Posted on 12/05/2004 4:37:25 AM PST by NYC GOP Chick
Awash in scandal and mulling a sweeping reorganization, the United Nations is trying to take over a small - some diplomats have dared say insignificant - city park to expand its world headquarters.
In New York, that's like Goliath taunting David, and with a tide of anti-UN sentiment rising across the country, the scheme has provided what state Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) called "a wonderful opportunity to stick it in the eye of these bastards."
Proponents of the $25 million plan are trying to convince state legislators to approve a process that could end with the UN building a 35-story office tower where Robert Moses Park now stands.
Few have said much about the park's importance to the community. Instead, they have railed against the UN's tepid response to the war on terror, shaky relations with Israel and corrupt food-for-oil program. Not to mention its stiffing the city for millions in tickets and taxes.
Last week, citing a host of concerns, state Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Rensselaer) indefinitely delayed action on the bill. "How can we trust the UN nations ... when they don't even pay their parking fines?" he said.
More pointedly, state Sen. Serphin Maltese, a Queens Republican, said the UN "has evolved into an anti-Israel, anti-Semitic group of petty, sniping bigots who are pursuing an anti-freedom, anti-democratic, anti-American agenda."
The UN wants Robert Moses Park - on First Ave. across 42nd St. from the gleaming, glass-bound landmark - for an annex to house diplomats and their staffs while the 52-year-old Secretariat building is renovated.
The park is not much more than an asphalt strip with a few sports courts built around Midtown Tunnel ventilation shafts. But politicians whose districts don't even touch the Turtle Bay neighborhood are championing its cause.
"This is hardly the time to reward the United Nations," state Sen. Martin Golden (R-Brooklyn) scoffed. "The wounds of Sept. 11 are still open and hurt.
"But the UN does not believe in the war on terror, and I find it nervy that they are seeking New York's help after repeatedly rejecting our calls for their help."
Hikind called the world body "a bastion of vicious hatred toward Israel, a cesspool, an absolute farce," and vowed to do "whatever I can to convince my colleagues to oppose whatever the UN might want."
The fulminations in Albany come as the UN has proposed radical restructuring amid allegations of high-level corruption and weakness in the face of terrorism and nuclear proliferation.
The Bush administration has lambasted Secretary General Kofi Annan for his opposition to the war in Iraq and refusal to cooperate with House and Senate probes of the oil-for-food program, which allegedly funneled $21 million into Saddam Hussein's pockets.
Late last week, Annan said he did not know that Cotecna Inspection Services, the Swiss company accused of fraud in the scandal, had paid his son Kojo $2,500 a month for four years after it supposedly severed its ties with the UN.
He conceded that the payments created a "perception problem."
They also prompted a chorus of calls for Annan's resignation, and demands that Congress withhold payments to the world body until it cooperates fully with the oil-for-food probe.
"The UN seems to be a scandal within a scandal within a scandal and the only language they understand is money, and it's time for U.S. taxpayers to stop footing the bill for a corrupt mentality," said Rep. Vito Fossella(R-S.I.).
Earlier this year, angered that UN missions and consulates owe the city millions in unpaid tickets and taxes, New York Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton moved to amend the 2005 congressional foreign operations bill to freeze aid to debtor countries that don't make good.
Even UN employees have joined the discord chorus. Late last month, their union in New York threatened to issue an unprecedented vote of no confidence in Annan. It cited Annan's pardoning of the UN's oversight chief, a crony who was accused of sexual harassment.
Despite all the furor, the UN continues to push to expand into Robert Moses Park.
The $25 million rehab project was approved by the General Assembly in December 2002 and the Bush administration promised a $1.2 billion, 30-year construction loan.
Roy Goodman, the $161,000-a-year CEO of the state's United Nations Development Corp., sees the project as a "win-win proposition" - with the city getting "the economic stimulus of a whole lot of construction jobs" and the UN having "a lovely, secure building."
He said that in exchange for the park, the development corporation would provide a 20-foot-wide esplanade over the East River at the site.
The influential Turtle Bay Association is determined that "before the UN or UNDC puts a shovel in the ground," the community will have to get a replacement for the park, Vice President Bruce Silberblatt told members.
Still, the scheme is supported by Gov. Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, as well as the district's representatives, Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz and Assemblyman Steven Sanders, who sponsored the contested bill.
But even Sanders (D-Manhattan) acknowledges that opponents have legitimate concerns.
"My constituents are rightfully leery about any additional building in what is already an overcrowded and overbuilt section of the East Side," he said, "and there are many people who have either global or local objections to the UN."
In the end, saving the park may be only a secondary issue.
"Will we stop this? I can't say," Hikind said the other day. "But this is a wonderful opportunity to make a powerful statement about how we feel about the UN.
"You never know what might happen."
This old tool is mostly responsible for turning the NYC Republican Party into the RINO joke that it has become. I'm pretty sure it was Bloomberg who appointed him to some useless commission or other, taking him out of the New York County party chairmanship and the state senate, thus Bloomberg's greatest accomplishment as mayor.
Can't say it any better than that.
On Friday I saw Geraldine Ferraro defend the UN and the multi-billion dollar heist with the Oil for Food program scandal. I makes my blood boil to think that democrats could not care less about the massive human rights violations that occurred while the their UN liberal buddies stole money.
Forget about it!.....Run the dogs out.....
I'd say everything is coming together in such a way so that we can make our new stadium on the UN land.
"The Bush administration has lambasted Secretary General Kofi Annan for his opposition to the war in Iraq and refusal to cooperate with House and Senate probes of the oil-for-food program, which allegedly funneled $21 million into Saddam Hussein's pockets."
The writer missed it by a factor of 1,000.
I believe it is $21 billion.
>But the UN does not believe in the war on terror, and I find it nervy...
Sure they do. It's just that, in their eyes, "we" are the terror that they are at war with.
To the Dems, not all humans are created equal. In fact the only people I see the Dems willing to stick their necks out for these days are Islamists. All others need not apply.
Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D-Brooklyn) [said] "a wonderful opportunity to stick it in the eye of these bastards."
AMEN BROTHER!
I'll read the rest later.
And to think that she was once a major party candidate for Vice President!
Excellent idea! :)
I haven't been to NYC since I was a HS sophomore, but I'm willing to get behind the cause. Save Robert Moses Park! Someone should look into using the Historic Preservation Act or something to tie up any proposed building...
I'll suggest a name: Reagan Stadium.
The UN is the closest thing liberals have to their own Temple. It expresses their one-worlder, anti-American ambitions, and they worship it blindly. Too bad there is no Jesus at hand to throw out the money-changers.
Build it in Baghdad. Plenty of land and allies all over that place. And who would protect it? That's right - the UN...
Kudos! Maltese isn't falcon around.
Some years ago, in a puckish moment, I proposed releasing a few billion ball bearings or marbles in the top floor of the UN building. This would make life suitably difficult for UN bureaucrats and turn the whole building into a pachinko machine.
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