Anonymous Group Sends Slick Anti-Gowanus Superfund Mailer To Local Residents
Dear Reader,
If you live in the Gowanus/Carroll Gardens neighborhood, you have most probably received the above mailer in your mailbox on Saturday from an organization called 'CleanUpGowanusNow.'
Who is this mysterious organization? Who can tell. There are no names attached to the flier, nor are there any names on the web site. Only Debbie Scotto, a local developer who is fiercely opposed to the EPA Superfund designation for the Gowanus Canal, is quoted on the flier.
However, this 'mysterious' organization is most likely funded by developers such as the Toll Brothers who are more interested in lining their own pockets than in a thorough cleaning of the Gowanus Canal before they build their projects.
The flier and the website is full of misinformation about the Superfund. Using scare tactics, it just proves that developers will do anything to get what they want. After all, they have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby our elected officials and have hired P.R. firms to help spread their message.
Those lobbying dollars so far have had little effect on the Pro-Superfund sentiments of local residents, a majority "made up of people who welcome the intervention of the federal government after decades of city neglect." (Mike McLaughlin, The Brooklyn Paper Friday, May 29th, 2009)
Which makes me wonder why our City Councilman Bill De Blasio and Assemblywoman Joan Millman aren't representing this majority instead of representing the interests of developers.
As a local resident stated
"It is becoming clear that the reason that Bill and Joan put in a request for an extension on Superfund comment period was, not to allow the city time to put together an alt-plan, but to all the public relation firm (probably Toll's) to put together a campaign against Superfund."
If you live in the Gowanus/Carroll Gardens neighborhood, you have most probably received the above mailer in your mailbox on Saturday from an organization called 'CleanUpGowanusNow.'
Who is this mysterious organization? Who can tell. There are no names attached to the flier, nor are there any names on the web site. Only Debbie Scotto, a local developer who is fiercely opposed to the EPA Superfund designation for the Gowanus Canal, is quoted on the flier.
However, this 'mysterious' organization is most likely funded by developers such as the Toll Brothers who are more interested in lining their own pockets than in a thorough cleaning of the Gowanus Canal before they build their projects.
The flier and the website is full of misinformation about the Superfund. Using scare tactics, it just proves that developers will do anything to get what they want. After all, they have already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby our elected officials and have hired P.R. firms to help spread their message.
Those lobbying dollars so far have had little effect on the Pro-Superfund sentiments of local residents, a majority "made up of people who welcome the intervention of the federal government after decades of city neglect." (Mike McLaughlin, The Brooklyn Paper Friday, May 29th, 2009)
Which makes me wonder why our City Councilman Bill De Blasio and Assemblywoman Joan Millman aren't representing this majority instead of representing the interests of developers.
As a local resident stated
"It is becoming clear that the reason that Bill and Joan put in a request for an extension on Superfund comment period was, not to allow the city time to put together an alt-plan, but to all the public relation firm (probably Toll's) to put together a campaign against Superfund."
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