How is Brad Hoylman sticking out his neck, when Mr. Hoylman isn’t yet calling for a new hospital ? While he seems to agree to setting up a meeting with a working group that is, in itself, trying to set up a hospital, the reality is that Mr. Hoylman had to be pressured by the community to make that commitment. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWuUonRSTPk (not my video).

Also, what the community wants is a hospital, to restore the vibrant and energetic fabric of the Village community. At some point, voters and citizens do draw the line on over-development — it happened to Robert Moses and his highway, and it will happen again to Mayor Bloomberg and the Rudin family over the luxury condos that they want to build on the hollowed ground of St. Vincent’s Hospital. See http://no-third-term.blogspot.com/2010/06/circuit-breaker-power-broker.html (which is my post).

For you to compare the liberal activists of the Lower West Side to ”a meeting of Tea Party activists” is low. By trashing these activists, who, might I point out, are advocating for a hospital on the West Side — and not another city-financed sports stadium — you are cheapening and marginalising the needs of the community.

There is now no hospital in the area stretching from what used to be called Beekman Downtown to St. Lukes-Roosevelt on Columbus Circle. There is now no Level 1 Trauma Center below 14th Street, which is a high risk security area.

You praise Brad Boylman, but it is so obvious that what you are doing is spinning. If Mr. Hoylman cared for the public’s health, he’d be joining Yetta Kurland to fight for a new hospital, instead of calling the cops or physically and forcefully yanking the microphone from Yetta’s hands. How he ran this meeting was with a heart as cold as Robert Moses’s.

The spirit and inspiration of Jane Jacobs can’t be defamed, and just like the highway issue then was enough to be a turning point in this city’s history, so, too, shall this hospital issue : we are demonstrating that when citizens unite to protect the integrity of their community, they will always win.

That is absolutely untrue. Hoylman, as far as I can tell, is fighting to get a new hospital on the Community Board in the Village. He negotiated a deal on the community board where St. Vincent’s would be able to build a new building, which could have saved the hospital and is helping lead the board on the new hospital facility. See the Villager newspaper: http://www.thevillager.com/villager_373/amidprotest.html

Good grief, your video looks like he was presiding at a meeting of Tea Party activists! At least he is sticking his neck out on these important issues rather than just grandstanding.

See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eweH4aRJa3g (not my post) and the full description underneath.

Hoylman is expected to run for Christine Quinn’s seat in 2013 and she’s expected to support him. Hoylman is a past president of GLID (Gay & Lesbian Independent Democrats), so he might have some electability despite his advocating for neighborhood destruction on behalf of NYC developers. Quinn — as many know — sold out to the dark side in 2002, betraying her constituents and is a strong advocate for bad development.

On Charter issues, the current Commission, while it lacks the circus atmosphere of Rudy’s Commission from the 1990′s, still lacks credibility. The so-called “experts” overall reflect the administration’s agenda. Marc Shaw is the permanent government, Doug Muzzio is a newspaper talking head who states nothing but the obvious, and Hoylman is point man for Related, Vornado, Durst and Ratner.

By pushing for so-called community planning boards, Hoylman’s just reinforcing the damage done to community boards by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. Community Boards used to have some degree of independence. In the last ten years, Scott Stringer has turned Manhattan Community Boards into political cronies, for example, his campaign manager. Stringer created a so-called independent committee to recommend community board appointments, but key membership in that committee is held by — you guessed it — the NYC Partnership. His Director of Land Use, just now leaving for a higher profile job with a major developer-landlord, obtained his apartment from a developer on Manhattan Community Board 4 while he was District Manager of the same Community Board. Of course tenants remain reluctant to complain to Board 4 about that same developer-landlord given the cozy relationship.

And Stringer’s appointment to City Planning, Anna Levin, is so popular rubber-stamping obscene development that Douglas Durst, developer of the Bank of America tower on 42nd St., participated in a party for her retirement from the community board.