Editorial

Sheldon Silver's destructive power

New Yorkers have been getting a close look at Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver since he killed the West Side stadium, with more than a few of the democratically inclined wondering why a single local representative has such huge clout. It's an excellent question that shows the destructive nature of unaccountable power.

Silver is one of 150 Assembly members. He represents lower Manhattan, including Ground Zero. In 2004, he was elected with a total of 26,379 votes, which rounds to .4% of the more than 7.4 million ballots cast statewide. As New York works - and as the Legislature has rigged the game - that minuscule support gives Silver sway, in some cases absolute, over state and city governments.

He used this muscle to veto the stadium, which would also have served as a Javits Convention Center annex, on the ground that it would spark development in a fallow area of midtown. He saw that growth not as a boon to the city but as a threat to luring office tenants downtown. Now, Silver appears determined to do even bigger damage. He wants City Hall to jettison a plan aimed at transforming the same far West Side neighborhood into a vibrant business and residential district over the next 30 years. And he's threatening to block the city from extending the No. 7 subway line into the area from Times Square if he doesn't get his way.

Silver's stance, irresponsible to the core, is that he will choke off development elsewhere if, in his wrongheaded view, it jeopardizes downtown's comeback. New York City's greater good is of no consequence when measured against the perceived needs of the handful of voters who keep him in office. Clearly, he believes that he's helping them. But he's not, and in the process he's killing New York City.

The development targeted by Silver is called the Hudson Yards. It envisions 24 million square feet of office space and 14 million square feet of apartments in an area that covers roughly 33rd to 42nd Sts. west of Seventh Ave. As approved by the City Council, tax and other revenues from builders would finance stretching the No. 7 to 34th St. and 11th Ave. at a cost of $2.1 billion.

The neighborhood is crucial to New York's future because it is the last part of midtown available for large-scale office construction. The city must have that new space to meet the demands of business, and the No. 7 would provide critically needed mass-transit access.

But Czar Silver says "nyet" because the plan calls for tax incentives to get construction started. In his mind, starting construction is a bad thing. He would give companies only the option of locating downtown, but he's fooling himself. Businesses will not be forced to go where they don't want to go. Tax breaks and other subsidies that Silver just won for downtown may lure them, but trying to give companies no other choice won't. And they would always have Jersey.

The speaker insisted yesterday that he has no objection to extending the No. 7. He even said he didn't have the legal authority to block the project when it's considered by a state board where he holds a veto. But later, his spokesman said Silver might after all claim the power to kill the project, even though it would involve not a penny of state money, even though the city would kick in all the dough, even though it's supported by virtually every other official in the city and state. That's not government. That's rule by extortion.