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February 28, 2005
The transit fare mess
Without help from the state, the MTA faces higher fares and worse service
NY Newsday: This week's fare increases for Metro Cards and the LIRR as well as service cuts will put strains on the region's economy, according to Alan Hevesi's report released last week. Pataki has continually starved the MTA, forcing the state agency to borrow heavily, and is poised to do it again.
Albany needs to cut the jabber and find a solid revenue stream for the MTA. Otherwise, it will run a crucial state agency - a great engine of prosperity - right off the rails.
NoLandGrab: This week's fare increases leave no doubt that Pataki expects RIDERS to bail out the MTA, not billionare developers Bruce Ratner and Woody Johnson. The MTA must send our a RFP for the Atlantic Railyards now, to insure getting the most money possible for this valuable real estate.
Posted by lumi at 8:41 AM
Post-Kelo commentary examines past decisions
Observers of last week's oral arguments in Kelo v. New London were left wondering if the US Supreme Court would kick this controversy back down to the state legislatures. A quick scan of opinion columns and blogs shows that the Supreme Court has not only done this before, but they pratically opened the door for local eminent domain abuse.
Most columnists call for the Supreme Court to find a reasonable way to untangle this mess brought to you by past court decisions ("Berman v. Parker" and "Midkiff"), except for the Washington Post, which posits that the primary principle of Fifth Ammendment takings clause is the requirement for "just compensation."
Washington Post, Editorial: Taking New London
The Boston Globe, Jacoby: Will court curb eminent domain?
The Gainsville Times: Should government take private land to bring in money?
The Sun Herald (South Mississippi): The public 'use' and private wrongs of eminent domain
MensNewsDaily.com ("righty"): Condemning Private Property Rights
morons.org ("lefty"): Working-class New London, Connecticut residents are challenging the city's attempt to seize their homes and transfer them to a private developer...
Quote of the day (a.k.a. The Problem with "Parker"):
"Property of course may be taken for redevelopment which, standing by itself, is innocuous and unoffending. Nothing in the Fifth Amendment stands in the way."
-- Justice William O. Douglas
Posted by lumi at 7:44 AM
YES! Albert joining Nets
The Newark Star-Ledger:
The man who made "Yes" a part of the NBA vernacular officially joins the YES Network today, when Nets owner Bruce Ratner will announce in a media teleconference that Marv Albert has been hired to call the play-by-play for 50 of the team's games next season.
Also:
The NY Times, Nets Get Albert for Next Season
NY Post, NETS WELCOME MARV
NoLandGrab: Hope Marv likes driving out to Jersey.
Posted by lumi at 6:57 AM
Whaling City Ready For Its Closeup?
The Day: As the drama unfolded last week in the case of Kelo v. New London, questions arise of who should play Kelo and Bullock in the Hollywood version of the story.
Hmm... Any casting ideas for Brooklyn's own Dan Goldstein? (see "Battling a Developer's Mammoth Plans" below) Could be a toss up between Brad & Leo.
Featured in Columns & Editorial Whaling City Ready For Its Closeup?
By JOHN FOLEY Day Staff Columnist Published on 2/28/2005
We can almost see the advertisements now: “The Magnificent Story of Seven Courageous People Who Fought the Forces of Power and Greed.''
“Filmed on Location in the Old Whaling City Where the Landmark Case of Kelo v. New London Began.''
“You Will Never Forget ‘The Fort Trumbull Story,' a Heart-Tugging, Inspiring Epic.''
It is almost inevitable. Hollywood loves movies about the little guys against the big guys, so it should salivate over the potential in the old Fort Trumbull neighborhood.
Sally Field, who knows how to portray indomitable women (“Norma Rae,” “Places of the Heart,'' etc.) would be great as Susette Kelo, the best-known of the neighborhood residents who have been saying for years, “Hell, no, we won't go!”
Unfortunately, Hollywood might regard Field as a little too mature for this part. But Annette Bening, the very model of a spirited advocate for a good cause (“The American President”) could also perfectly capture Kelo's personality.
Scott Bullock, the lawyer for the Institute of Justice who appeared before the U. S. Supreme Court last week on behalf of the property owners who have been told to clear out, would be among the movie's good guys – virtually a knight in shining armor, in fact.
James Stewart, always impressively idealistic (“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”) would have been the first choice to play Bullock if he hadn't taken that final bow some years ago. Tom Hanks, also a straight arrow and a James Stewart, of a sort, for our times, could handle the role with ease.
Hollywood being Hollywood, it would be guaranteed that New London officials and New London Development Corp. officers would be portrayed as the heaviest of heavies. Their plan to generate taxes, jobs and economic renewal from private development after what is left of the neighborhood is razed would be presented as a cynical, money-grabbing scheme cooked up by slick operators.
While painted so darkly, the city and the NLDC could not be expected to derive much consolation by remembering that Alfred Hitchcock once said, during a debate about how a character should be depicted, “It's only a movie.''
Luckily for them, though, that George Sanders, the legendary cad who oozed disdain for common folks from every pore, is no longer around because he would certainly be cast as one of the prominent figures striving to take homes via the chilling eminent domain route. But Gene Hackman, who has had plenty of experience as a ruthless conniver in a pinstripe suit (“The Firm,'' among others) would be appropriately malicious.
Other actors in “The Fort Trumbull Story” would include Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, sons of Italy, as longtime residents of the neighborhood that once was filled with Italian families. Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck might draw the young crowd, but they just couldn't cut it as denizens of “the old Fort.''
This is the opinion of John Foley. © The Day Publishing Co., 2005
Posted by lumi at 6:18 AM
February 27, 2005
Battling a Developer's Mammoth Plans
From the New York Times:
Indeed, as members of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Mr. Goldstein and others have collected 12,000 signatures opposing the project. The group, which has the support of many community leaders, offers as an alternative a more organic, home-grown development, the Unity Plan, that calls for keeping, not razing, the existing buildings, and for new construction on the rail yards.
"I know that I'm doing the right thing," he said. "I never said, 'Should I do this?' If I can't oppose something that threatens my home, my neighbors and my neighborhood, then what am I ever going to fight for?"
Posted by amy at 11:15 AM
Transit Chief Shows Signs of Political Independence
The New York Times presents a portrait of MTA Chairman, Peter Kalikow, and describes why he opened the West Side site for bidding.
As early as last March, when Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Pataki unveiled their plans for the stadium, Mr. Kalikow began to say that he believed the development rights were worth at least $400 million. When the Jets' offer came in much lower, Mr. Kalikow said, "I thought $100 million, frankly, was an insult."
Posted by amy at 11:00 AM
February 26, 2005
TONIGHT: GEORGE HARR-A-THON to Benefit DDDb at Freddy's Back Room
A Marathon Tribute to the Music of George Harrison to Benefit the Develop-Don't Destroy Brooklyn Legal Fund
Come hear Brooklyn's finest artists play the music of George Harrison, and contribute to the legal fund to help fight against developer Bruce Ratner's outrageous, abusive plan to raze Freddy's and the homes of our friends and neighbors in the area--all subsidized by your tax dollars!
Saturday, February 26, 2005, 8:00 p.m. - 1:00 a.m.
The Back Room at Freddy's Bar and (Endangered) Grill
485 Dean Street, Prospect Heights
phone: 718.622.7035
www.freddysbackroom.com
For more info and list of artists, check out: http://www.johnsharples.com/Harrathon.html
Posted by lumi at 11:39 AM
Bloomie: Nets arena is real rival to MSG
Brooklyn Papers: Mayor Bloomberg, tried to sic Cablevision on the new Nets arena instead of Jets stadium.
"The best thing would be for Cablevision to build a new Madison Square Garden on the west side of the old Farley Post Office," said Bloomberg. "That will give them a great venue, especially with the Nets project in Brooklyn, because that is their real competition – the stadium is not, they just couldn’t be more wrong about that.
Posted by lumi at 10:53 AM
Many donors to NYC2012 have business ties
From Newsday:
Forest City Ratner, which is seeking city approval for a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets in Brooklyn, has given more than $200,000. The company's plans have encountered neighborhood opposition because of its proposal to tear down housing in the area using eminent domain laws.
Posted by amy at 10:51 AM
NYC2012 Exec claims local projects' opponents support Olympic bid
NoLandGrab: After local groups who oppose controversial venues in the City's Olympic bid met with IOC delegates, NYC2012 Chief Executive Jay Kriegel touted the groups' support to the news media (see, The NY Sun, "Bush Bolsters New York Olympics Bid"). Also it was misreported in the NY Daily News ("Nets arena foes make case to IOC") that, "The anti-arena group insists, however, that it is not opposed to the city's Olympic bid."
To clarify DDDb's position, spokesperson Dan Goldstein submitted a letter to the Daily News.
Click here to read letter.
Posted by lumi at 7:41 AM
Daily Heights: Exclusive Interview
The Daily Heights' exclusive interview with the elusive internet prankster and Olympic gadfly that created the NY20$12BILLION spoof campaign featured on www.2012landgrabs.net.
Get the low down on the power of Photoshop and advice on adhesives.
Posted by lumi at 7:06 AM
February 25, 2005
Atlantic Yards foes watch as eminent domain case reaches Supreme Court
From the Brooklyn Papers:
Several representatives from the Prospect Heights neighborhood traveled to Washington, D.C., Tuesday to hear the arguments in the New London case.Sitting in the courtroom were Councilwoman Letitia James, who represents Prospect Heights, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill; civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel, who has been retained to represent Prospect Heights residents in a potential lawsuit against the Ratner plan; and a legal volunteer for the anti-arena group Develop — Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, which maintains that the proposed 19,000-seat arena, as well as the up to 5,800 units of housing planned by Ratner are a far cry from the legitimate public use for which eminent domain is typically called into play.
Posted by amy at 10:03 PM
Critics Call Bidding Process For MTA's West Side Rail Yards Unfair
Coverage of Thursday’s MTA board meeting from NY1:
“To find that best deal, we really need an open bidding process, and the only way that happens - a true bidding process - is if everyone gets the same zoning override that the Jets have gotten," said Manhattan City Councilwoman Christine Quinn.
Posted by amy at 9:58 PM
Let Christo Run The Olympics
Forbes.com: New Yorkers are getting a raw deal from the Olympic Committee in the face of the privately-funded Gates.
New York Times sports writer Harvey Araton reflected the dissent, saying that many feel "the West Side needs a football stadium the way Simon needs Garfunkel." New York Daily News columnist Filip Bondy noted how the "pharaohs" of the IOC "practically ordered us peasants to build them a giant stadium," or it's no deal. Sometimes, though, the best deals are the ones you don't make.
Posted by lumi at 7:22 AM
New York 2012 Inspection Ends With Assurances Of Stadium
GamesBids.com:
Before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Evaluation Commission left New York Thursday following its 2012 Summer Olympic bid inspection, the head of the delegation said the inspection team had received assurances the stadium will be there.
Nawal El Moutawakel told a news conference New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg is “a winner and his team is a winning team, so we trust that between the end of March or even in July this project will come to an end”.
Posted by lumi at 7:12 AM
Miller Tries To Seize Control Of Stadium Financing
NY1: In his State of the City Address, City Council Speaker and Mayoral Candidate Gifford Miller, "announced legislation requiring Bloomberg to get the City Council’s approval to finance construction of the West Side stadium."
Posted by lumi at 7:00 AM
The IOC delegation's Chair said what???
Yup, IOC Delegation Chair Nawal El Moutawakel muddied the waters of the most controversial local development issue. Yesterday, her comments on the need to build the West Side Stadium supports the Mayor's mantra of "build it and they will come."
Read NewYorkGames for article excerpts and commentary.
Posted by lumi at 6:57 AM
More post-Kelo commentary
NoLandGrab has been carry coverage from around the nation on the Kelo case to illustrate that the possible seizures of private property by NYS for Bruce Ratner's arena is one of thousands of actions of this type nation wide. We hope that our readers appreciate learning from residents and small business owners who are struggling against the same coercive powers. Here is a sampling of commentary from across the nation.
The Seattle Times: Taking a wrecking ball to property rights
Santa Maria Times: An attack on property rights
The Brown Daily Squeal: Robin Hood In Reverse
The Day, New London (Letter to the Editor): Eminent Domain, Core of Democratic Ideology
Posted by lumi at 6:39 AM
City Council speaker outlines West Side rezoning
Crain's NY Business:
City Council Speaker Gifford Miller... said that he would propose legislation requiring Mayor Michael Bloomberg to get council approval to finance construction of the proposed West Side Stadium.
Posted by lumi at 6:34 AM
Nets arena foes make case to IOC
NY Daily News:
Foes of developer Bruce Ratner's $2.5 billion bid to build an NBA arena in Prospect Heights this week told the visiting International Olympic Committee they were being duped - just like the Greeks deceived the Trojans.
"The Olympic bid is a Trojan horse being used to grab 24 acres of prime real estate in Brooklyn," Shabnam Merchant said she told the committee.
"They seemed very engaged and were taking lots of notes," Merchant said about the meeting. "I'm glad they stopped to listen to the community."
NoLandGrab: There was one inaccuracy in the Daily News column that prompted DDDb spokesperson Dan Goldstein to send a letter clarifying the group's position on the NYC2012 Olympic Bid to the paper. Read the letter.
Posted by lumi at 6:30 AM
February 24, 2005
TONIGHT: DEMOCRACY & DEVELOPMENT IN BROOKLYN
Promoting and Protecting our Atlantic Yards. NYC College of Technology
Thursday, February 24, 6:30pm
300 Jay St. (between Johnson and Tillary)
Featured Panelists:
- NYC Council Member Charles Barron
- Marshall Brown, Urban Designer, UNITY plan
- Assemblyman Richard Brodsky
- Debra Cohen, Civil Rights Attorney
- Patricia Spears Jones, Poet/Prospect Heights Resident
- Bob Law, Local Activist & Business Leader
- NYC Council Member Christine Quinn
- Reverend Doctor Mark V.C. Taylor
Call 718 260 9191 for info.
Posted by lumi at 4:54 PM
Bush Bolsters New York Olympics Bid
The NY Sun: IOC delegates meet with leaders of dissident community groups.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and the Queens Olympic Committee, were each given 15 minutes in the morning to present their cases to four members of the 13-member [IOC delegation].
Also: The Bergen Record: Olympic visitors hear vow of funds
Posted by lumi at 8:47 AM
Thrown for a loss in the arena of logic
NY Newsday, Neil DeMause, op-ed: DeMause outlines the lessons to be learned from the "onging Jets squabble" in relation to the Nets arena.
Posted by lumi at 8:34 AM
QUALITY OF LIFE: NOT ABOUT SQUEEGIE MEN ANYMORE.
NY Press:
[Ratner's proposal] doesn't have to be a quality-of-life cataclysm for the neighborhoods of north Brooklyn. If locals would accept the possibility of an arena in their midst, the project could be used as a springboard for historic, once-in-a-generation quality-of-life improvements. Unfortunately, these issues aren't even being discussed. While jobs and housing advocates have seats at the table and are wringing all kinds of concessions out of FCR, the neighborhoods are locked out.
Naparstek has posted an unabridged version of his column on his web site.
NoLandGrab: To be fair, opponents haven't dismissed the idea of an arena. In fact the Atlantic Yards Development Workshop, from which the UNITY plan was borne, came up with alternative development plans that included the arena, but mitigated some of the negative impacts to the surrounding neighborhoods and taxpayer pocketbooks. These ideas were dismissed by FCR.
Posted by lumi at 7:52 AM
As Domain Ruling Looms, Olympic Unrest Grows
Brooklyn Downtown Star:
By Emily Keller
Thirty-five tenants, activists and business owners from Downtown Brooklyn and Harlem braved the cold and snow Monday to line up on the steps of City Hall, calling for an end to the abuse of eminent domain, the process by which the government condemns private property and evicts tenants for the purpose of public land use.
Posted by lumi at 7:36 AM
Post Kelo coverage & commentary
Forbes: Supreme Court Takes on the Public
Roanoke Times: Supreme Court seems to side with government and against the American people
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Kelo v. New London: Specious arguments
The Republican (Western MA): High court must limit land-taking provision
The "geez, tell us what you really think" quote of the day:
Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, David Souter and Stephen Breyer live in a warped parallel legal universe. -- Pittburgh Tribune-Review, editorial
Posted by lumi at 7:32 AM
Kelo post-game analysis from The Day (New London, CT)
High Court's Choice May Be Sympathy Vs. Precedent
Narrow Options For Cities
Posted by lumi at 7:22 AM
February 23, 2005
Protest banners at Atlantic Yards site
Posted by lumi at 2:50 PM
Olympics Opponents Take Their Case to the Streets
The NY Sun: NYC Politicians, "Hacktivists" and residents join the chorus of dissent as IOC delegates begin site visits.
Posted by lumi at 2:08 PM
Latest Counterbid May End Up To Be Most Short-Lived
The NY Daily Sun: Regarding the TransGas $700 million bid for the Hudson Railyards, the MTA has stated that they will not accept any "non-conforming bids."
Posted by lumi at 1:52 PM
DDDb, PRESS RELEASE: DDDb Meets With International Olympic Committee
IOC Gives Community Activists Face-Time to Debunk Ratner Propaganda
BROOKLYN—In a meeting held early this morning, DDDb Steering Committee Members Shabnam Merchant and Candace Carponter met with NYC2012’s Jay Kriegel and members of the International Olympic Committee’s Site Evaluation Team.
“Unfortunately the Committee had only 15 minutes to meet with us, but we were given a respectful hearing,” Ms. Merchant said right after the meeting. “The IOC seemed quite interested to learn that New York City’s government and citizens have been systematically excluded from the planning and decision-making process and that the Nets Arena will require the construction of a tax-payer subsidized platform just like the Jets Stadium.”
Merchant made the following points about the proposed Ratner arena, which DDDb has called “a landgrab wrapped in the Olympic rings”:
- NYC2012’s bid claims that NYC’s formal land use review process is already underway, when in fact that process has been completely and intentionally bypassed.
- The Games are being used as an excuse to seize and condemn 13 acres of private property when the proposed Arena would need only 1/10th of the land Bruce Ratner is trying to acquire.
- The Olympics are ostensibly about embracing diversity, and should not be rooted in the destruction of an ethnically diverse community (on the footprint).
- NYC2012 claims there is no organized opposition to its Olympic plan—yet tens of thousands of Brooklynites passionately opposed the Nets arena, which is being touted as an essential feature of the Plan.
- NYC2012’s bid is too expensive and not in keeping with the IOC’s efforts to contain bid costs; the bid can be strengthened by using one of the many existing arenas in the NYC region as the gymnastics venue, instead of constructing a new arena in Brooklyn.
For a full list of points made by DDDb to the International Olympic Committee, go to: http://www.dddb.net/DDDB_IOCpresentation.pdf
Ms. Carponter represented the environmental and public safety concerns of the People’s Firehouse—and the people of Williamsburg, Brooklyn—with the following points:
- According to NYC2012’s bid book, the swimming, archery and volleyball events will be sited next to an 1100-megawatt power plant and the City’s only toxic waste transfer station, respectively.
- The fire station that would respond first to these venues has been closed by Mayor Bloomberg.
- Current plans call for the Olympic Village to be placed next to the world’s largest underground oil spill and NYC’s largest wastewater treatment plant on Long Island City.
For a full list of points made by the People’s Firehouse to the IOC, go to: http://www.dddb.net/peoplesfirehouse.pdf
For more information regarding Williamsburg Brooklyn’s People’s Firehouse organization, contact Phil dePaolo, 347-200-2353, pdepaolo@nyc.rr.com.
Posted by lumi at 12:09 PM
STADIUM ROW OVERSHADOWS NY BID
Sportinglife.com: IOC delegates arrived during a whirlwind of controversy over the stadium. As the Mayor wines and dines them, activists who oppose controversial venues want to meet with the with the delegates.
Posted by lumi at 10:29 AM
The Day (New London, CT) coverage of yesterday's oral arguments
Holding Down the Fort
For Plaintiffs, It's A Matter Of Principle
High Court Takes Harder Approach With Attorney For Property Owners
Posted by lumi at 10:14 AM
Justices Consider Homeowner Rights Versus Government 'Eminent Domain'
The NY Sun:
A victory for the families could stiffen constitutional protections for property owners, and strengthen the hand of opponents of projects such as a planned sports arena at Brooklyn.
The discussion heartened the homeowners, who were joined by groups representing retired people, racial minorities, churches, and community activists opposed to developments, including a group of activists from Brooklyn.
"I am excited, and I believe it was a victory for the little guy," said a Brooklyn member of the New York City Council, Letitia James, who attended the hearing with a group of opponents of a proposed arena and office-building project in Prospect Heights. "Clearly the Supreme Court is troubled by the abuse of eminent domain."
Posted by lumi at 9:58 AM
Many from across country voice support for plaintiffs
South Jersey Courier-Post: Many individuals who are living under threat of eminent domain made the trek to D.C. yesterday to wittness the oral arguments of Kelo v. New London.
The reporter found, "at least one person waiting to get into the Supreme Court on Tuesday morning supported New London's effort." "Representing Brooklyn" in the gallery was BUILD's own Marie Louis.
"We don't want people to lose sight of the fact that sometimes eminent domain is needed to spur economic development," said Marie Louis, 30, of Brooklyn. "We're facing 55 percent unemployment in some sections of downtown Brooklyn."
Posted by lumi at 9:46 AM
Kelo case gets national headlines
ABC News: High Court to Hear Propoerty Seizure Case
CNN, Law Center: Supreme Court examines limits of city's eminent domain powers
NPR, Legal Affairs: High Court Considers Property Rights Case
Slate.com: Condemn-Nation. This land was your land, but now it's my land.
The NY Times: Justices Appear Reluctant to Increase Land-Use Oversight
Bloomberg: U.S. Supreme Court Debates Property-Rights Dispute
NY Newsday: How Eminent Is A City's Domain?
The NY Sun: Justices Consider Homeowner Rights Versus Government 'Eminent Domain'
South Jersey Courrier-Post: Many from across country voice support for plaintiffs
Columbia Spectator Online: Eminent Domain's Future Unsure
Asbury Park Press: Supreme Court hears Connecticut eminent domain arguments
Posted by lumi at 9:03 AM
February 22, 2005
Opponents to Mayor's scheme unveil counter campaign
Opponents to Bloomberg's use of the Olympic bid to rush through approvals for controversial development projects have unveiled a counter campaign.
Posted by lumi at 12:03 PM
New Bid Entered As Olympic Committee Visits Stadium Site
NY1: New offer for Hudson Railyards by TransGas puts the high bid at $700 million.
Posted by lumi at 11:32 AM
Supreme Court Hears Arguments About Eminent Domain
NY1: Coverage of local City Hall press conference and historic Kelo v. New London case.
Posted by lumi at 11:26 AM
Protesters Rally at City Hall on Eve of Supreme Court Case
Columbia Spectator:
“END EMINENT DOMAIN ABUSE,” the signs read.
A coalition of community groups held a press conference on the steps of City Hall yesterday to denounce what they see as the abuse of eminent domain—and to denounce Columbia.
Posted by lumi at 7:03 AM
Supremes' new domain
NY Daily News: The case of Kelo v. New London will have ramifications for the Columbia University expansion project in West Harlem and Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards.
"I do believe the tide is shifting," said lawyer Michael Rikon, a New York-based expert on eminent domain. "Across the country, courts have plainly had enough of this,"
Posted by lumi at 6:57 AM
A home-court advantage, say Ratner foes
NY Daily News: Homeowners in the footprint of Ratner's plan (FACT: Ratner doesn't own the property he needs to build the arena) who have refused to sell are holding out as a matter of principle.
"The project is wrong and using eminent domain to push it through is wrong," said [Dan Goldstein a] 34-year-old graphic designer. "If all I cared about was my individual apartment, I would have sold it a long time ago."
[Vince] Bruns said he would not put up such a fierce fight if the state wanted to clear his property to build a hospital or subway station.
But both he and Goldstein object to the government stepping in to take their homes to boost a private enterprise.
NoLandGrab: None of the dozens of Forest City Ratner spokespersons would comment.
Posted by lumi at 6:47 AM
Flurry of Kelo v. New London coverage
Coverage on Kelo and other local developments that will be effected by the Supreme Court ruling:
USA Today: Your home is your castle -- until the city says it isn't
NY Newsday: Residents try to hang onto their homes in a court battle with the city
AP, The Cincinnati Enquirer: Court weighs eminent domain
The Toledo Blade: High court to hear land-seizure issue
Grand Forks Herald: Conn. residents seek to keep their homes
Myrtle Beach Sun News: High court to consider eminent domain
The Seattle Times: High court to rule on right to seize private property
CNN.com, LAW CENTER: Land war goes before Supreme Court
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Ruling could redefine key tool of developers
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Stop chainsawing the Constitution
San Dieago Union-Tribune: Residents asking Supreme Court to block eminent domain in the name of development
Posted by lumi at 6:45 AM
How to Fix the MTAA five-point plan for saving the subway.
NY Magazine: How did the MTA get to be such a mess and what can be done to fix it?
Item #3: Hold a Giant Yard Sale
[Peter Kalikow] should insist that the Jets pay more for the property or lose it. A Manhattan stadium would be a bonanza for the team, so let’s see how much they’re willing to share with subway riders. Among other things, playing hardball for a fair price would set a fine precedent for when the MTA restarts negotiations with Bruce Ratner for the rights to build his basketball arena at the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 6:43 AM
February 21, 2005
The Power of Targeted Advertising
DailyHeights.com uncovers Ratner-related merchandising.
What next, the Greedy Real Estate Developer action figure? (Click to enlarge image.) It comes with a Genuine Certified Eminent Domain Condemnation Notification Letter and Limited Edition Wrecking Ball.
Posted by lumi at 5:07 PM
The Atlantic Yards Project: No Longer “Inevitable”?
Brooklyn Rail: The lastest installment in Brooklyn Rail reporter Brian Carreira's in-depth overview of the fight over the Atlantic Railyards. This article examines the reasons Ratner's "crown jewel" has gone nowhere in the last year.
Previous articles from the series:
Feb, 2004, Stadia Mania: The View from Prospect Heights
Mar, 2004, Sunday at Freddy’s: A Neighborhood Pulls Out the Stops
Apr, 2004, Other Visions Rise in Prospect Heights
Jun, 2004, Ratner’s Secret Deals Won’t Stop the Fight
Nov, 2004, Ratner Applies Full-Court Press on the Downtown Arena
Posted by lumi at 2:59 PM
Brooklyn Arena May Be a No Go For Ratner's Group
NYCSportingNews.com:
The MTA's move to open the bidding process for the Hudson Railyards on the West side of Manhattan may open the bidding process for the Atlantic Railyards in Brooklyn.
The MTA has completely halted discussions with the Nets regarding the railyards until they have solved the railyard problems on the West side of Manhattan.
Vernon Jones also questions the motives of billionaires like Bloomberg, Doctoroff and Ratner who prefer asking the public to foot the bill for MTA backroom deals.
Posted by lumi at 2:51 PM
IOC delegates arrive in New York
NY Newsday: Coverage of the arrival of IOC delegates. The reporters took special notice of the ingenuity and thoughtfulness of the media campaign:
Along Central Park South, 2012 signs were on lampposts, including "Peace is the dream" and "Every neighborhood will celebrate."
Perhaps the most telling slogan of all was provided by the city's marketing arm, NYC and Company: "Real estate capital of the world."
Posted by lumi at 1:09 PM
Four Days to Sell a Perfect Olympic Vision
The NY Times: Coverage of the City's attempt to impress IOC delegates.
Four Days to Sell a Perfect Olympic Vision
Behind the Bid: The Issues
Behind the Bid: The Players
NoLandGrab: No worries, The NY Times is not breaking their vow of silence regarding Bruce Ratner's pet project slated to be the gymnatics venue.
Posted by lumi at 12:25 PM
Other disputed calls
West Side stadium is not the only proposed Olympic site sparking controversy as residents question venues planned in their neighborhoods
NY Newsday:
In Brooklyn, the bid steps in the middle of an already messy development controversy.
Posted by lumi at 10:11 AM
Kelo coverage across the nation
The oral arguments for the US Supreme Court case of Kelo v. New London will be heard tomorrow. The Court's ruling will have a nation-wide affect on eminent domain seizures (government's most powerful tool for assembling parcels of private property for private developments). Here's the latest coverage:
Los Angeles Times: Is Your Stuff Yours? The Answer Isn't So Simple
Asbury Park Press: Eminent domain hits home
Asbury Park Press: Shore man tries to stop land takeover
USA Today: Connecticut residents fight for homes
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: High court to weigh eminent domain
Wichita Business Journal: Supreme Court case could trump eminent domain law
Arizona Daily Sun: High court asked to block eminent domain in name of development
Enter Stage Right: The tyranny of eminent domain
The Philadelphia Enquirer: Justices to weigh property rights
St. Petersburg Times: Putting the 'home' back in homeland
Quote of the day:
"There is no such entity as 'the public,' since the public is merely a number of individuals . . . . the idea that 'the public interest' supersedes private interests and rights can have but one meaning: that the interests and rights of some individuals take precedence over the interests and rights of others." -- Ayn Rand
Posted by lumi at 9:32 AM
February 20, 2005
Ratner Jeers Hudson Yards Link
From The Park Slope Courier, Forest City Ratner spokesperson Barry Baum denys any links between the open bidding process for the Hudson Railyards and Ratner's deal for the Atlantic Railyards. Opponents claim the MTA has the chance to "get it right in Brooklyn."
Ratner Jeers Hudson Yards Link
By Stephan Witt
The open bidding process instituted by the MTA for the Hudson Yards on Manhattan’s west side should not have a bearing on the proposed Atlantic Yards project, Forest City Companies Spokesperson Barry Baum said last week.
“These are two distinct and separate projects,” said Baum, refusing to elaborate further.
But opponents the FCRC proposal continue to argue that the only way to get maximum value for the 11-acre MTA-owned Atlantic Yards site is for the MTA to issue a Request for Proposals (RFP).
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDb) spokesman Daniel Goldstein said for the past year and a half his organization has suspected the that the MTA is working on a sweetheart deal with FCRC.
“This is clearly unacceptable for straphangers and taxpayers,” said Goldstein. “To avoid the debacle and brinkmanship at Hudson Yards, the MTA must now produce the independent appraisal of Atlantic Yards that the committed to this past summer and then issue an RFP, working with community organizations and elected officials to configure development guidelines for the MTA railyards in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
Goldstein called the recent Hudson Yards development baby steps toward a truly open bidding process, but said it still has a long way to go.
“The MTA can get it right in Brooklyn, from the start, with an RFP,” Goldstein added.
MTA Spokesperson Tom Kelly said the MTA is either currently working on getting the property appraised.
Kelly said some talks have been held with FCRC, but they are still waiting for the company to get back to them.
Baum said that FCRC would not discuss negotiations with the city, state or MTA.
“The MOU (Memorandum of Understanding between FCRC, the city, state, and MTA) is a complicated document that is changing often,” Baum said.
Baum also said it doesn’t matter which comes first between the MOU and a binding Community Benefits Agreement (CBA). Both will happen, he said.
Meanwhile, the Fort Greene Association (FGA), which is hosting a 7:30 p.m. February 28 informational community forum on the project at the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church (South Oxford and Lafayette Avenue), issued a press release indicating that FCRC has withdrawn from participating in the meeting.
The press released, which was issued in conjunction with DDDb, also said repeated invitations to both BUILD and ACORN, two grassroots groups supporting the project, have both gone unanswered.
Baum said FCRC has been very open with the community throughout this process and the company would be happy to meet with the FCA.
“However, until the MOU is signed we don’t have any new information to discuss,” said Baum. “Once the MOU is signed we will coordinate a mutually acceptable date to meet with the For Greene Association and we look forward to it.”
ACORN Executive Director Bertha Lewis questioned the objectivity of the FGA.
“These folks wrote a letter months ago talking about how they were opposed to the project,” said Lewis. “We have other work to do. There are a lot of forums we don’t attend, so we’re not going.”
BUILD President James Caldwell said the organization will send a representative and he may attend himself.
Paul Palazzo, co-chair of the FGA Atlantic Yards Committee, said while the FGA has a coalition with DDDb, they have gone out of their way to make the forum as objective as possible.
Posted by lumi at 4:38 PM
High Court To Test Seizure Of Homes
From the Hartford Courant, a historical look at Kelo and past US Supreme Court eminent domain rulings.
Posted by amy at 3:24 PM
Testing Eminent Domain's Limits
From The Day, New London:
When the Kelo v. New London case heads to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, it will test whether the government can act as an all-powerful real estate broker that can seize property from one owner and give it to another to promote economic growth.
New London -- When the Kelo v. New London case heads to the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, it will test whether the government can act as an all-powerful real estate broker that can seize property from one owner and give it to another to promote economic growth.
The Kelo case, which arose out of the city's efforts to redevelop the Fort Trumbull area, is an important milestone in determining the limits of government power under the Fifth Amendment to take property for “public use” as long as it provides “just compensation” to the original owner.
Governments have always been allowed to condemn property for public works projects such as the building of highways, railroads and schools, and in 1954 the high court allowed that the clearing of slums and blight also qualifies as a public purpose.
This year, the court will referee whether governments can take property not to clear blight but simply to incubate the kind of development that will promote a general public good by producing a greater share of tax revenue. A decision is expected by June.
The Institute for Justice, the firm representing the seven Fort Trumbull property owners who are challenging the use of eminent domain, will argue that the court should strike down economic development as a valid public purpose because it produces nebulous benefits for the public at large while giving a huge advantage to private developers.
The institute, a public interest law firm that has waged a nationwide battle to curtail the use of eminent domain, asserts that the court will bleed all meaning out of the Fifth Amendment's public use clause if it equates private enterprise, no matter how good for a community's economic health, with such pure public uses as the building of roads.
The institute argues that the Connecticut Supreme Court, which upheld the city's use of eminent domain in a March ruling, transformed private development into a public use “simply because of the ‘secondary' or ‘trickle-down' benefits a business may produce.”
Three members of that court dissented from the majority ruling, noting that the benefits promised by the Fort Trumbull project were too speculative to warrant the seizure of homes where some residents had lived for generations. Those justices urged the adoption of a “heightened scrutiny” test that would require cities to provide courts with proof that a proposed development had reasonable certainty of success.
The Institute for Justice hopes the Supreme Court will quash economic development as a valid public purpose, but as a second best option its attorneys are asking the court to require the sort of test recommended by the dissent in Connecticut.
Legal experts are skeptical that the high court, which has traditionally shown deference to the way legislative bodies define public use, will disallow economic development condemnations entirely. Yet they are waiting to see where the court might place some checks on the power of governments.
“It's very hard for the courts to start telling the legislative branches what is and is not in the public interest,” said Vicki Been, the director of the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University. “The Constitution, of course, says you can't take property except for public use. Well, is public use slum clearance, but not redevelopment of the slums that are cleared? How do you start drawing those lines?”
•••
Attorneys for the New London Development Corp. will argue that decades of federal precedent support the sort of taking the agency is attempting at Fort Trumbull. The quasi-public agency asserts in its brief that courts have historically respected the way legislatures use eminent domain because judges do not have the professional capacity to evaluate economic development projects.
As they tell it, judicial checks on the use of eminent domain would handicap cities, with their dense neighborhoods and paucity of undeveloped land, in attracting the corporate campuses and industrial parks that now flock to the suburbs. In a friend-of-the-court brief filed on behalf of the NLDC, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities argues that eminent domain helps to keep new development focused in the urban centers and prevents sprawl into the suburbs and the countryside.
Attorneys for the NLDC are urging the court to reject the “reasonable certainty” test advocated by the Institute for Justice that would require cities to have evidence of a project's viability, such as a contract with a developer, before they condemn private property. They say such a test would trap cities between impossible alternatives.
“On the one hand, the (institute) notes the constitutional bar against takings designed solely to benefit a private party,” they say in their brief. “On the other hand, (it) wants this Court to bar any plan unless it states who will develop the condemned land and for what specific uses.”
The Institute for Justice is pushing for a federal limitation on the ability of governments to use eminent domain because of what its attorneys call chaos and inconsistency in the state courts on the issue. Shortly after the Connecticut court upheld the use of eminent domain last spring, the institutes notes, Michigan's court overturned a 1981 decision that was among the first anywhere to allow the condemnation of private property for economic development.
The NLDC attorneys counter that the Michigan case was based solely on that state's constitution. To impose a federal limitation on condemnations would, they say, impinge on the federalist system that allows states to act with some degree of independence.
“It would be incongruous, to say the least, to have the federal courts micromanage state and local development projects,” their brief says. “Not only are judges professionally ill-suited to such a role, but that sort of heavy-handed intrusion into state and local affairs does not comport with our federalist system of government.”
David Barron, a professor at Harvard Law School, declined to guess where the Supreme Court might come down on the issue. He noted, however, that the Fort Trumbull redevelopment plan is not a simple case of a government seizing private property to hand it to a Wal-Mart or other big-box developer that do would little more for the public good other than increase the tax base. Instead, the plan was “a vision for an entire part of the city being used in a different way,” a re-imagining of old land-use patterns that would help open the waterfront to the general public.
“It's a very good plan, but it is also a long-range plan, and it is also speculative. There are so many features to the kind of taking that New London engaged in that there's a fair amount of room for the court to craft some limitations on the public use requirement,” Barron said. “If the court is interested in trying to develop some limitations to constrain the government's ability to take property and involve private developers in building it out, the rich factual setting of the New London land use plan provides them with a lot of different routes for establishing those limits. What I bet against is the court coming down with a bright-line rule one way or the other.”
Posted by amy at 3:22 PM
The Litigants In The Fort Trumbull Case
From The Day, New London:
“I've always loved New London. I wanted to come back and live by the water. So, for me, it's not about the money. It's about a person being able to live where they want to live. It's about a person buying a home and being able to stay in it. And this is where I want to live.”
Susette Kelo, 8 East St. Kelo, who was raised in New London before moving to Preston, relocated back to the city when she bought the East Street home in 1997. “I've always loved New London. I wanted to come back and live by the water. So, for me, it's not about the money. It's about a person being able to live where they want to live. It's about a person buying a home and being able to stay in it. And this is where I want to live.” July 2001
Pataya Construction/Richard Beyer, 41 and 49 Goshen St. Beyer, a Niantic resident, bought and renovated two residential properties on Goshen Street. “We had always had No. 49 occupied until the NLDC moved in and started threatening our tenants, telling them, ‘We're going to take the property,' scaring our tenants away. And what are they going to do? You kind of have to put yourself in their situation: ‘Am I going to have a place to live a month from now?' ” February 2003
James and Laura Guretsky, 19 Smith St. In the mid-1980s, the Guretskys bought 19, 21, and 23 Smith St., living in one of the homes and renting the other two. “We've been here for 15 years. It's our home, plus it's our income. We want to stay here.” Laura Guretsky, December 2000
Byron Athenian, 78 Smith St. He lives at 78 Smith St., and for two decades operated Byron's Auto Body in a shop next door. The residence is in the name of his mother, Thelma Brelesky. “It was a good neighborhood. It was the kind of neighborhood you never had to lock your doors at night when you're going out, you know? Now I don't lock it either. I got a pit bull, Charlie.” February 2003
Charles and Wilhelmina Dery, 87 Walbach St. Wilhelmina Dery was born inside 87 Walbach St. more than eight decades ago. The family first settled in Fort Trumbull during the early 1890s, emigrating from Italy. Five generations have lived on the peninsula. The Dery family also owns rental properties at 79 and 81-83 Walbach St. “If you guys want to play this, and you want to be the bullies, well then come down and do it in front of the whole country. Come down and drag my mother and my father ... drag us all out and kick us out in the street.” Matthew Dery, February 2003
Matthew and Suzanne Dery, 28 East St. “If we've gotta go, we have to go. We won't like it. It won't be pretty. They're gonna have to come and take me out. I don't mean to sound stubborn or anything, but that's exactly how I feel.” Matthew Dery, February 2003
“We're not going anywhere until we say so.” Sue Dery, December 2000
Pasquale and Margherita (deceased) Cristofaro, 53 Goshen St. The house has been owned by the family for nearly 30 years. “It was the American dream to buy and own property and be able to do what you want with it. For my father, the land was gold. He had his grapevines, his garden ...” Michael Cristofaro, February 2003.
Bill Von Winkle, 27, 31 and 33-35 Smith St. Von Winkle started buying and renovating Fort Trumbull properties in the mid-1980s on Smith and Howard streets. “I'm not going anywhere — not now or ever.” March 2002.
Scott Bullock, Institute for Justice attorney “What the NLDC is doing here is wrong. The NLDC got the land. The residents got the boot. And the citizens of Connecticut get the bill.” December 2001.
Posted by amy at 3:16 PM
Closing Arguments
From The Day, New London:
U.S. Supreme Court To Hear New London's Fort Trumbull Eminent-Domain Case Tuesday
New London -- The bakery Matthew Dery's great-grandmother opened on Walbach Street at the turn of last century became the cornerstone of the family compound — four houses honeycombed around a driveway where three generations now live in relative self-containment.
The history of the Dery family and its progress from northern Italy to New London is inseparable from these houses. A brick oven survives in the basement of Matthew Dery's house, a vestige of the original bakery. In expanding its settlement in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood, the family blasted into the bedrock and then harvested the stone to build another home.
So it is no surprise that the Dery family proved among the hardest to uproot when the New London Development Corp. pegged their neighborhood, in the shadow of a Civil War-era fort near the Thames River, as the future site of a hotel, offices and upmarket rental housing.
Most of the family's 100-odd neighbors sold their properties when the agency came brandishing its plans for a redeveloped waterfront five years ago. The NLDC promptly demolished those houses, but the Derys and six others have spent the
ensuing years in court challenging the NLDC's right to seize their property by eminent domain.
They will get their final appeal on Tuesday, when their attorneys will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court that governments and quasi-public development corporations do not have the right to seize private property not designated as blighted to promote economic development.
The Derys are sympathetic plaintiffs, and legal experts have guessed that their generational ties to their houses might have inspired the high court to revisit the question of how far governments can go in using eminent domain, which it has not done since 1984.
Attorneys for the NLDC will argue that sentimental attachment to a home should not trump the government's right to pursue private developments that will help the public as a whole by creating jobs and boosting the tax revenue that feeds education and public-safety budgets.
“Where do the rights of individuals intersect with the rights of society as a whole?” asked Edward O'Connell, a local attorney who helped craft the NLDC's brief to the high court.
Newspapers these days are full of stories of cities using eminent domain to remove residents and small businesses from property coveted by big-box retailers or other developers, but this is not the story of Fort Trumbull as O'Connell tells it.
When Pfizer announced plans in 1998 to build its global research headquarters on an abandoned factory site close to the Fort Trumbull neighborhood, O'Connell says, the city saw an opportunity to remake its waterfront in a way that would stir economic revival. He emphasizes that the plans for the hotel, housing and offices were cycled through extensive public hearings.
“The city was at a crossroads. It could seize on the opportunity presented by Pfizer's arrival or it could continue to drift along as it had in the past,” O'Connell said. “The question is whether seven people can thwart a plan that was arrived at democratically and which benefits all citizens of New London.”
More than four years have passed since the Fort Trumbull property owners and their attorneys from the Institute for Justice, a libertarian, public-interest law firm, filed suit in December 2000 to prevent the NLDC from invoking eminent domain. The years of litigation have come with consequences for both the agency and the property owners, but on the eve of oral arguments before the high court, both sides say they have no regrets about the very long engagement.
“This has been a great object lesson for my son,” Matthew Dery said of 16-year-old Andy. “There are some battles you have to fight.”
•••
Michael Joplin remembers the excitement that surrounded the first public hearings about the Fort Trumbull redevelopment in 1999. Joplin is now the president of the NLDC, but at the time he was a private investor piqued by the arrival of Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant, and
interested in the city he remembered from his childhood as a vibrant regional center.
The NLDC saw the plans to reinvent the neighborhood as a logical outgrowth of the times. Pfizer's announcement that it would build a $294 million facility was a coup for the city, which had long struggled with a weak tax base, a declining population and a downtown filled with empty storefronts. The Fort Trumbull peninsula, adjacent to the Pfizer site and pocked with an industrial hodgepodge that included a scrap-metal yard, oil-tank farm, sewage-treatment plant and a polluted former Navy laboratory, was an obvious target for redevelopment.
“People tend to forget what was there before we started,” O'Connell said.
But there was also a neighborhood on the peninsula, and public opinion fractured over the NLDC's efforts to remove the residents along with the heavy industry. A poll commissioned by The Day earlier this winter showed that only 39 percent of city residents support the practice of seizing private property in pursuit of economic development.
Rob Pero, a Republican who has served on the City Council since the redevelopment plans were approved, thinks the NLDC made various missteps that contributed to waning public confidence in the plan. He said the agency was damaged by its failed plans to renovate three downtown apartment buildings, and it lost further support because of what the public saw as the inordinately large salaries it paid its staff.
The lack of measurable development at Fort Trumbull hasn't helped.
“The general mood of the city was that this was, all in all, a good plan, even if people had qualms about residents being displaced and uprooted,” Pero said. “Then over time, as people didn't see anything being built, they started asking why we went down this road.”
Joplin, the NLDC president, is quick to enumerate the steps his agency has taken to prepare the Fort Trumbull peninsula for development. In addition to removing environmental pollution from roughly 24 acres, the agency rebuilt Howard Street and raised the flood plain in the low-lying coastal area.
“We have cleaned the Aegean stables,” Joplin said. “There has been a productive period of time in the last few years. While the drama in town has been the eminent-domain issue, we were working on other things. Has the case cost us money and time? Absolutely. Have we wasted four years? Absolutely not.”
In spite of the ups and downs that have come with the project, Pero says, the city had little choice but to approve the project in January 2000. He points to the perpetual difficulty in raising tax revenue in a city where half the land is tax-exempt. Until the state allows cities some way to raise money other than the property tax, Pero says, developments like Fort Trumbull are their last best hope.
“If you want us weaned off the state payroll, there are only so many ways of doing that,” Pero said. “Could we have said we're getting Pfizer and then walked away? That would have been short-sighted.”
•••
As Matthew Dery sees it, the pursuit of economic development sounds laudable enough until his family is the one asked to sacrifice its home in the name of the public good.
Sitting in the kitchen of his East Street home, with his cigarettes on the table and his three dogs underfoot, Dery says he has stuck out the fight in court for four years because he could not deprive his parents of the house where they have lived together for 60 years — their anniversary was two weeks ago — and where his mother, Wilhelmina, was born in 1918.
Fort Trumbull had its share of elderly residents when the NLDC slated the area for redevelopment in the late 1990s, and Dery knows a few who died shortly after they chose to relocate rather than fight the plans to redevelop the neighborhood.
“The stress of the episode didn't do them any good,” said Dery, who is the home-delivery sales manager for The Day. “It's not what I want for my parents.”
The forces that have sustained Dery through four years in court are an allegiance to family heritage and the instinct to resist the government that would order him to leave the house his grandmother gave him and his wife, Sue, as a gift when they got engaged in 1984.
Dery talks about the toughness of mind that characterized Fort Trumbull kids when he was growing up: anyone who came to the neighborhood looking for a fight would have to face a line of brothers and friends. The same mentality has helped him to resist the incursions of City Hall.
“No man likes to be told what to do,” Dery said. “It's not about winning or losing, because you lose more if you don't fight than if you fight and lose. You have to fight to get respect. They won't be so quick to pick on you if they're going to get a fight in return.”
Owning a home in a redevelopment zone has both psychological and practical difficulties. When the neighborhood was coming down around them four years ago, Matthew and Sue Dery did not know whether they should continue investing in their house if it was going to become just another pile of rubble.
After this much time, they have returned to the normal rhythms of homeownership. Recently they replaced the carpet in the living room and the floor in the kitchen. Still, they have had trouble obtaining property insurance, because the NLDC has technically held title to their home since the agency filed the condemnation notice in November 2000.
“It was really bad at the beginning, but we've taken our lives back,” Dery said. “We've stopped living under somebody else's mandate.”
The family and the six neighbors who remain will travel to Washington, D.C., this week to hear the oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court. Having the chance to make their case in such a solemn setting has been “humbling,” Dery said. He is holding out hope that at least five of the nine justices will sympathize with his family's story.
“This happened to us. We didn't have a choice,” Dery said. “At the end of the day, we can look in the mirror and know we haven't done anything wrong. We were going about our business when this was brought right to us.”
Posted by amy at 3:10 PM
Timeline Of Events In Fort Trumbull Case
From The Day, New London
January 2000 The Planning and Zoning Commission, Redevelopment Agency, City Council and New London Development Corp. approve the Fort Trumbull development plan.
May 8, 2000 The NLDC votes to begin taking 11 properties by eminent domain.
Sept. 5, 2000 The City Council rescinds an earlier decision that prevented the NLDC from razing buildings in Parcel 4A where the city hopes a Coast Guard museum will be built.
Sept. 20, 2000 The Coalition to Save Fort Trumbull submits a petition with more than 400 signatures to the City Council to save Fort Trumbull homes from demolition.
Oct. 2, 2000 The city's law director rules that a petition asking for a referendum on Fort Trumbull demolition is invalid.
October 2000 The NLDC votes to use eminent domain to acquire the last 22 properties it needs to transform the Fort Trumbull peninsula into a maritime village.
November 2000 The NLDC offers 11 property owners, including Susette Kelo and Matthew Dery, more than $2.7 million for their properties. They reject the offers.
Dec. 19, 2000 The Institute for Justice agrees to represent more than a half dozen Fort Trumbull residents in a lawsuit against the city and NLDC.
Feb. 21, 2001 The city, NLDC and property owners reach an agreement under which the Fort Trumbull residents will be able to stay in their homes while the eminent domain case is heard in court.
March 13, 2002Connecticut Superior Court Judge Thomas J. Corradino rules on the eminent domain lawsuit.
March 18, 2002 Fort Trumbull property owners announce they will file an appeal with the state Supreme Court.
August 2002 The city and NLDC file appeal briefs asking the state Supreme Court to overturn the lower court ruling.
October 2002 City Council grants the NLDC a two-year extension of its eminent domain powers in Fort Trumbull area.
December 2002 State Supreme Court hears arguments in the eminent domain case.
March 3, 2004 The state Supreme Court affirms NLDC's right to take property at Fort Trumbull by eminent domain.
Sept. 28, 2000 The U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear Kelo et al v. City of New London, essentially deciding when governments may seize people's property for economic development projects.
Posted by amy at 3:08 PM
City Offers Compromise On Stadium Plan
This is funny - the title says the city offers a compromise. The story says Bloomberg sent a televised plea/threat to Cablevision.
Posted by amy at 2:37 PM
February 19, 2005
Forest City Ratner Backs Out Of Ft. Greene Community Forum
From the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
A large-scale community forum on the proposed development of Downtown’s Atlantic Rail Yards will go on without a key participant, the proposed developer Forest City Ratner (FCR).One spokesperson for the developer, Randal Toure, told long-time community organizer Ruth Learnard-Goldstein by telephone last week that FCR wouldn’t be participating in the forum because, “He told me that they’re working on the MOU (memo of understanding) and that they’re making changes to the project. I have to tell you that I was struck dumb. I was speechless.”
Posted by amy at 10:52 AM
Mike slams housing plan
From the Daily News: Mayor Mike finally drags Atlantic Yards into the fracas of bidding on the West Side Stadium.
The mayor argued that the Garden's main competition is not the proposed Jets stadium but the planned basketball arena for the Nets in Brooklyn.
Newsday: Mayor: Garden's real rival is Brooklyn arena, not stadium
Field of Schemes: Today on "As the Jets Turn"
Posted by amy at 10:40 AM
Updates on Kelo v. New London
The residents of New London are gearing up for the February 22 Supreme Court oral arguments where "the future of property rights in America will be at stake." Join the New London folks for their rally on Sunday! (See events...)
In the news:
The Ayn Rand Institute: The Tyranny of Eminent Domain
US Newswire: Officials to Comment on Critical Kelo Case Involving Economic Development Powers
Voice of America: Connecticut Residents Fight to Keep City From Taking Their Homes
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: The future of eminent domain
Salt Lake Tribune: Supreme Court to consider legality of land grabs
Posted by amy at 10:22 AM
February 18, 2005
NYC's Olympic dreams leave some still hoping
From NewYorkGames.org
NYC's Olympic dreams leave some still hoping
Metro Feb 16 op-ed
Theodore Hamm
Ideally, the decentralized design of the NYC2012 plan allows for all five boroughs to benefit. But in reality, most of the primary Olympic facilities would be located in areas of the city that are either already growing rapidly or, like "West Midtown," are neighborhoods that will inevitablly grow whether or not the Olympics come to town.
Property values also are high in downtown Brooklyn, where the proposed Nets stadium would become home to gymnastics events.
The one site in the city where the games could have been centrally located, Flushing Meadows, instead would be home to some of the games least glamorous events, like the Archery Field and Water Polo Center. Meanwhile, the city's "poorest and most deprived areas," from East New York to East Harlem, would not benefit in any way from the 2012 plan.
NYC2012 promises to disrupt growth where it already exists, and not generate new growth in areas of the city that need it most. The International Olympic Committee thus would be doing the city a big favor by sending Michael Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff back to the drawing board.
Posted by lumi at 5:27 PM
Hudson Yards/Olympic-Jets Stadium/MTA Open Bid/NYS Shadow Government News
The MTA's sham bidding process has thrown everyone for a loop. First, if your head is spinning by news and events surrounding the West Side Stadium controversy, go to newyorkgames.org where Brian Hatch covers this issue in more detail than we can.
In today's headlines, the Governor and Mayor cover their tracks on Doctoroff's threats that rezoning of the Hudson Yards would not happen for anyone but the Jets. The State Comptroller wants more oversight of state agencies like the Empire State Development Corporation and MTA who operate behind closed doors.
NY Newsday: "Pataki backs stadium, but invites rail yard bids"
The NY Daily News: Mike's zonin' in on stadium site
NY Post: HEVESI TAKES AIM AT SHADOW GOVERNMENT
[Charles Bagli from the Times and Juan Gonzales from the Daily News probably took yesterday off for some well-earned rest.]
Posted by lumi at 7:29 AM
Promised Land
Investor's Business Daily, editorial: This article takes the typical Conservative position against eminent domain and points out that, under the current definition of "public use", churches across the nation are vulnerable to land grabbing.
It was not without good reason that the Supreme Court in 1795 called eminent domain "the despotic power." The current court could check that power if it rules correctly after it hears Kelo on Tuesday.
If it doesn't rule correctly, even churches around the country should be worried. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has filed an amicus brief in the Kelo case that lays out the problem.
Houses of worship, it explains, will be "singularly vulnerable to being taken" if the court rules for New London. Why? Because churches, in vivid contrast to the commercial developments that could replace them, generate zero tax revenues.
The Becket Fund isn't just whistling in the dark. There are cities that have actually targeted churches. And as local lawmakers' hunger for money grows, so will the trend. Unless the court makes the right ruling.
article
Download the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty brief
Posted by lumi at 7:20 AM
Countdown to Kelo: Towns and Cities in America expect to see effect from court ruling
Like Brooklynites, local reporters and columnists from the The Roanoke Times and Atlanticville (Central Jersey) are expecting to see some local effect from the Supreme Court case of Kelo v. New London.
The Roanoke Times: "Government seize private homes for fun and profit"
Atlanticville: "US Supreme Court case could have local effect"
Posted by lumi at 7:02 AM
Pfizer is a good citizen
Pfizer Statement: Key Facts Regarding U.S. Supreme Court Hearing
Feeling the heat over the Supreme Court case of Kelo v. New London, Pfizer has issued a release to distance itself from the city's land grab, which the City of New London has claimed was necessary to create housing and amenities for employees at the new Pfizer plant.
Date : Thursday - February 17, 2005
NEW LONDON, Conn., Feb. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The following statement is issued by Pfizer Inc to assist understanding of the company's position regarding a case that will be heard on February 22 before the U.S. Supreme Court (Kelo vs. City of New London and New London Development Corporation).
The headquarters of Pfizer Global Research & Development are in New London CT, but contrary to some recent reports:
- The role of Pfizer is not material to this case. Pfizer was never named as a party to the lawsuit and the company has no stake in the outcome.
- Eminent domain played no part in the company's purchase of land in New London.
- Pfizer has no requirements for the proposed development and expects no material benefit.
Pfizer is a good citizen and has delivered all its promises to the State and City. The corporation brought 1500 jobs to New London and is the city's largest single taxpayer. It is a major source of philanthropic and volunteer contributions. Pfizer has also delivered benefit by choosing to build on a derelict urban brown field, and investing in environmental remediation.
Pfizer Inc
CONTACT: Stephen Lederer, +1-860-732-9783, pager: 1-877-549-9848, stephen.f.lederer@pfizer.com, or Liz Power, +1-860-732-4987, cell: +1-860-625-9360, elizabeth.power@pfizer.com, both of Pfizer Inc
Web site: http://www.pfizer.com/
Company News On-Call: Pfizer's press releases are available through PR Newswire's Company News On-Call service on PRN's Web Site. Visit http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/688250.html
Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/688250.html
Posted by lumi at 6:52 AM
Nets: At the break
The Newark Star-Ledger: Dave D'Alessandro takes stock of the (23-30) Nets at the mid-season All-Star break.
Posted by lumi at 6:42 AM
February 17, 2005
Builders Wary of Pursuing Site Sought by Jets for a Stadium
The NY Times:
A day after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced that it would allow anyone to bid on the development rights to the West Side railyards, which the Jets want for a stadium, real estate executives began wondering who would dare to take up the offer.
Developers have no incentive to bid under the current zoning regulations and are concerned with drawing the ire of Mayor Bloomberg.
Posted by lumi at 8:25 PM
IT'S NOT ABOUT THE ARENA
NY Press, "OLYMPICS GO HOME": Part deux to Aaron Naparstek's column last week, "THE BROOKLYN RATS," where he took a hard look at Ratner's plan. This week he features the UNITY plan.
While FCR touts its ability to create jobs and affordable housing, [Urban Designer Marshall] Brown believes that the community can do better and expect more. "We can go beyond housing and build homes. We can go beyond jobs and build businesses and careers." Ultimately, this is the biggest innovation of the UNITY planóthe idea that those traditional political commodities, "jobs" and "housing," aren't enough. For hundreds of millions of dollars of public money, New Yorkers can expect more.
Posted by lumi at 7:19 AM
Forest City Ratner withdraws from community forum
Forest City Ratner Companies [FCRC] withdrew its participation in a community forum organized by the Fort Greene Association [FGA] on February 28th, 2005. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss issues, both pro and con, concerning the proposed development of the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards and to provide information to the Fort Greene community, which will be dramatically affected by the consequences of the project. FCRC’s participation had been confirmed by its spokesperson, Randall Toure and additionally through the office of the Brooklyn Borough President, Marty Markowitz.
Despite the FCRC withdrawal, the FGA will proceed with this important forum.
FGA BROOKLYN ATLANTIC YARDS INFORMATIONAL FORUM
Monday, February 28th, 7:30PM
Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church
(at South Oxford Street & LafayetteAvenue in Fort Greene)
Posted by lumi at 7:10 AM
A Fight to Keep their Homes
The Christian Science Monitor: In the case of Kelo v. New London, how did homes, people and dreams, get in the way of progress, corporations and politics? Read about the sacrifices made by property owners who want to save their homes.
NoLandGrab: Whatever fate the US Supreme Court hands down to the New London homeowners will have some bearing on Ratner's plans. This is the first case in over 50 years where the Court will provide some direction as to how the Fifth Amendment's eminent domain clause should be interpreted.
Posted by lumi at 6:50 AM
The Whitney Should Move, Not Expand Museums
The NY Sun: Francis Morrone's opines that Ratner could be just the guy to bring the Witney to the BAM neighborhood.
In fact, Bruce Ratner could be the link. This developer has shown a notable interest in that part of Brooklyn. He also knows from Renzo Piano, as Mr. Ratner is the developer of the New York Times Building. Having brought Target to the neighborhood, surely he could bring the Whitney. Maybe Target could even start a new line of Whitney branded merchandise.
Posted by lumi at 6:44 AM
Ridge Hill critics speak out
The Journal News: Brooklynites are not alone. Opponents of Forest City Ratner's $600 million Ridge Hill Village project in Yonkers had to hold their own public meeting to have their voices heard.
Representatives of Forest City Ratner were not invited to the meeting.... The developer has angered some residents with his company's tactics intended to win support for the project, including enthusiastic projections of the project's expected impact on the local economy.
Posted by lumi at 6:37 AM
February 16, 2005
Stadium Fear Factor
The Village Voice's Tom Robbins gets former MTA chairman Richard Ravitch and Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association to reveal why only out-of-staters might be bidding on the Hudson Yards:
Last year, Doctoroff lobbied the RPA heavily not to oppose him on the West Side. "We were under all kinds of pressure," Yaro said. "Our board members were as well." Two members, Keyspan Energy and developer Jerry Speyer, both quit the board after Doctoroff's arm-twisting, according to Yaro."There is a reign of terror in this town," Yaro said. "The litmus test is 'Do you support the Olympics?' If so, then you can do business with the city."
Also be sure to read Tom Robbin's History Lesson of West Side development.
Posted by amy at 9:53 PM
Regional Planning Association finds MTA Bidding Process "Fatally Flawed"
Robert Yaro, President of the Regional Planning Association, supports a open bidding process, but finds the competitive bidding process for the Hudson Railyards to be "fatally flawed."
Regional Plan Association Statement
While RPA strongly supports an open bidding process for the MTA's western rail yard, the process proposed yesterday is fatally flawed. By requiring bidders to assume that the current, outdated zoning remains in place, the process will make it impossible for the site to support its "highest and best" use or for the MTA to receive fair market value for the site. The MTA's own appraisal of the site assumes an override of the low-density manufacturing use to allow for valuable high-density, mixed use development. The appraisal assumption is perfectly reasonable considering that the land surrounding the site, including the eastern half of the MTA's property, is being rezoned for dense office and residential uses. With the City declaring that it will not entertain any rezoning of the site, and with silence from the State, which has the power to override City zoning, it is highly unlikely that any developer will bid on the site.
By not assuming the necessary zoning override, the State and the MTA are artificially deflating the site's value. By contrast, the Jets have already been promised a zoning override and are receiving $375 million in state and city subsidy to build a platform over the Yards, a subsidy that is not being offered to any other bidder. Under these rigged conditions, the Jets may be the only bidder. This is clearly not a true open bidding process. The only way to ensure that the taxpayers and straphangers of New York receive full value for this important asset is to provide a level playing field for all bidders, ensuring the winning bidder that the State will support its project with the necessary agreements and zoning changes. We urge the MTA and the Empire State Development Corporation to provide these assurances before the Request for Proposals is finalized.
--Robert D. Yaro, President
Posted by lumi at 5:52 PM
Justice Talking: Private Property, Public Interest
NPR, Justice Talking: The NPR weekly legal debate program tackles eminent domain as the Supreme Court is preparing to hear the case of Kelo v. New London.
Local color: Freddy's Bar Manager Donald O'Finn explains how this beloved neighborhood bar is going nowhere soon.
Posted by lumi at 8:59 AM
Open bidding? MTA seeks final offers for Hudson Railyards
The MTA's call for final competitive bids for Hudson Railyard development rights sure looks like an open bidding process. But, with Bloomberg throwing all of his political muscle behind the Jets' bid, will anyone else set up to the plate?
The NY Times: Transit Agency Seeks Other Bids on West Side Site
NY Newsday: MTA sets deadline for rail yard bids
NY Newsday: New York's MTA asks for 'best and final' offers for West Side property
NY1: MTA Opens Hudson Rail Yards To Competitive Bidding
Posted by lumi at 8:25 AM
TONIGHT: MARSHALL BROWN TO PRESENT "UNITY" PLAN TO BOERUM HILL COMMUNITY
Wednesday, February 16, 7pm
YWCA, 30 Third Avenue at Atlantic
The Boerum Hill Association and the Hoyt Street Association are co-hosting a presentation by urban designer, Marshall Brown, on the UNITY Plan - Understanding, imagining and transforming the Atlantic Yards.
The Unity Plan is the product of the Atlantic Yards Development Workshop, a community planning session hosted in the spring of 2004 by City Council member Letitia James. According to Marshall Brown, "the Atlantic Yards Development WorkShop is A"a collaborative association with a dual mission: transforming the Atlantic Yards site into a place that is culturally and economically productive is one part of the mission A-transforming the development process is another."
The presentation of the concept plan with time for questions from the community. More info www.boerumhillbrooklyn.org.
Posted by lumi at 8:05 AM
Kidd's not sold on Jersey
NY Daily News:
Jason Kidd still yearns to play with an All-Star big man, specifically Minnesota's Kevin Garnett.
Five sources told the Daily News that Kidd wants to join the NBA's MVP and that the star point guard is not over last summer's Kenyon Martin fiasco.
Posted by lumi at 6:20 AM
February 15, 2005
Countdown to Kelo.
CT, local coverage:
New London property owners are looking forward to their day in court. On February 22nd, the US Supreme Court will hear the first property rights case to come before the court in nearly 50 years.
The Hartford Courant: Residents Ask Supreme Court To Block Eminent Domain In New London
News Channel 10 (CT): Residents Take City's Development Plans To U.S. Supreme Court
The Hour: Standing their ground
Posted by lumi at 8:45 AM
February 14, 2005
Open Bidding May Erupt on West Side
The NY Sun: Developers discuss pros and cons of developing the Hudson Railyards as politicians and public call for open bidding.
NoLandGrab: Open bidding on the West Side would set a precedent for the Atlantic Yards site.
Posted by lumi at 11:15 PM
Final Brief Filed In Fort Trumbull Case
The Day:
Final Brief Filed In Fort Trumbull Case
Lawyers Take Last Step Before High Court Hears Oral Arguments On Eminent Domain
The Institute for Justice delivered its final brief in the Fort Trumbull eminent domain case to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, once again urging the court to limit the right of governments to take property from one private owner and hand it to another who can produce more jobs or tax revenue.
The brief is the second filed by the Institute for Justice and the final milestone in the case before oral arguments take place Feb. 22.
Final Brief Filed In Fort Trumbull Case
Lawyers Take Last Step Before High Court Hears Oral Arguments On Eminent Domain
By KATE MORAN Day Staff Writer, New London Published on 2/12/2005
New London — The Institute for Justice delivered its final brief in the Fort Trumbull eminent domain case to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday, once again urging the court to limit the right of governments to take property from one private owner and hand it to another who can produce more jobs or tax revenue.
The brief is the second filed by the Institute for Justice and the final milestone in the case before oral arguments take place Feb. 22.
Attorneys for the firm used their last licks to convince the court that the rights of private citizens are in jeopardy so long as government has the authority to act as an all-powerful real estate broker that can force them out of their homes or businesses.
The Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives cities and states the right to seize property for a “public use” as long as they provide “just compensation” to the displaced owner. At issue in the Fort Trumbull case is how far governments can stretch the definition of public use.
Attorneys for the New London Development Corp., the agency that condemned 15 properties in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood to usher in a hotel, rental housing and offices, argue in their brief that distressed cities like New London need the tool of eminent domain to facilitate projects that will benefit the public by generating the tax revenue needed to fund education, public safety and other government services.
As the Institute for Justice, the libertarian, public-interest law firm representing the Fort Trumbull residents, sees it, the public benefits that arise from economic development are too intangible and often too speculative to justify displacing people from their homes or businesses.
Attorneys for the institute claim the question turns on the integrity of the language of the U.S. Constitution. If public use can be construed to mean the general benefits that arise from ordinary commerce, they argue, the phrase is drained of all practical meaning.
“It must mean something other than ordinary private use,” the brief asserts. “On some fundamental, bedrock level, the examination of the meaning of the English term ‘public use' must inquire into the actual use to be made of the taken property and the extent, if any, to which such use is something that society associates with government activities, not just private profits.”
Attorneys for the NLDC had similarly used their brief to parse the public use clause of the Fifth Amendment, arguing that its primary intention was to ensure just compensation, not to create a narrow definition of public use.
In its 20-page brief, the institute urges the high court either to reject economic development as a public use or to require some proof, such as contracts with a developer, to ensure the benefits promised by a project have a reasonable certainty of coming to fruition. Because economic development is a riskier enterprise than, say, the building of a school, the institute says it wants some assurance that the sacrifice of home and business owners will not be for naught.
Ed O'Connell, an attorney for the NLDC, argued Friday that the institute is trying to use such a heightened scrutiny test to trap governments in an impossible position. If governments come ready with signed contracts, he said, they might be accused of improper collusion with developers to remove owners from their properties. If they have no contract, he added, the institute would deride their plans as too speculative.
“They want to put cities between a rock and a hard place,” O'Connell said.
The institute believes a failure to curtail the use of eminent domain will lead to open season on private property owners.
“Every home and every business, everywhere in the country, will be subject to condemnation if a local government prefers some other private party's use of property,” its attorneys wrote Friday in their brief.
The NLDC, on the other hand, argues that distressed and crowded cities like New London will lose out to suburban or rural towns, which can offer developers large chunks of vacant land for corporate campuses and other economic engines, unless they retain eminent domain as a tool to acquire land for redevelopment.
“Employing the power of eminent domain to revitalize a municipality's economy satisfies the public use requirement,” the NLDC attorneys wrote in their brief last month. “This is especially true in urban settings, in which the problem of land assembly often acts as a barrier to economic revitalization.”
Posted by lumi at 8:38 AM
Similar Property Disputes Around The Nation
The Day, New London, CT: Property owners and developers across the nation (including Bruce Ratner and the Prospect Heights' property owners who are standing in his way) are holding their breath for the outcome of the case of Kelo v. New London. The case will be heard by the US Supreme Court on Feb 22 and a decision is expected in June.
Similar Property Disputes Around The Nation
By KATE MORAN
Day Staff Writer, New London
Published on 2/13/2005
The Kelo v. New London case headed to the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 22 could give state and municipal governments the express authority to use eminent domain — the seizure of private property — as a tool for economic development. For half a century, cities have already been using eminent domain to clear away blighted or aging neighborhoods to usher in development that will improve the streetscape and generate higher tax revenue. Here's a look at what's happening around the country:
Ventnor City, N.J., a town of 13,000 in the shadow of Atlantic City, is preparing to condemn a neighborhood that town officials say has become noisy and congested. The area includes nail salons, dry cleaners, a florist, card shop and convenience store, as well as numerous rental properties that officials blame as the source of the noise and parking crunch. The town sees a cure to the problems in the proposal for 375 condominiums and townhouses and 55,000 square feet of retail space floated by two private companies, Pulte Homes and the Alliance Co. The Hispanic Alliance of Atlantic County, which filed an amicus brief in the Kelo case, has filed a civil rights lawsuit accusing the town of trying to clear Latinos and other minorities out of Ventnor. Forty percent of the town's 2,200 Latinos live in the area slated for redevelopment.
A legal fight started brewing in January when the city of Tempe, Ariz., condemned 20 small businesses now operating on the site of a former landfill. The city intends to turn the property over to developers who have promised to clean up the landfill and then build a $200 million shopping center complete with movie screens and big-box retailers. Opinion is divided in this conservative state, where the public wants to see the contamination removed but is deeply ambivalent about the government's intrusion on private property rights. The ideological split got fuzzy in December, when attorney Tom Liddy, a conservative radio talk show host and the former executive director of the Arizona chapter of the Institute for Justice — the libertarian law firm that represents the Fort Trumbull property owners — decided to represent the developers.
Ogden, Utah, is threatening to condemn several homes to make room for a Super Wal-Mart. City planners say the proposal would improve an unattractive neighborhood near the entrance to downtown and generate $700,000 in additional sales tax revenue per year. While most of the 33 residents are pleased they will be able to unload property they have not been able to sell on the open market, others say they want to stay and that the city should help them fix up their blighted property. A local attorney is doing pro bono work for those owners because her grandfather lost his tailor shop to the failed Ogden City Mall in the early 1980s.
Posted by lumi at 8:37 AM
Firms in way of stadium plan protest
The Times, London, UK: THE Olympic committee has agreed to meet representatives of more than 300 businesses that will be bulldozed to make way for an Olympic stadium if London wins the 2012 Games.
NoLandGrab: Hopefully the IOC will meeting with groups in NYC who would be adversly affected by Bloomberg's attempt to attach every controversial development to the Olympic Bid.
Posted by lumi at 8:26 AM
Nets spoil K-Mart's return, but fans are still devoted
Though the Nets creamed the Nuggets, Kenyon Martin took the court in the Meadowlands to a chorus of fans chanting "Ken-yon Mar-tin" -- a reminder of what might have been if Ratner hadn't screwed up and traded him to Denver.
NY Daily News: K-Mart's Rocky return. Nets hammer old mate and Denver.
NY Post: MARTIN STIRS UP SWAMP
Bergen Record: Nets spoil K-Mart return
NY Post: VINCE JUST ISN'T KENYON
NY Daily News: Ratner deals with trade just fine
Posted by lumi at 7:18 AM
February 13, 2005
Residents ask Supreme Court to block eminent domain in New London
NY Newsday: Seven homeowners are getting ready for their case to be heard by the US Supreme Court in hopes to save their homes from New London's wrecking ball of progress.
"It's quite an amalgamation of people to be taking this case where it's going," said Matthew Dery, who lives in one of four houses on a compound his family has owned since 1901. "It's a case of the rich eating the poor. Sometimes the poor are difficult to digest."
One of the toughest things for Dery to accept is the fact that New London doesn't know for sure what will replace his neighborhood. The city has a plan, but no developer is under contract to complete it. "What they're saying," Dery said, "is that anything that we put there will be better than you."
Posted by lumi at 11:48 PM
Olympic Committee To Be Welcomed To New York City
NY1 discusses the wining and dining of the IOC. "The tab for all the hoopla will be picked up by the NYC2012 Committee, the private group spearheading