Put It To A Vote

With public support for the lamebrained West Side stadium plan slipping and slipping fast, a sweating Mayor Bloomberg actually tried to scare us into backing his pet project last week, saying essentially that, "If we don't build the stadium, we'll never get the 2012 Olympics."

Well, yeah. This is not news. The two have been intertwined from the very beginning, and if the mayor still thinks that we believe they're two separate issues then he's even more out of touch than we thought. Doesn't he remember that it was on account of the Olympic bid that he proposed the stadium in the first place? After the Olympics leave, the billion-dollar boondoggle would be used only nine or ten days out of the year, so what else would justify building it?

Nevertheless, city council, in spite of some token opposition, continues to approve the zoning ordinances and every other bit of groundwork necessary to all but insure the West Side will be turned into an enormous parking lot.

According to memos obtained by the Daily News, Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (who represents the affected neighborhood) is planning a sort of filibuster by launching a series of lawsuits designed to delay the West Side project until after the mayoral election. Gottfried's hope is that we'll be smart enough to elect a new mayor who's not quite as stupid and carefree with our tax money, and who might put a stop to it. The chances of that actually working, however, are minimal given the amount of support the plan has in city council.

We have what we believe is a better idea.

Part of living in a democracy-in theory at least-involves an active participation by the people in deciding whether to go ahead with major projects like this one. Especially when the project in question is going to cost so much of our money, give us so little in return and affect so many of our daily lives in the process. In short, why not put a referendum on the mayoral ballot? It would be very simple to allow the people of New York themselves to answer the question, "Should the city build a stadium on the West Side?" Whichever way the vote goes, so goes the plan.

Of all the major, city-altering decisions made by the past two administrations, few seem as referendum-worthy as this.

-Jim Knipfel