Did Brian Hatch Finance his Move to New York City on the Backs of Salt Lake City Voters?

Did Brian Hatch Finance His Move to New York City on the Backs of the Salt Lake City Voters?

(One Document You Won't Find
On Brian Hatch's Web Site)

Brian Hatch comes from Salt Lake City, where he was a deputy mayor under Deedee Corradini. during the 1990's. At that time, Salt Lake City, a lovely little city in Utah, was caught up in a feverish bidding war over the awarding of the 2002 Winter Olympics, winning the games only after bribing the officials of the IOC. The resulting scandal cast a pall over the 2002 Olympiad, leaving it as the most corrupt Olympiad in history, going all the way back to the ancient Greeks.

Mr. Hatch was not involved, as best as we can tell, in the procurement process for the 2002 Olympiad. Nor was he involved in the actual staging of the games, themselves. Nor was he the whistle-blower on the scandal. By 2002, Mr. Hatch had already moved to New York to pursue his ambitions.

In July of 2003, he launched his web site. It is, and was from the first, an attack web site.Its stated purpose is to "improve" the bid the city is making for the 2012 games, but the reality is that the web site seems bent on destroying the New York City Olympic bid.

We have not spent much time on the Olympics on this web site. Our position is simple, we support the Olympic bid, but we believe that the stadium itself is a fantastic investment for the city, with or without the Olympics, and should not depend on whether or not we get the 2012 games.

What has made Mr. Hatch a darling of The New York Times, however, is his staunch opposition to the west side stadium. The Times went so far as to give Mr. Hatch a drooling profile in which he was described as "... a tall, earnest 42-year-old with rimless glasses and a thatch of blond hair..." who "... every night ... lets loose... online in his apartment on the Upper West Side, tapping furiously into his Web site, NewYorkGames.org, to deliver some most trenchant criticism of New York City's bid to become the site of the 2012 Summer Olympics." Trenchant, indeed, since The Times followed this drivel up with an attack on the stadium and New York's Olympic bid written by Mr. Hatch, himself, just eight days later.

At no point until then, had anyone at The Times, or, for that matter, any other publication ever questioned Mr. Hatch's qualifications to critique New York's Olympic bid. Brian Hatch was in Salt Lake City, they held an Olympics there, he must know what he is talking about.

George Vecsey of The New York Times was the first one in print to question Hatch's Olympic scheme when he wrote, on April 2, 2005, "If you really had to build a new stadium, put it in the Meadowlands or Flushing Meadows, but let's get one thing straight: anybody saying Shea Stadium could be converted into an Olympic/football/soccer stadium has obviously never been inside Shea, which was a dump in April 1964 and remains a dump today." Hatch had made the notion of using Shea Stadium as an Olympic stadium a lynchpin of his web site.

Hatch printed five paragraphs that day from Vecsey's piece, which was a critique on the idea of hosting the Olympics in New York City, but Hatch conveniently omitted that paragraph.

Mr. Hatch is a bright, very well educated man with whom we have a difference of opinion on the subject of a stadium on the west side. We'd welcome an opportunity to debate Mr. Hatch, any time, any place, on the issue.

We publish below a document we found doing a routine Google search on Brian Hatch, the kind of search one would hope that The New York Times reporters would do as a matter of course while covering a story.

It seems, from any reading of this document, that Mr. Hatch's move to our great city was funded, in part, by the unwitting tax-payers of Salt Lake City.

The City Council of Salt Lake City, Utah, met in Regular Session on Tuesday, January 11, 2000, at 6:00 p.m. in Room 315, City Council Chambers, City County Building, 451 South State.

The following Council Members were present:

Carlton Christensen, Van Turner, Tom Rogan, Nancy Saxton, Roger Thompson, Dave Buhler, Keith Christensen

Mayor Rocky Anderson; Roger Cutler, City Attorney; Cindy Gust-Jenson, Executive Council Director; and Scott Crandall, Deputy City Recorder were present.

Councilmember C. Christensen presided at and conducted the meeting.

#1. The Council led the Pledge of Allegiance.

#2. Councilmember Rogan moved and Councilmember K. Christensen seconded to approve the minutes of the Salt Lake City Council meeting held January 4, 2000, which motion carried, all members voted aye.

QUESTIONS TO THE MAYOR FROM THE CITY COUNCIL

Councilmember Rogan asked about severance packages for terminated executives. Mayor Anderson said he learned when executive employees were terminated either voluntarily or involuntarily, they would be paid vacation for the entire year, as long as they were employed on the first day of the year. He said he had written two letters to Mayor Corradini expressing concerns about the termination of Police Chief Ruben Ortega, Fire Chief Tom Tallon, Community and Economic Development Director Stuart Reid and Senior Advisor Brian Hatch. He said she did not respond to either letter. He said he felt the terminations should have been effective prior to the new year. He said terminating employees so they could receive larger severance payments was less than honest and unfair to City taxpayers. He said the total severance, vacation, and personal leave payments for all terminated executives was $453,598.56. Written documents were presented to the Council. Councilmember Thompson said he felt existing ordinances needed to be reviewed to ensure everyone was treated fairly.

The actual url to the pdf document we found on the world wide web is:

http://www.ci.slc.ut.us/council/minutes/2000minutes/01112000.pdf

Some context for this page: We launched a new web site a couple of days ago, StopCablevision.com. It is our way of reminding folks of where the millions of dollars being spent monthly to defeat this stadium is really coming from: you and me, and our taxes. Brian Hatch, who runs a copious, though heavily biased, web site, NewYorkGames.org, took note of our little web site with the following comments: The Jets wouldn't pay property taxes, either. No team does. From the West Side Stadium folks (who've successfully wangled some funding from the Jets).

On the first point, of course, Mr. Hatch is wrong. There is no reason in the world why Madison Square Garden should not pay real estate taxes. It is a privately held building, unlike a stadium like Shea, which is owned by the city. The Mets do not pay real estate taxes because they do not own the building. They lease the building, and pay the city rent. The Mets can not sell Shea Stadium. Cablevision can sell Mendacity Square Garden any time they want, realizing a profit on their investment, and that is the difference.

However, we take exception to Mr. Hatch's comment that we have "wangled" funding from the Jets. In the 15 months of our existence, we have received less than $30,000 in contributions from different sources, including the sale of T-Shirts, and from like minded organizations such as the New York Jets. Most of this money has been spent on a 30 foot banner which flies from one of our member's buildings on 45th Street and 11th Avenue, on various printing materials, and other forms of comunity outreach. Contrast that to the stadium opposition, Cablevision, and their puppet organization, NYABC. Cablevision shamelessly pumps the money it scims from New York City's tax roles into their sham organization.

However, reading the above document, printed in black type, I'd say Brian Hatch knows some pretty good "wangling."

Tom McMorrow, Jr