Suits whack stadium plan

BY MICHAEL SAUL
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU

The proposed West Side stadium is getting blitzed with litigation.

Four groups filed a joint lawsuit yesterday against the MTA, asking a state Supreme Court justice to annul the agency's March 31 vote awarding the West Side railyards to the Jets.

The suit requests that the court compel the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to reopen the bidding process.

"The MTA's [bid] process was so confusing and truncated as to prevent every other developer in the world from bidding on the most valuable development site in Manhattan," the court papers allege.

The 27-day deadline for submitting bids was "absurd" and "clearly violated the MTA's duty to seek the maximum benefit for the public," the suit claims.

The Jets agreed to pay the MTA $250 million for the property. An appraisal commissioned by the MTA pegged the value of the property at $923 million.

MTA spokesman Tom Kelly said the agency "will let the courts decide the merits of our action." On the day of the vote, MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow said, "I am confident that everything the agency has done today was within its guidelines and will withstand the scrutiny of a lawsuit."

The groups filing the lawsuit included the New York Public Interest Research Group/ Straphangers Campaign, Common Cause, Transport Workers Union Local 100 and the Tri-state Transportation Campaign.

Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum also filed a lawsuit yesterday against the MTA on similar grounds.

And earlier this month, Madison Square Garden, the stadium's chief opponent and a rival bidder for the property, filed a lawsuit that demanded that the property be awarded to the Garden.

Jordan Barowitz, a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, the stadium's top supporter, said the project "means tens of thousands of jobs for New Yorkers."

"Besides being frivolous, the lawsuit robs New York of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue for schools, cops and affordable housing," Barowitz said.