E-Mails Reveal City Pressured Yankees For Free Luxury Suite
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Yankees Gave City Free Suite At New Park
In Exchange For 250 Free Parking Spaces |
N.Y. Mayor Michael Bloomberg's "top aides engaged in a behind-the-scenes brawl to win a free luxury suite at the new Yankee Stadium that could wind up costing taxpayers," according to e-mails obtained by N.Y. Assemblyman Richard Brodsky cited by Gonzalez & Smith of the N.Y. DAILY NEWS. Some of Bloomberg's "top deputies spent months threatening and cajoling to get the free skybox," and they also "demanded free food." Bloomberg's aides "ultimately got most of what they wanted after they agreed to provide" the Yankees with "250 free parking spaces in exchange." The e-mails, which Brodsky obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, date back to '06, which was when the "12-seat luxury suite first emerged as an issue between the city and the Yankees." The Yankees got the city to "write a letter to the IRS so they could obtain" $942M in tax-free bonds, and the team plans to request $366M more in bonds, "saving them a total of $247[M] in lower borrowing costs." The e-mails indicated that Bloomberg's aides in return "wanted a free luxury suite and the right to buy at cost 180 of the best seats to all home games, including post-season." Yankees COO Lonn Trost, in a January '06 e-mail to a team lawyer, said, "For clarity, no seats, no suites, no tickets and, as they say in Brooklyn, 'No Nothin.''" But N.Y. lawyer Joseph Gunn replied, "No nothin' can go both ways." Gunn "threaten[ed] that the city would refuse to go to the IRS for tax-exempt funding if the luxury suite was denied." Following a June 12, 2006 meeting between N.Y. Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff and Yankees President Randy Levine, the team "finally offered the city a suite -- if the team could have 250 more free" parking spaces. But Doctoroff, in an e-mail to N.Y. Economic Development Corp. President Seth Pinsky, said of Levine, "Let's not give. I don't trust him." Gonzalez & Smith noted the city ultimately "gave in and the Yankees provided a free box in left field with a direct view down the third base line." The Yankees have "refused to provide the city with free food in its new luxury box" (N.Y. DAILY NEWS, 11/30).
WHAT'S THE DEAL? Brodsky said that "what emerges from the e-mail correspondence is a sense of entitlement ingrained in Bloomberg officials," and that the city "appeared to be pushing for use of the suite for not just regular-season games, but for the playoffs and the World Series, and for special events like concerts, too." However, the city maintains that it was "simply trying to obtain a luxury suite comparable to that given to other cities involved in stadium or arena projects." In N.Y., David Chen reported the city as part of the deal with the Yankees "also turned over the rights to three new billboards along the Major Deegan Expressway, and whatever revenue they generate" (N.Y. TIMES, 11/30).
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