I sent the following to Stephne Rendall of FAIR, he is looking into it:
April 1, 2004
Dear Mr. Rendall
Develop-Don't Destroy (BROOKLYN) and many others have been severely dismayed by the New York Times' coverage of the Bruce Ratner (Forest City Ratner) so called Atlantic Yards Proposal.
A little background:
Real estate developer Bruce Ratner plans to build a sports arena and 17 housing and commercial high-rises in residential Brooklyn (Atlantic Yards Development Proposal). More than half of his 24-acre proposal is presently occupied by private homes and businesses, property which Mr. Ratner does not own. For his proposal to proceed, Mr. Ratner will ask the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), or the City of New York, to use the awesome governmental power of eminent domain to condemn and seize this private property on his behalf.
We believe this abuse of eminent domain for a private use is unjustified, unconstitutional, and establishes a dangerous new precedent for development in New York-the precedent of destroying an already thriving and developed neighborhood, to replace it with a taxpayer subsidized arena/housing/commercial development for the benefit of a private developer.
We are represented by Civil Liberties Attorney Norman Siegel.
We have two very big complaints against the Times.
- They have done no investigative reporting into the proposal, and have done no editorial on it either-this includes no editorials, no Op-eds and no letters to the editor.
- They have had no in-depth reporting on the procedure taken by the state, city and the developer and nothing on how it would be funded (something we are all in the dark about)
Of their 50 plus articles most have had little substance and been superficial. And by far mot of those article were mainly about the sale of the Nets, the return of pro sports to Brooklyn, and the excitement surrounding that. The most critical articles were in the sports pages. The best they've done was an article that profiled some of the people fighting the project.
For an example of the type of in-depth investigative reporting we'd expect from the Times, you can read at this article by Dan Neel in the New York Press, Nets of Plenty: Bruce Ratner wants to turn public funds into private equity with a little help from his friends.
http://www.nypress.com/17/6/feature/feature.cfm
In just the past week:
- The Times had an editorial skeptical and critical of the West Side Stadium Proposal, which could have easily been about our issue if you just change Jets to Nets, and stadium to arena. (*see below)
- Bob Herbert had a very critical Op-ed about the West Side Stadium
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/29/opinion/29HERB.html?ex=1081589738&ei=1&en=a38099c36ac13dc8
* And a Metropolitan Section front page, in-depth, investigative article on eminent domain abuse, on a smaller scale, in, of all places, Long Branch, New Jersey.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/31/nyregion/31domain.html?ei=5062&en=aed0ebc3518d99c9&ex=1081
400400
*And just today published a letter from Jay Cross of the Jets, criticizing Bob Herbert's Op-ed (they have yet to publish one letter criticizing their coverage of the Brooklyn proposal)
Even when they've covered our story they've done so in a biased and inaccurate manner:
- We had a rally with hundreds of people in attendance last Sunday, and the only quote in the Times' article was from a person in favor of the arena.
- To illustrate another mainly uncritical and celebratory article about development in Brooklyn, the Times had a diagram showing the footprint of the arena proposal which only had the Atlantic Rail Yards in it, without including the private property which is more than half of the footprint.
We'd like to think and hope that the Times has simply dropped the ball on this. But we believe there is something much more devious going on here. Forest City Ratner is currently building the Times' new Midtown headquarters. FCR is in partnership with the Times on this project, the project used eminent domain, and liberty bonds. Many others and I believe that the Times' has not done its normal due diligence because of this conflict of interest. We understand the hypocritical position the Times would be in if they came out against eminent domain abuse when they've done it themselves. But we think it is simply not enough for the Times to disclose their partnership with FCR. We demand that they make the right move and look much more deeply and critically into this enormous project. If they do not, and they continue to soft-pedal it, they are doing infinite harm to its readers and the public by minimizing the scores of issues the proposal raises.
Lastly, they have yet to interview Norman Siegel and did not show up at the press conference where he was announced as our attorney. This is one of the great civil liberties lawyers of our time, fighting what very well may be a test case against the decades long abuse of eminent domain throughout the US and the Times has basically ignored it.
Why do you think its been ignored?
Thanks very much,
Daniel Goldstein
Develop--Don't Destroy (BROOKLYN)
Steering Committee Member
Chair, Political Subcommittee
917-701-3056
Here is the editorial:
March 25, 2004, Thursday
EDITORIAL DESK
The Rush to a Stadium
( Editorial ) 614 words
As the city prepares to announce plans to give the New York Jets a stadium on Manhattan's far West Side, it has asked New Yorkers to see the stadium as anything but just a place to watch football. The stadium has been presented as a potential venue for the 2012 Summer Olympics, as part of an expansion of the Javits Convention Center and as an anchor in redeveloping the area. Anyone against the stadium, it might seem, is automatically opposed to those other appealing projects. That is simply not true.
The Olympics may or may not come to the city in 2012, but a project as big as the stadium has to be judged on its own merits, not simply as a potential ticket to the honor of being the host of the Games. The Javits Convention Center expansion is needed, but it does not require a stadium. And a looming football stadium may be more albatross than anchor for the Bloomberg administration's redevelopment plans for the West Side.
In short, while there may be a compelling reason to situate a football stadium in Manhattan, officials have not offered it. Meanwhile, the potential downside is disturbing -- there are concerns about how the project would be financed, what impact it would have on traffic and whether there would be better uses for that prime piece of real estate.
By choosing a state-owned site, which is over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's rail yards, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is freed from having to ask approval of the City Council, which vetoed Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's attempt to get a stadium in the same part of town for the Yankees. Unlike the Yankees, the Jets have offered to make a substantial financial contribution, $800 million. But the city and state would have to split the remaining $600 million cost. That number could go higher if overruns occurred.
The plan to finance the stadium involves selling bonds against future tax revenue in the area. If the city's plans for redevelopment went well, tenants would start flocking to the far West Side, choosing that area over new Lower Manhattan office space. But if that failed to happen on the city's ambitious timetable, taxpayers would be liable for the shortfall. We'd like to see the city comptroller, William Thompson Jr., analyze the risk -- preferably after holding public hearings on the whole project.
Perhaps the most critical part of a plan for developing the far West Side is the extension of the No. 7 subway line, and much of the allure of the stadium plan was the fact that it seemed coupled to expanded subway service to the area. Now the state seems to be backing away from the No. 7 expansion. Any plans for the far West Side must include not only building the subway, but also a guarantee that the strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority is able to pay for the service and maintenance.
The Olympics would be a good thing for the city, but getting the Games seems a fairly long shot, and it is disturbing that the planners failed to work harder to come up with an alternate possible stadium site. New Yorkers are being pushed into a deal that could, in the end, leave the city with nothing but a football team playing on the river, more traffic congestion and a pile of new debt.