This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.

Bruce Ratner is apparently push-polling about the proposed Net’s arena:

Pollster: OK, next, turning back to the proposed basketball arena in Brooklyn. This arena would be the centerpiece of a large commercial and residential complex that would be built on the same site. It would include retail stores, office space and more than 4,000 units of housing for all levels of income and needs.
The retail stores and office buildings would be located adjacent to the arena at Flatbush and Atlantic avenues. The residential units would be built along Atlantic Avenue between Sixth Avenue and Vanderbilt Avenue and part of the project, six acres of land in and around the site, would be landscaped and made into public open space.
Having heard more information, do you favor or oppose plans to build a sports arena for the Nets basketball team and a commercial and residential development at this site in Brooklyn?
Hagan: I absolutely oppose the whole damn thing!
Pollster: OK.
Hagan: And by the way, that [information being read] doesn’t say that they’re going to destroy the homes and offices and businesses of more than a thousand people, and just kick them out of this neighborhood. They don’t say that.
Pollster: OK, now let me read you some different opinions about this project. Supporters of this project say that the basketball arena and the surrounding office and residential complex will bring great benefit to Brooklyn. The project will create thousands of jobs and provide some badly needed housing space for people from all different income levels in Brooklyn. It will bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in extra tax revenue each year that could be used for schools and other vital services.

Don’t know if this is actually push polling, but the questions are fairly leading. The only reason we know about this is that the pollster called Prospect Heights anti-arena activist Patti Hagan and she recorded the conversation. (via Curbed)