As I’m fairly certain most of you know by now (judging from the comments section), today is my last day at TimesLedger Newspapers. Next week, I’ll be starting a position writing for the Star-Ledger in New Jersey.

As a result, I will no longer be operating the Iron Triangle Tracker for the paper nor reporting on Willets Point. I’m not sure what the future holds for this Web site, but I expect at least its content will remain available at www.irontriangletracker.wordpress.com in perpetuity to serve as a resource for all of those interested and following the events at Willets Point.

Its been an absolute pleasure to report on the events at Willets Point and I think it remains (and will continue to remain) one of the most important stories unfolding in New York City. I hope, at the very least, I’ve been able to provide some clarity to an otherwise murky and complicated topic and communicate that the struggle that is going on is about people’s lives as much as it is land and development plans.

I’ve gotten to know most everyone involved on every side of this issue, and I don’t think I’ve come across anyone — regardless of where they stand on Willets Point — that isn’t a good person at their core.

I’m sure I’ll continue to follow the topic passively, and hope that I do until an amicable solution is found for all involved.  I urge any and all who will continue to follow the struggle at Willets Point not to let it slide under the radar, as it will be story that burns brightly — for better or worse — for years to come.

Thank you for your readership and support over the last year.

Steve Stirling

Urban Justice Center attorney Ted de Barbieri speaks alongside workers from Willets Point at a rally across the street from Citi Field. Photo by Stephen Stirling

A report issued by the Urban Justice Center Tuesday accuses the city of using strong-arm negotiating tactics with property owners at Willets Point while ignoring more than 200 tenant businesses that operate in the area.

More than two dozen Willets Point workers rallied alongside members of the Urban Justice Center outside Citi Field Tuesday to allege that the city orchestrated multi-agency raids on three properties housing 11 small businesses in April as a means of pushing property owners to strike deals to sell their land.

“The timing of these mass closures with a renewed effort to acquire private land for a public redevelopment is questionable and it may also be illegal,” the report said.

The raids, which occurred March 22 and April 2, came just weeks before the city announced it would renew efforts to acquire property in the southwestern portion of Willets Point to pursue its redevelopment plans for the area.

“When the government enters into private negotiations to acquire private land for an urban renewal plan like the type that has been authorized at Willets Point, there is a danger that any unequal or improper city action will be seen as an attempt to influence or coerce private landowners to sell their land,” the report said. “The actions taken by the city in the past few months are questionable at best, illegal at worst.”

The raids were launched by a collaboration of several city agencies, including the New York Police Department, the Fire Department, the Department of Buildings and the Department of Environmental Protection, and targeted 126-58 and 126-75 Willets Point Blvd. and 37-03 126th St. — all of which are in the area the city hopes to develop first.

“Those of us who have worked in government know that it’s difficult to get agencies to coordinate with one another,” said Wayne Mahlke, chief of staff for state Sen. Hiram Monserrate (D-East Elmhurst). “The city launched these raids in the same week they were negotiating with these property owners. There is no way it was a coincidence.”

The city Economic Development Corp., which has been managing the city’s plan to redevelop Willets Point as a massive residential and commercial neighborhood, said it had nothing to do with the planning or execution of the raids.

“EDC has nothing to do whatsoever with the enforcement actions by the NYPD. We’ve been negotiating with property owners and acquiring parcels for about two years, well before and after the alleged actions took place,” said EDC spokesman Dave Lombino. “We currently control more than 65 percent of the land at Willets Point and it is our goal to acquire all of it through negotiated settlements with the property owners.”

Additionally, the owner of one of the properties that was raided and shut down, Roman Zak, told TimesLedger Newspapers in April he had hoped to have negotiations with the city but he had not

Bloomberg blasted a New York Times article published last week that suggested a group led by former Borough President Claire Shulman illegally lobbied city officials on behalf of the Bloomberg administration.

Here’s what he had to say:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg dismissed Monday accusations the city used public funds to form a group headed by former Queens Borough President Claire Shulman to lobby on its behalf during the administration’s battle to push through the massive Willets Point redevelopment project.

“It’s a cheap shot at Claire Shulman, who has dedicated her life to this city,” Bloomberg said during an interview with reporters and editors from the Community Newspaper Group, TimesLedger Newspapers’ parent company.

“These groups are designed to lobby,” Bloomberg continued. “I don’t know if they technically broke the law.”

State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office recently began an investigation into whether Shulman’s group, the Flushing Willets Point Corona LDC, illegally lobbied city officials after it came to light the city Economic Development Corp. funneled money to the organization.

According to state law,  local development corporations may not attempt to influence legislation.

Bloomberg addressed a bevy of other issues during his hour-long interview at CNG’s Metrotech headquarters in Brooklyn, including hospital closures in Queens, the economy and, of course, term limits. The mayor is being challenged by city Comptroller Bill Thompson, a Democrat, and City Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside) for his seat.

The mayor, an independent who is running for a third term, has long been an advocate of the Willets Point rezoning that will transform the industrial expanse into a residential and commercial area. While he and his administration have come under fire for what critics have called aggressive tactics to acquire private Willets Point property, the mayor said plans to transform the blighted area had for too long remained stagnant.

“The Willets Point process started 50 years ago,” Bloomberg said. “You have to at some point say enough is enough. We need housing, we need jobs.”

Video of the debate is also available here.

A question I asked on the potential use of eminent domain at Willets Point provided the most fiery exchange between the candidates:

Hundred-watt personalities clashed under the studio lights as the city’s four Democratic public advocate candidates faced off at a televised debate last week.

The debate, sponsored by the Community Newspaper Group, the parent company of TimesLedger Newspapers, was held in Brooklyn at the BRIC Arts TV studios and included City Councilmen Bill de Blasio (D-Brooklyn) and Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside), former public advocate Mark Green and civil rights attorney Norman Siegel.

It will air online at BoroPolitics.com, CNG’s new political news site, and on Brooklyn Community Access Television Aug. 20 at 9 p.m.

The most heated rhetoric came when the candidates differed on the issue of the massive Willets Point redevelopment and the use of eminent domain, the process by which a government can seize privately owned land for the public good.

De Blasio said he supported eminent domain in “very certain circumstances,” including the Queens project.

“I think it is valid if it creates a substantial number of new jobs and affordable housing, and I think Willets Point does that,” he said.

Gioia called the practice “absolutely wrong.”

“The very presence of it changes the terms of the bargain,” he said, comparing a municipality with eminent domain power to a gun-wielding Al Capone.

Green openly supported the Willets Point redevelopment.

“If it comes to eminent domain, the city should go out of its way to relocate those small businesses within the community, to the extent it can,” he said.

Siegel decried eminent domain abuse and called Willets Point “unconstitutional.”

“The city did not provide services to the businesses out there,” he said.

Sparks flew as the candidates spent some time squabbling over the finer points of the Supreme Court decision that enabled public-private redevelopments via eminent domain.

“I think Eric Gioia should be given a chance to retract his comparison of the mayor and Council to Al Capone with a gun,” Green said.

Gioia did not.

“Come on, stop it, Mark,” Gioia said. “You’ve been doing this for three decades, now you’re doing it with a new generation. Grow up.”

An attorney for Willets Point United Against Eminent Domain Abuse, a group of dozens of property owners who have not made land deals with the city, contended that the city has not adequately addressed needed highway improvements to accommodate its massive plan or coordinated with emergency response officials on the traffic impact it could bring.  He also  questioned the validity of the mayor’s office taking a lead role in the development process.

The city has been moving forward with plans to redevelop the industrial business enclave at Willets Point into a sprawling residential and commercial neighborhood it envisions as a missing jewel in central Queens.

But dozens of business owners unhappy with the plan, approved by the City Council in November, have stepped up efforts to halt progress on the proposal by hiring attorneys and lobbyists in recent months to set up roadblocks for the city to hurdle with each step it takes.

In New York Superior Court in Manhattan, attorney Nelson Johnson said the city has yet to get federal approval to make alterations to the Van Wyck Expressway to accommodate the massive uptick in traffic expected to come with more than 5,000 housing units and millions of square feet of retail and office space included in the project.

“I think what he’s arguing is that you’re putting the cart before the horse,” Judge Joan Madden told city attorney Chris Reo. “Do you have approval or not?”

Reo said no, but added that the city expects to get approval by early 2010 to build new ramps along the Van Wyck.

“We could not possibly design and consider this project unless we designed and considered the highway ramps,” he said.

But Johnson, who also argued that the city has not adequately addressed how emergency response units would be affected by the project, shot back that the existing businesses should not be forced to wait for the city to get approvals, particularly since the city is threatening to use eminent domain to take the remaining property.

“The entire area is under the threat of condemnation and it will be for years,” Johnson said. “That interferes with every aspect of life at Willets Point.”

More on this Wednesday.