Bruno on the United Nations Project: 'We're Talking About Pulling the Plug'
BY MEGHAN CLYNE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 22, 2005

In comments that may have sounded the death knell for U.N. expansion plans, the state Senate's majority leader said yesterday of legislation required to move the project forward: I don't see it happening.
And as the United Nations' prospects for extending its campus at Turtle Bay faded in Albany, the chorus of lawmakers demanding greater accountability on the renovation of the world body's headquarters grew in Washington, as a spokesman for Senator Coburn told The New York Sun that the Oklahoma Republican would be holding hearings on the project as early as next month.
The comments by the state Senate leader, Joseph Bruno, a Republican of Rensselaer, came just two days before the end of the Legislature's session tomorrow. Proponents of the U.N. expansion - which would erect a 35-story, 900,000-square-foot swing space over a neighboring city park, Robert Moses Playground, for the world body's use while its headquarters undergoes a $1.2 billion renovation - have said the Moses project's first legislative hurdle must be cleared during this session if it is to avoid being scrapped.
Intense speculation about the fate of the first piece of legislation, which would provide for a land-use review to assess the impact of the expansion on the surrounding community, has surrounded Mr. Bruno, who observers said would be the one to decide the issue. Yesterday, at a press conference on an unrelated matter at the state Capitol, the majority leader issued a dire prognosis for the swing space.
We are not prepared to move forward right now on the U.N. legislation, Mr. Bruno said.
I've talked to Mike Bloomberg about this a number of times and I've talked to others, he said, and we're just trying to look at what's the right thing to do. And, you know, pressure doesn't do it.
According to observers of the situation in Albany, Mr. Bruno has borne the brunt of heavy lobbying for the U.N. project by construction unions, angered over his recent refusal to vote for the proposed Jets stadium, embraced by Mayor Bloomberg, on the West Side of Manhattan.
Yet Mr. Bruno's statements - in which he suggested that Washington's failure to confirm John Bolton as America's ambassador to the world body had imperiled U.N. expansion - were not without qualification.
I don't see it happening, but I don't want to publicly say anything's dead until session's over, he said. But it's on resuscitation and we're talking about pulling the plug.
The U.N. chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, responded yesterday: I want to confirm that if indeed they have not acted by Thursday night, that certainly pulls the plug on it as a swing space, because we cannot delay any more, and we will be forced to look at the alternative we're already exploring. That is to rent commercial space in the city during the headquarters renovations.
Moreover, if the Moses building cannot be used as swing space, the likelihood of its ever being erected as consolidation space to house U.N. staff scattered around the city diminishes, too, Mr. Malloch Brown told the Sun.
The project becomes certainly less urgent, but also less attractive from a financial point of view, he said of the consolidation building.
I do think this is a disappointment to New York, Mr. Malloch Brown said. It's the second time in a month that the city has shown itself not able to take on the politics of big construction in the city, and that does seem to go against the grain of the whole of Manhattan's history, and also against the grain of Manhattan as perhaps the most international city in the world. Mr. Malloch Brown was referring to the defeat of the West Side stadium and, potentially, the city's bid for the 2012 Olympics.
One of the Senate's key opponents of the expansion, Martin Golden, a Republican of Brooklyn, cautioned, however, that, despite Mr. Bruno's comments, things change overnight up here. Things change in an hour up here. So you want to be very careful.
Can miracles happen? Mr. Golden asked. Yes, but miracles are few and far between, and they usually go for people that deserve them.
In the eyes of Dr. Coburn, the United Nations doesn't fit that description.
The American people would rather help AIDS orphans and refugees in Darfur than fund lavish renovation projects at the U.N., a spokesman for the senator, John Hart, said. Dr. Coburn is investigating the $1.2 billion price tag that U.N. officials have put on the renovation component of the $1.85 billion expansion project, of which America would shoulder 22%.
I can confirm that we have a tentative plan to hold that hearing as early as July, Mr. Hart said, adding that Dr. Coburn, as chairman of the Senate's subcommittee on federal financial management, was concerned about the project's expense and opacity.
The inquiry, Mr. Hart said, would be held in Washington. While he could not provide a witness list, the spokesman predicted: It's going to be a lively hearing. He said Dr. Coburn's office was coordinating with the offices of two of the Senate's most outspoken critics of the United Nations, Norman Coleman, a Republican of Minnesota, and Jeff Sessions, a Republican of Alabama, on investigating the world body's renovation plans.