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Just who does Charles Gargano think he’s working for — the public that pays his salary or developer Bruce Ratner?

Gargano, the chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, made it clear on WNET’s “New York Voices” last week that he’d rather negotiate in secret with Ratner than defend the public’s interests.

The show’s host, Rafael Pi Roman, asked Gargano why the ESDC has refused requests from project opponents, journalists and now even state Assemblyman Jim Brennan to release financial information that could show whether Ratner is getting a sweetheart deal (as many suspect) or merely making a reasonable real-estate deal with the state that will earn him a fair profit (as he claims).

Putting aside for a second the notion that an assemblyman had to use the state’s Freedom of Information Law to get information from a state agency (!), Gargano’s answer should appall anyone who believes that government gets its powers from the consent of the governed.

“First of all,” Gargano said, “what they are looking for is internal documents, working documents. ... We are now still negotiating and when you are negotiating, you don’t open your cards up to who you are negotiating with. ... That’s simple business. It is not a question of not wanting to make documents available. When they are completed, when the deal is done, then the documents will be public record.”

When the deal is done?

In Gargano’s mind, the deal is done, and any proposals competing with Ratner’s need not be entertained, lest they expose weaknesses in Ratner’s done deal with the state.

The whole purpose of Gargano’s top-down, smoke-filled approach is to hide such vital information as the developer’s actual costs, his expected profit, and the full cost of the massive public subsidies on which the entire project floats.

In the interview — which can be seen at http://www.thirteen.org/nyvoices — Gargano did more than just romanticize the glory days of the backroom deal.

He also insulated himself from future criticism with the bizarre claim that he is selling out Brooklyn to save it: “We work for a common ground, something that the developer can live with and not walk away from a project and say, ‘Well, too bad. We can’t do it; the public sector doesn’t want to be a partner with us.’”

But Gargano is wrong: The public sector does want to be a partner with developers — as long as the public has a seat at the table when the turkey is carved up.

©2006 The Brooklyn Paper