Sharpton Supports Jets' West Side Stadium Plans

The surprising support of Reverend Al Sharpton for the Jets' West Side Stadium plan is making people wonder what this really means for the Mayor's preferred plan. Sharpton, along with a few other key black Democrats like Representative Charles Rangel, has argued that supporting the Jets' plan needs to come before party politics, because the Jets are making efforts to make sure that minorities will get some of the construction jobs. Sharpton also pointedly said that Cablevision's plan offers nothing, leaving Cablevision to say their minority construction initiative would equal or exceed whatever the Jets are proposing. What Gothamist is curious about is how the Mayor will capitalize on this kind of cross-the-party lines support - even though Sharpton has promised to endorse a Democrat in the mayoral primary - for his pet project; Bloomberg has already made sure to hire key black Democratic strategists to work on his re-election campaign. What we do think is funny is how other Democrats are trying to make a case for the stadium in Queens; though there may be merits, the thing is that the Jets just don't want to be in Queens, it just seems like only a talking point to us that's just not feasible given the various parties' interests.

At any rate, local community groups are still unhappy with the Jets' plan, as the additional developers the Jets wrangled to bring in more money would probably mean even more rezoning hassles. The Cablevision plan would also require rezoning, but the issue with rezoning is that it could put the project start even later than the Mayor and Jets would want, should the MTA choose this bid. And it's not hard to see who the Post wants to win, with today's lame "NYC Gets Super Bowl cover."