Crucial vote on state funding for stadium is postponed
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NEW YORK (AP) – A state board has postponed its vote on whether New York state should pump $300 million into a stadium that would provide a new home for the New York Jets football team and a vital selling point in luring the 2012 Olympics, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday.
“We are going to postpone that vote until Monday and work through the weekend to see if we can satisfy all of the parties, each of whom have legitimate concerns,” Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show. He said he thought there were “ways for us to get together and do what this city needs.”
A spokesman for Gov. George Pataki declined comment and wouldn’t confirm the meeting had been postponed.
The vote had been widely expected to come later Friday, one day after Olympic organizers and the Jets won a key court decision in the construction of the $2 billion facility over the rail yards on Manhattan’s West Side.
The three-member Public Authorities Control Board, which has already twice postponed votes on the stadium funding, consists of representatives appointed by Pataki, state Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno.
Bloomberg wasn’t concerned about another delay in the voting process. “The most important thing is to have this facility,” said the mayor, who had promised an IOC evaluation commission in February that the stadium would go up.
On Thursday, Bruno said he had “serious doubts” about the need for an immediate PACB vote. And Silver complained that “fundamental questions” about the proposal still needed resolution. “What we’re getting instead of answers are these manufactured deadlines,” he said.
The stadium is essential to New York’s effort to serve as host of the 2012 Summer Games, and the timing is particularly important: On Monday, when Bloomberg hopes for a vote, International Olympic Committee members receive evaluations of the bids by New York and four other cities vying for the Olympics.
London, Paris, Moscow and Madrid are the other finalists.
Bruno, in a letter to IOC Chairman Jacques Rogge on Thursday, reiterated his support for a stadium _ but only if New York wins the bid over the challengers.
