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Hiram Monserrate: Creating A New Politics
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| Hiram Monserrate and Mike Schenkler
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By MICHAEL SCHENKLER
Last week, Hiram Monserrate was the man of the hour.
He set the standard by which City Council members will be judged in having input over redevelopment projects in their districts.
Championing low income and affordable housing, the rights of property owners, Monserrate stood up to the Mayor and his high-power Willets Point redevelopment effort, his Queens front headed by Claire Shulman, and prevailed over what appeared to be an unyielding City Hall onslaught.
For months, they painted Monserrate as the renegade, the self-serving politico who was preventing Willets Point, the blighted area north of Shea Stadium dominated by junkyards and chop shops, from becoming a true neighborhood and contributing to the local economy.
The redevelopment was needed to clean up the polluted soil and connect it to city water and sewer lines. Then there were housing units, roads, a hotel, a convention center, a neighborhood which would grow from the formerly polluted iron triangle.
And Hiram Monserrate said no. He said no without a greater commitment to affordable and low income housing and he said no to the City’s use of the threat of eminent domain to bully landowners from their property.
Sure the $3 billion plan made sense and will ultimately return to the city many times its investment. But did it make sense to the local community? To Monserrate’s constituents and local property owners?
Monserrate didn’t think so and stood his ground. And the Willets Point redevelopment forces tried to paint him as the villain. Months of lobbying, bullying, threats couldn’t make Monserrate blink.
For the second time this year, Monserrate, a former Marine and NY Police Officer, stared the power structure down and we watched the other side blink. Monserrate is going to the State Senate after bullying the Queens Democratic organization and incumbent State Senator John Sabini into handing over Sabini’s Senate seat to avoid doing battle with him.
And now, in Willets Point, the city blinked and compromised, Hiram won, and it appears the community was served. The revamped plan includes an 850-seat school and a mandatory level of permanent affordable housing — 35 percent of the 5,500 planned units must be affordable, with 250 units exclusively for low income earners. Compromises were also reached on the use of eminent domain.
More importantly, Hiram elevated himself and the role of the Councilman in controlling the development process in his community.
“The end game here was always to ensure that we had a project and a plan that was fair to all parties,” he said, “I think we’ve achieved that.”
Hiram, never the Council consensus builder, marshaled the council members and demonstrated all land use fights do not get decided by the Mayor.
Yes, one little Councilman stood up. And whatever baggage he may have carried previously, he is not so little anymore.
We should all watch him in the State Senate.
THE MAYOR'S BATTLE
Is this the beginning of a new era in standing up to Mayor Bloomberg? . . . And succeeding?
Has the term limit battle in the Council (and in public) bloodied the Mayor, soiled his reputation and emboldened and enabled challenges from the Council and others.
Did the Mayor really lose when he was victorious in twisting enough arms to pass the third term extension overriding the Charter for himself, other City officials and 51 Council members?
Chinks in his armor have been appearing since. The Council seems less cordial to his demands and while his performance as Mayor is still held in very high regard, his image as a non-politician who is above the ugly game is gone along with a good deal of the shine that helped Mike Bloomberg run this city for the past seven years.
You bet he was damaged, as was the self-serving Council that voted themselves the extension. But damaged most were the people of this city who were beginning to believe that government and government officials could really serve the people selflessly.
We can only hope the damage is not too deep.
MSchenkler@QueensTribune.com
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Obama Inherits a Mess. Can He Change America?
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HENRY STERN
Barack Obama appears to be off to a good start. His acceptance speech on Election Night hit the right grace notes, as Senator John McCain did in his statement of concession.
In small matters the President-elect has shown tact and charm; immediately apologizing by telephoning Nancy Reagan for an offhand remark he made about séances in the White House; and relating the complexities of the search for a family puppy, while referring to himself as a “mutt.”
His principal appointment so far, Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff, inspires public confidence, especially to those who feared a less nuanced or more ideological person would get that important position.
It will be hard to get used to the fact that all the disasters which we have blamed for years on George Bush and his administration will now become problems for Obama to solve. He is not the starting pitcher; he is taking over in relief and our side is not doing all that well. How long will it be before people start blaming the new President for the problems he inherited? He ran for the office, he knew the score, and he promised change with the mantra “yes, we can.”
At this point, President-elect Obama enjoys a great deal of goodwill. We hope he takes advantage of that situation to make necessary changes. The problem is that nobody is certain what these changes should be. With the stock market plunging, confidence in the economy will continue to decline. Two months remain until the inauguration, and if conditions continue to deteriorate, the President-elect may have to propose drastic remedies as soon as he takes office. Could January 20, 2009 be a reprise of March 4, 1933?
It is always possible that economic conditions will stabilize. But the problems of the automakers will not be solved. Nor is there any certainty that lending General Motors and Ford billions of taxpayer dollars will enable them to compete with foreign manufact-urers. We note that Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, Kia and other automobile manufacturers are not asking for government loans.
We can conclude, relatively easily, that deregulation and the failure to enforce existing regulations were major causes of today’s economic crisis. The development of new, and totally unregulated financial instruments escape the attention of the nominal regulators who were unprepared to deal with new problems as they arose. Some Republican senators tried to tighten up the system but received no support from Democrats, a number of whom receive substantial support from Wall Street. This is less of a partisan issue than it may appear. We suggest: “Follow the money.”
Alan Greenspan chaired the Federal Reserve System for 18 years and has now admitted the Board’s and his own misjudgment: “Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief.”
During a hearing at the capitol, Greenspan was asked by Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California: “Do you feel that your ideology pushed you to make decisions that you wish you had not made?” Greenspan responded: “Yes, I found a flaw. I don’t know how significant or permanent it is, but I have been very distressed by that fact.” Later, Greenspan admitted, “this crisis has turned out to be much broader than anything I could have imagined.”
It is enormously sad that greed and inattention by powerful people have caused so much suffering around the world by people who are innocent. The financial collapse played a significant role in deciding our new president. We can safely assume that in other economic circumstances we would not have seen the election of the young senator from Illinois.
It was too bad for the Republicans that the alleged masters of manipulation (if there were any) couldn’t have kept the bubble going for another month or two. Bankrupting Lehman Brothers, whether done for personal or business reasons (and it certainly was a rational decision if not a correct one) had the effect of causing the house of cards to tumble. It fell all over the Republican candidate for president, even though he had little to do with the collapse and had, in fact, introduced legislation to limit irresponsible lending.
We have not really begun to work our way out of the debris, but worse yet, are not sure even how to do it.
StarQuest@NYCivic.org |
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Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato |
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