Yankee Stadium parking lot boondoggle keeps growing

From the NY Post:

The city is owed more than $100 million in unpaid rent, taxes and interest on parking lots at Yankee Stadium constructed nearly a decade ago — with no payment in sight, documents show.

Bronx Parking Development Corp., which runs the facilities, has lost at least $28 million a year in each of the past three years because not enough Yankee fans are willing to pay as much as $45 to park there for a single game.

The firm owed the city’s Economic Development Corp. $45.2 million in unpaid rent and interest as of March 31, and $56 million in unpaid taxes and interest, records show.

“It was definitely a boondoggle from a former administration, but what now?” said Geoffrey Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates, who has been monitoring the deal because it displaced acres of Bronx parkland. “At some point, the city needs to take responsibility for this horrible deal because the bill keeps going up.”

The Yankees insisted they needed thousands of additional parking spots for fans when the new stadium was built, so about 9,100 spaces were created or preserved in 2010.

Flushing Meadows has most park crime

From PIX11:

The head of New York City Park Advocates is concerned about what he sees as an alarming increase in crimes in New York City Parks for the first half of 2016 compared to the same six-month period of 2015.

"I am not surprised," Geoffrey Croft, president of NYC Park Advocates, told PIX11 News. "I have been calling for an increase in police presence."

Specifically, according to NYPD CompStat numbers, there was a 36 percent increase in the number of robberies, 156 in all. Also a 24 percent upward trend in assaults, 94 of them, and a whopping 67 percent increase in grand larcenies, total of 194.

"That's almost a 49 percent increase," Croft said. "That's astronomical and alarming."

Central Park isn't the leader in crimes, according to the statistics.

That dubious distinction goes to Flushing Meadows Corona Park, which has seen 25 grand larcenies, four robberies and a felony assault in the first half of this year.

Drunk tennis fans get a pass

From the NY Post:

Parks Department officers are under strict orders not to issue summonses for public drinking, urination and other offenses around Arthur Ashe Stadium so as not to spoil the fun for tournament-goers, it was revealed Thursday.

In the past, Parks Enforcement Patrol officers usually wrote hundreds of tickets during the two-week tennis championship, said Geoffrey Croft, the head of NYC Park Advocates.

But this year, officers were specifically told by the head of the Flushing Meadows-Corona Park command, “Don’t write summonses during the US Open,” Croft said.

“Talk about a Tale of Two Cities — it’s selective enforcement,” one officer told Croft, who writes the blog “A Walk in the Park.”

“Crime is going up and summonses are down. We’re being hindered from doing our job. The US Open is calling the shots.”

The head of the union that represents the PEP officers, Joseph Puleo, accused the city of “using our officers as political pawns and allowing crimes to be committed without coverage.”

Parks playing with PEP officer numbers

From the Queens Chronicle:

At a March 3 City Council hearing about the mayor’s planned increase of 67 Parks Enforcement Patrol officers for the fiscal year 2017 budget, Parks Department Commissioner Mitchell Silver spoke about the planned allocation of officers for Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

“We have six dedicated to the Flushing Meadows Corona Park; there will be an addition of eight, which will make 14,” he said.

According to a Parks Department spokesman, the park has 12 PEP officers reporting out of it, six of whom are dedicated to patrolling the park.

In addition, a department spokeswoman said, there are four city seasonal aid officers and three urban park rangers assigned to the aquatic center in the park, in addition to five job training participants who are assigned to the Al Oerter Recreation Center.

Behind only Central Park, which has a police precinct dedicated to it, FMCP has the second-highest crime rate out of any park in New York City.

But according to a supervisory officer, the numbers provided by the department are inaccurate.

According to the source, who preferred to speak on the basis of anonymity, there are two CSA officers assigned to the aquatic center and one assigned to the Al Oerter Recreational Center, three UPRs assigned to the aquatic center and three PEPs that report out of the park but don’t patrol it. (Though four normally report there but work elsewhere, the officer said, one has recently been temporarily reassigned to Rockaway Beach.) He also did not challenge the number of JTPs, as he “does not deal with them.”

However, he said that there are no officers whose patrol is focused solely on Flushing Meadows Corona Park as a whole, rather than specific sites inside of it.

“There aren’t any dedicated to the park,” the supervisor said, clarifying that he meant officers dedicated to the park as a whole, rather than the aquatic center or the Al Oerter Recreation Center. “It’s all smoke and mirrors,” he added, referring to the information given to the public by the park agency.

“They’re misrepresenting it,” Parks Enforcement Union Local 983 President Joe Puleo said, referring to the staffing levels claimed by the Parks Department. Elected officials, he added, may be getting the wrong impression of the actual situation.

NYC Park Advocates President Geoffrey Croft put it even more bluntly.

“That’s a bold-faced lie,” Croft said, referring to Silver’s City Council testimony about the park and its officer staffing.

New FMCP conservancy a total sham and a total shame

From The Observer:

Mayor Bill de Blasio rebuffed attacks from a Queens city councilman that a new nonprofit set up to raise funds for Flushing Meadows-Corona Park “plays politics” by only granting a councilwoman aligned with his liberal agenda an appointee on the conservancy’s board—and leaves Mr. Lancman and his constituents without a voice.

Shortly before Mr. de Blasio joined Queens Councilwoman Julissa Ferreras-Copeland—a member of the Council’s Progressive Caucus and chairwoman of its powerful Committee on Finance—to announce the creation of the park’s new funder and caretaker, Councilman Rory Lancman, a fellow Democrat, sent out a press release entitled “Mayor de Blasio Plays Politics With ‘Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Alliance’ and Disenfranchises Hundreds of Thousands of Park Users.” Mr. Lancman, whose district covers the southern end of the park, argued only granting Ms. Ferreras-Copeland a representative on the Alliance board was part of a pattern for the mayor—pointing out that both of the mayor’s only town halls while in office have been in the districts of Progressive Caucus members.

“The mayor can’t just have town hall meetings in disticts with council members that are his core allies. He can’t dole out appointments to oversee spending of money in public parks just to his allies,” Mr. Lancman told the Observer in a phone interview, claiming the administration refused to meet with him for months to discuss the Alliance’s creation. “I think there are a lot of communities in this city who look at mayor and ask themselves: Is he really representing us? People here feel he’s not representing them. This decision just reinforces that.”

When asked about the apparent imbalance today, Mr. de Blasio made the disputable assertion that Ms. Ferreras-Copeland’s district “covers the vast majority of this park,” and said that the Alliance board would engage with all stakeholders. He also said that, since he has held just two town halls, it was too early to claim he was only holding them in the districts of political allies.

From Capital New York:

“This is something to invest in!” said de Blasio, speaking to reporters and park advocates at a press conference sandwiched between the Queens Museum and the Unisphere, a steel relic from the 1964-1965 World’s Fair.

Nearly two and a half years after the United States Tennis Association agreed (under duress) to invest a total of $10.05 million into a conservancy to help maintain the park it occupies, de Blasio announced the conservancy’s formal creation.

Parks may be a public and publicly-owned good, but de Blasio, a self-defined progressive, argued, “[T]here are limits to what public funding can achieve."

Today, the city is investing some $20 million into capital projects in the park, he said.

But, he added, "I think it’s wise to get additional funding in for the parks that have the ability to do that."

From the Forum:

“This deal is a sham,” said Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates. “This entire Alliance initiative and model is based on businesses commercially exploiting Flushing Meadows Corona Park, including taking parkland away from the public. Instead of the city properly investing in the park, as they are legally required to do, the administration is championing this plan in exchange for money. They should be ashamed of themselves. This is certainly not ‘progressive.’

Crumb rubber fields still haven't been replaced

From the Times Ledger:

The city installed more than 200 synthetic turf athletic fields that contain a substance known as crumb rubber, linked by some to certain types of cancer, in the past couple decades. But since putting a halt to the installation of these fields in 2008, the city said it has no intention of removing them until they need to be replaced from wear.

Made from ground-up car tires, crumb rubber can contain up to seven carcinogenic chemical compounds, according to the nonprofit health organization Environmental and Human Health Inc.

New York City Parks Advocates President Geoffrey Croft said there have been growing concerns around the country that excessive play on crumb rubber fields is linked to cancer.

While some are tracking cancer clusters in cities across the country trying to find a link, there has been much industry-sponsored counter-research suggesting data on exposure to the chemicals in the turf were insufficient to link attribution to cancer.

Queens has 35 crumb rubber fields.

The city Department of Parks and Recreation said it continues to monitor conditions at all of its fields regularly. If conditions of any particular field merit replacement, the department said it would go about its standard capital process to do so.

Artificial turf may cause childhood cancer

From CBS 2:

CBS2 first reported last January on concerns over artificial turf playing fields being a potential danger to kids.

Now in a CBS2 investigation, Carolyn Gusoff has found these fields may be linked to a growing number of cancer cases in young athletes.

Experts said the bad things in question include a number of chemicals.

“We know some of these chemicals do cause cancer,” said Dr. Robert Cohen of Northwestern Medicine.

Now, the issue is building steam — from New Jersey to Long Island and even New York City, where there are hundreds of similar fields.

“These are many years that children are playing on this surface, and they’re growing up on this surface, and now, we’re seeing throughout the country these cancer clusters,” said New York City Parks Advocates President Geoffrey Croft.

Croft said he has been petitioning the city to remove the 200-plus crumb rubber fields currently in local parks.

But the Synthetic Turf Council, which represents the companies that make the fields, insists the substance is safe. They cited 60 studies.

One of the studies cited was conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency, which examined four crumb rubber fields in 2009 and found that harmful chemicals were “below levels of concern.”

But Long Island U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) said the EPA study is in adequate.

“Common sense tells us that four fields is not an adequate sample in an entire country,” he said.

Israel insisted that the agency should do more testing.

“The only way we’re going to know whether these fields are truly safe or unsafe is for the EPA to get its act together, and update the study, and let the American people know so that they can make their own judgments,” Israel said.

In a statement, the EPA acknowledged its original study was limited, and that more testing needs to be done. But the agency did not commit to doing it.

A long way up to tag!

From A Walk in the Park:

Five knuckle-headed teens were busted hanging out and doing graffiti 226 feet in the air on the observation deck of the Worlds Fair's iconic Astro Towers NYC Park Advocates had learned.

Two girls and three boys broke into the towers and made their way to the very top, spray painting tags along the way.

Two eagle-eyed park cops on patrol in Flushing Meadows Corona Park spotted several figures from about a half mile away walking around the rusted flying saucer-like structures at approximately at 3:30pm on Sunday.

Officers had to use a make-shift ladder made of electrical cords in order to reach the highest peak of observation deck to reach the teens.

Someone drank the Hater-ade

Just wanted to bring your attention to this unintentionally hilarious article from Greenpointers that was meant to put me in my place. Choice excerpts are below:

Masbeth? Where the hell is that? Furthermore, Miss Heather never implied embezzlement and I never said that the boat club was paying one of their members to paint a mural. I said a member of the boat club was receiving money to paint a mural along Newtown Creek in Maspeth. Dear readers, guess where that money is coming from?

Okay. "As per a vote" the boathouse came in 3rd place. The mystery lies in how it pole-vaulted over its competition into first. Many feel that the outcome was predetermined and that the vote was just an exercise in futility. There are members of the Newtown Creek Alliance who were kept in the dark about the new proposed location of the boathouse - until Miss Heather posted it on her blog. Why is that?

The remaining $7? No. Not even the remaining $7M, which is what I assume they were trying to say. There was $7M LEFT after administrative fees were deducted and millions were given to NYSERDA for distribution. The $3M set aside for the boathouse came from THAT. They are basically sitting on half the pot of dough that was to be allocated for parks projects.

Geoggrey Croft? Holy mackerel.

What they tried to do with this blog post is really interesting: they tried to make this a matter of nasty bloggers vs. the angelic boat club and not what this is really about - a handful of people within not-for-profits in Brooklyn that seem to be procuring and kicking each other public money. A nauseating daisy chain of sorts.

The funny thing is that after you finish mentally correcting all the mistakes contained in that poorly written article, you quickly come to the conclusion that they did not refute anything that either Miss Heather or I wrote. So you gotta wonder what the point was.

It's entirely possible that the editor of Greenpointers (a Middle Village native that moved to Greenpoint, purchased Greenpointers, turned it into a blog whose content is quite pro-gentrification and then was dismayed when she could no longer afford to live there...she now lives in Ridgewood) was "preoccupied" while editing this sloppy piece. Why do I say that? Because she wrote a post on Valentine's Day letting the world know just how much she loves smoking marijuana.

This is the same person who applied for a ridiculous amount of environmental settlement funds to author a website about living healthy:

You can't make this shit up, folks.

I thought you would enjoy seeing the North Brooklyn Boat Club in action this past weekend:

Not much educating going on, but there's a bonfire, plenty of beverages and Lord knows what's going on in that sink.

I can see why this group should get $3M in environmental funds to build a clubhouse inside a hotel.

Mind you, the plans for the construction of the hotel have been stalled since December 2013.

Looking at this alley and knowing how much public money is being poured into it, doesn't it make you feel like you're living in Bizarro World?

If I'm a "hater" because I am sick of underhanded tweeding attempts that exploit communities and waste our tax dollars and have no problem making my feelings known, then I proudly accept the moniker. It certainly beats making excuses for the lack of transparency of the Commodore and his associates.

Thankfully, Curbed and its commenters see through the B.S.

Silly electeds prefer tweeding to budgeting

Here we have State Senator/Public Advocate candidate Daniel Squadron promoting the idea that not only are public-private partnerships good, but that we should fund our entire park system off the back of the Central Park Conservancy. Peter Vallone has endorsed the idea in the City Council.

And then there's NYC Public Advocate and mayoral candidate Bill DeBlasio shilling for the same thing over the weekend at the Unisphere.

No morons, we shouldn't rely on money from charities. We should stop the corporate welfare and tweeding programs and use that money to fund park maintenance, as required by law. You guys also realize that forcing a charity to fund other charities is most likely unconstitutional, right?

Here's former Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe, his biggest defender, Holly Leicht of New Yorkers for Parks - a partner group with the NYC Parks Dept, and a landscape architect who reaped the benefits of working for the Central Park Conservancy, defending having charity pay for necessities, vs. Geoffrey Croft of NYC Park Advocates, who wants the city budget to allocate adequate funding.

Flushing Meadows is 2nd most dangerous park in City

From Eyewitness News:

Crime statistics over the last four years from the NYPD and compiled by the Park Advocates revealed the five parks with the highest number of incidents:

Central Park had 649 serious crimes, including 13 rapes and 415 grand larcenies.

Flushing Meadows had 387 serious crimes including five rapes and 40 robberies.

Prospect Park had 192 serious crimes including two murders and 92 robberies.

Riverside Park had 194 serious crimes including five rapes and 95 robberies.

And, Crotona Park had 102 serious crimes including 14 assaults and three rapes.

Want a nice park? Raise a lot of money!

From the NY Post:

Central Park is about to get even more green.

Six months after hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson pledged $100 million to the Central Park Conservancy, the nonprofit that oversees the lush 843-acre park is due to get $90 million from the city under a new 10-year management contract.

That’s a huge increase over the current pact, which expires on June 30 and provides $39.2 million over eight years.

Parks officials defended the higher spending as necessary to keep the heavily used park in peak condition.

“Clearly, the city thinks they’re doing a great job, which they are, for the most part,” said Geoffrey Croft of New York City Park Advocates, who has never shied away from pointing out parks shortcomings.

But Croft questioned how other parks in the 29,000-acre system will get by without wealthy benefactors or large city subsidies.

“There is an enormous difference [in] what this park gets and what others parks get,” he said.

Avella, NYC Park Advocates and Queens Civic Congress to host Sunday rally against USTA plans

This Sunday, April 21 at 1:00 PM, Senator Tony Avella will be joined by NYC Park Advocates and the Queens Civic Congress at a rally to protest the proposed expansion of the USTA Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. The New York City Planning Commission will hold a public hearing for this project this coming Wednesday, April 24th.

This proposed expansion would require 0.68 acres of parkland to be permanently turned over to USTA in addition to the 42 acres of parkland that they already possess. However, in reality, this project will alienate parkland without replacing it, robbing the community of public green space. In conjunction with the proposed construction of a Major League Soccer stadium and a large mall as part of the Willets Point development, these three projects constitute perhaps the biggest land grab for parkland not only in Queens but also in the entire City.

The three projects will result in elimination of crucial parkland from our borough's most prominent park, which provides open space and recreational benefits to thousands of borough residents, immigrant families and low and middle income families.

Avella will call on the City Planning Commission to reject this proposal and will continue to fight against all three projects and any further commercial development in Flushing Meadow Corona Park.

WHO: Senator Avella, NYC Park Advocates, Queens Civic Congress

WHERE: Main Entrance, USTA Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park (by Unisphere)

WHEN: SUNDAY, April 21, 2013 at 1:00 PM

How phony park groups, the press and elected officials are conspiring to develop FMCP

You may have read in various articles that representatives from New Yorkers for Parks have been testifying at Community Board meetings against the USTA plan to expand inside Flushing Meadows-Corona Park and have been working with Council Member Julissa Ferreras and other elected officials to come up with "concessions" from the USTA in exchange for their alienation of public parkland.  Who are "New Yorkers for Parks" and should we trust them?

Holly Leicht

Holly Leicht:

Before becoming Executive Director of NY4P in March 2011, Holly served under Bloomberg as Deputy Commissioner for Development at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD), Prior to joining HPD, she was a Director at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, another so called public/private slush fund.

This so-called advocacy group is trying to associate itself with the FMCP issue but they are hurting the efforts to protect the park. Let's examine why.

A Little Background:

NY4Parks was created in 2002 (on their website they say they have been around for over 100 years) as basically a front for the City. The city wanted what was then the city's only independent park group, The Parks Council, to be eliminated, so they were disbanded after the Parks2001 Campaign, and a new group was formed with more administration-friendly folks - basically the board members of the Conservancy and their lawyers from Weil, Gotshal & Manges, one of the city's most powerful law firms - as you will see below. It should also be noted that this was all insider stuff that the general public - including neighborhood park groups - was not privy to.

The founding Co-Chairs of NY4Parks were:

• Michael Grobstein - Treasurer of the Central Park Conservancy. (A position he still holds at the Conservancy today.)
• Lynden Miller - director of the Conservatory Garden in Central Park, designer of gardens at Bryant Park and Battery Park City, a very early supporter of the High Line. She is the mother of former Speaker and now lobbyist Gifford Miller who initially allocated funds to that project) Both she and Grobstein are long time CPC board-members and very connected.
• Mark A. Hoenig - Secretary. Hoenig works for Weil, Gotshal & Manges, one the city's most powerful law firms, but more importantly the home of long-time CP Conservancy Chairman - Ira M. Millstein, Esq., Senior Partner, Weil, Gotshal & Manges, LLP (their offices on 5th Ave and 59th Street overlook the park).    Mr. Millstein is a Life Trustee and former Chairman of the Board of the Central Park Conservancy (1991-1999).
• Philip R. Pitruzzello - Treasurer. Pitruzzello was former president and chief executive officer (1994 to 1996) of the Battery Park City Authority. In 1998 be became Vice President, Real Estate Projects vice president, real estate projects, for Time Warner where he was in charge of real estate for the building of the new world headquarters at Columbus Circle.

The Central Park Conservancy Board is filled with a who's who of wealthy and politically connected folks, including Jeff T. Blau CEO of Related Companies - the fine folks who are trying to build a mall next to CitiField.

Other board members include:

• Peter Rothschild - Former Dir. & Vice-Chair, NY4 Parks
• New York Times heiress Iphigene Ochs Sulzberger & Marian S. Heiskell, The New York Times Company.
• Landscape Architect and Partner, Quennell and Rothschild and Partners (They are HUGE in the Parks world getting private work on public land)

From Capital New York:

Nicholas Quennell, a partner at landscape architecture firm Quennell Rothschild and Partners and the other lead author of the strategic plan, said he thought the Major League Soccer proposal to build a 25, 000-seat stadium on the site of a long-disused World's Fair fountain, known as the Pool of Industry, "was actually intelligent." In 2008, Hawkinson and Quennell (and Quennell's partner Mark Bunnell) co-authored the city-commissioned "Flushing Meadows Corona Park Strategic Framework Plan," the purpose of which was to enable the park to achieve its "full potential by establishing a long term vision, a basis for decisions about the Park’s management and the allocation of attention and resources for the coming years."

Past or president board members:

• Danny Meyer
• Ira M. Millstein
• Richard Gilder (also long time CP Conservancy board member). Until Paulson's $100M gift, Gilder's was the large single gift to a park ever - Central Park, of course!

Bottom line:

New Yorkers for Parks are a beard for the city. They have zero credibility. They are listed right on the Parks Department home page as a Partner.

In their publications, they routinely praise mayoral initiatives and they aggressively push finding "innovative financing strategies" as opposed to holding the government accountable. They have also written letters to the editors praising the Mayor while trying to counter the work of groups such as NYC Park Advocates. And now that they are being exclusively quoted in the Times, they have a voice which they are using to push the Mayor's agenda and undermine communities such as ours.

Check out this NY Post expose about the group:

A Queens park that got high grades in a new report is no bed of roses, local activists say.

Little Bay Park earned an A-plus in a New Yorkers for Parks report released yesterday, including a grade of 93 for its bathrooms.

But “there’s no bathrooms,” said local park advocate Alfredo Centola.

Instead, the 55-acre park in Bayside has dingy port-a-potties — including one that was set on fire, leaving it melted into the weeded ground.

“If they consider bushes bathrooms, they can get a 93,” Centola said.

He said the park also needs more drinking fountains — despite scoring a 100 in that category — and better lawns and athletic equipment. The park has only two fountains, and none worked yesterday.

The playing fields are currently uneven, and filled with holes, a Post reporter found. Crossbars on soccer goals were bent, and the goals' netting were ripped to shreds.

“There are flooding conditions the minute it rains,” said Centola. “Even in light rains, the kids playing on the soccer field slip in mud.”

Lisa Foderaro (Twitter)

It has not gone unnoticed in the administration-friendly pages of New York Times that NYC Park Advocates, a true independent group, has all but disappeared from park coverage under Lisa Foderaro's beat. (Westchester resident Lisa Foderaro of the NY Times is married to the former official state photographer for Gov. Mario M. Cuomo.) This, while the Parks Department partner group, New Yorkers For Parks, has appeared almost exclusively. In fact, since May 2012, Holly Leicht has been quoted at least 17 times in the paper - the vast majority in Ms. Foderaro articles. Since taking over the parks beat, the coverage has resulted in park stories of noticeably lower quality, none of which Metro Editor Carolyn Ryan and Co, apparently have a problem with.

Former Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe and park flack, Warner Johnson, famously wrote a 36-page letter to then Metro editor Joe Sexton complaining about Foderaro's predecessor, Timothy Williams, and his hard hitting stories. His articles helped add much needed context and shined a light on the Bloomberg administration's endless spin. Naturally, the taxpayer-funded letter also attempted to attack Mr. Croft of NYC Park Advocates.

A simple Google search shows that NY4P's presence in other media has increased dramatically since the Times exposure which lends the group credibility that they do not deserve. Before that, it was wildly known that NY4P was not quoted because of credibility issues, including its cozy relationship with the administration. The Times's coverage has changed that. If you want some really good background info on New Yorkers for Parks check out the comments section of this Crain's article. Very detailed. Scroll to the bottom.

Dana Rubenstein (Twitter)

Dana Rubinstein of Capital New York is also conspicuously not quoting NYC Park Advocates even though they are the group that is actually working with the community. She has also not quoted the Coalition to Save Flushing Meadows-Corona Park for USTA/FMCP stories. These are the only two citywide groups that are against parkland privatization and making deals to privately fund them. Dana however manages to always include statements from New Yorkers for Parks who represent themselves.

Here are two articles from Capital New York - both published on the same day, Feb. 20th:

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park - Lots of Land, Little Upkeep
Urban Planners suggest alternative soccer arena sites, and the MTA actually offered one

Holly Leicht is also quoted in one of the articles with regard to the Flushing Meadows issue - again pushing the public-private partnerships agenda. Once again, private funds are considered to be the solution - not government funds - and the benefits are not even questioned.

Six days days later, this very harmful article by Dana Rubinstein came out:

"Holly Leicht, the executive director of New Yorkers for Parks, has been consulting with Ferreras on this issue and strongly backs the idea of a conservancy-type arrangement for Flushing Meadows.

“We would definitely agree that ongoing maintenance, not just a onetime mitigation payment, is an essential component of the processes for all of the projects under review,” she told me. "It seems that some kind of conservancy—a public-private partnership model—makes the most sense for Flushing Meadows Corona Park."

So the result…

"Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for M.L.S., sent over the following statement: "We look forward to continuing our ongoing conversations with Councilwoman Ferreras to figure out the appropriate way for M.L.S. to contribute to the future of Flushing Meadows Corona Park."

So you have a VERY connected group with the Bloomberg administration who has ABSOLUTELY NO connection to our community working directly against the interests of it and trying to dictate policy. And this is not the first time by any means.

In September 2011 - after supposedly working with the community fighting this enormous NYU expansion that would take away public parkland (which is currently in court) - the neighborhood found out that NY4P had betrayed them.  How did they find out?  By reading an NYU press release that contained a quote by NY4P approving the project! Unbelievable.

The N.Y.U. press release quoted Holly Leicht as praising the university for being responsive to the group’s concerns and for mapping the two properties as parkland. In an interview, she indicated that closing the parks to construct underground rooms was not a major concern.

“The reality is that if you’re constructing buildings of that scale so close to public spaces you would not have been able to keep a playground open during construction anyway,” she said.

They sold out the community, a community that is vehemently against the project. Holly was repeatedly quoted in the media as a supporter and gave the project cover for the city and NYU. Really disgusting. The community was just in court about that issue last week.

Here is a Nov.7th letter from Holly Leicht to the Times about a large donation to Central Park. Its all about following the Mayor's initiative of getting private dollars and their favorite catch phrase, "exploring creative ways to finance…"

The letter was co-written by the Chair of NY4Parks - Edward C. Wallace, a former City Councilman-at-large for Manhattan and member of the board of the Riverside Park Fund, another city public/private partnership. He also served on the boards of many city politically-connected groups like NYC 2012, the failed Olympic bid and the Grand Central Partnership, etc.

"the Central Park Conservancy and private donors like John A. Paulson do not worsen the problem; they help address it.

Mr. Paulson’s $100 million gift to Central Park will ensure that the most visited park in the city, and likely the world, can be maintained for generations to come, with minimal reliance on limited public dollars. build upon this validation of urban parks by encouraging more private involvement in neighborhood parks and exploring creative ways to finance pressing needs in parks citywide without sacrificing their character.

This is the NY4Parks message they sent out a few days ago. As you will see its all about how it's ok to take the land as long as they replace it and the park gets money.

Public Hearings Underway for Proposed USTA Expansion

"...While the potential lost acreage is relatively small, sanctioning parkland alienation without acre-for-acre replacement is a slippery slope. If an expensive pay-to-play tennis facility that contributes no annual funding to the park is deemed "public," where is the line drawn to protect city parkland from privatization? Right now, USTA's annual rent payment – which wouldn’t increase after the expansion – goes entirely to the City’s general fund, not to the park.

The USTA – which, according to a recent Crain’s review, reported a $17 million surplus in 2010 – needs to commit NOW to a significant, long-term investment in and partnership with Flushing Meadows Corona Park. And this doesn’t mean just funding one-time capital projects to sweeten the pot during the public review of its expansion proposal.

It means:
• active participation in a new nonprofit dedicated to the park, including an ongoing, annual contribution to the park's maintenance;
• a commitment to cease using park lawns for parking during the U.S. Open; and
• either replacement of the parkland it proposes to alienate or a redefined relationship with park-users and the surrounding community to make the tennis complex a truly public use.

As New York City’s leading advocate on parkland alienation issues for more than a century, NY4P looks forward to continuing our work with community stakeholders, elected officials and others throughout this process to ensure the best possible outcome for FMCP's users and neighbors."

This comes from Save FMCP's Christina Wilkinson:

Why is New Yorkers for Parks irresponsibly taking the position that it would be perfectly acceptable for the USTA to steal more parkland so long as it sets up a “park maintenance fund” for Flushing Meadows?

Instead, they should be advocating for adequate resources to be allocated to the park in the City budget. The current fraction of 1 percent allocated toward parks citywide is woefully inadequate, and the City is required by the City Charter to maintain its property.

Genuine park activists would not be advocating for the USTA to take and replace parkland since the obvious thing to be demanding here is that the City not allow this private business to expand within the park.

So as not to mislead the public, they may want to rename their group “New Yorkers for the Privatization of Parks.” Positions such as that of this organization are the reason why we have such a disparity in park conditions in the first place.

Meanwhile, last Friday, a press conference was held by the Fairness Coalition. The Fairness group represents themselves as an organization dedicated to protecting public parkland, but their agenda is, as far as we can see, not that clear. Their message is very inconsistent and hypocritical. Aren't these some of the EXACT same elected officials who have already come out in favor of the USTA seizing the park if they establish a maintenance fund, built it union and replace the land? Isn't Jose Peralta one of the MLS's staunched supporters of building the stadium in the park!

With Friends Like these…

Standing shoulder to shoulder with some of the VERY people who want to take away public parkland isn't halting a land grab it is helping to facilitate it! The public (as featured in their photos) probably perceives FC as working on their behalf, but they are doing the exact opposite by supporting these deals. Watch Fairness Coalition leaders contradict themselves multiple times in this video. At their press conference, Council Member Julissa Ferreras was asked by a reporter about her seemingly contradictory positions on Flushing Meadows-Corona Park: On the one hand, she stated that she was for protecting parkland, but on the other hand, she was willing to give it away in return for concessions. She replied that the park was never going to be adequately funded by the City, so a deal had to be made with the USTA to fund it.

Jose Peralta, Danny Dromm, Julissa Ferreras

Julissa Ferreras is a Council Member and last time I checked, the City Council is who determines what gets funded. So she basically revealed that she won't be making an effort to ensure that there is adequate funding for Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in the upcoming budget and therefore would prefer to sell off pieces of it to private interests.

Council Members Leroy Comrie and Danny Dromm stood next to her while she said this and said nothing. State Senator Jose Peralta, Assembly Member Francisco Moya, and borough president candidate Melinda Katz also thought this was a swell idea because they were in attendance and didn't object, either. The Fairness Coalition, who held the press conference, supports this position rather than adequate parks funding in the City Council budget, which is what would actually be FAIR.

Makes you want to throw up, doesn't it?