Yassky on the Yards

I mentioned the other day that the surest way to get an instant response from your Councilman is to sign correspondence as a representative of some imaginary activist group. I will spare readers the vitriol of the letter I wrote a month or two ago on behalf of the Williamsburg Sustainable Development Alliance to my Councilman David Yassky (now running for Antid Oto's 11th Congressional District), but here is the almost instantaneous reply from his office (actually, from one Evan Thies, who is apparently both a bit of a hottie and a bit of a direct actioner himself):

Evan Thies, hottie

Mr. Grundy:

Thank you for your note. In fact, Council Member Yassky does not support the current Ratner plan, and has not supported any other plan for development at Atlantic Yards as erroneously reported yesterday in the New York Times. David has said that he would welcome a professional sports team to Brooklyn, as well as development at the MTA site. But there are many problems with the latest proposal. Chief among them is the scale of the project. David does not believe that Downtown and Brownstone Brooklyn's infrastructure can handle such out-of-scale development, nor does he think that the current plan has considered surrounding communities such as yours.

David would like to see the housing, jobs and investment for Brooklyn that an arena and new development at Atlantic Yards would bring. But, until significant changes are made, he will not support the project.

Thank you again for your note,

Evan Thies