De Blasio Admits Horse Ban was Stable Grab for Donor
"These lots could be sold for new development.”
November 25, 2015
Daniel Greenfield
One of the odder things about New York's left-wing mayor is that he climbed into Gracie Mansion by promising to ban horses in his first week in office securing him the support of an obscure group opposed to horse carriages in Central Park. Its agenda though allegedly had less to do with animal rights than with its tycoons's interest in seizing their stables.
The bad guy in this drama, according to the carriage drivers, is Steve Nislick, former chief executive officer of a New Jersey-based real-estate development company, Edison Properties.* The company "employs legions of lobbyists to influence city decisions on real estate and zoning in its favor," journalist Michael Gross reported in 2009, pointing out that two of Edison's businesses "have multiple locations in the same Far West Midtown neighborhood as the stables where the Central Park horses are housed." An anti-carriage pamphlet Nislick circulated in 2008 made this interesting observation: “Currently, the stables consist of 64,000 square feet of valuable real estate on lots that could accomodate up to 150,000 square feet of development. These lots could be sold for new development.”
Gross asked the obvious question: "What are the odds that good neighbor Nislick, the out-of-state real estate developer, simply covets those valuable, underdeveloped New York lots -- and has teamed up with ambitious pols to use the emotions of animal rights activists as fuel for their own agendas?" Nislick founded a 501(c)4 group called New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets (NYCLASS) that spent big money to elect de Blasio mayor
Now Bill de Blasio has proposed a "compromise". The number of carriage horses would be drastically cut from 220 to a few dozen. There would be all sorts of restrictions. Seemingly it's an attempt to get a partial ban through a City Council that didn't want to vote for a complete ban while repaying the people paying for De Blasio's national profile.
Two leaders of Nyclass, Stephen Nislick and Wendy Neu, continue to support the mayor, contributing at least $100,000 this year to Mr. de Blasio’s political nonprofit group. But signs have emerged that their patience is wearing thin.
“Frankly, we need to see action and not just promises,” the group said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that it wanted to “see more details” about City Hall’s new plan.
Except there's one interesting key point in the compromise. If you read the above paragraphs, you can imagine what it is.
The bill would also require the horses to move from their current stable location on West 52nd Street to a facility in Central Park
So once again the move to ban carriage horses, which we've been told has nothing to do with seizing the stables, offers to let some of the horses stay, as long as the stables go.
Maintaining full-service stables in Central Park, for possibly dozens of working horses, could be a logistically complex undertaking. It was not clear on Tuesday whether officials who oversee the park were aware of the new proposal; a spokeswoman for the Central Park Conservancy declined to comment.
The CPC already loathes De Blasio, but it's telling that the crooked left-wing hack didn't even bother running this past them. But it's about the stables. It's always been about the stables. He doesn't care about the horses or where they go.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/260907/de-blasio-admits-horse-ban-was-stable-grab-donor-daniel-greenfield
