The Times has some not-shocking news today about the Yankee Stadium “community benefits agreement.” According to the article, the board of the new entity charged with giving $1.2 million in annual cash contributions — or in game tickets and athletic gear, if the Yankees prefer that — to Bronx community organizations hasn’t met yet, and hasn’t even registered with the IRS. The group’s acting chairman is a contributor to Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión, who brokered the agreement along with three Bronx councilmembers and the Yankees’ Randy Mastro (who, incidentally, was formerly Mayor Giuliani’s right hand).
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Columbia and the West Harlem Local Development Corporation have reportedly reached an agreement on $150 million in unspecified community benefits.
We’ll get you the details as soon as we have them. But based on earlier reports, we can be fairly sure of two things: the deal will include substantial funds for housing, and it represents the interests of the elected officials whose staffs negotiated it — not the community in whose name it was executed. As a certain resident of Yankee Stadium used to say, “It’s deja vu all over again.”
For further enlightenment, check out Good Jobs New York’s excellent report on Yankee Stadium, which describes how the Yankees hired longtime political operative Stanley Schlein to broker a “community benefits agreement” with the City Council — giving Bronx members $800,000 a year in cash to spend — in order to win the Council’s support for the stadium plan. The community had nothing to do with it.
Columbia can’t do any worse. Or can it?