As tomorrow's big anti-Ratner rally approaches, bringing together not just Ratner's usual opponents but even some former supporters turned sour (e.g. Bill DeBlasio), new revelations are coming out about Ratner's broken promises and the city's willingness to let him get away with anything.

We now know that Bruce Ratner is trying to weasel out of the Affordable Housing part of the deal he made with the city. Affordable Housing was the excuse the city had to throw so much money (taxpayer money) at Ratner's feet. Bringing the Nets to Brooklyn was another excuse. Ratner is backing out of the first promise. Is he backing out of the second one as well? According to the Newark Star-Ledger, Bruce Ratner may be giving up on bringing the Nets to Brooklyn:

The owner of the Devils hockey team and Newark Mayor Cory Booker are seeking to assemble a group of investors to buy the Nets and move the basketball team to Newark, according to people familiar with the effort.

In recent weeks, Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek has met with Nets owner Bruce Ratner, while Booker has spoken to an official at Ratner's development company, Forest City Ratner Cos., according to three sources with direct knowledge of the discussions. The outcome of each talk was characterized as "open-ended." The parties spoke on the condition they not be identified.

Ratner denies this, but in all honesty Ratner has lied about so much I have long ago given up believing him. Even if he is telling the truth now there is no guarantee he won't back out later.

And speaking of Ratner backing out, it turns out that the city KNEW Ratner was backing out of the Affordable Housing promise and yet STILL wants to throw taxpayer money at his feet. In fact, they are offering him MORE taxpayer money even though he is breaking his promises. From the Brooklyn Papers:

A newly released funding agreement reveals that the city let the Atlantic Yards developer off the hook for the downsizing he announced last month — yet will still reward him with $205 million in direct city subsidies.

The agreement, signed last September but only released this week to the Atlantic Yards Report, a Web site, allows Forest City Ratner to scale back the $4-billion arena, apartment and office project and build just the publicly financed basketball arena and two or three downsized towers by 2020, four years later and thousands of units of affordable housing less than the 16-tower full monty that was approved by state officials in December, 2006...

Besides the loose time frame, the new documents also reveal that taxpayers are spending $100 million to pay back Ratner for his generous buyouts of tenants living in the arena footprint...

“Whether you think the original deal was good or bad — and I think it was a bad deal — the project that he agreed to is not being built,” said Councilman David Yassky (D–Brooklyn Heights), who will join colleagues Letitia James (D–Fort Greene) and Bill DeBlasio (D–Park Slope) at a rally on Saturday to call for a moratorium on demolition until Atlantic Yards is renegotiated.

Ratner has lied to New York. Our city government has let us down, giving Ratner everything he has asked for (except Vito Lopez's over the top offer to Ratner) and held him accountable for nothing. It is time to end this. Ratner cannot break every promise he ever made and still receive ever increasing amounts of taxpayer money to build something that profits only himself.

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