So Ratner is lobbying to secure some bailout money to fund the Atlantic
Yards project. Is that what you call a shovel ready project?

This idea iis inciting major conflict in the Brooklyn community.

Atlantic Yards booster, Marty Markowitz, is all over it and supportive of the idea: he wants Forest City Ratner to receive a portion of the stimulus package to get the $4 BILLION moribund project going again.

Plans to build a Nets basketball arena and something like 17 apartments and office towers were recently scaled back due to the state of the economy.

Anxious to get things back on track, Ratner and Markowitz eager for government handouts. Markowitz told NY1 yesterday:

"It has all the earmarks of exactly all
the kinds of projects that Congress is looking for and President Obama
is looking for. It will put people to work immediately and it will
benefit the community at large," Markowitz told NY 1.

Critics of the plan like Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn think that federal bailout monies would be better used for affordable housing.

 Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn sent out this email yesterday urging opponents of the plan to let their feelings be knowsn.

If you feel as outraged as we do that there is even the thought that it would
be appropriate to bail out private developer Forest City Ratner with stimulus
money, you can make your opinion known to our Congressional members. Let them
know this would be an obscene use of the federal stimulus funds, is unacceptable
and would undermine the stimulus plan. Also let them know that the provision that
prohibits stimulus funds for stadiums must explicitly include a prohibition on
arenas as well, which are equals in the boondoggle category: