By John Rozankowski, Ph.D.
Save Our Parks

At some point, Yankee Baseball Management, a "Billionaires' Club," decided that the cheapest and easiest way to fix up their stadium was to build a new one on the site of two community parks. Their decision was financial and their objective to raise more revenue. The highly negative effects that this project would have on the host community played little, if any, role in their calculations. Elected officials and the media, however, who are expected to put the needs of communities first, to protect democratic principles, and who decry public apathy, blatantly discarded their obligations in a shameful parade of pandering to the "Billionaires' Club."

First in line to genuflect to Yankee management was the city, i.e. the Bloomberg Administration. They signed on as "advocates" and "supporters" of the project which means that all city agencies, their employees, and public schools have to support not a public works project but one that will ultimately augment revenue for a private conglomerate. As the project goes to the Department of City Planning, it features the spectacle of city employees judging a project backed by their city employers. Who will put their jobs on the line? Should city planners be placed in such a position? Needless to say, the community's right to a fair and impartial hearing is severely if not fatally compromised.

Forgetting that community parks are vital to children, the elderly and the disabled, especially in a neighborhood where few can afford to go elsewhere, state elected officials, in an ostentatious display of obsequious behavior, casually and with no dissent, voted to give the parks to the "Billionaires Club." They must have suspected that the community would object and solved this complication by what amounts to a secret vote. There was no meaningful outreach, the impending vote was not announced, and no testimony from the community was taken.

Even though the community won the vote of Bronx Community Board 4, the next parade marcher, Bronx Borough President Carrion, also manifested obeisance. Aware of the extreme community opposition to the project, Carrion locked the doors to a public hearing and kept approximately 150 community residents on the street in sub-freezing temperatures, preventing people from exercising their right of free speech in an open meeting.

Absolutely shocking is the final marcher in the parade of pandering: the major television and print news media (some local media excepted). They have imposed a virtual blackout on reporting community opposition.
These events are a clarion call to communities across New York City. They must realize that precedents which will affect them are being set: if the "Billionaires' Club" takes the Highbridge community parks, their community park will be next to fall to private developers. Save Our Parks (SaveBronxParks@yahoogroups.com) asks all NYC communities to condemn the new Yankee Stadium proposal and to stand with us in the City Council.