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Lawsuit Demands Shut Down of City Point Development Project

Mary Alice Miller
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A coalition of labor unions, community activists and elected officials have filed a lawsuit against City Point, a commercial and luxury housing complex rising from the site of the former Albee Square Mall in Downtown Brooklyn. The lawsuit demands that all construction at City Point stop pending a new Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that would analyze “the negative impact created by the project, which currently pays construction workers poverty-level wages” as low as $7.25 an hour.

Attorney Tom Kennedy sent a letter to Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding Robert Steel detailing how NYC has allowed developers for City Point to pay substandard wages on the project even though the original EIS for City Point assumed developer Acadia Realty Trust would pay the prevailing wage rate. Kennedy’s letter called for the city to shut down construction at the project immediately because the original EIS failed to address the negative socioeconomic impact of paying poverty-level wages in Brooklyn’s communities. Steel never responded to the letter, prompting the lawsuit.

According to Kennedy, the last time the city looked at environmental impacts, including socioeconomic impacts, for projects in Downtown Brooklyn was in 2004. “It’s been 9 years, and there’s been a lot of development in that time; the real impact on the neighborhoods and the workers on the project has never really gotten a good look by the city, as required by law,” said Kennedy.

“This project needs to be shut down and all public financing of the City Point project has to stop until a proper environmental impact statement can be created and impacts assessed.”

City Point developers have received $40 million in tax subsidies and a 99-year lease on city-owned land.
Assemblyman Walter Mosley called the subsidies “corporate welfare”. City Point “developers are blatantly reneging on promises made and disregarding the most basic needs of the hardworking New Yorkers that make this project possible,” said Mosley, who joined the lawsuit. “Good jobs with fair, prevailing wages and benefits are not too much to ask for when Acadia is receiving tens of millions in taxpayer money. I refuse to allow the working families of the communities I represent to be shortchanged by the greed and entitlement of any corporation.”

“I am not saying that unions don’t have to make concessions,” said Mosley, “but you are talking about a developer who has received $40 million of public money and city-owned land, and is now allowed for construction workers to earn as little as $7.25 per hour.”

“The city should ensure that all megaprojects be built according to prevailing wages and benefits, and further review their impact on the existing community,” said Council member Letitia James, a petitioner on the lawsuit. “I have joined food service and factory workers as they fought for fair wages, and I expect developers to meet the same standard of fairness in the interest of strengthening our community and local economy. I stand with this coalition in holding Acadia to this standard.”

“Going forward, we have to change economic development policies in NYC to mandate that all major publicly funded projects be built safe, consistent with labor standards, on time and by organized labor,” said James.
James Parrott, Deputy Director and Chief Economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute provided detailed written expert testimony as part of the suit. “It’s imperative that public resources are used to support good jobs, providing workers a ladder to the middle class,” said Parrott. “The issue is about class structure, with wage practices like Acadia’s undermining and diminishing the makeup of an already-dwindling middle class. When construction companies pay less than the prevailing wage there is the illusion of cost savings. In reality, costs for health care, unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation often are just shifted to taxpayers and other businesses. On top of that, the workers themselves are denied decent pay and benefits and access to the apprenticeship system that provides the opportunity to move into the middle class. There is nothing that Brooklyn neighborhoods surrounding this project need more than good jobs with career opportunities for workers with limited formal education.”

The Metallic Lathers and Ironworkers Local 46, Ironworkers Local 361, Ironworkers Local 580, Enterprise Association Steamfitters Local 638, Cement League, Inc. and Families United for Racial and Economic Equity (FUREE) are petitioners on the lawsuit.

“We already know that construction workers at City Point are being paid poverty wages and that they are getting absolutely no benefits,” said Terry Moore, Business Manager of Metallic Lathers and Ironworkers Local 46. “When this project got the green light, the assumption was made that workers would be paid the prevailing wage, as detailed by the city’s comptroller. Acadia has steadfastly refused to divulge its wage and benefits package.”
According to the petition, “Acadia is the tenth-largest Real Estate Investment Trust in New York City. Using public subsidies to permit a major market player to drive down construction wages to poverty levels will impact on every project built in the future.”

“We are talking about a total and full recovery of our economy on a local, statewide and national level. These public/private partnerships — where we subsidize and give corporate welfare to these developers who don’t have the complete or 100% wherewithal to build and they need our assistance with taxpayers’ money to subsidize — tell the same tax-payers that they are going to take lower wages, fewer benefits to work on it and they should be happy and will publicize such, said Mosley. “It is a disservice to our city, a disservice to our state and it is an insult to elected officials and the people we represent on a daily basis. Enough is enough.”

View From Here: Drones and the Boston Bombing

David Mark Greaves
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The FBI has sent an interrogation unit to question Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old that video shows apparently placing the second of two bombs that killed three people and injured at least 180 at the Boston Marathon.  One of their goals is to find the “reason” for the bombing,  they want to hear, “We did it because…”  and then the “reason”  will be given for the death and maiming.

But the reason sounds the same whether heard in Yemen or Boston.  People writhing on the ground don’t care about the reason.   If you live in Yemen and are sitting at a cafe and a man who the United States believes to be a “terrorist” is speaking to another not far away, you are subject to being one of over 3,000 civilian Yemenese-— women, children and men— killed as collateral damage because of U.S. “reasons”.  Imagine the Boston Bomber, times a thousand, going off across our country.  Killing people from Maine to California.  Firing from the skies and unable to be stopped.   How would you feel about the country that said their reasons were more important than your lost loved one’s life?  More important than your sorrow?  It is painful to even hold the thought, but the United States has become that country, reviled in cinema and in print declaring, “The drone attacks will continue until all obey”.

The “reason” always amounts to having the ability to act, having no one who can stop you and holding no moral imperative not to.  Whether President George Bush or now, far more heavily, Barack Obama with his killer drones or General George Custer with his saber, it is all terrorism and we have to stop it where we can.

We have to tell the world, that’s not us.  That’s the Obama Administration and we’re working to bring them under control now.   We have to tell the president to stop the drone war.   Tell him we understand it’s more convenient and expedient, the drone teams at Hancock Field in Syracuse get to commute back to the wife and kids after a mission but it does not make us any safer and it can only inspire a lust for vengeance.   It is at best, counterproductive, but the whole of it is inhumane.

What’s even worse, those killings are not only done in our name,  but to be crass about it, money is taken from our pockets to pay for them.  Time magazine reported that each MQ-9 Reaper costs, $12,548,710.60 [The Air Force fact sheet says this: “Unit Cost: $53.5 million (includes four aircraft with sensors) (fiscal 2006 dollars)”].    While our children are quickly falling behind the world populations, destined to make a living by providing whatever human services that the aggressively educated classes can’t do without, military contractors are making big money off of this carnage, and it is money that can be better invested in our children and our future.

City Point lawsuit calls minority hiring into question

Stephen Witt
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A union-led lawsuit seeking to halt the massive City Point project in Downtown Brooklyn is threatening divisions between local lawmakers siding with the unions and black-owned contractors saying a stoppage will cost local jobs and slow cash flow in the community to a trickle.

The project, on the former Albee Square Mall site on Fulton Street, is an open shop, meaning it utilizes both union and nonunion labor. The suit, which City Councilwoman Letitia James and Assemblyman Walter Mosley also signed onto, alleges the City Point developers pay poverty-level wages to nonunion workers and wants the project stopped until a new study is completed on how these wages impact the local economy.

But several local contractors say the suit is really about the unions bringing in workers from outside the community while refusing to address the needs and high unemployment rate in the surrounding community.

“I support unions, but I also support local and minority employment,” said Ed Brown, the former Ingersoll Houses Tenants Association President and whose Team Brown Consulting firm has landed several people from the Ingersoll Houses construction and security jobs on the City Point project. “The trade unions are not opening their ranks for local people. I don’t see that happening. The history of local construction unions has to be put to the forefront in reference to giving jobs in the local community and people of color being left out.”
Brown said he is not privy to everyone’s wages, but noted security workers receive above-the-union wages for such work and nonunion laborers and construction workers still receive hefty hourly rates.

“We have unemployed individuals, some of them formerly incarcerated, with rent to pay, families to feed and child support issues. If someone is working labor for $20 or $25 an hour, it sure beats a blank. I don’t see how that can be contested,” he said.

Mosley said he is working closely with the ironworkers union to address the issue of more minority opportunities within their ranks. He also expressed doubt that local nonunion workers actually come from the community.

“I have asked the developer for a breakdown of workers on the project that supposedly ‘live’ in the community,” he said in an e-mail. “To date, I have never met or heard of a single person from the 57th Assembly District who works on the site.”

But Martin (Ab) Allen, whose company, PPEE Construction, 790 MacDonough Street in Bed-Stuy, is located in Assemblyman William Boyland’s district, said he currently has 38 people working on City Point from NYCHA’s Farragut, Wyckoff and Gowanus Houses as well as residents from Brownsville, Fort Greene, Bed-Stuy and Bushwick.
“If this project was a full union shop none of these people would be working there,” said Allen, who stated he himself is a union member.

Allen explained that up-front union dues make it nearly impossible for many from the local community to get in the union, and those that do get in the union have to go through a union hall where they are put on long waiting lists before they are placed on a job-site.

“If they (City Point) go full union then none of the local people will get jobs. When you become a union shop they force contractors to have six union workers before you can bring on some of yours from the community,” he said.

Allen said he knows of several small and local contractors who have been able to get some subcontracting work on City Point including plumbing, sprinkler, concrete and scaffolding contracts.

“A small company can’t compete with these big union companies like in cement. They (unions) want politicians to support them, but people are starving out here,” he said.

The suit comes as the consortium of several developers of City Point is moving ahead with the second phase of the three-phase project which will include 680,000 square feet of retail space and 680 units of housing including 125 units of affordable housing for moderate-and low-income residents.

The already-completed first phase of the project includes the recent opening of Armani Exchange on the Fulton Mall, and the retail end will ultimately include anchors such as New York City-based retailer Century 21 and the seven-screen Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas.

A spokesperson for the developer Albee Square, LLC refused comment on an ongoing litigation. The city is also named in the suit because the project is being done on city-owned land.
A spokesperson from the city’s Law Department said the court filings are being reviewed.

Bike Share docks rolled out in Bed-Stuy

Stephen Witt
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Bike rack at Bedford Ave. & Clifton Pl. next to the Rand Liquor store.

CB 3 official says more rent-a-bike docks expected throughout the neighborhood

By Stephen Witt

Eight bike docks, as part of the city’s new rent-a-bike program, have been installed mainly on the western portion of Bedford-Stuyvesant with several more expected in the central and eastern part of the community as the program moves forward.

The public-private partnership plan, dubbed Citi Bike because Citibank is its major underwriter, will ultimately see 600 docking stations and 10,000 bikes where residents and tourists can pick up a bike and pedal to their destination. Once there, they can unload the bike at another of the city’s docking stations.

The docking stations are placed at the edge of public parks in pedestrian plazas and privately owned public spaces, on wide sidewalks and in curbside lanes, medians and other locations along the street.

Thus far (in Bed-Stuy) the station locations are: under the trestle at the Franklin Avenue shuttle, on Monroe Street off Classon Avenue, on Lexington Avenue off of Classon Avenue, on Hancock Street off Bedford Avenue, on Macon Street off Nostrand Avenue, on Clifton Place off Bedford Avenue, on Franklin Ave. off Myrtle Avenue and in front of the YMCA on Monroe Street and Bedford Avenue.

“We’ve received a few complaints which we will be addressing as a couple of locations doesn’t seem safe,” says Nelson M. Stoute, chair of the Community Board 3 Infrastructure, Transportation, Environmental Protection and Sanitation Committee.

Stoute said one of the complaints came from the Monroe Street off Classon Avenue dock because it’s a narrow street.

“Another possible problematic site is the one on Franklin Avenue near Myrtle Avenue because it’s also a narrow street, and it supports both the B48 bus and a designated bike lane,” said Stoute. “I contacted DOT (Department of Transportation) about both these sites and I’m waiting to hear back from them.”

Stoute, who is a bicyclist, credited the city for holding several community meetings last year explaining the bike share program, which has been implemented successfully in other cities around the world such as London and Lisbon.

“They were supposed to roll out the program a year or year and a half ago, but then it got postponed and Sandy hit. At the time, the Brooklyn Navy Yard had 7,000 bikes and 2,000 were damaged in the storm,” he said.

Stoute said the bikes are expected to be in place sometime in May and that other docking sites throughout Bed-Stuy are expected in the next few months, but none have been confirmed yet.

Citi Bike will be open 24/7 excluding poor weather that may make it close temporarily. Annual membership is $95, a seven-day membership is $25 and a 24-hour membership is $9.95.

For more information on the program log onto  http://citibikenyc.com/.

An Exchange of Views: “Immigration Amnesty Would Harm African-Americans”

Editor, Our Time Press
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Right-wing Propaganda  or Leftists Blinded by Their Own Rhetoric

Brother Yusuf et al,

This is an interesting piece of right-wing propaganda aimed at definitely dividing Black workers from Latinos and Black immigrants. The three people -who happen to be on the Civil Rights Commission- who wrote this 11 April letter are known right-wing defenders of the Capitalist Order.

Their task is to make a progressive immigration law appear to be a way to keep Blackfolk on the bottom of the employment heap and to divert our attention away from the rich and superrich setting policy in such a way that guarantees unchecked maldistribution of wealth through shrinking salaries and benefits, exporting labor and systematically deskilling the labor force that remains inside the US.

There is plenty of work that needs to be done inside the US! From infrastructure to alternative energy to advance technologies that require a skilled working-class to a expanded and revamped health care system, millions of permanent jobs can be created. Also, the other area of struggle ignored by this 11 April letter and implied in the Our Time Press article is the ongoing battle for a National Living Wage minimum wage.

Both the Democratic and Republican wings of the capitalist buzzard are bought and sold to resist this effort even though small and huge corporations can still make a profit if they paid living wages. This is what makes Black-Immigrant solidarity for a Living Wage so central to our Black Liberation Struggle: there is enough wealth in this nation to benefit ALL workers without bickering over crumbs of crumbs.

In addition to this, our struggle for Black Reparations is an essential struggle to further dismantle the capitalist system of class exploitation and racial oppression. Our demands for redress through free health care, free education, tax-free consuming and interest-free mortgages further pushes the issue of systemic economic disparities based on the legacy of vast capital accumulation via 400+ years of chattel slavery.

Lastly, the statistical info is mostly based upon the impact of undocumented workers- not documented workers. There are other factors attributing to persistent high Black unemployment:

A.  Blackfolk born in the US are not going to work for below minimum wage in great numbers.

B.  Blackfolk born in the US have been systematically miseducated and undereducated -especially over the past 25 years -to such an extent that we are a diminishing few in the skilled and semiskilled labor forces.

C.  Many jobs that may exist for us are now found further away from where we live… forcing us to spend more money in transportation than 25-30 years ago.

I’m sure others can come up with even more reasons why this divisive piece must be challenged. This question of African-Americans and Immigration Reform would make a great Left Forum Debate/Workshop… or anywhere else this coming summer.

In Struggle,

Sam Anderson

The writer Responds

Super Leftists Blinded by Their Own Rhetoric

Last week’s article entitled Report: Immigration Amnesty Would Harm African-Americans was called an interesting piece of “right-wing propaganda aimed at definitely dividing Black workers from Latinos and Black immigrants”. No. The article highlighted the impact of amnesty on descendants of this country’s chattel slavery system.

African-Americans, who survived and valiantly fought off the slave shackles of the world’s greatest superpower, have a right to own our issues. Our issues are distinct. A cursory history survey will reveal that immigrants of color were not clamoring to voluntarily enter this country prior to the Civil War. Though immigrants of color began to trickle in during the late 19

th and early 20th centuries, the massive waves of immigrants of color came with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 after the hard fought for 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Only myopic folk refuse to see “the rich and superrich” methods of turning a blind eye to rampant unauthorized and out-of-status immigration as a “way to keep Blackfolk on the bottom of the employment heap”. Why? Basic economies of scale. A surplus of unskilled, low-wage, unauthorized immigrant workers depress the wages and employment opportunities for low-wage, unskilled citizens – both Black and white – for the benefit of the wealthy classes. Haven’t you ever wondered who funds the myriad groups advocating for amnesty?

Those who have no problem accusing President Obama for allegedly ignoring the plight of unemployed and underemployed African-Americans oddly choose to ignore the direct impact of unchecked unauthorized immigration.

The United States has immigration laws on the books which includes a variety of Visa opportunities. About half of the current Diversity Visa system currently benefits immigrants from Africa who apply legally. The Congressional Black Caucus is correct to stand in support of the program’s continuance. The CBC also supports addressing the backlog of status transfer applications that lead many to fall out-of-status while waiting for their applications to be approved. African-Americans do (in fact) join in unity with Latinos and Black immigrants who apply legally.

But what about our issues? A better question is “What are our issues?” Spouting rhetoric about infrastructure and alternative energy are not enough. We do have “an expanded and revamped health care system” getting ready to roll out in 2014. It is euphemistically called Obamacare. And simply talking about a “Nation[al] Living Wage” is not enough. Who is organizing the “Black Liberation Struggle”?

Verbalizing a “struggle for Black Reparations” is not enough, nor is “demands for redress through free health care, free education, tax-free consuming and interest-free mortgages.” Free everything? Who is supposed to pay for it… the same oligarchs you rail against? Get serious. Even in the Netherlands where there are robust social services the tax rate is upwards of 40-50 percent. Talk is cheap. Where is the action? Where is the organizing? Talking into an echo chamber is not enough.

The statistical information cited in the article “is mostly based upon the impact of undocumented workers – not documented workers”.  That was the point. Legal documented workers are not the problem. The problem is unchecked, undocumented, unauthorized immigration by people who don’t respect this nation’s laws yet ironically demand those same laws be changed for them.

The assertion that “Blackfolk born in the US are not going to work for below minimum wage in great numbers” ignores the fact that African-American workers are being displaced by undocumented immigrant workers who do work for below minimum wage. Blanket amnesty would make matters worse due to a glut of low-skilled, low-wage unauthorized immigrant workers competing with citizens.

Solely placing blame on an education system for rendering Blackfolk born in the U.S. “miseducated and undereducated” is a tired and worn excuse. Education is an interactive endeavor. Self-proclaimed education activists who have been whining “over the past 25 years” should take a good look at themselves. Educational systems in NYC and nationally have undergone several organizational structures from community control to mayoral control and from No Child Left Behind to Race to the Top. Yet, the professional Super-Leftist complaints remain the same.

There is nothing stopping educational activists from organizing “Saturday Schools” like the ones other ethnic groups provide their children to teach their culture. There is nothing stopping activists from challenging the males among us who impregnate barely educated little girls then expecting those same little girls to effectively educate and parent their own children by themselves.

We have had strong leadership on education. For the love of her people, Regent Emerita Dr. Adelaide Sanford gave us instruction. She was among those who led the fight for the Curriculum of Inclusion, but somehow we couldn’t figure out how to get it funded.  Bob Law spent an entire year conducting rallies and informational forums across the city in an attempt to inspire African-Americans to support independent Black schools. We didn’t take him seriously and follow through. Now we have fewer independent Black schools than 25 years ago.

I don’t know what to say to someone who would argue that distance and an increase in transportation cost from 25 years ago is a bigger reason for Black unemployment than unauthorized immigration. How far did unauthorized immigrants illegally travel and at what cost?

I will say this: Super-leftists who have no ability, willingness, or agenda to address African-American cultural impediments to advancement should stand down. Jumping on other people’s bandwagon to help them organize their well-defined, arguably hubristic agenda that will continue to displace African Americans who don’t have an agenda of our own is a recipe for disaster.

You can make your comments at: www.ourtimeathome.com

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