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April 22, 2010
Bertha Lewis, ACORN CEO, Not Happy for Daniel Goldstein
NY Observer
by Eliot Brown
Bertha Lewis, the CEO of the housing advocacy group ACORN—a powerful political force before it was mostly dissolved and reconstituted amid scandal—has some harsh words about Daniel Goldstein, the last holdout in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards project who on Wednesday agreed to vacate his apartment for $3 million.
In an email sent Wednesday night to reporters, Ms. Lewis unleashed a vitriolic diatribe against Mr. Goldstein, the public face of opposition group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, painting him as an obstructionist who masked self-interest with local activism.
...The harsh words illustrate the tensions that still run strong more than three years after the project was approved. ACORN, led by Ms. Lewis, ended up partnering with developer Forest City Ratner and signing onto a Community Benefits Agreement that pledged more than 2,000 units of low-income housing for the project. Her group's decision proved controversial, and the opponents such as Mr. Goldstein then portrayed her as a turncoat who sold out to developer Forest City Ratner. Forest City indeed became an ally of ACORN's after the deal, later giving the group financial assistance. And like other signatories to the CBA, there is good reason to think ACORN, or perhaps a successor organization, would receive financial gain from overseeing the below-market rate housing. [Emphasis, NLG]
Related coverage...
Reason Hit & Run, Atlantic Yards and the Despicable Bertha Lewis
Of course, Lewis is much more than just a “housing advocate who supported the project,” she was the CEO of ACORN, a group that signed a contract with Bruce Ratner “to publicly support the [Atlantic Yards] Project by, among other things, appearing with the Developer before the Public Parties, community organizations and the media as part of a coordinated effort to realize and advance the Project.” In return, Ratner pledged to include a certain amount of “affordable housing” in the project, units that ACORN stood to make a fortune from marketing and managing. As the New York Post reported, “Anita MonCrief, a former ACORN official-turned-whistleblower, estimates the anticipated deal could bring the group $5 million to $10 million annually over multiple years.”
And the money didn’t stop there. In 2008 Ratner bailed ACORN out to the tune of $1.5 million dollars after the news broke that Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, had embezzled nearly $1 million from the group back in 2000 and the national leadership had covered the crime up for eight years. The financial fallout from that scandal threatened to ruin ACORN until Ratner stepped in with a $1 million load and a $500,000 grant. This desperately-needed cash kept ACORN alive and allowed it to keep providing cover for Ratner’s corporate welfare and eminent domain abuse.
Posted by eric at April 22, 2010 12:49 PM