By Kari Milchman

As controversy continues to brew over the projected cost of the Brooklyn Bridge Park project, the Empire State Development Corp. fired its leading planner. The current budget for the 85-acre park along the East River, which was supposed to break ground three years ago, is projected to be around $150 million, though critics scoff at such a measly figure. Last Wednesday, Wendy Leventer, president of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp. since 2004, was axed, purportedly as part of a major change the agency is undergoing in accordance with the Spitzer administration, and not due to the financial hullabaloo. In other park news, a federal judge ruled last Tuesday on a suit filed by the National Council of Arab Americans and Act Now to Stop War & End Racism, which claimed that they were wrongfully denied a permit to stage a protest on Central Park’s Great Lawn during the 2004 Republican National Convention. The groups noted that the New York Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera, as well as various other corporations, were permitted to use the space, arguing that the city used the possibility of damage to the lawn to restrict political protest. The judge found that the city is constitutionally allowed to limit events on Central Park’s Great Lawn, but that a separate trial would be necessary to determine whether the department has been equally unbiased in granting permits to all.