Stadium Hearing Resembles Rival Pep Rallies
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The one and only opportunity for the public to weigh in on the proposed Jets stadium turned into a screaming match yesterday as thousands of fired-up New Yorkers on both sides of the issue turned out for a hearing at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
The forum was critical for the majority of the crowd, which was staunchly opposed to the stadium, as it was their only chance to be heard before the Empire State Development Corporation votes on the plans after a 30-day public review. After that vote, scheduled for late next month, the state’s Public Authorities Control Board gets the final say in mid-February.
Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Pataki have been advocating building the stadium, known as the New York Sports and Convention Center, with $600 million in city and state funds and $800 million from the football team, whose lease at the Meadowlands in New Jersey expires in four years. Proponents promise the project on the Hudson riverfront will create jobs and attract business to the city. The proposed facility would accommodate 75,000 spectators and is considered a key to New York City’s bid to be host city of the 2012 Olympics.
Union workers and Jets fans clad in the team color of green turned out for a pro-stadium rally before the hearing. The president of the Building Trades Employers’ Association, Louis Coletti, said during the rally that New Yorkers were initially slow to embrace plans for Central Park. “Can you imagine New York City without Central Park, without Lincoln Center?” he said. “We can’t imagine a city without this stadium.”
During the hearing, the chairman of the development corporation, Charles Gargano, was barely able to speak between lengthy outbursts from the crowd, with state troopers having to intervene at points to settle down the crowd.
“The stadium should be built in a community that wants it, and that’s not the West Side,” Senator Thomas Duane, Democrat of Manhattan, said. “Instead of a stadium, we should be building affordable housing and helping small, emerging businesses grow.”
Opponents of the stadium were most vocal about their anger that the plans have gotten so far with no input from the public until now.
“Mayor Bloomberg, there is a chance to vote on this, and it comes in November 2005,” Rep.Anthony Weiner, Democrat of Brooklyn and Queens, said. Mr. Weiner hopes to run against Mr. Bloomberg next year.
The public is invited to submit letters to the development corporation until January 18.