Source: http://bfeldman68.blogspot.com/2009/11/
Timestamp: 2018-03-17 10:35:04
Document Index: 382729379

Matched Legal Cases: ['art 18', 'arts 1', 'art 17', 'arts 1', 'art 16', 'arts 1', 'art 15', 'arts 1', 'art 14', 'arts 1', 'art 10', 'arts 1', 'art 9', 'arts 1', 'art 8', 'arts 1', 'art 1']

Bob Feldman 68: November 2009
`Columbiagate': Is Columbia University's West Harlem-Manhattanville Campus Expansion Project Illegal?--Part 18
In a January 21, 2009 petition to the First Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, a New York City civil liberties lawyer named Norman Siegel presented the legal case against New York State’s Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] allowing the Columbia University Administration to move forward on its 17-acre campus expansion project in the West Harlem-Manhattanville neighborhood, just north of West 125th Street. (See below for parts 1 to 17)
“Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] colluded with Columbia, asking it to provide a basis for the finding of blight and allowing it to create conditions that could be used to try and establish such a basis.
“ESDC colluded with Columbia in hiring Columbia’s consultant AKRF to perform the blight study, in tailoring with AKRF the methodology of such a study to achieve a predetermined result, and in allowing Columbia to participate in and control the gathering of evidence, and in allowing Columbia to review and direct such a study.
“ESDC engaged in deception in its allegations of the neutrality of Columbia’s consultant AKRF…ESDC engaged in deception in its repeated misrepresentation of what records it possessed in relation to the Columbia Project…
“…The City Planning Commission [CPC]…failed to consider impacts of the threatened use of eminent domain in driving sales to Columbia, and consequent loss of businesses and jobs, and in causing the neglect of building repairs, and in fueling speculative run up of real estate prices in the wider West Harlem area…”
Posted by b.f. at 6:39 PM No comments: Links to this post
`COLUMBIAGATE': Is Columbia University's West Harlem-Manhattanville Campus Expansion Project Illegal?--Part 17
In a January 21, 2009 petition to the First Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, a New York City civil liberties lawyer named Norman Siegel presented the legal case against New York State’s Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] allowing the Columbia University Administration to move forward on its 17-acre campus expansion project in the West Harlem-Manhattanville neighborhood, just north of West 125th Street. (See below for parts 1 to 16)
“Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] failed to prepare a carefully considered plan when it failed to determine the public purposes of the project prior to selection of Columbia for the overwhelming benefit of such a project.
“ESDC failed to prepare a carefully considered plan when it failed to consider any competing proposal to Columbia’s General Project Plan [GPP], including as-of-right development under the Community Board [CB] 9 197 (a) plan.
“ESDC failed to prepare a carefully considered plan when it placed no limitation on Columbia’s GPP…limiting its displacement of current West Harlem business and residents or preventing it from defeating the intent of the community as expressed in the CB 9 197 (a) plan.
“ESDC made no effort to achieve public benefits proportional to the private benefits likely to flow from Columbia’s proposal.
“ESDC, together with NYC Economic Development Corporation [EDC], Department of City Planning [DEP], the Deputy Mayor’s Office for Development, the New York City Law Department and other agencies worked to keep planning secret…and time the project for Columbia’s convenience and political advantage…”
Posted by b.f. at 9:47 PM No comments: Links to this post
`COLUMBIAGATE': Is Columbia University's West Harlem-Manhattanville Campus Expansion Project Illegal?--Part 16
In a January 21, 2009 petition to the First Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, a New York City civil liberties lawyer named Norman Siegel presented the legal case against New York State’s Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] allowing the Columbia University Administration to move forward on its 17-acre campus expansion project in the West Harlem-Manhattanville neighborhood, just north of West 125th Street. (See below for parts 1 to 15)
“…Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] has cooperated in a developer driven project, conceived by Columbia, initiated by Columbia, configured and defined by Columbia to maximize its own private benefit, and timed and directed by Columbia.
“ESDC, together with Economic Development Corporation [EDC] and Department of City Planning [DCP], failed to prepare a carefully considered plan when it showed favoritism to Columbia over other development proposals, cooperating with it in secret to subvert prior public planning commitments, allowing Columbia to choose the dual prong re-zoning and General Project plan [GPP] strategy, and assisting Columbia in developing such a strategy so as to maximize Columbia’s chances of realizing its maximal private benefit…”
`COLUMBIAGATE': Is Columbia University's West Harlem-Manhattanville Campus Expansion Project Illegal?--Part 15
In a January 21, 2009 petition to the First Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, a New York City civil liberties lawyer named Norman Siegel presented the legal case against New York State’s Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] allowing the Columbia University Administration to move forward on its 17-acre campus expansion project in the West Harlem-Manhattanville neighborhood, just north of West 125th Street. (See below for parts 1 to 14)
“…Article I, section 7 of the New York State Constitution and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution limit takings to public use. Under the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Kelo v. City of New London, the majority limited the reliance upon economic development as public use, benefit or purpose to projects that are the result of a carefully considered plan. 54 U.S. 469, 478.
“The deciding concurring opinion of Justice Kennedy further required courts to be vigilant against pretextual purposes and favoritism in developer driven development projects…
“The stated public use, benefit or purpose of redeveloping a substandard and insanitary, or blighted, area is null and void because the finding that the Manhattanville industrial area was blighted was made in bad faith, in error of law, and without basis, and what blight-like symptoms are present are overwhelmingly caused, maintained or exacerbated by Columbia with Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC]’s knowledge and consent…
Posted by b.f. at 9:39 PM No comments: Links to this post
`COLUMBIAGATE': Is Columbia University's West Harlem-Manhattanville Campus Expansion Project Illegal?--Part 14
In a January 21, 2009 petition to the First Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, a New York City civil liberties lawyer named Norman Siegel presented the legal case against New York State’s Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] allowing the Columbia University Administration to move forward on its 17-acre campus expansion project in the West Harlem-Manhattanville neighborhood, just north of West 125th Street. (See below for parts 1 to 13)
“…Calling privately funded and directed academic research a `civic purpose’ is…inappropriate when the knowledge gained from such research is not required to be made public, but in fact, through partnership with private pharmaceutical companies and other for-profit entities is proprietary and subject to patent.
“Further alleged civic purposes such as widening of street walls, increasing sight line and 125th street access to the Hudson waterfront, planting, and transparency requirements, and creation of a 12th Avenue market area cannot be civic purposes of the Project because they are already mandated in any development pursuant to the Re-zoning of December 18, 2007…
“Additional alleged civic purposes associated with the project are not only incidental, but pretextual because they were extraneous to the dominant use and purpose of the project…
“Such pretextual `civic purposes’ include the operation subsidy for a largely Columbia used waterfront park, lighting improvements, subway escalator improvements, funding of certain Harlem…organizations, a playground, rent free lease of other property on which New York City Department of Education may or may not build a school, the provision of a $20 million housing fund that will at most cover the cost of relocating residential tenants directly displaced from the area, limited use of Columbia facilities, and various scholarships and health, educational, business development and legal assistance programs, all amounting to no more than $200 million in value, or 3% of the total project cost…”
`COLUMBIAGATE': Is Columbia University's West Harlem-Manhattanville Campus Expansion Project Illegal?--Part 10
In a January 21, 2009 petition to the First Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, a New York City civil liberties lawyer named Norman Siegel presented the legal case against New York State’s Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] allowing the Columbia University Administration to move forward on its 17-acre campus expansion project in the West Harlem-Manhattanville neighborhood, just north of West 125th Street. (See below for parts 1 to 9)
“Though Columbia held a series of three meetings with community leaders in 2004 and 2005 that it called `community consultation,’ Columbia treated them merely as informational meetings to present the alleged benefits of the project. Participants alleged Columbia was unresponsive to concerns expressed in those meetings…
“Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC]’s finding that the area was blighted was made in bad faith and violated its statutory authority, the New York State Constitution and the United States Constitution (UDCA Sec. 10 c; Article 1, section 7 of the New York State Constitution; 5th and 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution)…”
Posted by b.f. at 9:01 PM No comments: Links to this post
`COLUMBIAGATE': Is Columbia University's West Harlem-Manhattanville Campus Expansion Project Illegal?--Part 9
In a January 21, 2009 petition to the First Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, a New York City civil liberties lawyer named Norman Siegel presented the legal case against New York State’s Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] allowing the Columbia University Administration to move forward on its 17-acre campus expansion project in the West Harlem-Manhattanville neighborhood, just north of West 125th Street. (See below for parts 1 to 8)
“From the outset, Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] let Columbia define the scale, scope, and design of the Project solely for Columbia’s benefit…
“From the outset, Columbia dictated the area it wished to control and the square footage it wished to build…
“Why Columbia must control the entire Manhattanville area, or why it must have precisely the number of square feet it desired was never questioned by ESDC…
“This Project has only been about what Columbia wants, not what the public needs…”
`COLUMBIAGATE': Is Columbia University's West Harlem-Manhattanville Campus Expansion Project Illegal?--Part 8
In a January 21, 2009 petition to the First Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, a New York City civil liberties lawyer named Norman Siegel presented the legal case against New York State’s Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] allowing the Columbia University Administration to move forward on its 17-acre campus expansion project in the West Harlem-Manhattanville neighborhood, just north of West 125th Street. (See below for parts 1 to 7)
“Overwhelmingly, the West Harlem community has consistently opposed the Columbia project so long as it was premised upon the use of eminent domain.
“On September 23, 2005, West Harlem Community Board 9 opposed the use of eminent domain in Manhattanville by a resolution adopted 29-0…
“…In August 2007…Community Board 9 voted 34 to 3 against the project…
“Community Board 9’s 197 (a) plan called for the creation of an entity which could negotiate a Community Benefits Agreement [CBA] with Columbia. The West Harlem Local Development Corporation [LDC] was established in 2006…
“…Columbia…was unwilling to negotiate over the scale, configuration, or program use of its Project…”
Posted by b.f. at 9:43 PM 2 comments: Links to this post
`COLUMBIAGATE': Is Columbia University's West Harlem-Manhattanville Campus Expansion Project Illegal?--Part 1
“This case is about the abuse of the government’s power of eminent domain to secure for a developer a contested area of West Harlem it had long sought to control and for which it had formed a fully blown plan.
“This case is about the secret collaboration between Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] and New York City agencies in a complex plan to give that developer, an elite private university, everything it wanted, without compromise or limitation, while evading public review and accountability.
“This case is about favoritism shown to an elite private university over community interests, clearly and consistently expressed through the local Community Planning Board, over multiple well established public planning processes, and over competing development proposals for existing local business and property owners, for purposes that in the end amount to no more than the speculative estimation that what is good for Columbia University is good for New York.
“And this case is about how ESDC, in its determination to maximize Columbia’s private benefit, overreached its statutory authorization, made findings in bad faith, and fabricated pretextual purposes to cover up the illegality of its dominant purpose…”
Columbia University's Goldman Sachs Connection & West Harlem Construction Project
Columbia University Trustee Armen Avanessians is Goldman Sachs' director of FICC Strategies, Equity Strategies, Investment Banking and Financial Group Strategies and became a partner in Goldman Sachs in 1994.
In addition, Columbia University Trustee Ann Kaplan is a member of the Goldman Sachs Bank USA board of directors and Columbia University Trustee Esta Stecher is Goldman Sachs Group's executive vice president and general counsel.
Also, Columbia University Trustee Richard Witten was a Goldman Sachs partner and managing director from 1990 to 2002.
Coincidentally, if Goldman Sachs merges with the M&T Bank Corporation, the head of the Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] which approved the use of eminent domain in Columbia University’s 17-acre West Harlem-Manhattanville construction project, M&T Bank Corporation CEO Bob Wilmers, may personally benefit from a business relationship with the Columbia University-linked Goldman Sachs firm.
As Thomas Hartley observed in the October 1, 2008 issue of the Baltimore Business Journal, one of Ireland’s largest independent securities firms, NCB Stockbrokers, noted in a 2008 report that: “Remember that M&T’s CEO, septuagenarian Bob Wilmers, has been at the bank for 25 years [and] might be tempted to roll his 10 percent holding into something larger driven by Goldman Sachs.”
Speaking of the latest real estate development and land grabbing project of the tax-exempt “Goldman Sachs University of Morningside Heights,” an interesting article by Damon W. Root, was posted on the www.reason.com website. In his February 9, 2009 article, titled “Exposing Columbia University’s eminent domain abuse,” Root noted:
“Consider the following: In 2006, the Empire State Development Corporation [ESDC] hired the planning and engineering firm Allee King Rosen & Fleming, Inc. (AKRF) to perform an `impartial' neighborhood blight study. AKRF was certainly a bold choice, given that the firm was already on Columbia's payroll and actively working on the contested Manhattanville plan. According to billing records that…civil libertarian Norman Siegel, turned up via the state's Freedom of Information Law, as many as six AKRF employees worked on both the blight study and the redevelopment project, which is practically the definition of a conflict of interests.
“The report itself proved to be just as flawed. For starters, AKRF failed to mention that Columbia owns 76 percent of the neighborhood and was thus directly responsible for the overwhelming majority of blight that the report alleged, ranging from overflowing basement trash heaps to major roof and skylight leaks. (Columbia has been performing maintenance on several buildings it plans to preserve for their historical significance.) As numerous tenants have now reported, the university refused to perform basic and necessary repairs, which both pushed tenants out and manufactured the ugly conditions that later advanced Columbia's long-term interests….
“AKRF admitted as much in preliminary findings delivered to the ESDC, which identified `Open violations in CU Buildings' and `History of CU repairs to properties' among its `issues of concern.' On top of that, AKRF relied on misleading and in some cases inappropriate evidence, including irrelevant crime statistics and building code violations that had zero relationship to actual physical conditions (such as the failure to file an annual boiler inspection).
“In fact, the ESDC-Columbia redevelopment scheme fails to meet even the generous standards set by the Supreme Court's notoriously eminent domain-friendly decision in Kelo v. City of New London (2005), which permitted the transfer of property from one private party to another so long as the taking was part of a `comprehensive redevelopment plan.’ But as Justice Anthony Kennedy's concurring opinion in the case also made perfectly clear, `transfers intended to confer benefits on particular, favored private entities, and with only incidental or pretextual public benefits, are forbidden by the Public Use Clause.’… “
Posted by b.f. at 8:44 AM 1 comment: Links to this post
Labels: Goldman Sachs, university complicity
Columbia University's Goldman Sachs Connection & W...