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April 6, 2007
"Time is Fleeting" Says Busy Judge
Realizes delay in eminent domain decision means money for behind-schecule Yards project
Brooklyn Downtown Star
By Nik Kovac
While the environmental lawsuit has grabbed all the headlines, Brooklyn Downtown Star takes a look back to last week's oral arguments in the federal eminent domain case:
The plaintiffs in the Atlantic Yards case are loath to be forced into state court for those obvious reasons, and because the New York State judicial system is not exactly known as being the most politically independent of judicial bodies. In other words, if this case gets dismissed by the feds, it's just about over even before it starts.
That sense of desperation was palpable in Downtown Brooklyn's federal courthouse last Friday afternoon, as the plaintiffs' lawyers tried to convince the presiding judge - Nicholas Garaufis - not to follow the recommendation of his magistrate. The fact that Garaufis decided to hear oral arguments on the case at all - rather than just read the written briefs - was an unusual acknowledgment of the significance of this case, a fact he freely admitted.
"Time is fleeting," he said. "I take it there's a great deal of money at stake in delay." Indeed, the $4 billion proposal to tear down several city blocks, platform over an LIRR railyard, and then build 16 skyscrapers and an NBA arena is already several years behind schedule.
When an ESDC lawyer went on a bit too long in her opening remarks, Garaufis snapped. "I'm not conducting a survey here," he screamed toward the ESDC's Preeta Bansal. "This isn't law school. Don't bother me with a primer. It's insulting. You don't do that to Justice Breyer. Don't do it to me. I have a number of important cases. I'm a busy guy."
Plaintiffs are seeking "discovery" of documents in order to help prove that developer Forest City Ratner indicated to NY City and State which properties would need to be condemned for the Atlantic Yards project:
"The mayor's a successful businessman," argued plaintiff's lawyer Mathew Brinckerhoff, "and so is Bruce Ratner, who had this plan and the mayor said, 'great idea,' but in doing so he abdicated his responsibility as a public official."
Brinckerhoff and his clients want access to all the early e-mails between the developer and the government, in order to prove that the ESDC is condemning merely the properties that FCRC wanted, and not the properties that would have been the best "public use" for the land.
"If you're successful with me [on the dismissal issue]," asked Garaufis of Brinckerhoff, "what kind of discovery do you think you'll need?"
Brinckerhoff responded that it was an "unusual" case in which "the question is: what was the intent of the individuals who made the decision? In order to explore that, we're going to need a lot of documents, mostly e-mails."
NoLandGrab: In a headline after the jump, in the print version of the article, the Brooklyn Downtown Star claims that "Plaintiffs Want Personal E-mails Released," which is not entirely true. Those who work for the government are still considered to be "persons," but email correspondence between City/State officials and the developer are not "personal" — they are property of the government.
Posted by lumi at April 6, 2007 10:27 AM