The de Blasio Chainsaw Massacre

Impunity City 

 While there was an original plan to improve the park to keep the water level from overflowing that caused major damage to NYCHA buildings across the FDR drive that was done in coordination of the community concerns by placing berns against the highway’s path, The Blaz abruptly threw that plan in the garbage and memory holed it, then his minion city planners at the Dept Design and Construction came up with an entirely new plan that warranted the leveling of 1,000 trees and construction of a 10 ft platform of where the current park stands at a cost of 1.45 billion dollars. As expected, this did not go over well with the residents and community activists who have been adamantly demanding to stick with the original, less destructive and  less expensive plan. 

Compounding this situation even further was East River Park activists were trying to get FOIL documents to see who was behind the new project and what they received was full of redactions just like every other FOIL de Blasio and his crack team of narrative control minions released in the last 8 years.

When the day came to announce the NYC’s new East River Coastal Resiliency plan in April on his variety show press briefing, The Blaz read from his dais of cheat sheets and his honeypot fauxgressive council crony Carlina Rivera read from her laptop all the wonderful improvements the new plan was going to bring to the community that used the park, even though it will not be ready for over a half decade, which was another sticking point for residents and activists. After many months of protests by activist groups East River Park Action and 1000 People for 1,000 Trees, they managed to get a stay on the demolition in November, but it was instantly overturned by a city judge with close ties to the Blaz and his Brooklyn Machine political allies.

Shockingly, right when the contractors and the chainsaws started chopping the first of the parks trees, a state appeals judge ruled another stay maintaining the legal suspension of the demolition. At least it was supposed to, because despite the best efforts of the protestors and their attorney Arthur Schwartz, the contractor boss of the resiliency demolition took the court order and threw it on the ground like it was garbage right in front of the protesters and the cops.

 

de Blasio autocratically defies judge's stop work order for East River Park

 Village Sun

On Wednesday morning, opponents fighting the East Side Coastal Resiliency project cheered as their attorney obtained a stay blocking further work on the contentious project.

The day before, though, park activists had watched in horror as workers either cut or “dismembered” 13 trees in East River Park, felling some completely while shearing the branches off others, leaving them ghostly, ruined trunks.

Early Wednesday morning, the workers were right back at it, lopping the branches off of six-more adult trees, a combination of London planes and locust trees, that the Parks Department has likely earmarked to be made into planks for park benches.

But around 9:30 a.m., Judge Rowan D. Wilson of the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, granted a stay on the lifting of a restraining order against the work by the Appellate Division, First Department, from Nov. 30, when the lower court had ruled against a community lawsuit against the project.

Village Sun 

 To park activists’ horror, workers began cutting down trees in East River Park again early Friday morning, just two days after the Court of Appeals had seemingly issued a stay to stop the destruction.

About five hours later, at 11:30 a.m., protesters clashed with police at the new fence blocking off the work zone in a wild video posted to Twitter. Police are seen trying to close the gate while shoving away a swarm of protesters.

Around 8:30 a.m. an incredulous Tommy Loeb, a member of East River Park ACTION, who could see the destruction playing out from his windows, fumed, “They’re in contempt of court!”

Kathryn Freed, a former judge who is a co-counsel on the community lawsuit against the East Side Coastal Resiliency project, said Mayor de Blasio’s Law Department unilaterally decided there is no stay in effect to stop them from destroying the park.

Basically, as she explained it, the Court of Appeals itself cannot issue a stay, although, this Wednesday, it did stay the actual previous decision from Nov. 30 by the Appellate Division (a lower court) against the community lawsuit.

Friday morning, Freed and her co-counsel Arthur Schwartz, who are doing the case pro bono, were scrambling to have the Appellate Division clarify that its Nov. 30 decision against the lawsuit has been stayed by the Court of Appeals — which would mean a temporary restraining order (T.R.O.) that the Appellate Division had issued while it considered the case should still be in effect, the attorneys argue. Freed said they hoped to be in court at 9:30, virtually, to get a clarification.

She said a city attorney had called Schwartz at 6 p.m. the previous day to say the workers would be restarting the tree-cutting.

While the legal technicalities are confusing, the reality of trees being cut in the park once again on Friday was starkly clear.

Yes I know "it's not a Queens story", but this is a dangerous precedent the Blaz is setting here. Imagine if Eric Adams can cite what's going here to do something to Forest Park, Flushing Meadows or your local playground. Hell just imagine if Adams can do anything on a whim in spite of a court order.

 

de Blasio's DDC defiantly shady about East River Park reconstruction

 

AMNY

A much sought-after ghost study of the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) that mysteriously could not be traced has suddenly been released to the public, but it is almost unreadable due to heavy redactions.

East River Park Action has been pulling at the threads of the East Side Coastal Resiliency (ESCR) project for about three years now.  The organization—consisting of concerned Lower East Side residents—are opposed to this $1.4 billion plan that would reconstruct approximately 57 acres of coastal parkland from East 25th Street to Montgomery Street.

In 2018, the rationale for moving forward with the ESCR project, rather than a less invasive one, was said to be based on a “Value Engineering Study.” The East River Park Action group filed a Freedom of Information Law request but was told in January by the City’s Department of Design and Construction (DDC) that they did not have this report on file.  East River Park Action is a strong opponent of the ESCR project since the reconstruction will remove over 1,000 trees, which will subsequently be replaced after construction, and pack the land with about eight to ten feet of fill to help elevate the park, making it flood-resistant.

Hurricane Sandy devastated the Lower East Side in 2012, and in response community leaders and city planning agencies had several discussions on how to prevent such large-scale coastal flooding in the area. Originally, a far less expensive plan was discussed for several years but was discarded in favor of the ESCR in 2018. The reasoning for this shift was based on a study that would showcase the pros and cons of this project as well as other pertinent information, which was announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

However, according to a tweet by Kirsten Theodos, who shared the report over social media the majority of its pages are blacked out, making it unreadable.

“The new City plan will destroy 57 acres of coastal parkland, fell nearly 1000 mature trees and eliminate the only large outdoor greenspace residents on LES for recreation and wellness. The City plan is twice as expensive, provides no interim flood protection during the many years of construction, & requires unprecedented ecological destruction of the largest municipal park on the LES impacting the residents of the predominantly low income, BIPOC neighborhood,” Theodos wrote in a tweet.

As stated on NYC ESCR project’s website, the plan is set to create “boundaries of this project correspond with the natural “pinch-points” in the 100-year floodplain: areas where the land is higher along the coastline, making it easier to close the system off from water entering from the north and south. The project design integrates flood protection into the community fabric, improving waterfront open spaces and access, rather than walling off the neighborhood.”

 The report’s findings—which states that it was prepared for the City of New York Office of Management and Budget”—is entitled “East Side Coastal Resiliency Elevated Park Alternative Feasibility Analysis” and is dated April 24-26, 2018.  The rest becomes a series of blackened lines where certain particulars have been redacted from public view.