Following the announcement of a special meeting May 25 for a vote on the proposed Jets Stadium which would serve as the Olympic Stadium should New York host the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno and Sheldon Silver, speaker of the Assembly, who are members of the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB), suggested Wednesday that their support for the stadium is diminishing rather than increasing, reports the New York Sun.
According to the newspaper Silver said he now has “more questions than answers”, and Bruno appeared to be reaching for new methods of delay while discussing the issue with reporters. Bruno said, “what I really, as I’m thinking about this, what I’d kind of like to have happen is that, and I haven’t had the privacy to talk to the governor, I think it’s time for the representatives of the different branches of government – the executive, the governor, the mayor, the speaker, myself – to maybe get together, and I would ask the governor or the mayor to initiate a public meeting to discuss the pros and cons of the West Side development. I think it’s time for us to start doing that in a public way”.
Silver has reportedly said he may ask for another postponement “until we get the answers” about financing and the proposed acquisition by the Jets of the project site.
Governor George Pataki’s representative on the board, John Cape, director of the state Division of the Budget, said Wednesday the governor has provided sufficient information on the project already to warrant a board vote. He also said next week’s meeting would be open to the public.
Jay Kriegel, executive director of NYC2012 said, “we need the state legislative leaders to act now. Otherwise they will defeat New York’s and America’s Olympic bid”.
But Silver said he disagreed that failure to act on the stadium would hurt the city’s bid. He said, “in Athens they didn’t start building the stadium until less than a year before”, while guaranteeing that sites would be built if the city wins the bid.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is to vote on a 2012 host city July 6.
