How Albany corruption is the gift that keeps on giving long after the voters throw the bums out ...
By Andy Campbell
The Brooklyn Paper
Here's Doug Biviano's letter to the Brooklyn Paper regarding their article:
The biggest problem with the luxury housing in the park is that it really has delayed construction, resulting in its phased and uncertain completion.
When Marty Connor and his loyal follower Joan Millman ushered in the radical funding model of housing/development in the park (never done before) they handed control over to the developers, increased complexity with drastic infrastructure upgrades, and ballooned costs from $100 million to $350 million with unnecessary and exorbitant earthwork. Think of how radical development incongruent with community input delayed Atlantic Yards decades perhaps.
Everyone I speak to wants a park now -- BEFORE OUR KIDS GO TO COLLEGE (already too late for many who fought for the park over the decades) and BEFORE THE REAL ESTATE MARKET RECOVERS.
NOW that NYC has taken control and the real estate market has cooled, we have a great opportunity to revisit the GPP, to simplify and lower capital and maintenance costs.
The space is inherently beautiful without extravagant architectural detail, wasteful earthwork and $84,000 stainless steel domes to adorn Million Dollar luxury condos. Ironically, a lower cost project scope will speed up completion in a way that will yield much more active space for park users (i.e. a little league baseball diamond vs. passive $100 million three story earthwork berms running the length of Furman).
Let's get the park done now. Scrap the luxury condos. Get Marty Connor and his followers out of the way.
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Buying Time Budgets
To Get Reelected
It is clear that this years budget was pasted together with spit and gum so incumbent pols could run for reelection with a state budget. With three budget modifications last year you would think the media would get the hint that dysfunctional Albany no long passes real budget but spin documents intended to protected incumbents. DiNapoli warns of NY kaboom time$ The latest state budget is about to explode, state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli warned yesterday in a damning analysis of the $134.4 billion spending plan. Proposals based on "risky" or overly optimistic projections make up more than half -- some $4.8 billion -- of the Legislature's efforts to close an estimated $9.2 billion budget gap this year, leaving the state open to future budget woes.* Jealous of Jersey New York's budget is a fiscal time-bomb, packed with huge risks, hit-or-miss revenue and one-time cash jolts sure to leave Albany dry in '11. * New Yorkers gave the Legislature an “F” for its budget performance this year, a Siena poll found
Read the Blog: Trues News From ChangeNYC.org. |
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Albany is corrupt because of the election law that keeps incumbents re-elected for life no matter how much they hurt us. Who controls the election law? 13 year incumbent Joan Millman does as Chairperson of the Assembly Election Law Committee.
June 23, 2010 - New York State Is Dysfunctional, 83% Of Voters Say, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Candidates Should Pledge To Fix District Lines
New York State government is dysfunctional, 83 percent of voters say, the highest number ever measured in the state, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today.
A total of 80 percent of New York State voters are "somewhat dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied" with the way things are going in the state, also the highest dissatisfaction ever in New York, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds...
"New Yorkers are fed up with Albany. The resentment is bigger than we've ever measured. Just about half think that the whole Legislature should be voted out of office - even their own state senator and Assembly member," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute... Read Poll Results
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
29 June 2010
Press Contact: Doug Biviano, (917) 257-3652
Biviano Targets MTA Cuts,
Decries Albany Inaction,
Proposes Plan to Restore Full Service with No Fare or Tax Hikes
Brooklyn, NY -- New York State Assembly Candidate Doug Biviano today proposed a bold plan to protect transit service and put the MTA's operating budget back in the black. Biviano’s plan would attack the state’s bloated $30.6 billion debt to be serviced over the next 24 years, while offering reforms to trim fat and maintain services for the millions of New Yorkers that depend on our public transportation system.
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