January 26, 2005
Jets stadium: Behind the music
So it turns out that independent appraisal of the value of the New York Jets stadium land is done after all - but the state agency that owns the land won't let anyone see it. "The only people who have the appraisal document are [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] chairman [Peter Kalikow] and the Jets," authority director Katherine Lapp told state legislators yesterday. Legislators say they need to see the appraisal before voting on the stadium plan, especially considering that the MTA's capital plan is already $2.5 billion in the hole. (And that's even before including the cost of defending against pyromaniac vagrants.) Anybody here good at filing Freedom of Information Act requests?
Meanwhile, the local media continues to uncover other dirty laundry surrounding the West Side redevelopment project that would include the stadium. Yesterday, the Daily News' Juan Gonzalez reported that friends of deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff have been buying up land in the stadium district at discounted prices. Today, the New York Observer notes that six of the seven corporations to get multi-million-dollar corporate subsidy packages from Mayor Michael Bloomberg have donated to the city's Olympic committee, raising questions about whether giving to NYC2012 guarantees preferential treatment. "Support for the Olympic plan has become a real litmus test of whether city government responds to you," Regional Plan Association director Robert Yaro told the Observer, while a city lobbyist said: "If a client came to me and said, 'Look, I want to get in with this administration,' I'd say, 'Hey, give to the Olympics.'"
Bloomberg himself seems to be getting a bit antsy about the fate of the project, at least if the rhetoric with which he's pressuring state elected officials is any guide. "An awful lot of the members of the IOC, including the more senior people, one of the things that they keep coming back to is, will New York City build the venue they think is appropriate," Bloomberg told a state legislative panel yesterday. "The site selection committee is coming here, they’re going to say, 'Hey, we read the papers, is this going to get done or isn't it?'" But remember, according to the mayor the stadium doesn't count as a cost of the Olympics because it would happen anyway.
Finally, some clarification on Gov. George Pataki's $300 million stadium budget item, thanks to a couple of helpful legislation gnomes: Apparently the governor's plan would have the state sell $300 million in bonds, and leave it up to future legislatures just how to pay them off. State assembly speaker Sheldon Silver is still insisting he hasn't decided whether to sign off on the deal, saying: "I haven't seen the financial plan that will be presented. At that time, we'll make the appropriate decision."
Posted by: Bertell Ollman at January 29, 2005 05:35 PM
