Reshma Saujani's Road to Congress? Right Down Wall Street. Let Me Be Your Guide. by Wayne Barrett - New York News - Runnin' Scared

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Pretend you're Reshma Saujani, 34, dazzling, born to an Indian family expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin, a Harvard and Yale Law School grad who returned to Africa to help build Nelson Mandela's post-apartheid government.

It's late 2009 and everything you've done in your professional life since its idealistic launch has become so embarrassing you've taken to hiding long stretches of your resumé, which now reads more like blight than beacon, a six-figure career path as an obscure accomplice on the dark side of American finance in the worst of times. You might want to examine how you lost your way, rediscover your promise, put values ahead of ambition, and set yourself on a meaningful, perhaps even modest, new course.

Instead, Saujani decided she was ready to become "the youngest woman in Congress," as her campaign literature in the September 14 Democratic primary race against Carolyn Maloney proclaims she will be. Having spent the last five years at three hedge funds that blew up in scandal or speculative overdrive, Saujani insists she should represent Manhattan's eastside and parts of Queens in the House on the strength of a bio that features felons and foreclosures.

"It's our time" used to be the demand of the Jesse Jackson campaign in the 80s, shorthand for saying that the 80s were the moment for a black awakening in national politics. "It's my time" is the only rationale for the Saujani youth campaign, though none of the 17 city representatives in the House went straight there without prior public service, almost all elected first, like Maloney, to the assembly, state senate or city council.

These are the Saujani themes, as she has expressed them herself if quoted directly. If not quoted, I've inferred them from her half dozen negative mailers and the zeitgeist of her campaign, having discussed her message with several of her donors and allies. I've put it all in her voice:

I network — spectacularly, in fact, i.e. with Clinton queen bee Maureen White and Bloomberg queen Diana Taylor — therefore I qualify. Impressions transcend performance.

She is 64, I am very definitely not. I am Yale, she is Greensboro College. I am global, she is country.

I "respect the strong women who opened doors for me," except the one standing in my way.

Maloney was just two years older than I am now when she challenged the Barons of El Barrio, the notorious Del Toro and Rodriguez families who ruled East Harlem like a patronage and nepotism fiefdom, winning a council seat and ultimately driving them out of power. I know nothing about the racebaiting and threats she faced, or the groundbreaking work she did on corrupt contracts as chair of the council subcommittee, or the grit it took for her to take the Gold Coast congressional district away from the Republicans in 1992. Ten years of elected public service before going to the House is just so ancient. And what has she done recently in the House? Whenever I go to an ATM, Maloney's law requires the bank to disclose the fees I'm being charged. She thinks that's a big deal. Obama kissed her on the cheek when he signed her Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights, and USA Today says that will save consumers $5 billion in fees this year. But all of that is history. This is about "new leadership." I'm destined.

I was "shocked to learn that a majority of pro-choice Democrats in the House had voted to take away my reproductive rights" in the fight over the Stupak amendment, and believe that "women in New York deserve better" than the "silence" we got in that debate, but "support the passage of the recent health care reform law." This means I have already mastered the Washington art of attacking someone else for a compromise I would have made myself.

I come from Wall Street, got half of my hundreds of thousands in campaign cash from Wall Street, but nonetheless point the finger at my opponent, chief sponsor of a law Wall Street hates, as its captive. Maloney "sides with the special interests she's supposed to regulate." Who cares that the Washington Post called Maloney "one of the Capitol's leading advocates for tough new restrictions on the banking and credit card industries"?

She's "taken $2.5 million in special interest corporate PAC money," with "huge sums from Wall Street," while I have taken only from individual bankers and their spouses and coterie in amounts unprecedented for a New York congressional challenger. Did I forget to mention that the $2.5 million is a total for 18 years, or that Maloney's current list of biggest political action committee givers includes bricklayers, plumbers, teaching hospitals, postal supervisors, federal employees, letter carriers, machinists, teachers and trial lawyers? Did I also forget to mention that she's received a paltry Wall Street PAC total in this campaign and, in fact, returned thousands in contributions from banks until they repaid TARP?

My own favorite big donors are Goldman Sachs president Gary Cohn and wife; Steve Rattner, who's still under investigation by Andrew Cuomo in the state pension fraud case even after his firm paid $12 million in fines; the wife of JP Morgan's CEO Jamie Dimon; and Morgan Stanley honcho John Mack and wife, who maxed out at $2,400 apiece and also hosted a private fundraising party in March for me. Morgan Stanley brass, at $38,100, have given more than any other donor, with Goldman Sachs, at $36,700, a close second.

I started my finance career in 2005 at Carret Asset Management, whose co-owner, Hassan Nemazee, pled guilty this year to swindling $292 million from banks, some of it while I was the chief operating officer of the small company's India Fund subsidiary. Then I became assistant general counsel at Blue Wave Partners, a risk-intense spinoff of the Carlyle Group, which, like Rattner's Quadrangle, paid $20 million in fines as part of Cuomo's pension fraud case. Like Carret, Blue Wave collapsed, "hurt by investments in residential mortgage backed securities shortly before record U.S. subprime-mortgage defaults sparked a global credit crisis," according to Bloomberg.

When I started this campaign last fall, I was deputy general counsel for Fortress Investment Group's "Liquid Markets business."

I went to Fortress even though the New Orleans Times-Picayune had reported in 2005 that its affiliate had tried to hold a 67-year-old Katrina victim in default on a subprime loan two months after her home was flooded out. I went even though its association with John Edwards made major national news months before I took the job, with the Washington Post linking it to predatory and subprime lending, as well as Cayman Island tax avoidance, and the Wall Street Journal identifying 34 New Orleans homes suffering through Fortress foreclosure. I stayed there two years, "personally unaware" of the firm's well-publicized problems. Fortress and Blue Wave executives have combined to give $35,300 in contributions to my campaign. That's what friends are for, though I did forget to mention Carret and Blue Wave in my official bio.

My policy paper condemns "the property owners and financiers" of the Stuy Town deal that put one of the city's "biggest providers of affordable housing at risk,", but I never mention that my most recent employer, Fortress, managed and partly owned Newcastle, an investor in the mezzanine mortgage debt that financed the disastrous purchase of the residential complex. Neither do I say that the wife of Jerry Speyer, the owner that put together the purchase that was predicated on mass evictions and rent escalations, threw a $2,400-a-head fundraiser for me at his townhouse.

I hate "the shadowy practices of derivative trading" but didn't say so while I took home paychecks from Carret's Global India Fund, whose Dubai joint venture partner had its own Capital Semi-Exotic Equity Derivatives business, or from Carlyle, which says it"specializes" in derivatives.

I also now hate the kind of "mortgage-backed securities bundled, packaged, and hidden through complex financial instruments and unclear practices" that Blue Wave and Fortress peddled.

I am running against those who are "demonizing Wall Street" and simultaneously using a 2000 news clip to prove that Maloney was once accused of doing its bidding. That decade-old clip suggests that she "advocated for risky subprime mortgages" at a time when most of America thought they were a door-opener for low and moderate income families. I, on the other hand, worked for a firm like Fortress that marketed them when they were already a scandal.

I actually wrote that the Wall Street collapse is "not about corporate transgressions and greed," and assailed Congress for "implying" that it was "by threatening to tax executive compensation." I say we "need to extend a hand rather a fist to Wall Street." Save the fist for Maloney, who's a moving target, having just been called "the most active" member of Congress by U.S. News & World Report, which cited the 70 bills she's introduced this session.

"I spoke at an event recently on job creation" and "someone asked me if I was really a Republican," as if "job creation is the territory of the GOP." I am not "pro Wall Street, I am pro-jobs."

I posted a web ad blasting Maloney for ducking debates, charging that she's "not talking to New York," and my spokesman told the Post it was because "she doesn't want to discuss her questionable fundraising." But when Chris Matthews asked me why I was attacking Maloney's donors when all "the gold plate" firms are "giving you money," all I could say was that "the business community" had lost faith in her, a tongue-tied contradiction of my claim that she was a corporate PAC queen. That's why I turned down a subsequent Voice request to discuss "the irony that Matthews pointed out." My press guy Jimmy Allen came up with the genius idea that anyone straightforward enough to express interest in my flip-flop must be biased, so we emailed the Voice that, since it "indicated from the outset" that it would "be writing a piece about how Reshma's criticisms of Maloney are hypocritical," we didn't "see any reason to provide you with an interview." So much for talking to New York.

The Voice may think that asking questions about an irony isn't the same as announcing one's intent to write a piece about hypocrisy. But I will only talk to those parts of New York who appreciate the audacity of entitlement and evasion, packaged by consultants who once plowed Iowa for Obama. Besides that, doesn't this piece prove I was right to duck questions I can't answer?

When the Voice asked for copies of my solicitation letters to potential donors or invitations to fundraisers, I made sure they couldn't see what I actually have been saying to attract all that banker loot. I instead sent them an invite to a Johnnie Legend fundraiser that didn't target my corporate donors and copies of a Maloney invitation to a Carole King fundraiser that I continue to use as a weapon against her, even after Factcheck.org gave my misuse of the issue the only "F" I've ever gotten.

Factcheck noticed such piddling discrepancies — like I'd already raised twice as much from the financial sector as Maloney, including PAC money, when I made the charge, and that I'd implied that Maloney was one of eight House members under investigation for hosting fundraisers while financial reform legislation was under consideration when she wasn't one of the eight. I am still just ignoring Maloney's contention that the fundraiser was announced months before the conference committee was created or Maloney was named to it. It still happened while Maloney was sitting in the catbird's seat. Wink, wink, I would have shelved it.

Since no one really expects me to beat Maloney, and I'm running now to lay the groundwork for either a second shot or an alternative "star" candidate, as Steve Rattner's eastside provincial princess Maureen White so delightfully put it, I was especially happy with a prediction recently offered by City Hall Magazine. "If Saujani can win at least 40 percent of the vote against Maloney," the logic went, "then it will unleash a flurry of interest in her kind of insurgent candidate: young, tech-friendly and no enemy of Wall Street." I will be back to my trailblazer days.

Additional research by Gavin Aronsen, Michael Cohen, Nicole Maffeo, Adam Schwartzman and Jenny Tai.

Senator Addabbo Reports to His District on New York's Race to the Top Award

Member, NYS Senate’s Education Committee, Made Reform & Funding a NYS Priority

NYS Senator Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr., is pleased to report to his people that New York is among the nine states and the District of Columbia that will receive more than half a billion dollars in federal stimulus education funding under round two of the Race to the Top (RTTT) grant program. The Department of Education officially announced the winners on Tuesday, August 24. Congress appropriated $4.35 billion for the Race to the Top Fund.

The 10 winning applicants have adopted rigorous common, college- and career-ready standards in reading and math, created pipelines and incentives to put the most effective teachers in high-need schools, and all have alternative pathways to teacher and principal certification.

New York will receive $696.6 million from the grant program to implement 27 State projects over the four-year grant period. It is estimated that $477 million will pass through directly to local school districts, allocated as follows:

• $348 million will be awarded in subgrants to participating Local Education Agencies (LEAs), comprising 50 percent of the RTTT budget.

• $106 million will be awarded as Supplemental Funding for LEAs and $23 million will be awarded to LEAs that do not receive a share of the 50 percent of the State’s grant award (see above).

• Additional projects within aforementioned amounts in support of Race to the Top initiatives will be identified upon receipt of work plans and budgets from the LEAs.

The remaining $219 million will be spent on various projects. The largest projects are those directly affecting all LEAs and those that build the capacity of educators and directly support the development and launch of new, foundational systems. These include: curriculum models, adopting standards and K-12 formative assessment; instructional improvement system construction and rollout, and integration of higher education, the External Technical Assistance Center for Innovation and Turnaround; and the competitively awarded Full-Service School Model Fund.

There is statewide support for the Race to the Top plan. Around 86 percent of LEAs have signed on to the plan, representing 98.2 percent of students in poverty in New York State.

Noting that New York placed 2nd overall in Phase II of the competition, Senator Addabbo said, “My congratulations really go out to all families with schoolchildren in my district, in Queens County, and around our state, now that New York is one of nine states, along with the District of Columbia, that made the cut from originally 35 states, then 18 state finalists, in the Race to the Top competition.

“During this second round of the application and selection process, the Senate passed bills to raise the charter cap from 200 to 460, reform charter schools, improve teacher and principal evaluation and invest in implementing a data system to track individual student performance. We worked with the New York Congressional Delegation, the state’s executive and legislative branches, the State Education Department, Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Klein, and teamed up with our education and labor community at NYSUT, UFT and the charter movement for one goal -- to make the grade for our kids, win this money, and lead them toward a bright and prosperous future.

“Despite the current economic shortfalls faced by our state and our city, I will continue to work hard to ensure that education funding is always a top budget priority. My constituents and all New Yorkers deserve to have top-notch schools that prepare their kids for the challenges they’ll face in a fiercely competitive 21st century global economic environment. This new funding will give them a solid foundation for academic success and help a new generation of leaders and achievers emerge in our Empire State.”

Senator Addabbo intends to continue to monitor the allocation of the near $700 million dollars for our schools.

CB 5 Parks Chair: Proposal For Fencing Falls Short by Patrick Clark - www.timesnewsweekly.com | Times Newsweekly

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Hopes Study Scuttles Reservoir Project Bids

The Parks Department has agreed to include historical replica fencing in its design for the Ridgewood Reservoir project, but the chairman of Community Board 5’s Parks Committee does not think that the city agency is going far enough.


Parks’ design for $7.6 million Phase 1 of the project oringally called for standard, 4’-high wrought iron or chain-link fencing throughout the reservoir, a fact which did not sit well with many community members, including Board 5 Parks Chair Steven Fiedler.


In a telephone interview with the Times Newsweekly, Fiedler said that the 4’ fencing would do little to deter would-be tresspassers, and replacing the historical fencing amounted to “throwing away our heritage.”


In a letter dated May 28, City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley took up the cause, imploring Queens Parks Commissioner Dorothy Lewendowski to preserve the architectural feel of the original fencing.


Noting that in the past, the city has used examples from the Ridgewood Reservoir to model replica fencing, Crowley asked Lewendowski to “ensure that a fence much like the one that was installed in Central Park in 2003 is placed along the main basin at the Ridgewood Reservoir.”


In reponse, Lewendowski assured Crowley, in a letter dated July 15, that “replicated fence will be used at the overlook areas between basins 2 and 3 to maintain the historical integrity of the site.”


Fiedler, however, is not satisfied.


“It’s nothing,” he said. “We have 3,000’ of historical fencing. They want to throw it all out and put in a few feet of replica.”


“All I’m asking them to do is give us a price assessment on taking it out,” Fiedler continued, “sandblasting it, and putting it back in. If the cost turns out to be prohbitive, I can accept that.”


Fiedler also expressed hope that a state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) study currently underway would prevent Parks from getting started on Phase 1 of the project.


Speaking to residents at the Citizens for a Better Ridgewood meeting on Monday, July 26, Fieldler expressed his belief that Parks would hold off on awarding the contract until the DEC had determined whether the reservoir would be designated as a wetlands.


“That changes the whole scheme of things for the city,” Fiedler said. “If it’s declared a wetland, the city can’t design anything without state approval.”


Parks spokesperson Trish Bertuccio told the Times Newsweekly that the department is currently reviewing proposals for the project, and that Phase 1 is unaffected by the state’s wetlands study.

NYC's Fake Grass Gamble: A $300M Mistake? by Patrick Arden - City Limits Magazine - CityLimits.org

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In 1998, New York City began installing synthetic turf fields in parks and playgrounds, saying the artificial material would be more durable than grass. But a City Limits investigation finds that many turf fields are falling apart, including this one at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

Soccer players examine the turf at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park. 

Soccer players shout at midfield, but not about their game: The field is falling apart.

“It’s been like this for five years,” complains Israel Arreola, as he points to the open seams, torn patches and wavy folds in the artificial turf at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Referees for public school league games already boycott two artificial-turf fields there, citing fears of liability. “This is bad: holes everywhere,” says Arreola, a Manhattan sous-chef who plays in a weekend league.

The reasons behind this buying binge have been many, ranging from the battle against obesity to an alleged cost savings on field maintenance. Artificial turf is part of PlaNYC, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's blueprint for an environmentally friendly future. Yet a City Limits investigation has found that overuse and chronic neglect has run turf ragged years ahead of schedule; price comparisons generally favor natural grass, even in the long term; and the health risks of turf—largely dismissed by the city after the destruction of one artificial field for high lead levels in late 2008—are much broader and deeper than previously reported.“Somebody’s going to get hurt.” Over the past 12 years New York City has borrowed an estimated $300 million to put 204 artificial-turf fields at parks, schools and playgrounds. An additional 52 fields are on the drawing board.

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Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan on New York Winning Race to the Top Funding

“As a parent of a public school student, I know how much this money is needed,” said Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan. “As Chairwoman of the Assembly Education Committee, I know Race To the Top money will go a long way in helping New York renew and renovate our education system. Assembly members worked hard to come up with key legislation that would meet the test. With the leadership of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the guidance of State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch, we worked together successfully to pass this complex legislation that allow us this win this money.”

South Queens Democratic Club Meeting - August 25th 7pm - Old Mill Yacht Club

Where: Old Mill Yacht Club 163-15 Crossbay Blvd

When: August 25th

Time: 7 pm

Senator Says Small Biz Key to Recovery by Michael Cusenza - Queens Chronicle

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Between bites of a house salad and sips of soda, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) took on the economy, jobs, senior issues and terrorism, among other topics, inside Georgia Diner in Elmhurst last Thursday.

New York’s junior senator said employment remains the No. 1 issue, with the Empire State’s jobless rate at around 8 percent, slightly below the national average, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There is enormous anxiety and disillusionment,” Gillibrand related to a small group of reporters gathered at a table in the Queens Boulevard eatery’s rear dining room. “People are very worried. It’s palpable.”

The former congresswoman said that recovery from the recession will be extremely slow and take several years. Small businesses are the key to growth, Gillibrand asserted.

“We need to create jobs in growing industries like energy and biotechnology,” she said. “We need to stay competitive.”

She said she supports again extending unemployment insurance benefits and is working on legislation to get more money flowing into community banks to boost lending.

With Queens being a hotbed of foreclosure, Gillibrand also talked about abandoned houses and what they mean to communities.

“People walk away because the house is worth less than what they bought it for,” she explained. “We want to keep families in homes, because if a house is foreclosed upon, it can affect the neighborhood; it can affect the crime rate.”

Gillibrand sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. As the city remains “the number one target of terrorism” she said she is in frequent contact with Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, working on securing more money for dirty bomb protection and is at the forefront of the debate on cyberterrorism.

“Cybercrime is the precursor to cyberterrorism,” Gillibrand stressed. “It could be an enormous economic disruption.”

Another assignment for Gillibrand is the Senate Special Committee on Aging. Hours after detailing at the Rego Park Senior Center legislation aimed at financially protecting and empowering seniors, she said that through her statewide forums and workshops, older New Yorkers and their families cabetter equip themselves against mortgage fraud, insurance fraud and phone and Internet scams.

Gillibrand is especially proud of her work with veterans. Last month, she announced plans for legislation that would aid service members suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury in obtaining quality medical care, and helped a Middle Village Army veteran eliminate debt levied by the Department of Veterans Affairs due to an accounting error. On Thursday, she hailed tax credits for companies that hire recently returned service members.

“A lot of men and women coming home are struggling with a lot of things,” Gillibrand said. “I’m working hard to create a better landscape for veterans when they come back.”

A married mother of two young boys, Gillibrand said programs aimed at combating childhood obesity anchor her work on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. She applauded Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s work on this front as well.

Gillibrand’s praise of Bloomberg may come as a muffled shock to some as several published reports outline an icy relationship between the two, possibly dating back to shortly after her appointment to the seat vacated by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last year. On Thursday, Gillibrand seemed to dash any notion of an ongoing tiff.

“We share a lot of our agendas,” she said. “We work well together every day. We’ve gotten to know each other over time, and he’s come to respect me.”

Bloomberg’s girlfriend, Diana Taylor, was briefly touted as a possible opponent to Gillibrand in the fall election. The former state superintendent of banks recently told WNBC that she probably could have defeated Gillibrand if she pursued a campaign.

Three other Republicans — former Rep. Joe DioGuardi, economist David Malpass and ex-Port Authority Commissioner Bruce Blakeman — are expected to compete in the GOP primary, according to the Rasmussen polling firm.

Gillibrand said she welcomes all comers.

“I’ve said it all along — anyone who wants to run, should run,” she said.

Constant Gardens for New York - NYTimes.com Op-Ed Contributors - by Christine C. Quinn and Melissa Mark-Viverito

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“THE best place to find God is in a garden,” George Bernard Shaw wrote. “You can dig for him there.” Anyone who has ever cleared his mind while clearing weeds from a flower patch, or enjoyed a quiet moment while watering plants, knows what Shaw meant.

New York’s community gardens, planted on city lots, are more than just pretty patches of green in the concrete jungle. They provide open space and healthful food, increase the value of neighboring property and offer a strong sense of community. Gardens are as much a part of our city as the Empire State Building or Times Square.

Yet it wasn’t long ago that their existence was threatened. As mayor in the late 1990s, Rudolph Giuliani tried to auction them off to developers. But gardeners dug in, held rallies. One protester chained himself to a building in a garden. The state attorney general filed a lawsuit to stop the auctions. Some of the gardens were sold to nonprofit groups. And, in a settlement agreement in the lawsuit, almost all of the rest — nearly 300 of them — ended up under the jurisdiction of the Parks and Recreation Department. The city agreed not to sell many of them for eight years.

That eight-year period ends next month, and our gardens are in need of permanent protection. To begin, the city should strengthen rules governing the two-year licenses issued to the volunteers who operate the gardens. The licenses should be automatically renewed as long as the gardening group is cooperating with the Parks Department, providing public access and otherwise complying with regulations.

Although it is important that the city be able to evict gardeners who violate the rules, gardeners should not lose their licenses for activities that occur in the surrounding area — public drinking on the sidewalk, for example.

If a group of gardeners does lose its license or walks away from a plot, the neighborhood should be offered an opportunity to keep that garden running. The Parks Department should reach out to the local City Council member, the community board and nearby gardening groups, and allow 180 days for other people to apply to take over the garden.

All notices relating to gardens should be written in English, Spanish, Chinese and any other language the community requests.

In order to encourage new gardens, the city should let the public know when city-owned land becomes vacant and no specific use is envisioned.

Finally, we must insulate the gardens from changes in city leadership. Rules are a good first step, but a new mayor could have them changed. We need to make the gardens permanent — perhaps by designating them as parkland, entering into long-term leases or putting legal restrictions on the use of the land.
New Yorkers planted a seed when they created the gardens more than three decades ago. Now we must make sure the city government never uproots them.

Christine C. Quinn is the speaker of the New York City Council, and Melissa Mark-Viverito is the chairwoman of its parks committee.

State E-Mails Skeptical of Willets Point Project by Fernanda Santos - NYTimes.com

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The $3 billion development of Willets Point would replace junkyards and car repair shops. Robert Bennett- NY Times

Even as the Bloomberg administration promotes the $3 billion development of Willets Point in Queens as one of its signature projects, state officials whose approval is needed have privately raised concerns over highway ramps crucial to the proposal and have questioned whether the development will ever get off the ground.

State officials have repeatedly expressed frustration with the city’s inability to provide reliable information and the pressure it was placing on them to expedite their analysis, according to a review of hundreds of e-mails involving the Willets Point project that were provided to The New York Times by an opponent of the project.

Michael Bergmann, a structural engineer for the State Department of Transportation who was part of the team reviewing the city’s application, wrote to the department’s regional director and other colleagues on Dec. 28: “Unless the preparers of this report start accepting the idea that it is seriously flawed, we are going nowhere.”

About a month later, after pointing out a mistake in a document that put the development’s completion date as 2107 instead of 2017, Peter King, a project manager for the state, wrote to a colleague, “Perhaps that reference to 2107 may have been closer to the truth than anyone realizes.”

By that point, the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which was overseeing the project, was pushing state officials to finish their work so that the ramps, which would connect Willets Point to the Van Wyck Expressway, could move on to the final stage of approval by the Federal Highway Administration.

Several months later, state officials did not seem very optimistic about the project’s future.

“If I were a betting man, I’d start dropping the odds regarding success for E.D.C. on this project,” Mr. King said in an e-mail to a state transportation analyst on May 11. “Resistance seems to be building.”

He was reacting in part to a group of business and property owners in Willets Point who had organized an effort to try to derail the project. As part of that, the opponents had filed a Freedom of Information Law request with the State Transportation Department seeking copies of all communications on the plan, hoping to pry open a behind-the-scenes bureaucratic process the public often knows very little about.

They also were hoping the e-mails would provide fodder for their campaign. The messages — about 200 from May 2007 to May 2010, among State Transportation Department staff members, federal highway officials, city officials and private consultants — show the state’s concern about the safety, design and traffic impact of the ramps.

A spokesman for the development corporation, David Lombino, said those concerns were being addressed in a revised plan that the city intended to submit to the state by the end of the year. Mr. Lombino conceded, however, that the ramps’ approval “has been more time-consuming than originally planned.”

The e-mails show state regulators raising various concerns. Do traffic projections account for simultaneous events at Citi Field stadium next to the development site and the nearby Billie Jean King National Tennis Center after Willets Point is fully occupied? Could one of the exit curves be too tight? Might the cluster of exits and merges confuse drivers and lead to accidents?
Such back and forth among different government agencies working together on a specific matter is certainly not uncommon — particularly on large, ambitious projects like Willets Point, which envisions the construction of 5,500 apartments, office buildings, retail stores and a hotel, replacing the auto repair shops, factories and junkyards that have operated there for decades.

What seems unusual is the annoyance state regulators expressed with the work of the consultants hired by the city to work on the ramps’ design. The consultants submitted numerous written responses and clarifications to questions and sat with the regulators in several meetings, but still failed to satisfy them, the messages show.

“We have reviewed this whole package several times, and we keep seeing the same things,” Mr. Bergmann wrote to Mr. King and Tracy Sayegh Gabriel, a vice president at the development corporation, on Dec. 30. “Clarification is not our problem — we understand the design concepts. There are several key elements in the draft report that we are not willing to accept.”

Mr. Lombino said disagreements were a part of the process, adding, “We make proposals and then work closely with our counterpart agencies and regulators, revising those proposals to produce the best project possible.”

As part of the approval process for the project, the city is preparing an assessment of the ramps’ impact on the environment, which will be the subject of a public hearing next month. The assessment has to be reviewed by state transportation officials and the federal highway agency, which can approve it or request a more extensive review, an outcome that would further delay the project.

The ramps must be built before the city can exercise its eminent domain power to take any land at Willets Point from owners who are unwilling to sell. Many of the owners of larger properties there have already agreed to sell.

Mr. Lombino said the city controlled nearly 80 percent of the land in the area that would be the first phase of the development, on the southern tip of the 60-acre site, which is roughly bordered by Roosevelt Avenue, 126th Street and the Van Wyck Expressway.

But about 20 owners of land and businesses are resisting and have filed a motion in State Supreme Court in Manhattan seeking to force the city to redo its environmental review of the entire project.

They have hired a lobbyist who helped defeat Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plans to build a mall at the old Kingsbridge armory in the Bronx, and an environmental lawyer and traffic engineer who played key roles in the fight against Westway, an underground highway proposed along the West Side of Manhattan.

“We’re looking for any way that we can to stop the project,” said Jerry Antonacci, whose waste transfer company, Crown Container, has been in Willets Point since 1959.

NY's Gillibrand Hailed by Brady Gun Control Group - The Associated Press

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New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has been endorsed for election by a leading gun control group two years after earning a top rating from the National Rifle Association.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence notes Gillibrand had been an NRA favorite when she was an upstate congresswoman in a Republican district. But the group says in less than two years as an appointed U.S. senator she has become a leader in sensible gun laws.

Gillibrand was appointed to fill Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate seat last year after Clinton was named secretary of state. She accepted the Brady endorsement Thursday, saying it reflects her opposition to illegal guns and her efforts to combat gun violence.

Polls show Gillibrand with wide leads over GOP candidates Bruce Blakeman, David Malpass and Joseph DioGuardi.

South Ozone Park Man Crushed by Car by Howard Koplowitz - YourNabe.com

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A deacon at a South Ozone Park church was killed after he was crushed while working on his prized possession — a 1995 red Toyota Celica — the minister of the church said Tuesday.

Glenmore Miller, a 42-year-old electrician and deacon at the South Ozone Park Seventh-Day Adventist Church, was discovered dead under the car Monday morning, according to the church’s minister, the Rev. Richard Bryant.

“He was always into that car. He was always working on it,” Bryant said in a phone interview Tuesday. “For whatever reason, he wanted that particular car and he kept it.”

Members of Miller’s family, who gathered at his South Ozone Park home on Sutter Avenue, declined to comment.

Miller, who Bryant said became an ordained deacon about three years ago, was known for serving the church, even pitching in during renovations.

“He was loved by everybody,” Bryant said. “You never heard an unkind word of him. He really touched a lot of lives”

Miller was last seen alive Sunday and was found dead Monday.

Bryant said a jack holding up the 1995 red Toyota Celica Miller was working on gave way, crushing him.

He said it was not known whether Miller was killed instantly.