Support the Nets … and win a prize!
Drumming up support for his massive Atlantic Yards development project,
real estate mogul Bruce Ratner sent out 350,000 glossy pamphlets to Brooklyn
homes over Memorial Day weekend promising residents a free gift if they
back his plan.
The colorful foldout, with words of praise from Sen. Charles Schumer,
Borough President Marty Markowitz and a slew of other politicians, is
the first major mailing Ratner has put out since he first announced the
$2.5 billion basketball arena, and retail and residential development
last December.
In addition to photos of children and young families, the mailing includes
a perforated tear-away postcard with the words — “Yes! I support
Atlantic Yards.”
Residents who send the card back are promised “a free Brooklyn Nets
Souvenir.” Each card also contains a barcode that includes their
address information.
There is no place to indicate opposition to the plan.
“It’s such a sleazy tactic to say if you fill this out you get
a free souvenir,” said Jackie Connor, a Park Slope resident who said
she scribbled the words “eminent domain abuse” on the card before
sending it back.
“I hope they’ll see that as a no,” she said.
As part of the sweeping plan Ratner, principal owner of Forest City Ratner,
seeks to either buy-out or have the state condemn 11-acres of privately
owned land.
The rest of the 21-acre project, which encompasses six blocks in Prospect
Heights emanating east from the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush
avenues, would be built over MTA-owned land.
In addition to building a basketball arena to house his newly purchased
New Jersey Nets, Ratner is seeking to build 4,500 units of housing and
four soaring office towers.
“What a nice gimmick,” Prospect Heights Councilwoman Letitia
James, an ardent opponent of the project, said when she heard about the
mailing.
“It’s a marketing tool and [Ratner] is trying to dangle jobs
and goodies in front of people who really need to be at the table and
a part of the process,” she said.
Although it strongly supports his plan, neither Ratner’s name nor
the name of his company appears anywhere on the six-sided mailing.
Patti Hagan, a spokeswoman for the anti-arena Prospect Heights Action
Coalition, said she was outraged when she saw the pamphlet this week.
“It’s kind of a desperate ploy to spend all this money to try
and persuade people of something and play it off as if the New York Times
is somehow supporting the whole thing,” said Hagan referring to a
quote and large logo from the paper of record used on the pamphlet.
Under a snippet ostensibly pulled from a Times article appears the full
Times logo.
According to the mailing, the project will create “10,000 new, permanent
jobs” and “15,000 construction jobs.”
“They’re not new jobs,” said Hagan, “they’re
just jobs being moved over from Manhattan or somewhere else.”
Hagan said arena opponents do not have the money to put out that kind
of slick marketing material.
The pamphlet hit mailboxes this week just as a television campaign criticizing
the heavily subsidized Manhattan Jets Stadium hit the airwaves. Those
advertisements are sponsored in part by a coalition backed by Madison
Square Garden’s owners, Cablevision.
It is still unclear how much public money will be needed for the Ratner
project. At a City Council hearing last month a Forest City Ratner executive
estimated the pubic contribution to be “hundreds of millions.”
Some residents also raised concerns this week about Ratner using cards
promising free gifts to gauge public opinion.
But according to Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco, the cards are not a poll.
“They wouldn’t provide a very official count,” he said.
“Its just something fun to do … it’s just a giveaway.”
He said there was no particular reason they decided to send out the mailing
now.
“It just seemed like the right time, the colors are nice and spring-like
and now the weather is nice and spring-like.”
