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.”
