Councilman Stephen Levin took a deep dive into what will guide his crucial decision regarding the controversial plan to build the most-dense project outside of Manhattan on Flatbush Avenue on the latest episode of Brooklyn Paper Radio.
The Boerum Hill pol joined hosts Vince DiMiceli and Anthony Rotunno (along with intrepid reporter Julianne Cuba), who immediately asked him to break down the pluses and minuses of the so-called 80 Flatbush plan, which is presently weaving its way through the city’s mandatory Uniform Land Use Review Procedure — a process that needs to be approved by various agencies, Council, and the mayor before any zoning change can be made.
And although he was able to come up with more pros than cons, Levin refused when Rotunno asked him to write the headline for Friday’s edition of The Paper, which sadly will go to press before the vote takes place on Thursday morning.
“I really don’t know,” the councilman said. “I couldn’t say at this point.”
But that didn’t stop your battle-hardened journalists from using every trick in the book to try and pry an answer out of him during a podcast so important, its dialogue was live-blogged by editors at competing websites.
Cuba, for instance, put two and two together by explaining that, with Yom Kippur celebrations beginning, there really isn’t much time left for Levin to negotiate with anyone until at least sundown tomorrow, so he must know which way he is going to vote.
But Levin said he didn’t.
And DiMiceli used an old-school tactic and simply asked how he planed to vote, hoping to catch the two-term councilman off guard, but that didn’t work either.
Still, Levin’s silence did not stop your local scribes from predicting the outcome — a common practice in the newspaper industry — with Cuba forecasting that the project will be approved pretty much the way it is planned, DiMiceli thinking it will be a bit smaller, and Rotunno, well, for Rotunno’s prediction you’ll just have to listen to the show.
Brooklyn Paper Radio is recorded and podcast live on Tuesday afternoons — for your convenience — from our studio in America’s Downtown and can be found, as always, right here on Brook