Clearly I’m catching up with what happened while I was away. Luckily, Aaron Short is catching up after his 10th reunion, so I’m just going to keep linking to him. This time on OSA –

Aaron authored a three part series on OSA in the Courier, which ended up finding a lot of smoke but no fire. The second article in the series included a number of accusations that turned out to be incorrect or unfounded. In his blog post today, Aaron does right by apologizing for those errors, and printing OSA’s letter to the editor in full (something the Courier didn’t do they just issued a terse correction).

(Part three of the series is here. The most important quote in this latest installment came from Phil DePaolo: “Parks will get hit hard… Next year, there won’t be an election year”.)

As for the accusations in part two, which continue to reverberate, clearly OSA needs to do a better job of defining what it is and isn’t. I’ve said before that OSA’s job is to work with the City to improve local parks.

OSA is a private organization, with its own board (and yes, its own bylaws). One of the more inane memes floating about is with regard to the requirements for being on the OSA board. Yes, board members are expected to bring in money (not necessarily contribute their own, but raise money). But most non-profit boards expect this of their board members. Well-run non-profits make the financial expectations explicit to board members. Directors in most non-profits are appointed for their expertise, connections and ability to fundraise – it’s not a democracy, and it shouldn’t be.

On the other hand, anyone can get involved in OSA through their community committees. OSA needs to do a better job (among other things) of making explicit the expectations of what the community committees do and do not do. I’m not involved with OSA, but its pretty clear that there are some people who have certain expectations for the organization – expectations that may or may not be realistic. OSA needs to be clear about what the organization’s role is, and how the community committee’s fit into that role.

Aaron Short has an insightful post recapping last week’s candidate forum for the 33rd Council District (and handicapping the state of the race today).

Aaron also helpfully links to all the other press coverage on the debate. I wasn’t there, but reading those press accounts (including Aaron’s in the Courier), one would think that Doug Biviano went stark raving bonkers. Reading between the lines, it sounds more like an outsider candidate from the Kucinich wing of the Democratic party called out three of his competitors for being too much on the inside of local party politics. Since one of those competitors is a local Democratic district leader, another is a former chief of staff to the incumbent council member and the third is the former (?) chief of staff to the incumbent Democratic county leader, it’s pretty clear that Biviano was playing the cards he was dealt – he would have looked pretty stupid trying to pass himself off as the consummate insider.

And seriously – why are there no debates in the 34th Council race?

The Broadway Triangle Community Coalition has taken the PowerPoint for its Pratt plan (which I linked to before) and set it to music.

I still think the plan itself (and the one or two plans BTCC had before that) suffers from a fatal flaw – its just too damn big. I know in the end they backed away from specific numbers, but if you run the numbers implied in their presentations, BTCC is looking to go significantly higher (double or more) than the density of the neighboring public housing projects. They would exceed the density of the waterfront sites in the 2005 zoning by a fair margin. For all the “comprehensive planning” embodied in this plan, there is no practical accounting for how the neighborhood infrastructure will handle this number of people. Nor is there any accounting for how all this new housing – most of it affordable, yes – will impact displacement outside the Triangle.

Tall buildings are fine, but massively oversized buildings that further strain an already overtaxed infrastructure are not.

What a lot of people forget is that this is a land-use review process. For all its flaws on the process side (and it was a very flawed process), the City’s plan – as land-use policy – is basically good (it could be better, and CB1 made recommendations to make it so). In fact, the zoning – what CB1 voted to approve – is at the high end of the density the Board has been willing to support in recent actions. But it is within reason, and it includes a minimum of 34% affordable housing (49% if you believe the City’s numbers, but those rely on developer-incentivized affordable housing, which is iffy, at best).

Meanwhile, I still say the courts (or the city council) are the proper place to address the process (and apportionment) questions.

UPDATE: I almost forgot – there is a hearing at the Borough President’s office on the Broadway Triangle rezoning tomorrow evening. Details here.

I came back from a week’s vacation to learn that Mary, who has kept the corner of Bedford and Grand clean for as long as I can remember, died on July 24. She was a beloved fixture on the block, and as the photo to the left shows, will be missed.

A collection is being taken at La Villita bakery to pay for Mary’s burial.