A Fight Worth Fighting Is A Fight Worth Fighting Until The Very End

The powerful Cleveland Ratner family has finally pushed the Daniel Goldstein family out of its Brooklyn, N. Y. home. But they haven’t shut him up.

And it cost them $3 million, not the $500,000 deal first offered.

Goldstein says that he took the offer without a pledge to keep quiet about it. Although he had to step aside as chief spokesperson of the citizen organization – Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) – he didn’t sign on, as usually happens, to retreat from speaking about the project.

“Contrary to press reports I have not given up my First Amendment rights or my involvement in Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn,” said Goldstein.

Bruce Ratner, head of the development firm called Forest City Ratner, is building the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn – a housing, retail and arena development.

Goldstein has led a vigorous citizen’s revolt against the project. It seems to me a model of opposition nationally for citizen’s groups fighting rapacious development that destroys communities.

Here are some links to find out more about the project and its opposition:
Click here

Here is Goldstein’s statement on the agreement between Goldstein and Ratner:
Click here

And finally, DDDB’s organizational statement on the deal:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 23, 2010

The following is a statement from Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s Board of Directors and Steering Committee:

As many of you know, our colleague, Daniel Goldstein, co-founder and spokesperson for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, reached an agreement on Wednesday with New York State and Forest City Ratner to vacate his home by May 7th. With little leverage – a state Supreme Court judge had already allowed the state to take title to his home on March 1st – Daniel was forced to relinquish his role as spokesperson for DDDB in order to secure a reasonable settlement for his family. While we are saddened to lose him as a spokesperson, we wholly and unequivocally support his decision.

As Daniel made clear in the statement he issued yesterday, however, he will continue to play a key role with DDDB as we fight on against the Atlantic Yards project, and he refused – at the risk of scuttling the settlement entirely – to agree to the gag order that Forest City Ratner so badly wanted him to accept. And most of you will not know this: over the past 6 years Daniel rejected four attempts by Ratner to get him to drop the two key eminent domain lawsuits on which he was lead plaintiff.

It is impossible for us to adequately express our admiration for, and our gratitude to, Daniel for the incredible work he’s done over the past six-and-a-half years on behalf of DDDB and the broad coalition of property owners, tenants and community groups fighting Atlantic Yards. While he has certainly not been alone in this fight, he was the only one among us who owned a home on the spot on which Bruce Ratner wanted to build center court. Without Daniel and his principled desire to stay in his home, this fight would likely have been over long ago. Thanks in large part to Daniel’s steadfastness, and to your efforts and financial support, our battle for justice goes on.

While Daniel has played a critical and tireless role, he’d be the first to say that the fight against Atlantic Yards is much, much bigger than Daniel Goldstein, and about so much more than one man trying to save his home. It’s about putting a stop to eminent domain abuse, backroom deals, the squandering of public assets, transparency in government and the workings of democracy – and making sure something like Atlantic Yards never, ever happens again, anywhere. The thousands of you who have donated your hard-earned money and your time to DDDB to fight Atlantic Yards have done so to save a neighborhood, and a borough, a city, and a state, from eminent domain abuse and the ugly corruption of public process.

That’s why we will continue to press the fight in court, pursuing the Article 78 lawsuit seeking to compel the Empire State Development Corporation to issue new Determinations and Findings for the Atlantic Yards project, along with the suit seeking to overturn state approval of the Modified General Project Plan, for which we filed a motion to reconsider on April 8th based on clear evidence that the state intentionally omitted critical evidence from the public record. And it’s why we will continue to push state and city officials to find the political will to stop or alter the project. And why we’ll continue to work with elected leaders like state Senator Bill Perkins to pass legislation that fundamentally protects the rights of home and business owners in New York State from eminent domain abuse.

DDDB and Daniel have stood for, and continue to stand for responsible development. We continue to stand by our principles. We have never opposed development and never opposed affordable housing. We have advocated for responsibly developing the rail yards–through a democratic process with real community input–with affordable housing and truly accessible open space. We have fought against the abuse of power that subverted the City’s democratic land use review processes, and misused the power of eminent domain that resulted in the taking of Daniel’s home and the homes and businesses of many others. It was a misuse of a power that in the past–and in this instance–victimized many, especially people not as fortunate as Daniel to have had the ability to wage a fight against the abuse of that power.

All of us are sick and tired of Bruce Ratner and the ESDC and Atlantic Yards, with good reason. It’s never been a fair fight, and the deck has been stacked in Ratner’s favor from the very start. But fights worth fighting are worth fighting to the end. Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn is not giving up the fight, Daniel Goldstein isn’t giving up the fight, and we know that you’re not willing to give up the fight, either. As Daniel wrote yesterday: see you at the next meeting.

Roldo Bartimole celebrates 50 years of news reporting this year. He published and wrote Point of View, a newsletter about Cleveland, for 32 years. He worked for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal in the 1960s.

He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991.

WIN $500 by using the free Cool Cleveland app now available for your iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch by clicking here, and for your Android smartphone or tablet by clicking here.

[Click here to return to the current issue of Cool Cleveland]

Does viewing Chief Wahoo make one susceptible to accepting other damaging stereotypes? That is what’s suggested by new research.

An article on a web site called “Miller-McCune, Smart Journalism, Real Solutions” explains the transference of stereotypes. The article has a link to the study in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

If viewing Chief Wahoo could result not only in damaging stereotyping of Native Americans but of African-Americans, Chinese-Americans and Hispanics, too, the symbol of the Cleveland Indians baseball team is a triple play of discrimination.

Here is a link to the article: Click here

Roldo Bartimole celebrates 50 years of news reporting this year. He published and wrote Point of View, a newsletter about Cleveland, for 32 years. He worked for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal in the 1960s.

He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991.

WIN $500 by using the free Cool Cleveland app now available for your iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch by clicking here, and for your Android smartphone or tablet by clicking here.

[Click here to return to the current issue of Cool Cleveland]

Wait a minute now. I read where “public-private collaborators” have announced that University Hospitals and the Cleveland Clinic are telling vendors that they better locate in the Euclid Avenue Corridor.

I really don’t have an argument against trying to get more medical businesses to locate in the city. But the threats came over as a bit over the top.

And isn’t it a bit hypocritical of Steven Standley, chief administrator of University Hospitals, to tell vendors “You need to move into the city, or we will find somebody who will.” So he told the Plain Dealer. That’s a blunt threat.

It is an especially a two-faced threat for a spokesperson from University Hospitals.

UH is building a brand new multi-million dollar hospital. It is not in Cleveland. Not on Euclid Avenue. So Standley isn’t taking his own advice.

Instead, University Hospitals is building a $230 million medical center in Beachwood at the Chagrin Highlands development in Beachwood.

The 53-acre medical complex is being built on City of Cleveland land handed over to the late Dick Jacobs. It is virgin land that now is housing businesses – and a hospital – that should be in downtown Cleveland.

So much for that regionalism talk too.

We can thank the leadership of former Mayor George Voinovich and Council President George Forbes for this grand robbery of Cleveland. They did it in the dark too.

And UH has the nerve to threaten other businesses to locate in Cleveland “or else.”

By the way, the Plain Dealer – as in almost every single dirty deal as the Chagrin Highlands deal – fully supported it.

Now companies as Eaton Corp. flee downtown Cleveland for these virgin lands, made more enticing by Gov. Voinovich administration’s gift of more than $130 million in I-271 road improvements and new exchange to serve the Beachwood location.

Do as I say, not as a do, I guess.

Here the Chagrin Highlands:  http://www.chagrinhighlands.com/

EMBARRASSING MISTAKE

Editor Susan Goldberg quickly on Wednesday corrected an embarrassing mistake from the Tuesday paper’s Health section.

The story was headlined: “Women learn to fight back against attack.”

The drawing, unfortunately, that dominated the top of the page – 10 by 8 inches – showed two figures, one a woman, the other a man choking her. Clearly, the drawing showed the assailant as black and the victim as white. Looking you just had to ask “Why? What’s the message?”

I don’t believe it was meant to be racist. But that’s the way it turned out. About as clueless a rendering as I’ve seen.

You have to wonder where the editors were at the Plain Dealer. Maybe this is a perfect example of the cost staff cuts. They sure weren’t giving a glance at their newspaper.

Goldberg obviously noticed also. “To avoid similar situations, a senior editor will approve every illustration that appears on our pages, taking particular pains to look for unintended imagery that could easily be misconstrued. We apologize.”

Well, thank you.

Goldberg wrote on the front page of a similar section that the “illustration on the Health section front Tuesday offended scores of Northeast Ohioans, and rightly so.”

Better believe it.

No mention was made of how many complaints were made to the paper. Surely not as many as shocked by it.

CITY’S DECLINE CHECKED, SAYS LARKIN – OH, REALLY

It had to be one of the most misleading headlines ever in the newspaper – “Gateway checked Cleveland’s decline.”

Wouldn’t you expect that from an old buddy of Dick Jacobs. You have to wonder just how many freebies Dick gave Brent. You will remember that he took Brent on his jet to an All-Star game in New York City. Why Larkin wasn’t sacked then simply attests to journalism’s illness. Having him still spout his stuff further attests its condition hasn’t changed much.

Here we are 20 years later and what’s the worry – oh, the Cleveland Indians may be leaving town. Again. What can we give them this time?

Well, I guess we spent a billion dollars or more for these 20 glorious years.

Yes, we did get some new night spots. Not that we wouldn’t have gotten ANY development anyway. But Larkin should walk the downtown streets and see where he thinks Cleveland has been saved. Maybe it’s only the spots he’s taken to that he sees.

Then he can walk some of Cleveland’s neighborhoods and tell us what’s been saved there.

A hundred yard dash down East 4^th Street doesn’t make a saved city.

And you might read today’s Plain Dealer front page. The Cleveland schools – left out of the 1990s by tax abatements and exemptions – expect to have 40 students per classroom.

Unless, of course, teachers give back from their less than ideal pay checks. Oh, yeah.

Don’t, however, asked for a Brent Larkin column asking the team owners – past and present – to put up a dime for all the Comeback City they have enjoyed.

Roldo Bartimole celebrates 50 years of news reporting this year. He published and wrote Point of View, a newsletter about Cleveland, for 32 years. He worked for the Plain Dealer and Wall Street Journal in the 1960s.

He was a 2004 Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame recipient and won the national Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in 1991.

WIN $500 by using the free Cool Cleveland app now available for your iPhone, iPad & iPod Touch by clicking here, and for your Android smartphone or tablet by clicking here.

[Click here to return to the current issue of Cool Cleveland]

Posted on Thursday, April 22nd, 2010, in BizTech, News, Roldo Bartimole | No Comments »