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April 27, 2010
Daniel Goldstein, last Yards holdout, speaks!
The Brooklyn Paper, Op Ed
by Daniel Goldstein
For nearly seven years, at considerable personal risk, I used my home to fight the abuse of eminent domain and Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project. Without my home, the misguided project — opposed by a fierce community movement I came to lead — could not happen. With no democratic political process available to the community, the not-so-simple act of keeping my home was the best way I could affect what was clearly a fixed deal.
But I never promised to be an ineffectual martyr.
On March 1, the state took title to my home, effectively ending the possibility of winning the fight on eminent domain grounds. Those who wish to deem me a “sellout” are flatly wrong. After condemnation, I had nothing meaningful left to sell that might affect the fight or achieve a single one of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s goals.
The state sought a court order to evict me on May 17. Facing that — and a judge who wanted the parties to resolve the eviction — I agreed to leave on May 7 rather than the 17. Ratner also demanded a gag order and complete disassociation from DDDB. I refused both demands, affirming my First Amendment rights.
The media, agape at the settlement figures — though never agape at the size of Ratner’s public subsidy — missed some key things last week:
In the past six years, Ratner’s representatives approached me four times, offering to buy me out in exchange for my abandoning key eminent domain litigation, which threatened their project. Each time, they knew that the opposition to Atlantic Yards would suffer a huge blow if I sold my home.
...I rejected a settlement every time I met with Ratner’s people, instead offering to help facilitate a negotiation with the community about the project. That, however, was of no interest to them.
The Brooklyn Paper also invited ACORN's Bertha Lewis to pen her own op-ed. Given the chance to temper her crazy talk from last week, she submitted the very same rant.
Posted by eric at April 27, 2010 11:42 AM