Brad Lander was the first City Council candidate in the entire City endorsed by the Working Families Party this year, and together with Bill DeBlasio’s race for Public Advocate, is their top priority. This should send a chill down the spine of anyone concerned about out of control development. Here’s why

THE ACORN/WFP CONGLOMERATE:

The WFP has leveraged a multi-tentacled, financially opaque structure to become a key power player in both the city and Albany. How opaque? It's even set up a for-profit corporation that hides its campaign expenditures from public view, in apparent contravention of state election law.

The Working Families Party, in short, is not a political party in any normal sense of the term. It's a complex tool for well-funded special interests looking to raid the public treasury.

ACORN has tremendous overlap with the WFP. The two share two Brooklyn office spaces, plus senior leadership: WFP Executive Committee Chairwoman Bertha Lewis also runs ACORN' nationally, as well as its New York chapter.

Through the WFP, ACORN has leveraged a multi-tentacled, financially opaque structure to become a key power player in both the city and Albany.

How opaque? It's even set up a for-profit corporation that hides its campaign expenditures from public view, in apparent contravention of state election law. WFP is a specialist at creatively exploiting the election law. New York is one of the few states to allow minor parties to cross-endorse major-party candidates. And third-party endorsements have long been sources of great influence and patronage. Which is why it's more than a little suspicious that the Working Families Party regularly enters into business relationships with the candidates it endorses. In January 2007, days after securing the WFP's endorsement a Long Island politician paid it $220,000 to hire its network of campaign workers. Last fall, candidates pumped more than $400,000 into WFP coffers, plus another $200,000 into its for-profit arm. The WFP's canvassing operation is, as one insider put it, "the best in the state.” Indeed, the WFP's canvassing prowess is widely acknowledged to be the foundation of its influence in Albany.

But is that all that's going on? These transactions are hidden behind a wall of corporate secrecy.

Yes, corporate: To run its canvassing operations, the WFP has created an in-house, for-profit corporation called Data & Field Services. The party publicly discloses only the five-figure lump sums it occasionally "pays" the company. (Some individual candidates also disclose payments to DFS.)

This practice apparently violates state campaign-finance regulations. Board of Elections officials insist that party committees are required to itemize exactly who gets the money they dispense, even if it's paid through an "outside" vendor. While the public can sometimes see where the WFP's money comes from, it knows very little about where it goes. In the Working Families Party, ACORN has created a conglomerate that is one part campaign machine, one part commercial enterprise and one part lobbying-clearinghouse for special-interest money and muscle -- a conglomerate that is shored up by its privileges as a state-registered political party and shielded from scrutiny by a corporate subsidiary.

WFP also uses its status as a political party to help its candidates allude campaign finance laws, by those seeking to help a candidate to contribute amounts over those allowed for individual candidates to its “housekeeping account,” which it then “independently” expends on that candidate in in election. Essentially, it’s a money laundering operation.

Vital to the WFP's influence is its extensive paid-canvassing operation. A Democratic strategist explains that the party functions essentially as a "vendor of campaign services," providing a ready-made field operation that a candidate would otherwise have to spend time building.

The rise of the Working Families Party represents something new: a power-broker almost completely outside the checks and balances contained within New York's traditional party structure. What's more, that power is housed in a vehicle of questionable activity and limited transparency. That's bad news both to the cause of good government.

This year, the Working Families Party asked public-advocate, borough president and city council hopefuls vying for its endorsement to agree to consult with the party before deals are cut on land use. The WFP asked for a commitment from the four public advocate hopefuls in its candidate questionnaire, in which it notes that the public advocate has a City Planning Commission appointee, and asked if they would "commit" to having that person "consult with the WFP and its affiliates on development before deals with the developers are struck."

Similar, a questionnaire sent out by the Party to prospective candidates for Brooklyn Borough President included a section on “Land Use”. The section notes that “Borough Presidents appoint representatives to local community boards and the City Planning commission, which vote on land use and zoning actions under the NYC Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.”

It then asks if the candidate will “pledge to”:

“A. Consider the advice” of the party “regarding your appointments”.

“B. Commit to consulting with” the party “on development before deals with the developer are struck”.

Council candidates were asked to make similar pledges.

This is already a substantial grab for power for a political party. But WFP is not merely interested in using this power to increase its influence and increase its leverage. It is, itself, an actual beneficiary of the deals over which it seeks power.

ACORN has made some pretty notable and shady deals and alliances with developers, probably none more notable than the Atlantic Yards debacle. This agreement orchestrated by ACORN/WFP leader Bertha Lewis called for Bruce Ratner of Forest City Ratner to promise that his $3.5-billion arena and residential project would be linked to 600-1,000 below-market-rate condo units. However, community members and leaders cried foul at this deal because of the enormous benefit to ACORN and what some say is the ‘ghettoization of Brooklyn’.

As leader of ACORN, Lewis once opposed Ratner. When Ratner built Atlantic Center, Lewis picketed, then stormed his office, demanding that the retail tenants pay their employees a “living wage.” This time around, Lewis approached Ratner much earlier and much more quietly. “He was proposing 4,500 units of luxury housing,” Lewis said. “We don’t think so. If any housing is coming to Downtown Brooklyn, we need to talk. There was no affordable housing in their original plan. None.”

Striking a deal made sense for both sides: Ratner gained the appearance of local support and took a skilled protester off the table; Lewis got the promise of low- and middle- income housing. Lewis’s public endorsement of Atlantic Yards was crucial, and brilliant, stagecraft.

It came in the middle of the 2005 mayoral campaign. After Lewis, Ratner, and Bloomberg announced the ­subsidized-housing deal at a press conference, she planted melodramatic kisses on each man, making for invaluable photographs.

How much does it cost to buy Bertha Lewis' support? According to the Brooklyn Papers, half a million bucks. At the end of an article detailing the racial rifts in the Atlantic Yards debate, we learn that for all Bruce Ratner's lip service to affordable housing, if he ends up not keeping up his end of the bargain to make half the units "affordable", all he has to do is pay ACORN $500,000. A drop in the bucket to buy the silence of a woman who could have been a real thorn in his side.

But there‘s more. Even as Forest City Ratner has begun layoffs, it is helping to bail out their old friends Bertha Lewis and ACORN with a $1.5 Million bailout loan to ACORN by the company. At an East Regional Meeting , ACORN leadership stated that ‘Big NY ally Forest City Ratner agreed to loan us $1M at 2% and grant us $500k to pay back health fund and to use for other transition costs. Board will decide how much to allocate to IRS payment and how much to allocate to lawyers.’

Any suggestion that money played a role enrages Lewis, although money was clearly on the table. What’s of greater value to ACORN and Lewis is that the Atlantic Yards deal certified them as serious political players. “For years, we fought, we squatted, we did whatever it took to get to the table to sit down and say, ‘Let’s make something happen,’ ” Lewis says. “There are activists who talk about how it ‘should be.’ But, dammit, at some point somebody has got to actually do it. We’re developers now.”

According to Bertha Lewis, "It is because of race and class that whenever you have a small group of white liberals running and screaming about something, people think its important. They don't have to worry about affordable housing. They don't give a damn about people of color. All they care about is preserving their little Prospect Heights community."

“You want to talk to me about traffic, you want to talk to me about density, you go right ahead,” she says, implying she considers it all a pretext. “Talk to me about what your resolution is to the resegregation of Brooklyn. Black and brown folks have been driven out of central Brooklyn!…We’re looking at the gentrification—I don’t see a lot of black and brown folks in the wave runnin’ up in here! The overwhelming folks who are opposed are white people and wealthier people and more secure people and people who just arrived. Come on! This is about the power dynamic of who in fact is going to be living in Downtown and central Brooklyn and where the power ­really is going to be. And we’re down to get it on! We’re tired of being pushed out. If we can stop one iota of gentrification, we’re gonna do it!”

Lewis has frequently derided "the all white" opposition marching against the "black and brown" supporters. "Let me call it as it is," she said, "it's race and class—that's exactly what's going on here."

At one memorable meeting, Candace Carponter of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, told Lewis that DDDB supported development that would benefit the “community.”

“What community are you talking about?” Lewis fired back, telling Carponter that her group’s opposition to the project ignores her “community,” which is desperate for housing and jobs.

Lewis said ACORN cast its lot with Ratner because of the affordable housing promised by the developer, but Carponter said Lewis was ignoring the larger consequences of the project, such as environmental impacts and secondary displacement that the Frank Gehry-designed apartments and arena would create.

“It’s not necessary to build an arena to create affordable housing,” Carponter said.

But Lewis attacked Carponter for waging a theoretical battle with Ratner rather than worrying about poverty that actually exists.

“You talk about the environment,” Lewis said. “I don’t about all that. I know about housing.”

Lewis added ACORN, a housing advocacy group, could find common ground with DDDB if the anti-Ratner group would fight other area developers, too. “There are 49 developers in central Brooklyn,” Lewis said. “Ninety-one percent of what they are building is luxury. Pick on them, and I’ll be down with you.” Lewis said that Atlantic Yards accounts for virtually all of the 9 percent that’s not luxury housing.

Lewis is forbidden to speak negatively about the project as part of a deal between Forest City Ratner and ACORN.

Brilliantly, WFP does not run candidates in Downtown Brooklyn who openly support Atlantic Yards. The Authorative “Atlantic Yards Report” describes ACORN/WFP favorite Brad Lander’s attitude on Atlantic Yards as “mend it, don’t end it.”

Perhaps a better description is neutrality bordering on apathy. Here’s what Lander, speaking in his former role as Director of the Pratt Center for Community Delopment, said in 2006, before he became a candidate: “If you live nearby, you have a nice home and you have a job, you’re probably not that excited by the benefits, and you’re swamped by the drawbacks….If you live a little farther away, and you don’t have a job and a nice house, then you probably get a lot more of the benefits…None of that is about race per se. But when you layer on that the people who live nearby are more likely to be whiter and wealthier, and the people who live farther out are more likely to be people of color without good jobs or housing, the race elements have become stronger.”

But, do not be fooled. Back in 2004, Lander used this pose to help set the stage for the eventual Ratner/ACORN Agreement.“ "I’m very nervous," said Lander. "What’s going to make Ratner live up to the commitments he’s made to the community? It’s just a little more than a spectacular idea right now. And Ratner is well-connected enough that most everyone has just stood back to let him work...How do you ensure that something like this is going to be done in a certain way? Simple: You have a contract.."

And, even now as he pretends to oppose them on Atlantic Yards, Lander is still an outspoken defender of ACORN:

“To begin with, I believe it is unfair and untrue to suggest that Bertha Lewis or other individuals are seeking to profit from their organizing work, or from the deals that they cut with corporate and political power-brokers. Yes, ACORN cuts deals -- usually after substantial organizing and confrontation, often mobilizing many more people to stand up to powerful interests than the rest of us. But the goal of their deals is to win concrete, meaningful victories for low-income people…It is certainly fair to criticize the particular deals they cut (although I think they usually do very well), and to organize against those deals if you do not agree. And I suppose it is fair to criticize deal-making in general, in favor of a more radical or rejectionist politics which might somehow ultimately change conditions so much that new, far bolder things will be possible that seem inconceivable now.

But it is neither fair nor true to suggest some sort of self-dealing. There are lots of people in the world who are straightforwardly in business to make money, and who have become wealthy doing it. And there are people who have made plenty in the "poverty business." But Bertha and other ACORN staffers sure aren't getting rich, and they work extremely hard and long hours every day trying to win real, meaningful, progressive gains.

Second, I do not really see how it helps progressive politics to beat up on ACORN because they have built and can wield power.”

Daily Gotham’s Mole333 has already outlined in detail the tons of developer money flowing into Lander’s coffers. Now, sk yourself this question: if the council members from the immediate area don’t oppose the Atlantic Yards project, what are the odds that it will be mended?

But the real questions is, given ACORN’s self-proclaimed status as a “DEVELOPER” and its power grab for pre-approval of all development projects, and all who would rule upon them, whether anyone concerned about over-development should help the ACORN/WFP axis put their favorite candidate on the City Council, which will only increase ACORN‘s power and their ability to wreck more havoc upon our communities.

THE ATLANTIC YARDS MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING

THIS MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING, dated as of May 17, 2005, sets forth certain understandings and agreements between ATLANTIC YARDS DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, LLC (the "Developer"), having an address at One MetroTech Center North, Brooklyn, New York 11021, and ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS FOR REFORM NOW ("ACORN'"), having an address at 88 Third Avenue, 3rd FL, Brooklyn, New York 11217.

WHEREAS, Developer and/or one or more affiliates thereof (the "Development Entities") intend to construct upon certain premises consisting generally of Tax Blocks 1118, 1119, 1120, 1121, 1127 and 1129 in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York a mixed use project, which may include, arena, residential, commercial and/or retail improvements (the "Project"); and

WHEREAS, if approved by New York State Urban Development Corporation d/b/a Empire State Development Corporation ("ESDC"), Metropolitan Transportation Authority ("MTA"), The City of New York ("City") and New York City Economic Development Corporation ("NYCEDC"; ESDC, MTA, the City and NYCEDC are collectively referred to as the "Public Parties"), the Project shall consist of 7.799 million zoning square feet and shall include approximately 4,500 units of residential housing (the Residential Project"), predicated upon the Developer's ability to obtain final public approval of such 7.799 million zoning square feet of density ; and

WHEREAS, Developer and ACORN are desirous of collaborating on the Residential Project, with the joint objective of developing fifty (50%) percent of the Residential Project as affordable rental housing units on the Project site for very low, low, moderate and middle income levels, including senior citizens, as described in Annex A (the "ACORN/ATLANTIC YARDS 50/50 Program").

NOW, THEREFORE, Developer and ACORN hereby agree as follows:

1. Developer shall develop fifty (50%) percent of the Residential Project as  affordable housing in accordance with the ACORN/ATLANTIC YARDS 50/50 Program. Based on a projected number of units of 4,500 the affordable commitment will be 2,250 units.

2. ACORN agrees to assist the Developer in working with governmental authorities (including the Public Parties) in order to secure necessary modifications to existing affordable housing programs, and related rules and regulations (the "Affordable Housing Programs"), so as to enable Developer to carry out the Residential Project in accordance with paragraph 1.

3. As long as the Project will include the ACORN/ATLANTIC YARDS 50/50 Program as described in paragraph 1, ACORN agrees to take reasonable steps to publicly support the Project by, among other things, appearing with the Developer before the Public Parties, community organizations and the media as part of a coordinated effort to realize and advance the Project and the contemplated creation of affordable housing.

4. All non-public information (written or oral) provided by or on behalf of any of the Development Entities to ACORN (or its representatives) or by ACORN to the Development Entities (or their representatives) with respect to the Project which is confidential or proprietary in nature, shall be kept strictly confidential by ACORN or the Development Entities, as the case may be, and not disclosed to any other person or entity (except as required by law). Without limiting any other available remedies, the parties (including the Development Entities, in the case of Developer) shall be entitled to seek an injunction and other equitable relief in the event any failure or threatened failure by the other party to comply with the foregoing confidentiality provisions and to recovery of reasonable attorneys' fees and expenses incurred in obtaining such relief. This provision shall survive termination of this Memorandum.

5. If the projected number of residential units should increase for any reason that the Developer determines to be economically necessary, both the Developer and Acorn will work towards developing a program that follows the same guidelines and principles set forth in this document.

IN WITNESS WHEREF, Developer and ACORN have executed and delivered this Memorandum as of the date first above written.  

ATLANTIC YARDS DEVELOPMENT COMPANY, LLC

By: FCR LAND, LLC

By: BR LAND, LLC.

By

'Name:

Title:

Bruce C. Ratner

President

By: