"Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Public Letter Against Yankee Plan" Press Release 04/03/06

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 3, 2006

Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Sends Public Letter
Calling on City Council to Oppose Yankee Stadium Plan
Steinbrenner Plan, Like Ratner Plan, is an Affront to Communities
and a Rip-off of Taxpayers Around the City and State

BROOKLYN, BRONX, MANHATTAN, QUEENS, STATEN ISLAND–Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn sent the following letter today to the City Council in opposition to George Steinbrenner's Yankee Stadium development plan. The letter, in its entirety, follows below.

Dear Honorable Speaker Quinn; Planning, Dispositions & Concessions Committee Members, and all Council Members:

I am writing on behalf of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, which represents over 5,000 people, to say very clearly that you must vote NO on the Yankee Stadium Plan.

In Brooklyn, we are not only watching this issue closely, but we are actively involved in opposing the Yankee plan to take up and break up that Bronx community's parks, and overwhelm the neighborhood with a massive sports/shopping complex. This is a citywide and statewide issue, despite Bronx Borough President Carrion's offensive suggestion that anyone concerned with the Stadium plan is an "outside agitator."

In Brooklyn, the thousands that are opposed to the Forest City Ratner "Atlantic Yards" proposal are acutely aware of the issues at stake in the Bronx, because they are so similar to the issues at stake with Ratner's proposal, and the development issues at stake in nearly every neighborhood throughout the city. In the Bronx you have the chance to do right by the people; unfortunately, without any protestation from the Council, the city gave up its chartered right to oversight of the Ratner proposal so you will have absolutely no say in the largest single-source development proposal in the history of New York City.

Most of the citizens of this city are becoming more and more disturbed at the willingness of the Bloomberg Administration, in partnership with the Council, to give away our dollars, our air, our light, our parks, our streets, our land, our homes, our businesses, our neighborhoods, and our communities to billionaires or anybody else while locking our communities out from any genuine input or say in our future. We are at a tipping point with the Yankee proposal and the Ratner proposal.

There is great gravity to the decision you make during this lead up to the scheduled vote on Yankee Stadium on April 5th. Your choice is between representing the people or representing George Steinbrenner's need for luxury boxes and minimizing construction time. Your choice is to defend smart, fair, and sustainable urban planning or promote profit-driven, destructive non-planning which would repeat the terrible mistakes of the past.

It is simple, in the end:
Your choice is between standing with the people or standing against them with wealthy developers and sports barons.


The eyes of New Yorkers will be focused on you on April 5th to see where you stand. We fully expect you to stand with the people and vote NO on the Yankee Stadium plan. Then we can work together to improve the parks in the Bronx, where they need improvement, and renovate the great House that Ruth Built.

Sincerely,

Daniel Goldstein
On behalf of Develop--Don't Destroy (BROOKLYN)


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DEVELOP DON’T DESTROY BROOKLYN leads a broad-based community coalition
fighting for development that will unite our communities instead of dividing and destroying them.
We oppose Forest City Ratner's "Atlantic Yards" proposal in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
www.developdontdestroy.org
Over 5,000 members.