You Start Wearing The Blue And Orange, You’re Working For The Shakedown

After The Bronx scored so many wonderful concessions for its support of a new Yankees Stadium, Queens officials get amped up for their version of a shakedown:

The City Council’s finance committee is threatening to cancel a hearing on the stadium following a secret 4 1/2-hour meeting between members of the Council’s Queens delegation and Mets officials at Shea Stadium, the Daily News has learned.

During the Friday meeting, the Queens Council members unleashed a torrent of concerns, with many complaining that the Bloomberg administration and the team had kept the Council in the dark for too long.

Council members also raised concerns about traffic congestion, parking during construction and their desire for the team to give back more to the Queens community.

“We’re all very supportive of the new stadium because it is a boon for the whole city and the Queens community, but at the same time, a stadium does impose burdens, substantial burdens, on part of the nearby community,” said Councilman John Liu (D-Queens), who attended the meeting.

“We’d like to see an integration between the Mets and the Queens community, so the Mets aren’t an island unto themselves,” Liu said.

Meanwhile, the Daily News reports on shakedown details:

The Queens City Council delegation wants the Mets to earn their support for a new ballpark by meeting a long list of amazin’ demands – including $1 million a year for youth sports, the Daily News has learned.
Sources say the demands were inspired by a $50 million package of community benefits the Yankees agreed to fork over to help get Council approval for that team’s stadium plans.

In addition to the youth sports funding, the “Community Partnership Agreement,” obtained yesterday by The News, calls for thousands of freebie tickets for various groups and money to address traffic concerns.

The delegation also is demanding that a certain number of construction contracts and permanent jobs stemming from the project be set aside for women, minority-group members and Queens residents.

. . .

At least one Queens Council member thinks the lawmakers are asking for too much. Yesterday, according to a source, Councilman Peter Vallone (D-Queens) sent the delegation an e-mail criticizing the delegation’s proposal.

“The Mets have been good neighbors, and the request was excessive. Why not ask them to pencil me in as shortstop while we’re at it?” Vallone wrote, according to the source.