World Trade Center Developments

[TonyO]

NY Observer

Breaking: Negotiations to Resume

FILE UNDER: Ground Zero
The Port Authority presented its counter-offer on the World Trade Center today and Larry Silverstein has not yet rejected it! Quite the opposite. A statement from Silverstein says: “A new round of face-to-face talks are set to resume tomorrow. We are confident that we can reach an agreement if both sides are willing to engage in good faith and remain at the table for the duration.”

Brew that coffee!

-Matthew Schuerman



Posted by The Real Estate on March 22, 2006 06:04 PM | Permalink

[BrooklynRider]

From NY1:

World Trade Center Site Rebuilding Talks To Resume Thursday
March 22, 2006

Talks are set to resume Thursday between developer Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority over a new rebuilding plan for the World Trade Center site.

Silverstein, the leaseholder on the World Trade Center, says he's received the latest proposal from the Port Authority, and both sides will re-start their face-to-face negotiations tomorrow.

In a statement, Silverstein said: “We are confident that we can reach an agreement if both sides are willing to engage in good faith and remain at the table for the duration. It's time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. I believe that failure is not an option, and I hope everyone at the Port Authority agrees.

The Port Authority put together its offer to counter the one they rejected from Silverstein Friday. Silverstein's pitch would have given the agency control over constructing the Freedom Tower and WTC Building 5.

The plan would have also split insurance proceeds and Liberty Bonds to pay for the construction.

Silverstein has been under fire from the Port Authority and Governor George Pataki since talks broke down last week, with both parties accusing the developer of being greedy and placing his own needs over the needs of New York.

[antinimby]

So much for Pataki's deadline.
He's become almost irrelevant now and is nearly ineffective.

[davestanke]

New York Post

March 22, 2006 -- A week has passed since the expiration of Gov. Pataki's drop-dead deadline for developer Larry Silverstein to get with the Port Authority's program on Ground Zero - or face the consequences.

So far, no consequences.
So far, no progress.
So far, no news whatsoever.

So far, in fact, no evidence that the governor takes even his own deadline seriously.
No surprise there, though: Nobody else does, either.
Today, it's clear that all of last week's overwrought theatrics - including the governor's ad hominem attacks on Silverstein's character and integrity - served no constructive purpose whatsoever.
Here's the dirty little secret: No one really seems to be in a rush for a deal.
Let's recap: Friday, Silverstein sent PA officials a new offer. The authority rejected it and pledged to produce a counter-proposal. There were reports of back-channel discussions, possibly with the governor's office playing intermediary.
Then, nothing.
The two sides reportedly scheduled a meeting for staffers for today. And everyone is expecting the next developments, at the very least, to bring the sides formally back to the table.
Maybe.
Actually, all the parties may have used the melodrama to divert attention from their real goal: to delay a deal as long as possible.
Who, after all, really wants the rebuilding to begin?
Not the Port Authority, in all likelihood - and especially not its New Jersey representatives. Those folks would be happy as a clam to let the site lie fallow.
Remember, the PA is getting $10 million a month from Silverstein - even with the land vacant. And its unique governing structure - a board of commissioners from two states, none of them elected - shields everybody involved from any personal accountability.
The PA's bi-state composition, by the way, also ensures competing agendas and internal conflict among the commissioners, who are tasked with looking out for the interests of their respective states.
The current chairman, Anthony Coscia, was picked from the New Jersey side.
And clearly, some key voices across the Hudson object to the whole idea of the Freedom Tower in the first place.
"This is a project that is unlikely to make financial sense for years to come, if ever," an editorial in the Newark Star-Ledger said yesterday.
Jersey - desperate to tackle some critical capital projects but faced with a budget squeeze - is looking for maximum dollars from Ground Zero.
Much of the PA bureaucracy, meanwhile, is said to be drooling at the chance to get back into the real-estate business. (Any losses from that venture are easily passed along to motorists, who can always be squeezed for higher tolls.)
All of which leaves the agency content to wait for optimal terms that serve its own interests before it concludes a deal.
At the same time, Silverstein - despite the numerous calls for him to make personal sacrifices - has no great desire to absorb inordinate costs. Who can blame him for that? (Especially since he's already made many key concessions.)
It's no secret that he wants to be shed of the Freedom Tower, too. It's the least financially viable property on the site; Pataki and his "master planner," Daniel Libeskind, saddled Silverstein with this white elephant for reasons known best to themselves.
Even so, Silverstein this week signed a new contract for infrastructure work for the tower, which is to begin soon.
Mayor Bloomberg?
He, too, has hardly been a force for progress - given his barely concealed desire to boot Silverstein and re-draw the plans, practically from scratch.
Then there's Pataki.
Every mistake, every delay, every lapse in Ground Zero's pathetic 4 1/2-year history of stagnation can be traced to him.
With only nine months left to his tenure, you'd think he'd want to get this project at least started pretty soon. Yet last week he rallied behind the PA as it called a "halt" to talks.
Pataki has already accrued a sorry legacy at Ground Zero.
Now he's reduced to issuing line-in-the-sand deadlines - to which, again, nobody pays heed.
Not even, again, himself.
Still wondering about that big hole in the ground?
Get used to it.

[lofter1]

Jon Stewart had a great segment on the Daily Show tonight skewering the bureaucracy surrounding the never-ending Hole in the Ground.

Basically said that Osama Bin Laden failed -- as NYC bureaucracy cannot be defeated.

[NYguy]

No,they're trying to blame Larry Silverstein for all the delay,smear him in the press,stab him in the back,ANNNNND take away a big chunk of the Trade Center site.The problem being they can't live with him and can't live without him.

The irony is that Port Authority should be greatful Silverstein signed that lease just before 9/11. Now they have (and have been using) the ability to hide behind the "greedy" developer who wants to rebuild "all that space". Can you imagine if the PA alone was rebuilding the WTC? The governor probably would have found a way to shift the space to Midtown (somewhere on the westside) leaving the entire site as a memorial. That's how bad it would have been.

[JMGarcia]

PA, Silverstein will try again to reach a deal

Formal negotiations between the Port Authority and developer Larry Silverstein over the future of Ground Zero were set to resume today.
The new talks were announced late yesterday, after Port Authority executive director Kenneth Ringler met with Silverstein's representatives.

The Port Authority, which owns the 16-acre site, broke off talks last week, accusing Silverstein, who holds the lease, of being greedy in his demands. Silverstein denied that, and said yesterday he was looking forward to new talks.

"I believe that failure is not an option," he said.

So far, the two sides have essentially agreed that the Port Authority would take over the planned, 1,776-foot Freedom Tower and a second office tower envisioned for Liberty St. Silverstein would retain three office towers whose Church St. locations could make them far more attractive to prospective tenants.

The sticking points include an allocation of insurance proceeds.

Paul D. Colford and Michael Saul
Originally published on March 23, 2006
NY Daily News

-----------------

So they've decided who will build what at this point. Now they're just argueing about money. Larry never wanted to build as tall as the FT and he's managed to wangle his way out of it. What do you know.

[lofter1]

Jon Stewart had a great segment on the Daily Show tonight skewering the bureaucracy surrounding the never-ending Hole in the Ground.

Here's a link to the vid ...

Port Authoritah!



http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/t...es/index.jhtml

[NYguy]

city journal

Financial Follies at Ground Zero
Or are they political follies?


Nicole Gelinas
22 March 2006

Four and a half years after 9/11, New York remains stuck at Ground Zero.

Last year, the problem was architecture: the NYPD determined that the Freedom Tower wouldn’t meet post-9/11 security needs. That problem is allegedly fixed, but now the problem is, purportedly, finances: Mayor Bloomberg insists that Larry Silverstein, the private-sector developer with the right and obligation to rebuild the World Trade Center site, can’t afford to do so, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (the bi-state agency that owns the site) seems to agree.

But when it comes to Ground Zero, finance is only a cheap stand-in for cynical politics, and Bloomberg, the supposed non-politician, is playing a tough game.

Contractually, of course, Ground Zero isn’t the mayor’s business: an agreement between the Port Authority and Silverstein governs it. In July 2001, the Port Authority awarded the World Trade Center to Silverstein under a 99-year lease. “I have pushed hard to privatize the management and operation of the World Trade Center because I believe that government is at its best when it focuses on its core mission. Today, as we make history, we can say: Mission accomplished,” Governor Pataki said at the time.

Why privatize the Twin Towers? First off, being one of New York’s largest commercial landlords was never part of the Port Authority’s core mission of overseeing public-sector infrastructure like ports, bridges, and tunnels. Second, the de facto sale was a good deal, financially, for both the Port and for Silverstein. Silverstein paid the bi-state agency for the right to do what the inefficient Port Authority couldn’t do at the World Trade Center: bring operating costs down and earn a decent profit.

Like all leases, this one outlined who would do what in the event that something went wrong: Silverstein, not the Port Authority, was responsible for maintaining the WTC and would be responsible for all necessary repairs and reconstruction. And after 9/11, the authority didn’t attempt to extricate itself from the lease: it has continued to collect its monthly $10 million rent from the developer. Shortly after the attack, Silverstein generously agreed to allow a new public-sector authority, the state- and city-run Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, to direct the rebuilding process.

After years of architectural beauty contests and public input, all parties—including Mayor Bloomberg—signed off on the current plan in November 2004. Under the plan, Silverstein is to use his insurance proceeds and outside financing to build the iconic Freedom Tower as well as four other towers, replacing 10 million square feet of destroyed office space.

To complete the towers after he runs out of insurance money, Silverstein has some financial tools at his disposal—or, at least, he should. After 9/11, Congress approved $8 billion in “Liberty Bonds” to provide private-sector builders with cheap interest rates so that they, not the government, could spur downtown’s reconstruction. The city and state have awarded most of those bonds, but nearly $3.4 billion remains, with the mayor controlling one half and the governor the other.

But so far, Mayor Bloomberg hasn’t used the Liberty Bonds to aid rational private-sector recovery downtown. He has awarded $114 million of these valuable, and finite, resources to developer and political darling Bruce Ratner for an office tower in Brooklyn. He has approved another $650 million in Liberty Bond financing for a Durst-owned tower in Midtown. Neither of these projects fulfills Congress’s mandate to rebuild Lower Manhattan. Worse, both projects will actively compete with downtown. (Pataki has gotten a lot of flack for approving nearly $1.7 billion in Liberty Bonds for Goldman Sachs—but at least Goldman is building downtown.)

But now, cynically, Bloomberg will use the Liberty Bonds not only to compete with downtown but actively to thwart its recovery by refusing to award his half of the remaining bonds to Silverstein.

Bloomberg claims his opposition to the current World Trade Center plan is in part due to cold, hard finances, and in part to promote wise planning downtown. First, he argues that the WTC project is financially unviable, and that Silverstein will run out of money once he has built one or two towers. Second, he has suggested that downtown doesn’t need five office towers at Ground Zero but instead requires a “mixed-use” complex with some residential space.

The Port Authority, after months of institutional brooding, apparently agrees with the mayor, or at least sees an opportunity to regain its power at the World Trade Center: it has forced Silverstein back into talks, with an aim of building the Freedom Tower and possibly one other commercial tower itself. The governor has helped push Silverstein back to the table by saying that he wouldn’t award his half of the bonds to the developer until everyone settles on a plan.

The mayor has put Silverstein in an impossible position. Legally, the developer has the right to rebuild, but financially, he needs the Liberty Bonds to do so. And here’s the terrible irony, which Silverstein surely understands: rebuilding the WTC under the current lease is only financially impossible if Bloomberg makes it financially impossible by withholding those bonds.

It will cost $7.4 billion for Silverstein to rebuild the World Trade Center and maintain his lease. He’s got $3.1 billion in insurance money left—so that leaves $4.3 billion in costs. Just like any other developer, Silverstein and his potential lenders must determine if the project is worth more than its cost. That is: over the remainder of the lease, will the WTC bring in enough in rents to repay this $4.3 billion investment and earn a profit?

Part of the answer depends on future commercial rents downtown. Bloomberg says he believes rents will never rise above their pre-9/11 levels (after inflation), while Silverstein thinks they’ll rise to today’s Midtown levels, particularly after downtown’s transit hub is finished. After operating costs and taxes (but before interest costs), this leaves Silverstein between $300 million and $400 million in today’s dollars each year for about 80 years, from the time he gets all five towers leased to the time the lease ends.

Here is where Bloomberg’s intransigence matters. With all of the Liberty Bonds—because interest rates would be so low (about 6.5 percent)—we can estimate Silverstein’s future income from the towers to be worth $5.7 and $7.5 billion in today’s dollars, depending on future rents. At these values, the project is economical. Lenders would invest in the project, so it wouldn’t run out of money, as Bloomberg claims it will.

If Silverstein wins only half of the Liberty Bonds, the finances become murky. The deal wouldn’t be economical under the current plan unless rents rose quickly, so it might fall short of lenders. With no Liberty Bonds, the WTC project is not economical; it’s worth less than its cost.

With the Liberty Bonds, the economics of the World Trade Center look even better if the Port Authority simply commits to rent space at the Freedom Tower, and allows Silverstein to build the four most valuable towers for corporate clients. As for Bloomberg’s “mixed-use” argument: downtown is already becoming a residential community, as building after building, ill-suited for modern office use, converts into condos. What the area needs is modern office space to replace towers lost to conversion.

Bloomberg, in effect, is acting as a self-fulfilling prophet downtown. And once his cloak of financial and urban planning falls away, it’s hard to see how he is acting in good faith. Remember, this is the same mayor whose ill-conceived scheme for encouraging speculative real-estate development on Manhattan’s Far West Side (without benefit of downtown’s transit assets) was thwarted by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver last year. Silver, of course, represents Lower Manhattan.

[Teno]

I agree with Jon Stewart

The Apple Pie-Baseball-Eagle-Freedom Flag-aterium.

Is a title that might have been a slight bit more subtle than Freedom Tower.

[davestanke]

[quote=Teno]The Apple Pie-Baseball-Eagle-Freedom Flag-aterium.[quote]

Gift Shop and cafeteria

"They're negotiating"

. . . . without any legal leverage.

[lofter1]

Master of Slow And Deliberate At Ground Zero

By CHARLES V. BAGLI
NY Times
March 24, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/24/ny...rtner=homepage

A half-hour before a midnight deadline, the developer Larry A. Silverstein strode into the conference room on the 15th floor of the Port Authority's Park Avenue offices, took off his coat and gulped down two cups of coffee, ready for the next round of talks about the future of ground zero.

State officials and Port Authority executives said later that they thought the late-night session on March 14 would complete the grueling negotiations that had dragged on for months, including 18 hours of bargaining earlier that day.

So they were shocked by the proposal Mr. Silverstein delivered. They said he was once again raising issues that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the owner of the 16-acre site, had declared off the table. They said Mr. Silverstein was, among other things, seeking tens of millions of dollars in additional financial concessions.

Kenneth J. Ringler, the authority's executive director, stormed into the conference room, telling Mr. Silverstein and his entourage, "It's over."

Over? A look at Mr. Silverstein's long career in real estate and the negotiating style that has defined it suggests that, when it comes to making deals, it is almost never over. Not surprising, then, despite last week's ugly negotiating episode, Mr. Silverstein's team has been talking through back channels with the other side this week.

Mr. Silverstein has said he fully expects to be back at the table within days to sign a deal that preserves his control over a major part of ground zero, a site that many consider sacred ground. State officials hope to resume face-to-face negotiations with him, too, but not until there is a fairly detailed agreement.

Mr. Silverstein, 74, adopted his stubborn "negotiate till they drop" style a half-century ago while working in his father's tiny real estate shop on Lower Broadway. It has caused frustration over the years, but ultimately it has made him a multimillionaire. He got his start as what is known in the trade as a syndicator, someone who rounds up investors to buy a building, operates it for a fee while taking a stake for himself, and puts up little or none of his own money.

What has distinguished him is a penchant for endless negotiations to enhance his position. His partner in the 50's and 60's, Bernard H. Mendik, regaled friends decades later with stories about going to an afternoon closing on the purchase of a building with Mr. Silverstein. "But at midnight, Larry still had two or three issues," several friends recall Mr. Mendik saying, half jokingly. "You could not close a deal."

Those comments might be dismissed as the residue of resentments caused by the end of their partnership, which shattered after Mr. Mendik, who died in May 2001, divorced Mr. Silverstein's sister. Still, even Mr. Silverstein's friends do not describe him much differently.

One of them, Jonathan L. Mechanic, an influential real estate lawyer, represented the Academy of Sciences, which leased space at the developer's recently completed tower at 7 World Trade Center.

"It wasn't the quickest road to completion," Mr. Mechanic said of the discussions, "but completion did occur. He's a tenacious negotiator. He's also an optimist about his ability to consummate a transaction. But he doesn't give anything away."

Mr. Silverstein very much disagrees with the common take on his negotiating style. "I don't view it that way," he said Wednesday. "I look back on a lifetime of transactions consummated. I learned a long time ago that negotiation is a matter of give and take."

His name never quite made it into the pantheon of New York developers like Durst, Rudin, Resnick and Speyer. His greatest triumph came in July 2001 when, as a dark-horse contestant, he outmaneuvered more powerful developers with more resources to take control of the World Trade Center in one of the biggest real estate deals of all time. Terrorists brought down the towers two months later.

Now at that very site, his negotiating style has state officials making him a scapegoat for failure. Last week, Gov. George E. Pataki, the developer's principal political ally at ground zero, charged that Mr. Silverstein had failed to bargain in good faith. Charles A. Gargano, vice chairman of the Port Authority and the governor's chief economic development official, called him "greedy."

Civic leaders have complained that Mr. Silverstein has treated the complex negotiations like any other deal, ignoring the keen public interest. "Clearly this is not any ordinary development project and this is not any ordinary lease," said Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association. "The public's expectations for this site, the emotions and the global focus here, is unlike any other project. To suggest that this is just another real estate deal misses the point."

Mr. Silverstein heatedly disputed that criticism.

"That's ridiculous," he said. "It's easy to point fingers at somebody who's not at fault. The only motivation here is to rebuild. I believe that's important for the city and the region."

He blames the Port Authority and other government entities for the delays.

"We've been here for five years, and the only thing we have to show for it," he said, "is 7 World Trade Center." He built the original 47-story tower in the 80's. After it was destroyed on Sept. 11, he was tenacious in battling with both his insurer and his landlord to rebuild it. But his stubborn streak also came into play. He insisted on setting rents that were 40 percent higher than the average for the downtown market. A 2002 plan to make the Port Authority the anchor tenant fell apart when he asked for twice the rent it had paid in the old trade center. Today, less than one-fifth of the tower is leased.

Ground zero has been a complex matter involving the sometimes competing interests of the families of victims, insurers, the Port Authority, and state and city officials. At one point or another, Mr. Silverstein has tangled with all of them.

The latest drama was prompted by the scheduled groundbreaking in April for the Freedom Tower, the largest, most symbolic and least economically viable of the five towers planned for the site. In addition, state and city officials and Port Authority executives came to realize that the project would cost more than $7 billion, while there was only $2.9 billion in insurance money available.

Mr. Silverstein insists to this day that he can do the entire job, but he has failed to convince Port Authority executives, the Pataki administration, or Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The mayor has raised the possibility that Mr. Silverstein would run out of money in 2009 after building only two towers, default on his lease and walk away from a half-finished project with tens of millions in profit.

Mr. Bloomberg called for a major realignment at ground zero, pointing out that in 2003 Mr. Silverstein and his investors were repaid most if not all the money they had invested in the original deal. The developer himself put up only $14 million in a deal valued at $3.2 billion.

"He's playing with the house's money and, nothing wrong with that, but let's not feel too bad here," Mr. Bloomberg said on his weekly radio show last Friday.

Mr. Silverstein rejected an initial proposal from the authority to split up the site, saying he did not want to surrender the most valuable parcels at ground zero. Five hours before the negotiations came to an impasse on March 14, both sides say they were close to a deal that would have had the authority taking control of the Freedom Tower and another building site, Site 5. More important, there had been progress on a financial arrangement.

After the impasse, Mr. Silverstein submitted a new version of the deal that both sides had nearly adopted, but state and authority officials say it included a new demand: he wanted the authority's second site back.

Mr. Ringler of the authority met Wednesday and yesterday with Mr. Silverstein's lawyer, Martin Lipton, to discuss going back to the original framework. A third session is planned for today.

On Wednesday, Mr. Silverstein was conceding nothing, talking as if his control of the entire site is not in jeopardy.

"Everybody so desperately wants to see this move forward and get it done," he said. "The Freedom Tower is moving forward as we promised."

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

[lofter1]

Pataki's Point Man Tries to Strike a Bargain

By ROBIN FINN
NY Times
Public Lives
March 24, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/24/nyregion/24lives.html

KENNETH J. RINGLER JR., the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is twiddling his thumbs, not because he's idling in his power broker-size office on Park Avenue South, but because he's nervous about making conversation, especially if it involves personal revelations. Or, even more traumatizing, professional revelations.

Ask him about his shiny shovel collection and he blushes. (Shovels come with the official groundbreakings he attends.) Ask him about the framed photograph of a Kawasaki subway car with his name in lights where the route is typically displayed, and he blushes (a gift from Kawasaki after it won a half-billion-dollar deal to build PATH trains for the authority). Ask him about his brilliantly striped red tie and, after blushing to match it, he worries if it's too brilliant. Didn't even notice it was red.

In an era of blogdom, he takes pains to come off as a wallpaper sort of guy. Nice as pie, partial to snowshoeing excursions on the 11 acres that surround his log cabin upstate in Feura Bush, but tight-lipped. Let slip any intimate fiscal details about the embarrassing development deadlock at ground zero? No way.

Let slip any zingers about the on-again, off-again negotiations between the Port Authority and Larry A. Silverstein, the 74-year-old leaseholder — and legacy-seeker — at the World Trade Center site? He fears saying anything that might gum up the works. As if. The arbitrary March 14 deadline that Gov. George E. Pataki set for settling this squabble ended ugly.

"Maybe I'm not a good negotiator, I don't know," says Mr. Ringler, who also points out that he is not a lawyer. (He has a finance degree from Siena College.) "But if we get a deal done, I'll tell you I'm a good negotiator. Someone said to me last week, 'If you get through this——' "

Mr. Ringler's anecdote was interrupted by a knock from his secretary, who handed him a note. Someone important was on hold. "You mean he needs me right now?" Affirmative. He handled the call in private. Two minutes later, he was back. Was it Mr. Silverstein on the line? Close. Any progress on who gets to start building the $2.3 billion Freedom Tower next month? Not yet. "But at least we're talking." Which is progress.

On March 14, after umpteen weeks of negotiations, including a five-hour session that day, Mr. Silverstein plunked down an 11th-hour proposal that caused Mr. Ringler's well-disguised "Irish temper" to explode. "Last Tuesday I might have yelled," he says. Certainly he came just short of throwing the Silverstein team out of his conference room. "I think I said something like: 'You mean we waited five hours for this outrageous document? Gentlemen, it's over.' And then I left. Except maybe I didn't use the word gentlemen."

IN hindsight, Mr. Ringler views the episode not as a setback, but as forcing the issue, as push coming to shove. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

"What does Larry bring to the negotiations? Color," says Mr. Ringler, 57.

"Color and an entourage. Larry is an enigma to me in many instances. I remember looking at him as he looked out the window during one of our meetings downtown by ground zero and thinking he really does care. That's one Larry. The other Larry is a businessman. Sometimes it seems like that Larry is more concerned with the bottom line than anything. The fact is, ground zero is just not a normal business enterprise."

About that unfinished anecdote? He refocuses. "Last week someone said to me that if I get through this negotiation, it will be good for my résumé and maybe I can go over to Northern Ireland or the Middle East to solve some issues there." He gets serious again. "I don't think there's been too many negotiations like this one. I don't look in the mirror because I know it's giving me gray hairs."

When Mr. Ringler was introduced in 2004 as his pal Governor Pataki's point man at the Port Authority, a $238,706-a-year post that involved the headache of hammering home a deal with Mr. Silverstein over just who is responsible for building what at ground zero, The Daily News belittled him as an "upstate bowling alley owner." Which still ticks him off.

Mr. Ringler grew up working-class in Albany, a meatpacker's son, and was a two-term Republican town supervisor upstate in Bethlehem (he got a major scolding from his mother for defecting from the Democratic Party). His wife, Marty DeLaney, still runs the Chamber of Commerce in Bethlehem. He sold the bowling alley when he took his current job. Sold the family car wash, too.

Not that he's ashamed of having been a small-business owner before big government, in the form of an escalating series of Pataki administration jobs, hired him away from home. Mr. Ringler, whose first political hero was John F. Kennedy, learned how to manage a payroll, and people, at the bowling alley. He honed his business survival skills. Invaluable.

He enhanced those management skills as first deputy secretary of state under another boss-turned-pal, Alexander F. Treadwell, went on to the State Department of Motor Vehicles as executive deputy commissioner, and prefaced his Port Authority assignment with a three-year stint as the state commissioner of general services.

"I never say no to the governor," he says. "And I'm going to make sure he never comes to the conclusion that he misplaced his trust in me."

Listening, Larry?

Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

[lofter1]

Spitzer, Appearing On NY1, Says He's Concerned About WTC Rebuilding Process

NY 1
March 25, 2006

http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index...id=1&aid=58098#

As he gears up for his run for governor, state attorney general Eliot Spitzer is speaking out on the future of the World Trade Center site.

Spitzer, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, says he's concerned that the Freedom Tower planned for the World Trade Center site may wind up being a building with no tenants.

On NY1's "Inside City Hall" Friday night, Spitzer gave his most extensive comments yet about the rebuilding effort in Lower Manhattan.

He said that if elected governor, he'd move quickly to resolve any unresolved issues about who builds what. But he said the Freedom Tower could end up dragging down the rest of the project.

"I certainly think there's a very serious question about the economic viability of the Freedom Tower," Spitzer said of the new site's centerpiece. "I think, given the situation with number 7 WTC, which is sitting there essentially vacant, the prospect that the Freedom Tower would be built and would sit there vacant as essentially a white elephant that would sap the cash available to build the other buildings, is something that is very problematic."

Delays at various levels of government are hampering the massive rebuilding project, more than four years after the World Trade Center's twin towers were destroyed by terrorists.

Spitzer did not specifically agree with Mayor Michael Bloomberg that there needs to be a residential component at the Trade Center site. Right now only office buildings are planned there.

Spitzer did say that, if elected, he might consider re-ordering the sequence of what is built.

The attorney general is the frontrunner to succeed Governor George Pataki when Pataki steps down next year.

Copyright © 2006 NY1 News.

[davestanke]

Everytime someone in government speaks, shivers run up and down my spine. Meaningless platitudes, solutions that ape past failures.