Decision made in final days

Newsday (NY)/April 1, 2005
By Joshua Robin and Pradnya Joshi

With the stakes high in the West Side stadium project, several MTA board members said yesterday they decided only this week to vote in favor of the project.

Decision day came Tuesday for them, board members said, when details of the bids were laid out by Metropolitan Transportation Authority executive director Katherine Lapp.

The board members said Lapp did not make any suggestions and there were no representatives present from Newmark & Company, a real estate firm hired by the MTA to assess the bids though its chief executive and chairman donated money to a pro-stadium group.

The real estate company did, however, provide a letter to the MTA official handling the deal, listing the advantages of the Jets bid as well as a detriment to the Cablevision bid.

"I thought it was the best deal on Tuesday, after we got the briefing," said Alfred Werner, a board member representing Suffolk County. "Before that briefing ... I didn't know what the details of the proposal were."

A state official close to the governor, who asked not be identified, did say that on Wednesday night, aides to Gov. George Pataki urged his six appointees to vote for the Jets bid.

The strategy for winning a West Side stadium also included courting Lenora Fulani, the controversial Independence Party leader, she and the team said yesterday.

"They reached beyond the usual cast of characters to find out who the real people are, the real leaders, and I'm one of them," Fulani said in an interview.

Fulani said the team planned to help her All Stars Project, a youth and community organization she started a couple of years ago on West 42nd Street, not far from the site of the planned stadium.

While Fulani repeatedly mentioned her links to the black community, she was not clear on what she expected specifically from the team for her support. "All the details are not worked out," she said.

Fulani's support for Mayor Michael Bloomberg was considered vital to his 2001 victory as a novice candidate running as a Republican, a party he joined because of a crowded Democratic field.

The mayor, in turn, has made public appearances with Fulani, appearing at a black-tie dinner for the All Stars Project, and donated $250,000 to the Independence Party in January.

The Jets were certainly aware of her relationship with the mayor, Fulani said. "We didn't talk about him in particular," she added, "but we all know what's going on in New York."