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March 22, 2005
Your tax dollars at work
This morning, the New York city council hearing took on the issue of whether Mayor Michael Bloomberg can spend $300 million on a Jets stadium without needing council approval - the PILOT "slush fund" that I've discussed here ad nauseum. The result was probably best summed up by an interaction between council speaker Giff Miller and city budget director Mark Page that took place early in the hearing:
MILLER: As a general rule, this PILOT money goes into the general revenue stream, right? ... And that's considered under the IDA statute that it should be delivered under the taxing jurisdiction. And we're the taxing jurisdiction, right, the city of New York?PAGE: You know, when you get into the intricacies of this statute, I'm told by the Law Department that our proposal is legal. I am not an expert to respond to the niceties of what's in the statute.MILLER: Well, I think that's fair. Is the Law Department testifying?(pause for response from someone off-mic)MILLER: We invited them but they're not coming?(laughter from crowd)PAGE: That's my understanding.MILLER: Well, I'll say that I think we're disappointed by that.
And that's pretty much the way it went: Page insisting that "We've always done it this way, and our lawyers say it's fine," while good-government groups cited city and state law to show that allowing the mayor to siphon off PILOT payments for pet projects is apparently illegal, no matter whether it's been done in the past. (Good Jobs New York presented excellent testimony on the relevant law; it should be available on their website on Wednesday. [UPDATE: It's there now.]) Page, who repeatedly rubbed his brow and generally came off like someone wishing he could join a witness-protection program, resisted even providing the council with a written opinion from the mayor's lawyers, resulting in this entertaining interchange with council finance committee chair David Weprin:
WEPRIN: Since you do have control of the corporation counsel [the mayor's law department], would you be able to provide to this committee a legal opinion from the corporation counsel?PAGE: I can't speak for the corporation counsel on that issue.WEPRIN: Can you request a legal opinion from the corporation counsel?(laughter)PAGE: I can certainly convey your request.(more laughter)WEPRIN: No, I'd like you to request a legal opinion from the corporation counsel.(laughter, applause)PAGE: I can ask for it.WEPRIN: You can ask for it? Okay.
The PILOT slush fund issue now seems certain to end up in court, at which point maybe the mayor's lawyers will actually show up to explain themselves.
The second round of today's hearings, which I skipped, was on Cablevision's $11-million-a-year tax break on Madison Square Garden, which, as you'll recall, has dragged on for more than a decade after anyone expected it to, but which never became a hot political issue until Cablevision started lobbying to block the Jets stadium. According to those who were there, the hearing was long on councilmembers bashing Cablevision and short on actual proposals to just repeal the damn tax break, which would require an act of the state legislature; and as for anyone bringing up, say, the other $7.7 billion in property-tax breaks that the city hands out each year, fuhgeddaboutit.
Finally, in other New York stadium-subsidy news today, both Newsday and the Village Voice report that the city plans to provide more than $100 million in tax breaks and loan guarantees for a plan to redevelop the Bronx Terminal Market into a shopping mall and Olympic velodrome. The real-estate tycoon scheduled to receive this taxpayer windfall: Steven Ross, would-be NASCAR developer and former partner of deputy mayor for economic development Dan Doctoroff.
