Here's the latest from our man in Red Hook, Scott Turner. Did I forget about you last week? Huge apologies to the quizmaster over at Rocky Sullivans. And did I mention, Scott Turner's column is sponsored by Miss Wit, maker of groovy t-shirts.

Greetings Pub Quiz Straphanger Renegotiation Combine…

On the first day of summer, which was also Father's Day this year, Google ran this cruel, taunting, graphic above their search-box:

No matter your start-date for summer — the societal Memorial Day Weekend or the scientific June 21st — this was supposed to be an oft-repeated tableau by now.

Instead, we've gotten a steady diet of this:

It's been so bad that they were squeegeeing putting greens at the U.S. Open out on Long Island.

I know the faithful at Bethpage Black were stressing something fierce.  Golf with squeegees.  What is  the world coming to?

Well, in Brooklyn it's coming to this: Bruce Ratner is really broke.  Or really arrogant.  I'm going with both.  Normally, you'd beat up a big shot with those two things. 

The MTA?  It's using 'em to beat itself senseless.

The lessness of senses covers the unbelievable sweetheart deal Ratner has conned the MTA's Finance Committee into giving him. For the rail yards Ratner desperately needs to build the Atlantic Yards
project, the MTA now says he can pay taxpayers less, build less, and
take forever on both counts.  This comes at the same time Ratner's
lobbying for more tax breaks, tax-free bonds and direct subsidies.

…for a project that won't provide appreciable, if any, affordable apartments or newly-created jobs.

Ratner:
"Listen, I'm really attracted to your daughter, Brooklyn.  Yes, I have
beaten her, cheated on her, cleaned out her bank account, demolished
her self-image, driven away suitors who truly love and respect her, and
over the past five years lied, cajoled, exaggerated, broken promises,
taunted and abused her."

MTA: "Well, yes son.  You're a fine young man.  Listen, we'll cover
the cost of the wedding.  Run along, now, that pretty little thing's
making a fierce racket."

MTA Chair Dale Hermmerdinger (r.), who busied himself with his Blackberry during DDDB's Dan Goldstein's presentation before the MTA board this week.  A real people's man, that Dale…

I'm amused these days thinking about a remark someone made at Rocky's
a couple of months ago.  Things weren't going well for Bruce Ratner. 
Community opposition, the crashing economy and Ratner's own
incompetence had brought the Atlantic Yards project to a halt.  Hadn't
killed it, mind you, but halted it was.

Noticing my Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn badge, a gentleman said "C'mon, man, whattya want?  The project's dead. You want his head on a pike, too?"

Only
if it would end the madness that is the Atlantic Yards project.  Once
and for all.  But Bruce Ratner, the zombie who doesn't know he's dead,
just keeps coming and keeps coming, so selfish and self-absorbed is
he.  And that's why the project's not packing the moving van for
Kaputsville.

Mr. Beg Borrow and Steal himself — life's easier without a sense of shame.

As
it stands, the MTA — the same one always threatening to cut subway and
bus routes, services, repairs and new capital projects — is feeling so
flush and happy that it's letting Bruce Ratner pay $20 million for a
property the MTA had originally valued at $214 million.

For a property that another developer offered $150 million for when Ratner was offering only $50.

For a property that currently has ten tracks and Ratner's design will leave a growing system with only seven.

For a property that Ratner will be allowed to pay off during the next twenty-two years as fare hikes jump and services get cut, so warns the same MTA honchos bending over backwards to accommodate Bruce.

Why do we stand for this?  Why do you?  Why do I?

Seriously.  It's never been legit to say "hey, I don't live
anywhere near where this is being built.  It won't affect me."  An
estimated $2 billion in taxpayer money being handed to Ratner says
otherwise.  So does the MTA's budget gap — or as the MTA's point
person on this mess, Gary Dellaverson calls it, "a mismatch of receipts."

Gary Dellaverson — smashing unions or smashing Brooklyn, it's all the same to him.

Other people in the world get super-duper loud when things go badly (see Iran,
elections, ruh-roh!!).  There's no comparing the fight against Atlantic
Yards to the fight for democracy in Iran, so relax, I'm not.

It'd be awfully swell, though, if straphangers just jumped the turnstiles en-masse
and said "you know, MTA, your service hasn't been so good, lately.  I'm
just re-negotiating my subway fare.  Just like Bruce Ratner did with
you.  You understand, right?"

The tireless, smart folks at both NoLandGrab and AtlanticYardsReport
make a good point: Ratner really frakkin' needs that rail yard.  The
MTA doesn't need jack from Ratner.  So how come it's Ratner whose
calling all the shots?

To quote Firefly's disturbed but prescient bounty hunter Jubal Early, "does that seem right to you?"

No…I didn't think so.  Me neither.

Jubal Early — fictional, but still asking the right questions

It gets better.  According to today's Reuters:

New York's Metropolitan
Transportation Authority proposed selling $600 million of
notes, its first short-term borrowing since the 1990s,
according to agency officials at a Monday finance committee
meeting.

The sale, if approved by the full board, would be
underwritten by Barclays.

The debt would be repaid by some of the state tax revenue
that the mass transit agency, the nation's biggest, shares in.
That money mainly is paid to the MTA in December. The notes
also would be backed by new taxes the state approved for the
MTA, including a tax on the payrolls of local employers.

To
review — the MTA, while letting Ratner screw them, is employing
cash-raising desperation measures not seen in twenty years. These
fast-and-sloppy measures are being funded by Barclays, the same former slave-trade and apartheid enablers who are paying Ratner $400 million to put their name on now-Gehryless Nets arena.  And the MTA would pay off their debt to Barclays by dipping into state tax revenue meant to help the MTA operate.

Barclays helps out an MTA destitute in part because Ratner is
stiffing it though he has plenty of money on the table from…wait for
it…Barclays.

Who's outraged by this?  A lot of New Yorkers, actually.  One of 'em is Queens Council member Tony Avella, the guy the Democrats should be uniting behind to run against Mayor Bloomberg this fall.  Avella's campaign released this late today:

The MTA today announced that Bruce Ratner, the developer of
the controversial Atlantic Yards project, will be allowed to defer $80
million of the $100 million total he has agreed to pay for the site.
The final installments will not be paid until 2031. The MTA board
members who will meet tomorrow to vote on the revised agreement were
given only 48 hours to review the complex documents.

photo by Tracy Collins

“It
only points out how this project should never have been approved in the
first place,” said Council Member and Mayoral candidate Tony Avella.
“It's time to kill this monster once and for all.”

“This project would tear the fabric of Brooklyn for many generations to come,” Avella said. “It must be stopped.”

Time to start talking re-negotiation, fellow straphangers.  Time to start talkin…