As a result of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s alliance with real estate interests, the vast majority of over 225 viable businesses that employ more than 1,300 people in Willets Point, notwithstanding empty assurances to the contrary, will be discarded as trash.
Aided and abetted in this dumping on small business is Community Board 7 Vice Chairman Chuck Apelian and city Economic Development Corp. Executive Vice President Madelyn Wils, who brokered a deal to ensure that no Willets Point business will be moved to 17 remaining acres in the College Point Corporate Park (“Flushing Airport ban unfair: Willets biz,” Flushing Times, May 7).
Apelian rejected the claim that the ban was discriminatory, saying that when he supported the Willets Point plan in June, “… we wanted the businesses to get relocated. We just didn’t want them all coming to us.”
Not only is it discriminatory, it is outrageous. Apelian and Wils are now qualified for induction into the Not In My Back Yard Hall of Shame. Neither of them will lose any sleep over the poor souls who will join the ranks of the unemployed.
Benjamin M. Haber
Flushing
