I Don’t Know, I Just Started Here

After learning that in effect, taxpayers are paying the Yankees to lobby the city, more details emerge about how that happened. In short, basically everyone was new:

Henry Stern, who as Giuliani’s parks commissioner was the one to actually sign the Yanks and Mets lease extensions, says he “never heard any conversation relating to legal and lobbying costs,” though he quickly adds, “I didn’t handle negotiations.” But he’s not exactly surprised that things turned out as they did.

“I have found that very often, just in the course of business, when the city signs an agreement with another party, and city officials change and the private party remains the same, things don’t come out the way they were intended by the city,” says Stern, who has served on and off in city government since 1973 and now runs his own think tank. “Particularly in economic development matters, the reality on the ground often ends up different from what the parties intended when they signed the lease.” This was particularly true, he says, at the end of 2001, as Giuliani’s staffers cleared out their desks to make way for Bloomberg’s team: “The city was not rich in institutional memory.”

And if that wasn’t enough:

Those having a portion of their salaries charged to taxpayers included George Steinbrenner’s sons Hal and Hank, plus his son-in-law (and now designated successor) Steve Swindal.

In addition to lobbyists, the Yankees charged the city $56,967.46 for the services of Sive, Paget & Riesel, the outside law firm that drew up the new lease in the first place.