Abruptly Canceled CIDC Public Meet Fumes Recchia and Kruger

The community, the press, some city officials, members of the CIDC, a few nice folks from the Coney Isand USA bulletin board, as well as a bus-load of about 400 to 500 people, all spilled out onto the Coney Island Hospital parking lot due to a cancellation of last night's Coney Island Development Corporation Information meeting due to an overwhelming amount past what's alloud at the hospital's auditorium.

Lynn Kelly was very apologetic and told KC that the meeting was cancelled due to so many people that were not on the RSVP list showing up in bus loads. Roughly over 400 showed up out of nowhere wearing yellow ball caps that read "Bloombergs plan: How much? How long? Who pays?", which resulted in the cancellation of the meeting. The hospital's auditorium capacity is no more than 200.

Recchia, who is one of the Mayor's first opposers to the plans as they stand now said, "We're trying to work with the Mayor, we like his plan, we agree with parts of it but the way he's going about it is not the right way." Then Recchia went on and blasted the CIDC and accused them for cancelling the meeting on purpose. When a community member stood up in their defense and said that the cancellation was due to the overcrowed situation which got out of hand, Recchia retaliated and reaffirmed that it was on purpose. "They had pre-printed cancellation letters...right here!", said Recchia as he whipped out and flashed a copy of the cancellation letter handed out by the CIDC. It is still not clear whether the hospital cancelled the meeting or if it was the CIDC themselves. As Recchia has said before, the city should work with the landowners not against them. He feels the plan is not addressing the issue with the boardwalk which is in,"unbelievable disrepair. It needs major work. There is no mention about putting the money in the fixing of the boardwalk", he said. He was also in an uproar about the cancellation of the meeting on a school night and disrupting people's schedules, and demanded that Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff should address the community. He said, "It shows no respect for this community and we're not going to stand by it." He was up in arms at reporters saying that the city should work with the landlords, fix the aquarium, fix the boardwalk, and also denounced them for having a meeting last week and not allowing the community to ask questions.

However, the CIDC meetings have, always in the last few meetings, been open to the public for viewing but not for participating. They should have meetings in a big enough place, he added.

Well, we could thank Mr. Horace Bullard for that one.

But the new twist in the continuing saga of Coney's revitalization was State Senator Carl Kruger who, earlier had announced his plan to attend and criticize the plan - and in fact did just that! And with bus-loads of back-up support to make his case heard, he told reporters that this raises serious questions. "They cancelled the meeting, not, because they wanted to label it as an overflow crowd, they cancelled the meeting because it was not going to be one-sided. This was going to be an opportunity to ask questions. Questions which city administration does not have answers to", said Kruger. He also pressed the questions, "Who is going to pay for this scheme? Who is going to build it? How long is it going to take? And what is the impact on our community?" He also gave a stern warning, "If this bill for parkland sees the light of day in Albany, then the Mayor is going to have a real fight on his hands, trying to get it through the state senate!" He proclaimed, "It's not going to happen! This is a backdoor approach to eminent domain!. He also said he will not allow Coney Island to be given away without community input.

Now it will be very interesting to see what turn of events occur in the days ahead. And what will counter the block-in-the-road by Recchia and Kruger that could double-handedly bring the Mayor's parkland plan to a screeching halt.