SILVER & BRUNO SACK STADIUM
By KENNETH LOVETT and DAVID SEIFMAN

June 7, 2005 -- Legislative leaders yesterday killed Mayor Bloomberg's plan for a West Side stadium — with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver claiming the project would have stunted lower Manhattan redevelopment.

The $2 billion stadium for the Jets died shortly before 5:30 p.m. at a raucous meeting in Albany of the three-member Public Authorities Control Board, which could not muster the unanimous vote needed to move the project forward.

Representatives for Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno abstained from voting on a measure to provide $300 million in public financing for the stadium, effectively dooming the plan.

Gov. Pataki's member on the board supported it.

After a weekend of intense negotiations with the mayor, Silver said he couldn't back the project because of his long-standing fears that it would hamper the rebound of Ground Zero.

Asked if the vote meant the facility, which was also to serve as an Olympic stadium if the city lands the 2012 Summer Games, is dead, Silver shot back: "It's never been alive."

The powerful speaker, who announced his opposition at a packed Albany press conference before the meeting, also said he would not reconsider the stadium even if the city wins the 2012 Games.

"Am I supposed to sell out the community I have fought for and represented for 30 years?" asked Silver, whose legislative district includes Ground Zero.

"Am I supposed to turn my back on lower Manhattan as it struggles to recover?

"For what? A stadium? For the hope of bringing the Olympics to New York City?

"The question is, what do we address first: our moral obligations or our ambitions?" Silver said.

Silver's chief concern centered on the impact the 24 million square feet of retail space proposed for West Side under the mayor's plan to develop the area, with the stadium as a catalyst.

"The 2012 Summer Games are being used as a shield to hide another goal: to shift the financial and business capital of the world out of lower Manhattan and over to the West Side," Silver charged.

Technically, the issue could be brought back before the board, but a Pataki official said that is unlikely. The official said that Bloomberg had pushed for the vote yesterday knowing it would fail because "he just wants to be done with it."

A bitterly disappointed Bloomberg said the stadium's rejection "will seriously damage our chances at winning the 2012 Games."

The mayor said he worked hard to meet Silver's concerns about downtown during intense discussions in recent days by offering "as many benefits to construction in lower Manhattan as I thought was prudent."

"I had not been able to persuade him," Bloomberg said.

Hizzoner said he put on the table a number of proposals that would slow down or take away incentives on the West Side to give lower Manhattan's revitalization a head start.

But Silver wouldn't budge, he said.

"The speaker wanted us to do something about 24 million square feet that are scheduled to be built over the next 20 or 30 years on the West Side, and I could not in good conscience take away people's rights to build there," Bloomberg said.

Pataki said last night, "This would have been tremendous for New York City."

Across the river, New Jersey Gov. Richard Codey was elated, saying, "We are more than confident that the Jets will remain [at Giants Stadium] in New Jersey."

Jets President Jay Cross wasn't ready to throw in the towel on New York, calling the board vote a "setback."

"It is not the final chapter to be written in our quest to build a home for the New York Jets in Manhattan," Cross said.

Bruno said yesterday he would support a West Side stadium only if the Olympics are awarded to the city.

The board meeting was packed yesterday with protesters, mostly out-of-work laborers pushing for the stadium.

Tempers flared before and after the meeting as about 160 union members shouted down more than two dozen West Side residents opposing the stadium.

A chant of "Silver's got to go!" erupted after the vote was taken, and armed state troopers helped escort board members out a back door so they didn't have to wade through the angry crowd.

"If someone goes against us politically, we promise retribution," said James Mahoney, business agent for Local Union 580 of the Ornamental and Architectural Iron Workers.