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May 4, 2010
“$hhh!” A Thieving Developer Wants Daniel Goldstein Quiet About Its Misdeeds, Meaning the Atlantic Yards Fight Ain’t Over
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White examines Forest City Ratner's headlong attempt to muzzle Daniel Goldstein.
After nearly seven years of fighting to stay in his home Mr. Goldstein, already stripped of his home ownership and facing imminent eviction as eminent domain was being wielded against him to build the basketball arena that is proposed to be owned by Forest City Ratner and a Russian close-to-the-Kremlin oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, agreed to the compensation figure he would receive. That compensation turns out to amount to far less than that value of his property’s development rights and therefore far less than the value of what was taken from him, far less than the value of what we think he should have been entitled to. More on this further in.
The thing that was so odd in this process and about which the media yet failed to report is how important it was to Forest City Ratner to attempt to deprive Daniel Goldstein of his right to speak out against the project. Because of the way it was negotiated, with Daniel Goldstein stoutly refusing to give up his free speech rights, we will never know the exact dollar value Forest City Ratner put on his unrelinquished rights. We would have been thrilled if Mr. Goldstein had played the negotiations in a way that teased out that precise figure before he rejected it but had he been so clever he could have run the risk of appearing unprincipled and insincere to the judge.* Nevertheless, the fact that Forest City Ratner pressed hard to deprive him of his rights, enlisting the weight of the state and Judge Gerges in the negotiations to do so, has to be viewed as highly significant and startling.
(* Mr. Goldstein did find himself in a bit of an ironic PR box: It seems the more principled one is, the more altruistically principled people want you to be. Some thought Mr. Goldstein should have taken none of the compensation that was offered late in the game and should have been led out of his apartment in chain gang-style with the rest of his family.)
NoLandGrab: If Daniel Goldstein was in it for the money, then Forest City must've been in it for the stupidity. Claiming losses of $6.7 million per month while unable to take vacant possession, wouldn't it have made sense for them to offer him $6 million or $7 million on March 1st, the day that Justice Abe Gerges handed title over to New York State.
Posted by eric at May 4, 2010 7:49 PM