Any idea why Hakeem Jeffries' signature is not on this letter as well? Judging from recent comments it seems like he, at least ostensibly, agrees with all these positions.

i hope its neither. Hakeem is the incoming assemblymember. Roger Green is an aftertought. Hakeem should be acting as if he is already in office and step up to the plate. Either to say he doesn't support their letter or does.

You'd think he would support it as he went even further last week at a Fort Greene Association meeting:

http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2006/11/incoming-assemblyman-jef...

He was asked if he’d recommend that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who as one of three voting members on the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) could kill the project, to vote no.

“Assemblyman [Jim] Brennan, Assemblywoman [Joan] Millman and I have been working closely to devise a strategy in order to address this issue. How we’ll be dealing with it as it relates to the Speaker remains to be seen," Jeffries responded. "I’ve publicly said that I think that the vote should be delayed before the Public Authorities Control Board for any number of reasons, including the absence of transparency coming from the ESDC, as well as the developer, on some of the finances. In fact, I’ve said that to the Speaker himself, in terms of not having enough information to responsibly critique this project in a way that allows us to move forward constructively, however that does take place.”

“We’re fighting upstream here,” he added, “because the Governor and the Majority Leader and the Speaker have publicly said they support this project. That said, one reason why Millman and Brennan and I have decided to work collectively is… that the Speaker tries to respond to pressure from members of the Brooklyn delegation.”

Beyond asking for a postponement, would Jeffries ask Silver to reject the project?

“To be honest, I think it’s unrealistic right now,” Jeffries responded. “The Speaker has gone on record indicating that he supported this project. I think what we can hope for right now is to tell him that there’s simply not enough information that has been presented to the project and there are too many issues, there’s too many uncertainties, the project is too big and needs to be scaled down, we don’t have transparent financial information.”

AND

What about the pending eminent domain lawsuit filed by DDDB? “I believe, and we’ll see what the courts do in terms of injunctive relief, but I believe that the project shouldn’t move forward until the eminent domain issue is resolved.”

The problem is that Silver has already used his veto, as part of the three man panel which vote must be unanimous, to kill both the Jets Stadium and Moynihan Station. Having already incurred the wrath of the unions by killing two large scale projects that would have meant many rank and file jobs, would he now be willing to do so again?

Not only would Silver have the unions after him, he'd also risk criticism from those who'd call him a powermonger for personally killing three straight big ticket projects that the other leaders in the state wanted. Silver would also be risking clashing with incoming governor Eliot Spitzer.

The reasons for Silver to kill the project are valid, and the project deserves to go down, but it may not be realistic this time to expect him to do it. This is why I wish he would have greenlighted Moynihan station, because then he'd have gotten less heat for killing Ratner. I suspect Silver isn't going to stop this project, that he'll be content to either let Spitzer do it or the Courts do it.