June 15, 2004
Sticks and stones will break Dan's bones...
This is what passes for "balance" in the mainstream media these days: A long article in this week's New York magazine on the proposed Jets stadium calls deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff a "zealot" and compares him to The Music Man, but largely gives him a free ride on his economic numbers: Doctoroff's claim that the stadium would turn a $30 million a year profit in tax revenue is printed without rebuttal - or, for that matter, without noting that these figures were drawn from a study commissioned by the Jets.
In an even bigger omission, New York mag writes of the city's $600 million share of the stadium plan:
"Doctoroff argues that the Jets are hardly getting a free ride. The $600 million public investment covers $375 million to build a platform over the rail yards and $225 million for a retractable roof. In order to build anything over the rail yards, they have to be covered with a platform. By this logic, the $375 million is not a gift but a necessary expense to turn the rail yards into a developable site."
What the article doesn't reveal is that, according to Doctoroff's own testimony to the city council, the Jets would get to deduct the cost of the platform from their "fair-market" rent payments for development rights to the site. The Jets would, in effect, be paying only for the value of rights to a platform-less rail yard, then getting the deck for free - which is pretty much the definition of a "gift."
Late note: You can read my much less wordy take on the current state of the Jets stadium plans in this week's Village Voice.
