During a week when politicians have pressed without break for the immediate release and public scrutiny of the bids for the West Side rail yards, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been slapped by a similar request from one of the bidders on the project.

Cablevision, in a letter sent to the MTA yesterday, requested it make all bids public without delay, given that the “MTA’s decision to withhold the bids from public review until next week – three days prior to the selection date – will render public scrutiny of the bids impracticable and foreclose meaningful public oversight of the selection.” A decision on which bidder will win the right to develop the hotly contested rail yards is to be decided at the MTA’s March 31 board meeting.

The letter, written by Cablevision lawyer Randy Mastro, also criticizes the Jets for submitting a bid contingent on zoning changes. The MTA’s proposal had requested that bids be non-contingent on the rezoning of the 13-acre plot.

The $720 million Jets bid, $440 million of which would come from six developers who plan to buy the air rights over the rail yards if the land is rezoned, “makes it even more imperative that the bids are publicly disclosed immediately for public review,” Mr. Mastro says in the letter.

“The companies are more than able to release their documents,” MTA spokesman Thomas Kelly said. A spokesman for Cablevision, Whit Clay, would not comment on releasing Cablevision’s bid.

The Cablevision letter also requests that Newmark & Company, hired as technical advisers to help the MTA evaluate the bids, step down after press reports that two executives had donated about $100,000 to NYC2012, which includes the West Side Jets stadium in its plan.

“Our general council has reviewed the situation and determined there is no reason they be disqualified from giving technical assistance,” Mr. Kelly said, adding that Newmark would not participate in the evaluation of the bids.

[Cablevision itself has bid $760 million for the site, $40 million more than the Jets, the New York Times reported on its Web site last night. An executive quoted by the newspaper added that the bid was an all-cash offer made to the MTA early this week.]

While calls are being made to publicize those bids that have already been submitted, there is hope yet that the field of bids for the rail yards could still grow.

While the Jets and Cablevision are considered the only real contenders to develop the site, one of the bidders summarily dismissed by the MTA on Monday for not including a $25,000 application fee, has threatened legal action if his $1.01 billion bid is not reinstated.

Missak Financial, that company that submitted the bid that was dismissed, plans to sue for being dropped from the bidding process. The company’s chairman, M. Kanofsky, told The New York Sun he would “take legal action against the MTA, the Jets, and Mayor Bloomberg, sooner rather than later, and no later than Tuesday.” As for the claim that the application fee was missing, Mr. Kanofsky said a check was delivered with his company’s bid. He said that Missak Financial was “unlawfully, illegally, and spitefully removed from the bidding process.”

Mr. Kanofsky, who said he has hired architecture firm Alvar Aalto, said his plans include constructing “a miniature Cambridge, Mass., a Harvard” over the rail yards. “We would like to see a Columbia University move its campus to the area, for example,” he said.

As for funding, Missak Financial is a private banking house with access to capital, and plans to issue commercial bonds to fund the development, Mr. Kanofsky said. “We would need no public subsidies.”

There is also a third bid in the running, from energy company TransGas, but it is widely dismissed as having too many conditions attached to it to make it appealing to the MTA.