The Skinny on BUILD: The Suck Just Keeps Getting Suckier

photo by Aaron Greenhood via Brooklyn PaperThe Atlantic Yards is the gift that keeps on giving the whole year. It's just so easy to hate the project because everyone associated with that giant wicker rat's nest sucks just as hard as Bruce Ratner does. According to last Thursday's Brooklyn Paper, Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Develop (BUILD) was promised 1,500 jobs a year over the Atlantic Yards 10-year construction period. They saw only 15 jobs this year. 

In the past, members of BUILD could be seen at anti-Atlantic Yards demonstrations, where they showed support for the project because of the bolster in jobs it would provide for local workers. Well guys, you all got duped because that amounted to a big, fat, nothing. As a result of the lack of promised jobs, residents and members of BUILD filed a lawsuit against Ratner and executives at BUILD for not delivering what they promised, including union memberships if workers attended a 15 week training program. 

BUILD's President James Caldwell says that the organization helped to place 400 workers around Brooklyn. Only 15 of those workers were actually sent to the Barclay Center. Tell us then, James. Who's to blame?

There would be [more jobs] had all these things not taken place. The bottom fell out of the economy.

Oh, really! According to the Brooklyn Paper, the economy has been good to you over at BUILD:

But the Great Recession didn’t hurt BUILD’s bottom line: the organization’s annual operating budget increased from $191,721 in 2007 to $279,395 in 2009, according to the latest available documents from the Internal Revenue Service.

Wha wha what? So then where has all this money been going, guys? Certainly not to high quality artist renderings of the Barclay Center and Atlantic Yards pre-fab towers.

Approximately 85 percent of the money is spent on the salaries and benefits of Caldwell and his chief operating officer Marie Louis.

Ah, that makes more sense. During this holiday season, it's nice to know that there is still good old fashioned greed at the heart of the people who are responsible for helping our communities.