Mayor Pressured Out Of Suite-Heart Deal At New Stadiums

Mayor Bloomberg was looking forward to having a free luxury box at Yankee Stadium and Citi Field this year, but that is just not in the cards for him and his staff anymore. Approximately $2 billion dollars has been shelled out or asked for from the city (meaning us, the taxpayers) to finance both new ballparks. Of course that is a lot of money, especially when it could have been used to save programs needed by the poor and to curtail rising property tax rates. So the Mayor wanted to paid in the some fashion. Now that enough pressure has been applied, he is shying away from that pricey perk.

From NewsDay:

NEW YORK - Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration will forgo luxury boxes at the new Yankees and Mets ballparks, the city said Tuesday after months of criticism about its handling of the stadium projects.

The administration has worked out a new deal with the Yankees to get extra money, instead of a luxury box. A separate and similar agreement is being worked out with the Mets for their new park, a Bloomberg spokesman said.

Senior Bloomberg aides had fought hard to get the luxury boxes, describing the perk in internal e-mails as "a big issue to the mayor" during negotiations with the teams in 2006.

That battle for the boxes only recently came to light as state and federal lawmakers launched investigations into how the teams and the administration went about making those deals.

Of course, Bloomberg is only doing this because he is running for re-election. He doesn't want New Yorkers to see him for who he really is, an out-of-touch plutocrat that cares nothing for the average New Yorker. To him, it is all about image and nothing in terms of actual substance. He'd rather see the ballparks built with our money than people getting real economic relief. As Assemblyman Brodsky says, "This whole thing has been an embarrassment."