Please note our new postal address when sending
contributions to the legal fund:
121 5th Avenue, PMB #150
Brooklyn, New York 11217
About DDDB
Our coalition consists of 21 community organizations and
there are 51 community organizations formally
aligned in opposition to the Ratner plan.
DDDB is a volunteer-run organization. We have over 5,000
subscribers to our email newsletter, and 7,000 petition
signers. Over 800 volunteers have registered with DDDB
to form our various teams, task-forces and committees
and we have over 150 block captains. We have a 20 person
volunteer legal team of local lawyers supplementing our
retained attorneys.
We are funded entirely by individual donations from the community at large
and through various fundraising events we and supporters have organized.
We have the financial support of well over 3,500 individual
donors.
...THE MTA HAS A DECISION TO MAKE — IT HAS TO DECIDE WHETHER
IT IS APPROPRIATE IN THIS CRISIS TO FUND FLASHY "COSMETIC" MEGA-PROJECTS
IN PLACES LIKE LOWER MANHATTAN WHILE STARVING THE SYSTEM AS A WHOLE, OR WHETHER
IT MAKES MORE SENSE TO STRATEGICALLY AND TEMPORARILY REDIRECT FUNDS TO PRESERVE
JOBS, SAFETY, AND RELIABILITY IN THE SYSTEM.
...At an MTA hearing in June, Markowitz's representative, Carlo Scissura,
assured
the board, "As we all know, the Borough President would never support anything
that is not in the interests of all of Brooklyn and all Brooklynites."
While the MTA holds public hearings on more service and job cuts, we must consider
reasons why the MTA is consistently in a financial mess.
In large part it has to do with mismanagement of assets and the sweetheart deals it makes with real estate developers. In particular, the deal it made with Bruce Ratner to sell the valuable 8.5 acre Vanderbilt Railyard for Ratner to build his Atlantic Yards arena and skyscraper boondoggle is a disgrace
Many of our elected officials and the MTA leadership can't seem to put 2 and 2
together.
Here is a short history of the Atlantic Yards sweetheart deal:
The 8.5 acre Vanderbilt Railyards, in Prospect Heights, were appraised by
the MTA at $214.5 million. ($214 million
is precisely the amount of money the MTA says it would cost to run the schoolkids
MetroCard program for one year.)
In 2005, after a politically fixed bidding process, the MTA awarded the Railyards to Ratner for $100 million, even though he was outbid by Extell Development Company's $150 million.
In September 2009 the MTA Board reached a new agreement with Ratner where he pays only $20 million up front and $80 million over 22 years (if ever).
The MTA left, at minimum, $50 million on the table without ever holding a real bidding process or testing the market in a fair and responsible manner.
With this kind of deal making it is no wonder the MTA is consistently strapped for cash and takes it out on the rest of us—straphangers, schoolkids and transit workers.
It's too bad the likes of Marty Markowitz didn't think about this ahead of time, when he was promoting the MTA's sweetheart deal.
Contact:
Governor
David A. Paterson Mail: State Capitol
Albany, NY 12224 Phone: 518-474-8390
Email Form: Click
Here
Need contacts for other elected officials? Click
here.
Click here to order DDDB tshirts. They cost $20 and
all funds go to our legal campaign, shirts come in black,
red, gold and pink tanktops.
Eminent Domain Case
Goldstein et al v. ESDC [All
case files]
What
would Atlantic Yards Look like?... Photo
Simulations
Before and After views from around the project footprint
revealing the massive scale of the proposed luxury apartment
and sports complex.
