Dejected workers from the Willets Point Defense Committee hold up signs reading 'justice for Willets Point' as the city council votes to approve a controversial redevelopment for the area.
The Willets Point Defense Committee sent a letter to City Councilman Hiram Monserrate (D-East Elmhurst) and other city officials demanding that a $3 million fund set up to help tenant businesses relocate be extended, calling the current plan woefully inadequate for the more than 200 businesses it would need to serve.
In the letter, Willets Point Defense Committee President Arturo Olaya said the existing fund, which would be divided up among the businesses by square footage, seems geared towards allowing store owners to dissolve their businesses and seek other employment rather than relocate.
The group estimated that the average business in Willets Point would receive $15,000, while many of the smaller shops would only receive $9,000 or less. Olaya said the funding would be a drop in the bucket towards addressing the costs involved with relocation, such as new rental sites, storage, moving, customization of new spaces, signage, marketing to attract customers and employee payrolls.
“Time and again, we’ve heard that the Willets Point redevelopment will be a ‘win’ for everybody,” the letter reads. “We are only asking that the City dedicate the same, reasonable level of concern and financing to our businesses’ relocation and survival, as it has to its ballyhooed redevelopment project.”
Full letter after the jump.
Willets Point Defense Committee
126-05 36th Avenue
Corona, New York 11368
November 16, 2008The Honorable Hiram Monserrate
32-37 Junction Boulevard
East Elmhurst, New York 11369Dear Councilman Monserrate:
On behalf of the existing tenant businesses at Willets Point, this is an urgent request that you immediately reopen discussions with EDC concerning the funds budgeted for our relocation and survival. Your recent private hasty deal with the City in the hours prior to the Council’s vote is grossly inadequate to our needs, and must be amended to avoid catastrophic business closures that will harm thousands of Queens families.
You have repeatedly stated: “On this $4 billion dollar project, there should be no losers.” Helen Marshall has stated: “EDC must make every effort to help tenant businesses relocate and reestablish themselves as ongoing entities.” Robert Leiber has stated that the City will relocate as many tenant businesses as possible. EDC has stated that our businesses will be relocated in a group or groups if we so desire, which is essential to our survival because we are an interdependent service network.
However, the promise of those words has been threatened by recent actions. As a result of last minute negotiations between you and the City, without any input from us concerning financial aspects, a mere $3 million dollars have been allocated to relocate our estimated 200 businesses (with the funds being distributed in proportion to the square footage that we each occupy). Do the math: The average tenant business will receive a mere $15,000. Smaller tenant businesses, which are numerous, may receive only $9,000, or less.
Those meager funds are inadequate to pay the costs of downpayments on new rental sites, storage, moving, customization of new spaces, signage, marketing to attract customers, and they also won’t cover the many other predictable expenses that stem from temporarily suspending the income-producing activities of our businesses, while continuing our employee payrolls as necessary to perform the extensive relocation labor. Moreover, the inadequate funds fail to address the greatest threat that our businesses will face: After we relocate, we anticipate having fewer customers during an initial period until we rebuild our clientele at the new site(s). Only after some time, will our income recover from the effects of relocation.
Accordingly, if you and the City sincerely intend that we at least survive this redevelopment, then we need full indemnification against ALL financial losses that we will sustain, as a result of our City-caused, forced relocation to accommodate the Willets Point redevelopment — including indemnification against lost income for a reasonable amount of time. We also suggest that the City should bear the expense of a media advertising campaign to trumpet our relocation to the public. The price of providing appropriate, complete indemnification, compensation and advertising must be factored into the cost of the entire redevelopment project as a necessary, relatively minor expense.
The low amount of the “relocation fund” already established by the City suggests that it is actually NOT intended to be used for relocation, but rather, to enable us to dissolve our businesses and to sustain our families just long enough to search for other employment elsewhere. That is unacceptable. We have worked very hard to establish the successful, small businesses that we own, and we want to continue our operations — NOT dissolve our firms and then seek work as employees of others, or be “retrained” for altogether different industries.
Time and again, we’ve heard that the Willets Point redevelopment will be a “win” for everybody. We are only asking that the City dedicate the same, reasonable level of concern and financing to our businesses’ relocation and survival, as it has to its ballyhooed redevelopment project. We should not be expected to obtain bank loans or otherwise become saddled with debt, just to combat the negative impacts on our businesses due to the City’s redevelopment plan. If the City does not fully indemnify us, then we will be forced out of business, and become unjustifiable casualties of this redevelopment. We will lose, and so will our customers.
The greater relocation and indemnification funds that we request are certainly available, now that this project has a large budget surplus. As you know, the City had budgeted approximately $400 million taxpayer dollars to acquire ALL of the Willets Point property and remediate it. However, recently EDC has agreed to permit 3 of the largest Willets Point businesses to sell their properties directly to the project’s developer in the future. As a result, the City will NOT have to purchase 36 percent of the private property at Willets Point. Conservatively, that equates to approximately $70 million budgeted dollars that will NOT be spent, but which are presently budgeted for this project. We request that some portion of those excess available funds be directed to relocating and adequately indemnifying our businesses. We request to meet with you, so that we may show you our accounting projections and discuss how to define appropriate compensation for our 200 businesses, as necessary to our survival. Otherwise, we will certainly become the “losers” about whom you have so often warned.
Sincerely,
Arturo Olaya
President
Willets Point Defense CommitteeTirso Mier – Vice-President
Blas Olivares – Secretary
Edmundo Salazar – Treasurer
Sergio Aguirre – Coordinator
Alfredo Chavistas – Director
Filed under: Business Relocation | Tagged: Arturo Olaya, Business Relocation, Hiram Monserrate, Willets Point Defense Committee
Good for these guys. Their requests seem entirely reasonable and should be granted.
Pony up the dough so that these businesses can benefit appropriately from the redevelopment. At the very least, it certaintly shouldn’t cost them anything to move and to regain their customers.
The City’s response to their requests will reveal whether or not the repeated promises of “relocation” have been sincere, or just another component of the smokescreen to hoodwink the Council to approve.
Sounds like you wrote this for Olaya.
I’vd no problem with them getting more $$ .. From the letter it sounds like they are resigned to their fate and looking to move on which is a good thing.
Double it up out of your own pocket Hiram. Use the Tully slush fund from your unopposed election. Or just slide it into some NYS pork barrel appropriation .
good one smalls
MonseRAT is more like it
As much as I’ve advocated for the development of WIllets Point, livelihood takes infinite precedence over my preference for a Mets ‘village.’
Reallocate ALL of those funds towards the compensation of those business owners..
Olaya.
allowing store owners to dissolve their businesses and seek other employment rather than relocate.
so what if thats what they want to do ,olaya is looking for a bigger pice of the pie. take the money and run move down south and start a new life far away from this city ,
Double it up out of your own pocket Hiram. Use the Tully slush fund from your unopposed election. Or just slide it into some NYS pork barrel appropriation .
so f–k-n true
voted for willets point
Joseph Addabbo, Jr.
Anthony Como
Leroy Comrie, Jr.
James Gennaro
Eric Gioia
Melinda Katz
John Liu
Hiram Monserrate
James Sanders, Jr.
Helen Sears
Peter Vallone, Jr.
David Weprin
Thomas White, Jr. (absent)
Queens councilmembers who are/were clients of the Parkside Group:
Tony Avella (dumped them after 2001)
Leroy Comrie, Jr.
James Gennaro
Eric Gioia
John Liu
Diana Reyna
James Sanders, Jr.
Helen Sears
Peter Vallone, Jr.
all you scumbags should be voted out ……
and how much did vallone sr get from tully and give to his son and mr hiram $$$$ .
Nobody cares.. The fat lady sung and is on her way to dinner at the trough.. Olaya is lining up for a few scraps and the chop shops will be gone gone gone..
dont think so biggie it will be 15 years befor a shovel in the ground and that old cunt clair will be dead
and in 15 years the mayor at that time wont want to put up with the b.s. and the people of w.p.will win
Bloomberg is the major advocate in this plan. \
He’ll be voted in again for his third term and shepherd this deal through before running for Pres in 2012.
this mayor will nevr get a third term never ill put money on it and pres in 2010 i dont know about that he might run for gov when he does’nt get his third term .
new mayor in willets point plan out
unfortunately for you the Willets Point funds are already budgeted and the plan will be in process by the 2009 Mayoral Election and Willets Point redevelopment will not be an election issue but a forgone conclusion
By the election most of the chop shops will be moved (when Hiram, Olaya and Mayor resolve the transitional money issues) and the discussion will turn to building out the area.
Once he wins in 2009 the drum beat will start for an independent presidential run in 2012. Completely financed out of his own pocket to the tune of One Billion dollars he will win the presidency in a landslide.
if he doe’s run for the presidency i hope he runs under the republican ticket , but still there’s no law he can run a thid term so will see if he could get it changed hop not
funds budgeted
no there not as crapper reported all the land owners that sold there land there money will be budgeted to the next years budget .check it out . and the next budget will have no money
queens crapper has no credibility to “report” anything
they report the truth i checked it out willets point is not budgeted in at all yet . no land owner or chop shop will get a dime untill next budget .
if theres no money to budget it in then what ??
Olaya was busted last hight
someone high up in nypd saw him on ny1 vandalizing hiram’s campaign bus and decided a crime was committed, he was released and issued a bench ticket. hiram called kelly to complain.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this order came from city hall to suppress and intimidate arturo’s group.
lete get the law suits going hiram pulling out the big guns to mess with the chop shops .
willets point will not happen trust me
lets vote them out now
The 110-year-old good-government group, through a Freedom of Information Law request, obtained Council documents showing Council members spent a collective $927,507 in taxpayer funds from July 2001 to this past June on ads they placed in community newspapers and ad journals published by various organizations for fund-raising events and the like.
Figures in chart don’t add up to $927,507 because some Council members left office some time during the period covered.
Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union, said it’s improper to use “taxpayer dollars for such purposes when there’s no clear public benefit other than to raise their profile in front of an important constituency.”
Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan) has pledged to close the door on self-serving ads with new legislation.
So how did your Council member fare? You can find out from the chart.
Here are the individual spending figures – in order of who spent the most – of the Council members.
Michael Nelson, Brooklyn $113,362
Domenic Recchia, Brooklyn$54,219
James Gennaro, Queens$53,077
Leroy Comrie, Queens$44,758
Joseph Addabbo, Queens$44,373
David Weprin, Queens$41,667
Dennis Gallagher, R-Queens $40,791
Helen Sears, Queens $38,485
Eric Gioia, Queens $36,615
Joel Rivera, Bronx $34,234
Hiram Monserrate, Queens $31,354
Lewis Fidler, Brooklyn $28,720
James Oddo, R-Staten Island$22,163
Miguel Martinez, Manhattan $20,357
Peter Vallone Jr., Queens $19,604
Vincent Gentile, Brooklyn$17,673
Christine Quinn, Manhattan $15,433
Diana Reyna, Brooklyn $11,502
Annabel Palma, Bronx $9,817
Melinda Katz, Queens $9,743
Gale Brewer, Manhattan $9,737
Simcha Felder, Brooklyn $9,683
Larry Seabrook, Bronx $9,519
Robert Jackson, Manhattan$7,699
Michael McMahon, Staten Island $7,146
Erik Martin Dilan, Brooklyn $7,031
Thomas White*, Queens $6,612
Alan Gerson, Manhattan $6,211
Oliver Koppell, Bronx$4,908
Bill de Blasio, Brooklyn $4,110
James Sanders, Queens $3,768
Tony Avella, Queens$3,272
Maria del Carmen Arroyo,* Bronx $2,150
David Yassky, Brooklyn $1,583
Sara Gonzalez, Brooklyn $1,348
Letitia James,* Brooklyn $1,275
Charles Barron, Brooklyn $1,183
Kendall Stewart, Brooklyn$1,153
Maria Baez, Bronx $700
Jessica Lappin,* Manhattan $554
Inez Dickens,* Manhattan $550
John Liu, Queens $533
Daniel Garodnick,* Manhattan $468
Darlene Mealy,* Brooklyn$250
Albert Vann, Brooklyn$83
Helen Foster, Bronx$0
Melissa Mark Viverito,* Manhattan $0
Rosie Mendez,* Manhattan $0
James Vacca,* Bronx $0
maybe Olaya should call his justice league friends regarding his vandalism bust.
It jsut reflects poorly on the whole group when its supposed leader is partaking in actions such as this.
It is the type of lawless wild west attitude that has contributed to the squalid conditions in the iron triangle.
I refer you to the recent post and comments on the City Room Blog at the NYT.
More specifically the comments from a real “eyewitness” to the business practices in the iron triangle.
I wont comment on the video and Ardizzone’s scare tactics used to rally the poor workers. Or his acknowledgment of the outstanding questions regarding his mental capacity. I wills say I truly feel sorry for this man. Social services should take the time to visit his home and document how this man lives. I hear he has a bevy of cats and freely admits the “place is a mess” when the reporter asks to see his living conditions.. God only knows what that apartment of his looks (or smells) like. I would imagine that if a poor old man was living under those conditions in any other part of the city he would be institutionalized for his own safety and well being. Based on previous interviews his own family would likely agree.
i think all the cats keep all the rats out
the thought of this man living amongst rotting rat carcasses and cat feces makes me ill.
Ive seen the building he lives in. With the half collapsed chimney and roof looking like it does very little to keep the weather out.
Someone from the city social services should really visit that location.
The deli/restaurant on the first floor of his dilapidated building should be shut down by the board of health.
Stephen – you should really do a piece on these unsanitary conditions. These conditions are not caused by city neglect but by owner/operator neglect.
It is time we stop glazing over the conditions this man lives in and do something to move him to a location that is sanitary and safe.
he should move out or fix it up