One week ago, the state Assembly approved a $33-million subsidy for Bruce Ratner’s still-unapproved Atlantic Yards project. The allocation, stuffed as a line item inside the 2006-2007 budget for Education, Family Assistance and Labor, passed unanimously — and seven of 21 Brooklyn delegates further supported Ratner by contacting Speaker Sheldon Silver on his behalf. Here are what some Brooklyn delegates said about their vote.

Joseph Lentol (D-Greenpoint)
“I support the project, but you couldn’t vote against it even if you wanted to, unless you wanted to vote against all the money for the city’s schools. It was take it or leave it.”

Alan Maisel (D-Mill Basin)
“I’ve been supportive of the project since before I was elected. It’ll be good for economic development and I voted for it, but even if I wasn’t supportive, I couldn’t have voted against the education budget.”

Peter Abbate (D-Dyker Heights)
“I think [Ratner’s plan] will be good for the economic development of Brooklyn, but the budget had thousands of things and you can’t ever take just one of them out.”

Roger Green (D-Prospect Heights)
“Ratner gave a good presentation. The questions are the same — scale, size and traffic — but we have to think about the community benefits.”

William Colton (D-Bensonhurst)
“Sure, there are questions, but you can see that there has been a lot of effort to negotiate. He’s really trying.”

Joan Millman (D-Brooklyn Heights)
“They were kind of between a rock and hard place,” a spokesman said. “This is funding that she and a lot of residents have been fighting for a long time ... I don’t know why the Ratner money was put there ... [Millman] was the only person who spoke out on the floor against the appropriation.”

©2006 Community Newspaper Group