PERMIT PARKING REVIVED When Councilman David Yassky asked the city Department of Transportation to launch a pilot project in which some parking spots in Boerum Hill and Brooklyn Heights would be reserved for local residents, the DOT didn't budge. But Newsday just reported that when developer Bruce Ratner suggested residential permit parking, presumably to increase community support for his Atlantic Yards arena-office-housing project, DOT said it has been considering the idea.

"That's fascinating," Yassky said, sounding somewhat stunned. "The DOT response has been that they don't like the concept." Yassky was glad to hear the DOT might be coming around to the idea, but didn't sound too thrilled that the city seems more swayed by a developer than by a councilman. But, wisely, he bit his tongue. "I will be disappointed if the mayor pushes through the downtown development plan without protection for the residents who park in the neighborhoods nearby," said Yassky, referring to the rezoning proposed to allow big office buildings in downtown Brooklyn. "In fairness, I think the administration is still considering the residential permit parking idea for downtown as well."

Perhaps the mayor could reserve parking for residents and help balance the budget as well by charging $500 or $1,000 for an annual permit. Unfair, you say? Consider that it costs $100 for a tennis permit, which allows for one hour per day on a public court for six months. Yet it's free to park 24-7-365 on public streets.

POST WRITER RESPONDS The lead writer of the New York Post article about Rep. Major Owens's rap play "The Viagra Monologues" took exception to the congressman's characterization of the paper's coverage as "a smear job" by "politically motivated editors." Owens had blasted the paper's front-page placement and headline "B'klyn pol takes rap at monogamy" and its West Coast edition headline, "Major Chump." Owens had told us, "It must have been a very slow news day."

The Post writer sounded surprised his story made the front page. "I certainly agree about the speed of that particular news day," said Gersh Kuntzman, "but I of course deny a political smear job. I don't write the headlines, but I would like to remind the readers that the article was intended to celebrate Major Owens's artistic gift and vision. If it failed to do that-and I'm not sure it did-I certainly apologize." Kuntzman, of Park Slope, is the Post's Brooklyn bureau chief. He assured us, "The Post as an institution does not have a vendetta against Major Owens."

NO TREES TO GROW IN BROOKLYN A New York Times article seemed to cast Bed-Stuy's Billy Thompson as the bad guy for ruling, as the city comptroller, that the Parks Department must hire $40-an-hour laborers rather than $15-an-hour gardeners to plant trees. As a result, the per-tree cost will rise from $750 to about $1,000, and the Parks Department will probably miss the entire 2004 tree-planting season in Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and Queens while it appeals Thompson's decision.

Thompson's people told us the change was necessitated by state labor laws and a collective bargaining agreement. We're sure the Building, Concrete, Excavating & Common Laborers Local Union 731 would agree-its members will be making the $40 per hour. If this were a case of political payback, we couldn't find it. There's no record of Local 731 giving money to any city candidate in the last 14 years. But there's always next year.

ENVYING GREEN'S SEAT Will Eric Adams run? We left a message for Adams, co-founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care and a rumored candidate this September against Assemblyman Roger Green, but Adams didn't call back. Usually aspiring politicians wait until they get elected before they start ducking calls.

Is Adams viable? One close observer of 57th Assembly District politics thinks so. "If he raises the money, he could actually be a strong candidate: he's a good speaker and reasonably well known, he is an attractive personality for folks in some of the new 57th A.D. projects, etc., he is anti-arena so he will garner the support of the disaffected, and his law enforcement background creates a strong contrast with Roger's current legal problems," the observer offered.

We asked Rep. Ed Towns's people about a rumor that Towns would back Adams, and got a simple answer: "Not true."

Another likely candidate, but only if Green doesn't run, is Robin Brown, an education activist who hails from School District 13 (Fort Greene). Brown is the new president of the United Parents Association and is also president of New Brooklyn Leadership. The floating of Brown's name indicates that the club wants to have a candidate ready if Green quits. "I strongly support Roger Green in his candidacy," Brown e-mailed us. "At whatever point in time Roger Green decides not to run, I will look forward to exploring all of my options."

A third possible candidate, attorney Hakeem Jeffries, may end up running only for Democratic district leader or nothing at all. With a new job and a new baby, he's seen as unlikely to commit to a third exhausting Assembly campaign.

The current district leader, Francis Byrd, is likely to run, and Geoffrey Davis, brother of slain Councilman James Davis, might run for the unpaid position too. James Davis was the last person elected to the seat; after his death, the other 41 Democratic state committeemembers appointed Francis Byrd to finish Davis's two-year term.

RATNER DENIES PUSH-POLL A reader told us he'd been called by what sounded like "FCR Polling" on March 28 and being asked about Bruce Ratner's arena-office-housing proposal above the Atlantic Avenue rail yards. The reader, Park Slope's John McCrory, described it as a "push-poll"-a survey that tries to steer the respondent to one side of an issue, in this case to support the arena project. He assumed FCR stood for Forest City Ratner. We mentioned the alleged push-poll to Forest City Ratner's arena project press guy, a friend of ours from Boerum Hill named Joe DePlasco, and asked for the script, the cost, and the purpose of the poll. DePlasco e-mailed back only, "Hey Erik, how are you. You are wrong." We replied that the poll recipient had a very specific recollection of a 15-minute interview about the project. It didn't sound like he was making it up.

DePlasco e-mailed back, "I didn't say there wasn't a poll that went out-and I'm sure you are busily reading through the Quinnipiac poll that is out there too, 79 percent favor Nets in Brooklyn proposal-I just said your information was wrong." The key word there is "too." That tells us there was another poll in addition to the Quinnipiac "Nets-Jets" one. So we knew we were on to something. We asked McCrory for more details about the call he received.

McCrory, who is against Ratner's project but is not part of the organized opposition, e-mailed back: "The young-sounding man who was calling…asked if I was familiar with the proposal for the downtown Brooklyn Nets arena and I said yes. I asked where he was calling from and he said California, though I was skeptical about that. I asked who they were conducting the poll for, and he paused, apparently not certain how to answer, then said, 'No one. I guess we're just doing this poll for ourselves.'

"He read from a script, beginning with questions about whether I favored the arena plan or not. When I said I was opposed to it, he read off a list of reasons to oppose it, asking me in each case to rate its importance to my opinion. I said using public money and the powers of eminent domain for private purposes were my main reasons for opposing the plan; I also objected to the displacement of residents the plan would require.

"He then provided information about the plan, its housing, shopping, and office space, etc., asking whether I was aware of those aspects of the proposal. Then he asked whether 'knowing this new information,' was I favorable to the proposal. The questions iterated like this for several rounds, with the caller asking if I was aware of various things about the proposal (positive and negative) and then asking again to see if my opinion of the plan had changed…

"In addition, the caller asked me to rate the strength of various arguments pro and con…Over the course of the call, I'd estimate that the caller spent twice as much time offering arguments in support of the arena plan as he did describing reasons to oppose it.

"I was also asked what team name I liked best (Brooklyn Nets, Brooklyn Kings, New York Nets, etc.-all of which were pretty dull, and one of which, the Kings, doesn't make sense since there's already the Sacramento Kings). He asked if I was familiar with Bruce Ratner and Forest City Ratner, and whether I had a favorable or unfavorable opinion about them…He also asked my opinion of MetroTech." McCrory was also asked how important he'd consider the opinion of various elected officials including Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Borough President Marty Markowitz, Council Speaker Gifford Miller, Councilmembers David Yassky, Bill DeBlasio, and Tish James, Assemblyman Roger Green and Rep. Anthony Weiner.

We'd guess from this that Ratner wants to know which politicians he most needs to buy off, er, to lobby. We should mention that McCrory didn't find the poll particularly insidious or distasteful. "As push polls go," McCrory wrote, "it was pretty tame-they were not only trying to influence my opinion but were trying to gather some actual data.

"On Monday, as you probably know, Forest City Ratner announced they planned to 'scale back' the plan to 'save some homes at the project's southern end'-one of the questions the pollster asked me was specifically about the displacement of some 400 residents; I'm guessing they found through their weekend poll that this was one of the biggest objections to the plan."

POST: NO BILLS FOR MANY POLS A New York Post article singled out Councilmembers Tracy Boyland and Domenic Recchia for introducing just one bill each since January 1, 2002. Neither passed. Boyland, in fact, has had just one bill enacted-a street name change-since she took office in 1998, the article noted. Boyland didn't return the paper's calls.

Recchia did, telling the Post that his priority has been negotiating the mayor's tort-reform legislation and spurring Coney Island development, in part by persuading the city to create a local development corporation. Councilman David Yassky, meanwhile, proposed 34 new laws over the same 27 months. Three of them passed. Yassky e-mailed the article to his supporters with a note saying it highlighted his efforts but was unfair to some of his colleagues.

TIDBITS Try as we might, we couldn't find an angle to belittle Assemblyman Felix Ortiz's bill to require cars sold or registered in New York to have a device that disables the vehicle if the driver is drunk. If the device is reliable and doesn't inconvenience sober drivers, we can't see the harm. We do have one nitpick, though: Ortiz's press release was headlined, "Ortiz takes away the choice to drink & drive." Well, no. He just introduced a bill, one that likely won't go anywhere…

We were worried that our recent item on "flag-happy pols" would draw complaints from indignant flag-lovers. Instead, the feedback was positive. One reader wrote, "the flag-happy pols passage in your last column was terrific. The fact that this crap goes on all the time without being noted is a crime." Another wrote, "This week's little piece on flag-happy pols was too true. If it weren't so sad it would be hilarious!"

Transportation bills edging toward approval by Congress would return a higher percentage of gasoline taxes to the states from which they're collected, which would means billions less for states like New York that use public subways, buses, and ferries. That infuriates Rep. Jerry Nadler, reported The New York Times. "New York has invested huge sums in mass transit," Nadler said Thursday on the House floor. "Therefore, we are more energy efficient. And apparently, because we are more energy efficient, because we save on sending money to the Middle East, we must be punished by getting less." The reason: Congress is controlled by pols from gas-guzzling states…

The prolific fundraising of Councilman Simcha Felder has spawned speculation that he would run for Congress if Rep. Anthony Weiner leaves his seat. But Weiner would probably only do that if he's elected mayor, which is something of a longshot…

The Campaign Finance Board fined Sam Taitt's 2001 City Council campaign $6,346 for "failure to respond to initial request for audit documentation." Taitt plans to challenge Councilman Kendall Stewart again in 2005…

Sharon Toomer, who was a spokeswoman for Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes until he eliminated her position in December 2002, has resurfaced as director of communications for Borough President Marty Markowitz…

The City Council committee chaired by Yvette Clarke released figures showing the FDNY is 91.7 percent white and 99.72 percent male. "This is an endemic problem that can faithfully be repaired with the proper re-evaluation of the recruitment procedures," Clarke told Newsday. "To say we have a problem is an understatement."

Correction from the March 29, 2004 column: Democratic district leader Francis Byrd no longer works for Comptroller Billy Thompson. In November he became a senior analyst for Moody's.

Contact Brooklyn Politics at (718) 399-3693.

Borough Politics Archive

2004
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2002
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2001
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2000
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1999
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