Protestors debate with Aubry over casino bill
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State Assemblymember Jeffrion Aubry speaks with protestors about his Willets Point bill outside his office on Sunday. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
Protestors went back and forth with State Assemblyman Jeffrion Aubry this weekend over his bill to clear the way for Mets owner Steve Cohen to put a casino on the Citi Field parking lot.
The protestors debated with the lawmaker outside of Aubry’s office on Northern Boulevard on Sunday. They argued that there are other, more locally-beneficial projects that could be built on the lot, which is owned by the city and has been leased to the Mets for use as a parking lot for decades. Aubry, who introduced the bill in March, argued that a casino could bring economic opportunity to a part of the borough in need.
“They have an opinion, it just disagrees with mine,” Aubry told the Eagle after the Sunday exchange.
Aubry’s bill, which was introduced without a Senate counterpart, would allow for Cohen’s group, New Green Willets, to lease the land. It would further allow the city to “discontinue” the land’s designation as parkland, and allow for construction of a casino.
Cohen is currently one of around a dozen developers vying for one of the state’s three downstate casino licenses.
But protestors on Sunday, most of whom work with environmental groups, said that the land should instead be turned into a park.
“Assemblymember Aubry’s bill enables an over 60-acre land grab in our communities,” said Rebecca Pryor, of Guardians of Flushing Bay. “If this was happening in Manhattan, no one would let it through. Sixty-acres of public parkland giving away for private profit, never, ever would that happen. That is happening here, and that is why this is an environmental injustice.”
Pryor and several other members of the community scheduled the rally outside Aubry’s office, which was closed. But the assemblymember, who lives only a few blocks away, came and spoke to the group prior to the rally.
“Right now it's a parking lot, we get no jobs from it – none,” he said to the group.
The back and forth got contentious at points, with both Aubry and the protestors speaking over one another.
Protestors said Sunday, as they have said at previous rallies, that they were concerned that a casino next door to Flushing would unfairly target Asian communities nearby.
Aubry argued that gambling is already available in the state, and at no benefit to the local economy.
“Gambling is a reality in the world we live in,” he said. “When you gamble on the phone, nobody works.”
“If it's successful, we get economic jobs, both in construction and permanent employment and everything that has been put in there,” Aubry later told the Eagle. “In the casino, in the hotel, in the performance center, in the food court that they want to build. To me, in the long run, that's a positive.”
Aubry also said he believed the idea that the casino is an attack on the Asian community is “short sighted and made up.”
But protestors maintained on Sunday that the land, which is sandwiched between Flushing Meadows Corona Park and Flushing Bay, could serve as an oasis in a borough plagued by flooding and other environmental issues caused by climate change.
“It can be filled with bioswales in between the parking lots parking spots and planted with trees, it can have rain gardens, these can be places for community stewardship and nature instead of a casino,” said the Guardians of Flushing Bay’s Maggie Flanagan. “The kind of green we need in this space is green infrastructure and not the kind of green seeing our green dollars waste away the company profits.”
No one from Cohen’s team or New Green Willets was present at the rally, but a spokesman told the Eagle that they support whatever governmental approval is required for the plan.
“We’re committed to doing this the right way, and will support whatever local, city, or state approvals are required to make sure this area lives up to its potential,” the spokesman said.
