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Difficulty of Work Blamed for Delays Replacing Park Space Lost to Yankee Stadium

A parks department official, called before the City Council to explain why an effort to replace recreation space lost to construction of the new Yankee Stadium has been plagued by delays and cost overruns, said on Tuesday that the department’s inexperience with such complex projects was partly to blame.

The city was required to build new parks in the Bronx after Macombs Dam Park and a portion of John Mullaly Park were chosen as the site of the new stadium. State and federal law dictate that a similar amount of parkland of equal or greater fair market value replace the old parks.

The Parks and Recreation Department originally said that seven of the eight replacement parks would be completed by April 2009, in time for opening day at the new stadium. The eighth, Heritage Field, planned for the site of the current stadium, had been scheduled to open in December 2010, after the stadium is demolished, but that date has been pushed back to 2011.

Earlier this year, the agency said the completion of some of the parks would be delayed for as long as two years and cost $174 million, up from an earlier estimate of $95.5 million. The new figures prompted the City Council’s Parks and Recreation Committee to call for a hearing.

On Tuesday, council members asked Liam Kavanagh, the parks department’s first deputy commissioner, a series of pointed questions, including whether the agency had been dishonest about its original cost estimates.

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The City Council’s Biggest No-Shows

After Councilwoman Helen Diane Foster, a Bronx Democrat, missed an important vote on congestion pricing this week because of a flight delay, a closer look showed that she has the fifth-poorest attendance record on the City Council — about 72 percent, not counting absences for medical reasons.

So who has the worst record? That distinction goes to another Bronx Democrat, Maria Baez. Ms. Baez, who chairs the Council’s State and Federal Legislation Committee and serves on about half a dozen other committees, has missed 203 of 608 hearings and full Council meetings since 2004. Only 19 of her absences were excused, for an overall attendance rate of 66.61 percent, according to Council records.

The average Council attendance was about 84 percent, the records show. Before joining the Council in 2002, Ms. Baez was a community activist and served as chief of staff to Assemblyman Jose Rivera, the Bronx Democratic party boss who was a former councilman.

Edging Ms. Baez for second worst was Councilman James Sanders Jr., a Queens Democrat, at 66.9 percent. Ms. Baez and Mr. Sanders did not immediately respond to requests for comment this morning.

The gold star for attendance goes to Councilman Tony Avella of Queens, who made 98 percent of his committee hearings and Council hearings. Interestingly, Mr. Avella — who is among the first announced candidates for mayor in 2009 — was one of only five members who in 2006 voted against bumping the Council’s base salaries to $112,500 from $90,000. Ms. Baez had an excused absence that day.

Here is a list of attendance percentages for all sitting council members. The records, supplied by the Council, are from 2004 on — or from the date the member joined the Council if it was after 2004 (as noted in parentheses next to the member’s name).

(Note: After this chart was initially published, Councilwoman Jessica S. Lappin of Manhattan pointed out that her 84.48 percent rating did not account for her maternity leave, which accounted for 35 absences. Remove those, she said, and her attendance record shoots up to 94 percent. Another Council member, Diana Reyna of Brooklyn, also took maternity leave, causing her to miss 28 meetings. With those meetings removed, her attendance record goes from 79.37 percent moves up to 83.7 percent. A third Council member, Thomas White Jr. of Brooklyn, had 13 medical absences; not counting those, his attendance record would have improved to 80 percent from 75.82 percent.)

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Our reader says:

“I am beginning to think that we were Bamboozled by the Bronx Borough President who gave our parkland to the Yankee Organization.”

  The new Yankee Stadium, with a 2009 target date, is being built near the old one in the Bronx.

Building Yankee Stadium But High & Dry On Funds 

Several years ago, as the Yankees negotiated to build a new stadium in the South Bronx, the neighborhood faced the realities of a massive construction project in its midst: parks would be closed and moved, traffic would be horrendous, life would be, for a while, a hassle.

So, as one way to make up for these inconveniences, the Yankees and elected officials signed a community benefits agreement. It required that the team would give roughly $1.2 million a year, starting when the work began, to various community groups through a special panel. The deal was similar to agreements in other major projects, like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and Columbia University’s expansion into Harlem.

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