Opinion: Putting people ahead of condos, by George Fiala

As I write this, I’m listening to the news talking about the “big, beautiful bill.” That is our legislature trying to put into law all the things that Donald Trump wants to do but can’t without the cooperation of the US Congress. A certain amount of votes are needed by the Republicans.

There is all kind of horse trading going on to try and get various legislators to go along with the plan. These are things like exempting a state from Medicaid cuts to gain the vote of the Alaskan Senator, as well as threats such as primary recalcitrant legislators.

On Fox News, various commentators were visibly agitated over the fact that certain Republican representatives were not going with the program. Multiple commentators made the point that the bill contains everything that “the American people” voted for when they elected Donald Trump.

Which may or not be true.

This made me think of Andrew Kimball, one of our local Donald Trumps. who, asthe president of the NYC EDC, is trying like hell to get his own taskforce, a body that he selected to oversee his Brooklyn Marine Terminal plan, to move his program ahead.

As detailed in our cover story, all sorts of political methods,many similar to what today’s Republicans are doing in order to pass Trump’s bill, are being utilized for a “Yes” vote.

There’s actually a problem here. The US Congress and the Presidency are elected positions, ostensibly representing the people who put them into power. And they are dealing with things like budgets and taxes, what they are supposed to be doing.

Kimball is an appointee of the Mayor. The agency he heads is described on Wikipedia as having as its mission to strengthen business confidence in New York City, diversifying the city’s economic sectors, and delivering sustainable infrastructure.

Here the EDC is going outside its mandate and delving into the world of land use, normally the province of NYC Planning and the City Council.

To make it seem somewhat legit, they created a task force to guide the process and gave it voting power to approve the plan. But basically this is a plan that was created before what I feel is a sham process.

The normal way as I see it would have been to involve the public BEFORE a plan was decided upon, not after.

There are two local examples that come to mind.

In the early days of the Gowanus Superfund, the Environmental Protection Agency offered two proposals on how they would dispose of the toxic dirt that they would dig up from the canal. The first way was to ship it all safely out of state to be buried in a facility designed for that. The second option was to encase the materials in concrete and drop them into the water at the foot of the canal, on land owned by John Quadrozzi, creating landfill.

The EPA held public meetings, allowed for written public comments, and held an election allowing for the community to decide on which option would be followed. Very Democratic.

A second process that I found admirable was, believe it or not, a NYCHA initiative. Following Hurricane Sandy, Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez made sure that a large amount of FEMA money allocated to NY State was sent to the Red Hook Houses in order to provide greater resiliency.
NYCHA chose developers from the private sector that normally work at high end projects. They held public meetings at the Miccio Center that were very well attended by NYCHA residents. The developers were the ones presenting their proposals, but they were sincerely there to see what the public housing community wanted. I was very impressed with the respect they showed the community, referring to the area as a campus, and actually holding person-to-person conversations and making notes, writing down the suggestions.

And lo and behold, new plans emerged at the next meeting that reflected the concerns and suggestions from that earlier meeting.

Unfortunately, the actual construction has taken longer than anyone expected, and led to frustration and mistrust, but a walk through the Houses show that when everything is finally completed the improvements to the “campus” will be not only obvious, but somewhat game-changing.

I’m just trying to show that it is actually possible for government to treat communities with respect.

But in the case of Andrew Kimball and his EDC minions, respect is not the word that can be used.

Not only do many in the community feel unheard, but he has so alienated many in the Task Force that he appointed, that it seems that he may never get the votes he needs to proceed.

The Fox News analyst fretted that if the Republicans couldn’t pass their bill, they may actually have to work together with the Democrats in order to keep the country going, and (gasp) compromise.
Kimball’s threat is that it’s his way or the highway. That a no vote will kill the container terminal and bring us things like waste transfer facilities and more concrete recycling plants.

No — our responsibility as citizens is to demand a new plan, one that puts the people ahead of the real estate developers.