Thursday, August 6, 2009

Why would a community board and newspaper protect a developer?

From the Times Newsweekly:

Board 4 District Manager Richard Italiano introduced one of the bidding parties at the session, who was given the floor.

The prospective developer, whose identity is being withheld at the request of the board, described himself as a community member who tried keeping St. John's open until the 11th-hour.


Whoa, excuse me! Why is a community board requesting that the developer's name be withheld? And why is a newspaper, reporting about a PUBLIC meeting, honoring this ridiculous request?

Interesting also that the Times Ledger, Queens Tribune (sorry, no link) and Forum West had no qualms about reporting the developer's name. The following week, the Queens Chronicle also mentioned the developer's name in writing about the issue.*

[*The Queens Chronicle didn't actually send a reporter to the meeting that discussed the future of the closed hospital but did highlight a condo opening in Astoria that week.]

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think this developer used to be on CB4, which may explain the CB's protection of him. But the newspaper has no excuse.

Missing Foundation said...

Why are you people constantly surprised by this behavor?

Week after week we see that same attitude from the media, the pols, the commuity boards, communities that are better off than us - even organizations whose purpose is make this a better city - sorry record of deceit and games.

There is something very very wrong with the political and intellecutal culture of this city.

And its getting worse by the day. Everyone is just going through the motions.

This 3rd term thing is only systomatic of a very sick body politic.

Anonymous said...

And why not?

i.e.
Ackerman's Queens Trib and CB#7 always side with developers!

We really DON'T NEED community boards anyway. Now we've got 311.

They're a sham that cost NYC taxpayers millions of dollars each year!

And dump all of the borough presidents too.

In reality...they're nothing but the middle men for developers.