bridge Park Corporation to market the in-water parts of these public authorities' projects. In both cases, the green space on dry land under their purview is genuine parkland. But the real estate these authorities plan to keep rebuilding in the water in the guise of a park is not.

The public waterway in the lower Hudson River--the natural resource now under the gravest immediate threat--is not a "park.” The River's priceless nearshore waters are the worst possible place to build or rebuild real estate for any non-water-dependent use. The 490 acres of open waters and piers and other structures under HRPT's jurisdiction are in a #1 (highest risk) hurricane evacuation zone, so building sites to attract more people to the river at that location puts too many people in harm's way in deadly storms. These waters are also an irreplaceable aquatic habitat for living marine resources, including valuable coastal fisheries. And the river's open waters are a treasured public open space resource for many thousands of New Yorkers.

Some good reporting on the risks to human life and property from building real estate offshore followed right after Superstorm Sandy, but since then too many investigative reporters have been asleep at the switch. The staggering risks to public safety from Hudson River development are matched only by the risks to city finances and to sensible public spending priorities, since under disastrous 2013 state legislation city and state taxpayers would be on the hook for storm and hurricane damage costs and liability claims and disaster recovery costs -- potentially billions of dollars worth, based on Superstorm Sandy.

Stealth 2013 amendments to the Hudson River Park Act approved when now-convicted State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos were still in office shifted massive financial risks to taxpayers. This appalling package of 2013 amendments also paved the way for this week's "air rights transfers from the Hudson River" City Council proposals (LU 0506-2016 and related actions).

None of the Council's large staff had made timely, accurate information about these complex proposals public before crucial Council subcommittee and committee actions Dec. 5, despite an outpouring of opposition from Sierra Club, Clean Air Campaign, Friends of the Earth, and other activists. If the full Council approves and signs off on unprecedented, legally dubious "air rights" transfers from public waterways on Dec. 15, high-risk, complex financing schemes are likely to follow.

For what purpose? To implement a budget-busting, legally dubious, environmentally destructive, astronomically expensive 1960s policy that would unleash totally avoidable risks on New Yorkers today—along with swarms of “air rights” poised to land on any neighborhood where politicians want to make a deal to misuse our air, water and land.

That policy (building and rebuilding in-water development sites offshore) should be firmly rejected by any City Council member who values public safety, disaster prevention, genuine sustainability and resiliency policies that work, and fairer, wiser city spending priorities.

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Marcy Benstock is executive director of Clean Air Campaign and its Open Rivers Project. Clean Air Campaign shares the website www.WestwayThenandNow.org with other groups.

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Letter: CUNY is Committed to Educating Military Veterans


cuny military friendly

CUNY has earned praise as "military friendly" (photo via CUNY)


Dear Editor:

Regarding Joe Bello’s Dec. 7 op-ed, CUNY is deeply committed to making our University a first-choice destination for veterans. We proudly educate more than 3,000 student veterans, up more than 250 percent over the last eight years. We recruit veterans; deploy dedicated admissions counselors who smooth their way through admission; waive their application fees; assure that New Yorkers eligible for the Post 9/11 GI Bill attend 100 percent cost-free, and offer in-state tuition to non-New Yorkers for their first 18 months of study. We also proactively review veterans’ Joint Service Transcripts to grant academic credit for military service. Our campus veterans’ services coordinators are a one-stop resource to support veterans in their transition from military life to higher education.

Earlier this year the City University of New York became the first university system in America to be named “military friendly” in recognition of its programs for veterans, members of the armed forces leaving the service, and their military spouses. City College was just named the nation’s number one military-friendly large public college. We are proud of these designations for CUNY and City College, which affirm our progress toward cultivating and sustaining a university that embraces and empowers student veterans.

External rankings validate the welcoming environment at CUNY colleges for those who have served their country. That said, more funding for veterans’ programs would certainly be most welcome, and we look forward to working with the City Council for additional support. In the meantime, CUNY colleges will continue to make the best of available resources to assist student-veterans wherever possible.

Sincerely,
Christopher Rosa
Interim Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
City University of New York

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