Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a serious Yankee fan.
In fact, the Bloomberg administration wants a luxury suite – a free one, at that – at the new stadium so badly that it gave the Yankees 250 extra parking spots in exchange, according to the New York Times. Oh, and free food was reportedly part of the deal.
The city’s had its eye on the prize for years. Newly released e-mail messages document heated exchanges between the administration and Yankees officials dating back to January 2006, reported the Times.
So why is this all coming out now? At least one city official thinks taxpayers might be getting shafted.
Westchester Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Democrat, got hold of the e-mails and released them to the public.
Brodsky apparently thought the administration was suffering from a gimme-gimme-gimme mindset – a sense of entitlement – and it wasn’t fair. Why does Bloomie get all the perks – and for nothing?
“There’s this ‘Alice in Wonderland’ quality to the question of, what is the public interest here and who’s protecting it?” Brodsky told the Times. “We can’t find the money for the M.T.A., or schools, or hospitals, and these folks are used to the perks and good things of life, and expect them.”
Not only that, the parking spaces Bloomberg aides handed to the Yankees originally had been planned for public use. And a parking garage operator was supposed to run it, not the city, reported the Times. In addition to the parking, the city agreed to give the Yankees the rights to three new billboards – and whatever money they bring in -- on the Major Deegan Expressway, according to the newspaper.
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Sure, the administration said that outstanding city employees would be rewarded with luxury box seats, but the idea wasn’t even mentioned in the e-mails until August 2008, more than two years after the exchange started, according to the Times. Thus, the seemingly well-intentioned plan seems more like an afterthought conjured to make the administration look better about bargaining for the (free) seats for its personal use.
At times, though, the negotiations got catty -- even threatening. City lawyers apparently told the Yankees they wouldn’t file a request for the use of tax-exempt financing unless the team would think about giving the city the free luxury suite. Then the Yankees COO essentially told the city to forget about even getting tickets, much less a free box.
“In response, a lawyer for the city, Joseph Gunn, warned that ‘No nothin’ can go both ways,’ adding that if the luxury suite was not included, ‘We do not submit the letter ruling request,’” according to the Times.
Touché.
“Suite negotiations between the city and the New York Yankees were part of lengthy discussions with the city involving a whole host of different deal points,” Yankees spokeswoman Alice McGillion told the Times.
But apparently, none of the “deal points” involved the taxpayers – or the fans, who will have to find another place to park.
