As members of the International Olympic Committee toured the five boroughs last Tuesday, organizers from Develop-Don’t Destroy Brooklyn split into factions over whether to step inside the Olympic rings or worry about what’s happening on their home court.

The group of Prospect Heights-area residents, which formed last year in opposition to Bruce Ratner’s plans to build a 19,000-seat arena at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, divided their stance on how to handle the IOC last week.

While some representatives landed seats at a breakfast table at the Plaza Hotel Tuesday morning before the IOC’s tours of the city’s proposed Olympic venues, others hung mammoth banners from buildings flanking the now barren Atlantic Avenue rail yards where the arena is anticipated for development.

The latter faction, led by Patti Hagan and the Prospect Heights Action Coaltion, criticized from afar those who had entered the “lion’s den.”

“It wasn’t a meeting directly with the IOC,” complained Hagan, whose PHAC turned down going to the meeting when they found out it would be “intermediated” by the city’s Olympic bid committee, NYC 2012.

“I warned Dan Goldstein [of DDDB] that Jay Kreigel [executive director of NYC 2012] would spin him in a direction he would probably regret,” she said.

But members of DDDB, who along with PHAC pushed for the meeting for weeks, went ahead anyway, sharing the table with a pro-Olympics Queens group.

When a representative from another community group, the Clinton Special District, which opposes the West Side stadium plans in Manhattan, dropped out of the meeting, saying he didn’t want to appear with groups supporting the bid, DDDB was suddenly positioned as a group that supports the bid.

Indeed, in a press conference following the meeting, Kriegel said he had met with groups that supported the city’s Olympic bid.

“The groups expressed their views, and both groups also expressed their votes for the Games,” said Kriegel later that morning.

Multiple calls to Kriegel’s press officers and the NYC 2012 press hotline went unreturned.

“It’s just ridiculous what he said,” said a DDDB representative who was present at the meeting but did not want his name published. “We spent the entire time discussing all the problems with constructing a brand-new arena ... and how countries in India or in South America would never be able to afford to host the Olympics if it becomes this expensive.”

The representative said the four members of the 13-member IOC listened with careful attention and seemed “particularly concerned” when she characterized the use of the bid as “an excuse for a land grab” and that community process, at least in Brooklyn “was being co-opted.”

The commissioners took notes, she said, but did not ask questions.

But following the meeting, Kriegel held a press conference that, according to the activists, misconstrued their presence at the table as unflagging support.

DDDB spokesman Daniel Goldstein said it was a bald-faced lie.

“He’s misleading and lying, as is done throughout the city,” Goldstein said. “We don’t have a position on the Olympics; we’re agnostic on the Olympics, and we’re against the bid. We’d like to ask Jay Kreigel and their 2012 Committee if they’re even in favor of the Olympics, because the bid they have outlined and put forth to the IOC is sure to lose.

“We’re thankful to the commission for giving us 15 minutes in their four-day tour of the city and the commissioners seemed to squirm in their seats when we told them about the Ratner arena, particularly when we told them their Olympics were being used for real estate deals,” Goldstein said.

While Forest City Ratner spokesman Barry Baum said he did not know whether a tour would be given of the Atlantic Yards site where the 19,000-seat arena is proposed, the members of PHAC made their voice known anyway.

“It was hard to get anything across to them,” said Hagan, “So we figured the thing we could do is put up these banners as big as we could.”

But the Olympics never came.

“My understanding is that they send scouts,” she said. “I imagine some scouts came out and surveyed the territory. I don’t know how naive I am, but I supposed they would come out here on Thursday morning and at least walk up Pacific Street to take a look. And we were waiting there for them with information about eminent domain and people being forced out of their homes while public subsidies are going to support this arena.”

At least some people saw the massive banners from the rooftops of buildings, which stayed up until Thursday and warned of land grabs in English and French.

One featured a giant, smiling horse of special importance to any appreciator of Greek history.

“Trojan Horse,” read the caption below it.

The IOC’s final day in the city was Thursday, and New York marked their third visit after having been to Madrid and London. Next evaluators will look at Paris and Moscow. The IOC will choose which city will host the 2012 Olympics on July 6.

©2005 Community Newspaper Group