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tel/fax:
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Brooklyn, New York 11217
About DDDB
Our coalition consists of 21 community organizations and
there are 51 community organizations formally
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and we have over 150 block captains. We have a 20 person
volunteer legal team of local lawyers supplementing our
retained attorneys.
We are funded entirely by individual donations from the community at large
and through various fundraising events we and supporters have organized.
We have the financial support of well over 3,500 individual
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Skip Work to Protest and Disrupt Ratner's March 11th Barclays Center Groundbreaking
Lots of us are angry, no...mad, and
lots have already said 'I'll be there.'"
THIS IS THE MOMENT.
Skip work or take a long lunch...
Join us to Protest and Drown Out the Barclays/Ratner
Boondoggle Ceremonial Groundbreaking
Thursday, March 11. Reportedly 1:30pm.
Exact location yet to be determined
ALL HANDS ON DECK
Next Thursday, March 11th, at 1:30pm., Forest City Ratner will
stage a “groundbreaking ceremony” for the money-losing Barclays Center Arena,
we presume in the Atlantic Yards project site though we do not yet know exactly
where. Note there will be no groundbreaking for any "affordable housing"
and the Barclays Billion Dollar Boondoggle will not house a single Brooklynite.
We use the term “stage” knowingly, since the “Atlantic Yards,” as currently conceived, cannot be built.
The ceremony of dirt shoveling pols will signify the start of prepping to eventually
build an arena, not the promised affordable housing Bruce Ratner still claims
he is going to build. It is a ceremony to celebrate a money-losing arena and
at least 25 years of blight and interim surface parking where a neighborhood once
stood.
This is why we ask you to join us this Thursday to loudly protest at Ratner’s/Bloomberg's/Markowitz's/Paterson's
“groundbreaking."
Mr. Ratner apparently doesn’t know Brooklyn very well.
Because by now, he ought to know that Brooklynites are mad, very mad, about his project.
We’re mad that a top-down, developer-driven, Big Brother-style project has been billed as “involving the community.”
We’re mad that our city laws, city zoning and democratic city land use review
process has been bypassed.
We’re mad that billions of dollars that belong to taxpayers will be wasted on a folly whose prime beneficiary will be Bruce Ratner.
We’re mad that the unelected, unaccountable Empire State Development Corporation has abused eminent domain for the benefit of a private real-estate project.
We’re mad that publicly owned land is being awarded to the lowest bidder by the unelected, unaccountable Metropolitan Transportation Association, the same MTA that has neglected to properly maintain the Vanderbilt Railyards so Bruce Ratner can claim “blight.”
We’re mad that public money is being wasted on a frivolous, money-losing arena while public transportation, schools, infrastructure and social services go wanting.
We’re mad that our own elected representatives, like Tish James and Velmanette Montgomery, have been ignored by the powerbrokers in Albany and City Hall who try to hide their cronyism by saying that they know what’s best for Brooklyn.
We’re mad that for all the phony Brooklyn and Dodgers nostalgia pushed by Bruce
Ratner and his supporters, the naming rights for the arena have been sold to a
British bank with a sordid past – while Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov and Bruce
Ratner pocket all the money.
We’re mad that a project that will do nothing but cause blight has been falsely sold as blight removal.
We’re mad that public streets are being closed and discredited superblock designs
are taking their place.
We’re mad that Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson have continued to keep their
head in the sand about this boondoggle.
We’re mad that the ESDC railroaded through a sham environmental review, ignoring comments from thousands of citizens and telling Brooklyn residents that we’ll just have to deal with the project’s many unmitigable adverse impacts.
We’re mad that Bruce Ratner has told us that his out of scale, out of character project is what’s best for Brooklyn, when we know much better.
We’re mad that Bruce Ratner and his political supporters have exploited the housing
crisis in New York City to sell the public a project that will cause instant gentrification
(if it is ever built) and cause the displacement of thousands of lower-income
residents, while never fulfilling its affordable housing promises.
Etc.
If the project is moving forward, and we have our doubts, it is greatly important
for all those who have been involved in the fight against Atlantic Yards to any
degree, to come out to this protest. Let the political dignitaries who have allowed
this corrupt project to proceed hear and know of your opposition and anger.
Let them know that they are not getting away with this unnoticed. Let them know
that WE, the people, are angry and watching…. very closely.
If you, too, are mad about this miscarriage of justice, join us this Thursday
around 1pm to express your anger. Bring signs, slogans, posters, effigies and
noisemakers—drum, a pot, a whistle, make some noise, and let Bruce Ratner and
his political cronies know that Brooklyn is mad as hell, and we’re not going to
take it anymore.
(More to come as details emerge about the event. Check back at dddb.net.)
Posted: 3.03.10
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