ALBANY, N.Y. -- New York City's bid to host the 2012 Summer
Olympics appeared in danger Monday when a state board rejected a
plan for $300 million in critical public funding for a $2 billion
stadium on Manhattan's West Side.
The state Public Authorities Control Board vote came after
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver came out against the plan. Without
Silver's support, the state funding cannot move forward.
"This plan is at best, premature," Silver said, indicating he
was willing to continue talking about the issue. The state board
could reconsider the issue again later.
"If we don't have a stadium, we cannot get the Olympics,"
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said after Silver's announcement. He had
heavily lobbied Silver in recent days for support of the stadium
that would also to serve as home for the football New York Jets.
"I had not been able to persuade him," Bloomberg said.
The mayor said he would talk with members of the U.S. Olympic
Committee about how to proceed.
Silver said the West Side stadium project and its related
commercial development would hamper efforts to redevelop lower
Manhattan, which he represents, in the wake of the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center towers.
"Am I to sell out the community I have fought for?" Silver
said at a state Capitol news conference. The speaker renewed his
call for officials to consider putting the stadium in Queens.
The Democrat's decision was announced less than an hour before
the scheduled start of the board's meeting at which the funding
proposal was to have been presented after three earlier
postponements.
Silver, Republican Gov. George Pataki and state Senate
Republican Majority Leader Joseph Bruno each have a voting
representative on the three-member PACB and its actions must be
unanimous.
The PACB meeting, scheduled to begin at 3 p.m., didn't get
underway until almost 5:30 p.m., a delay caused, in part, by the
presence of more than 100 highly vocal stadium supporters and by
continued behind-the-scene talks that dragged on through the
afternoon.
In the end, the board brought up the plan, but only Pataki's
representative voted for it. Representatives of Silver and Bruno
abstained.
While Pataki has been a stadium backer, Bruno and Silver had
remained on the fence.
Earlier Monday, Bruno had said he was willing to have the state
board approve the stadium funding contingent on the International
Olympic Committee approving New York City's bid at its July 6 site
selection session in Singapore. He offered that as an amendment at
the PACB meeting, but the motion failed to gain a second.
Bruno said even before the PACB's meeting that negotiations
might continue beyond Monday.
"Who knows what tomorrow or next week brings," the Senate
leader said.
New York City is in competition with Paris, London, Madrid and
Moscow for the 2012 games.
Earlier Monday, an IOC report on the sites had given highest
marks to Paris, but also had praise for London, Madrid and New York
City. There was criticism of Moscow.
Dan Doctoroff, the main supporter of the city's 2012 bid, said
after the report came out: "We have, as they [IOC] pointed out,
really only one liability and that liability is thus far our
inability to deliver a guaranteed done Olympic stadium."
The stadium plan has been contentious from the start.
Supporters, including Pataki and Bloomberg, have touted its
economic development potential.
Detractors, including the owner of the neighboring Madison
Square Garden, have questioned everything from the process that
would allow the Jets to buy the property where the stadium would be
built to the wisdom of spending large amounts of public money.
Over the weekend, Silver had said: "My concern is the future of
downtown, the future of ground zero, the 24 million square feet of
commercial space that are part of the West Side complex and how
that competes with the redevelopment of downtown."
"We delivered real proposals to address those concerns, but so
far he hasn't been willing to participate in that discussion,"
Bloomberg said Monday.
"We did put on the table proposals that would slow down or take
away incentives on the West Side until lower Manhattan was really
going very well in terms of attracting companies. And, the
incentives for downtown would be much greater than for anyplace
else," the mayor added. "That was not enough."
The NFL has said the Jets can host the 2010 Super Bowl, but only
if the team has the new stadium. The Jets currently play their home
games in New Jersey, along with the New York Giants at Giants
Stadium. New York officials have said they fear the Jets, without a
Manhattan stadium, will stay in New Jersey where the Giants are
going to build their own new stadium.