Why They're Playing the Race Card

Every now and then something flies right over GA's head- whoosh! like a rocket.

This time it was the developer's fee for the Vision 20/20 redevelopment of the HHA.  Somehow, I missed the fact that the $1,000,000 fee was for just one building- until someone brought it to my attention yesterday.

A $1,000,000 fee for ONE BUILDING!

And there are 19 more according to the Vision 20/20 Concept Plan.

At that rate, that's a projected $20,000,000 developer's fee.

You may think of this $20,000,000 as public money- it is.  Or as $20,000,000  squeezed from the project itself- money that could be used for the buildings or landscaping or playground equipment. It is.

GA thinks of the $20,000,00 as a big, roast turkey to be carved up among many.  The ones screaming the loudest- like we heard on Wednesday night- are worried their plates will stay empty.

But that's just for starters.  Because every building involves the awarding of multiple contracts: plumbing, electrical, mechanical, steel, windows, doors, drywall, mill work, painting, flooring elevators, and on and on. 

And a private developer is not required to reveal who gets contracts and their amounts.  So the public will never know. 

You get it?  This Vision 20/20 is a cash cow in the magnitude of perhaps a 100 million dollars for the players.

Executive Director Carmelo Garcia is pulling out all stops to 'deliver' the project (GA wonders what, if any, his direction of Vision 20/20 played into his selection for the HCDO Assembly ticket), the urgency to throw Stuiver off and replace him with a friend (she works with Garcia's wife at HOPES), the inflammatory race-baiting rhetoric (Garcia called Forde P. a "racist" on Wednesday night- off camera)...

And Mike Russo and Tim Occhipinti are flailing like drowning men.  Calling a colleague a "Klu Klux Klan" member,  a "joke", flinging insults at Reform colleagues like monkeys chucking turds at the zoo.  Why do you think they're so desperate?

In the closing minutes of Wednesday's meeting, Timmy says:

 "the developer must think we're a laughingstock."

That's all you need to know about where Timmy's concern lies. 

Not with the people of the HHA who are about to get fleeced by piggies lined up for substantial public monies squeezed from their buildings.

And Russo, Timmy call the people- reformers-  who want to protect them and the integrity of the project "racists".