Ratner uses BUILD to create an appearance
of a community divided along race lines, and also to provoke divisions within
the community.
see Section 4.4 of The
New York Times and Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards
BUILD members attend all hearings and use inflammatory divisive
language:
BUILD members have been attending all the hearings to date (2 city council
EDC hearings and 2 MTA hearings) and community board meetings. They exploit
unemployment statistics and use inflammatory language to create an illusion
of strong division along racial lines in the community. They cheer Forest
City Ratner (FCR) loudly in all meetings, and often shout down the opponents
to the project, leaving the councilmembers with the impression that there
is a racial divide with all blacks supporting the project and all whties
opposing it.
Nobody knew that BUILD was being paid to do
this.
Here is an example of a statement given by James Caldwell, President of
BUILD, during the May 26, 2005 City Council EDC Hearing (excerpted from
the hearing transcript):
MR. CALDWELL: My name is James Caldwell. I'm
the president of BUILD, Brooklyn, Brooklyn United Innovative Local Development.
I'm also the president for the 77th Precinct, Community Youth Council, and
have been for the past seven years.
As president of BUILD, I've been there for approximately 16 months.
First thing I want to say, I want to give all thanks to my Lord and Savior
Jesus Christ, for giving us this opportunity to be here, because truly without
him we would not be here.
I also want to thank Forest City Ratner for working with our community.
Because too often in our community, people say that we were not good enough
to negotiate when others have always been negotiating for us.
I also want to say when I was 19 years old, that my mother had lived in
this community of Prospect Heights for over 50 years, and when I was 18
years old, back then you could go to college for free.
I couldn't go to college for free in my community because I had to support
my mother and my sisters. I joined the military, which I was proudly (sic)
to do, because my father, my brother and everybody in my family have served
in the military. We have served our country.
I had to go in the military because I had to support my family. Let me tell
you something: nothing has changed. It's the same thing that goes on in
our community right now. Fifty-five percent of the blacks in our community,
55 percent, 55 percent are black males in our community, are unemployed.
Are unemployed.
CHAIRPERSON SANDERS: You were
saying, sir?
MR. CALDWELL: Fifty-five percent
of blacks in our community -- I'm not even looking at the housing complex
where it's over 70 percent, but in the community where I live, the community
of Crown Heights and Prospect Heights, our peoples are unemployed.
Every time you see two black males walking down the street, one of them
don't have a job. And that could very well be anybody in this room that's
black. And I'm not ashamed to sit here and say that we are happy to be at
the table to negotiate for our community for jobs, because we need jobs
in our community. But not only are we negotiating for jobs, we negotiate
for opportunities, we're negotiating for concession stands with the arena,
we are also negotiating, more importantly, that we started having the attitude
like Harriet Tubman. So we could bring people to the comfort level like
she did. If she could do it with having a sleeping disorder, certainly those
that who don't have a sleeping disorder certainly can do it for our folks,
especially our elected official, the one that we put in the office, the
one that we worked hard for.
And when I hear people say that, well, they're coming in, Forest City Ratner
is coming in, and he's doing this, he's doing that -- you know, you all
bring these experts to the table, people that are making a hundred thousand
dollars a year that don't live in our community [NOTE: James Caldwell
earns $125,000 a year, paid for by Forest City Ratner], you know,
got a place to go to, whereas we have people in our community that are struggling.
And Council Member James, you know they are struggling. You know how hard
I worked on your campaign, with a triple bypass, a bad corticipet and pneumonia,
going door-to-door, and you know what the people said in our community.
So to come here and say that Forest City Ratner is using us is totally ridiculous.
You know, for you all to say that, how tall a building it's going to be,
let me tell you something, people in our community, they don't care how
tall no building, they need a job. They need to feed their family. And then
you talk about the traffic. Let me tell you what the running joke is in
the community, because we don't have the daily tabloids, the Brooklyn paper
and this and that floating through our community, we do our own little newsletter
to get word out, like they used to do in Africa about beating the drums
and just letting people know what is going on.
But let me just get one thing straight. The running joke in our community
is this: Traffic. First of all, I'd like to get me a job so I can buy me
a car so I can sit in the traffic.
[NOTE: James Caldwell earns
$125,000 a year, paid for by Forest City Ratner, and he drives a brand new
Cadillac car.]
So, let's get rid of this thing -- and then when you talking about the nerve
of you all when you did your RFP, for the little $10 million that you appropriated
to deal with the unemployment in our community, you write the RFP in such
a way that people like us can't even participate because you want to go
back to the same old traditional way, that's why unemployment is still high
in our community because you all don't want to break the cycle. You want
to send it to your friends, your family and the ones that are in the click.
Well, I'm telling you, it's time to change that, and the change should come
through you. They had term limits, to bring faces in, to make changes in
our community. And especially, I'm not ashamed to say it, especially in
the black community, and Forest City Ratner is doing that, and then you're
going to come out here and complain because he's trying to help our people.
Yes, he's like an angel sent from God.
Thank you.
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