Portrait of a New Urbanist Corporate Welfare recipient (fwd)
Bob Tiernan
Portions from: The Oregonian
Oct. 24, 2003
MONEY PROBLEM SHADOW DEVELOPER
by JEFF MANNING and DYLAN RIVERA
Homer Williams' past debt is news to city officials, but
they stand by their pick to resurrect the South Waterfront
In spring 2001, the star developer who had helped transform
Portland's gritty Pearl District into a ritzy new neighborhood
set his sights on the waterfront just south of downtown.
Portland officials were delighted.
The city had for many years wanted to turn the South Waterfront
District into Portland's newest urban neighborhood -- a bookend
to the vibrant Pearl District north of downtown. Homer Williams
was an influential leader of the Pearl District transformation
and his company, Williams & Dame Development, was poised to buy
about 30 acres at the South Waterfront site.
He seemed the ideal choice to lead the project.
....
Commission officials say they didn't look too closely at Williams'
financial past....
But Williams' record was more complicated than Katz and city officials
were aware.
For much of the 1990s, he walked a financial high-wire, falling behind
on payments of millions of dollars of debt. He was in arrears for years
on more than $1 million he owed Capital Consultants, the local pension
fund manager that subsequently failed. Separately, he owed more than $11
million to his chief partner in the Pearl project.
City officials say they also did not know that Williams' partner in the
South Waterfront venture, Thorndike "Dike" Dame, had been convicted of
bank fraud in 1988. Nor were they aware that Williams had been banned from
any management or oversight role at federally insured savings and loans.
......
Williams' problems....cast a different light on the financial
underpinnings
of a man who has long been viewed as one Portland's most successful real
estate developers.
.....
The PDC [Portland Development Commission, which gives away tax dollars]
also did not run a criminal background check on any of the North
Macadam principals.
Some other cities ask for considerably more detailed background
information
of their development partners. The San Francisco Redevelopment Agency, for
example, asks its potential partners whether they have been convicted or
indicted on felony charges within the past decade and whether they ever
filed for bankruptcy. [Not in Portland!]
The Minneapolis Community Development Agency routinely asks developers
to list any court action -- civil and criminal -- that they may have
been involved in. [Not in Portland!]
...
The agency also asks for real estate-related debts that are not current.
[Not in Portland!]
"This is important information that the public needs to know," Lutz said.
"If we're investing public dollars, there needs to be a level of
transparency."
[Not in Portland--the "City that Works" !(sic)].
...
Williams refused repeated requests to comment about his personal
financial situation and declined to address several written questions
submitted to him. [Why should he? He's a "visionary"!]
Williams did comment on Dame's criminal record, which he said "is
relevant and should be answered."
....
Williams' personal financial challenges are no secret in the real
estate community. [But Portland officials had to find out about
from a newspaper!]
But he remains immensely popular among the politicians
whose campaigns he has helped finance [!!!!!] and the
bureaucrats whose vision of urban planning he has helped
fulfill. [He's got the vision thing!]
...
In the early '80s, [Williams] borrowed millions of dollars
from Lincoln Savings and Loan, which was then headed by [his
current partner] Dame. [!!!]
Federal agents who investigated the Lincoln case looked into
a series of questionable loans the thrift made, including at
least one to Williams.
....
In 1985, Williams agreed to what amounted to a lifetime ban
on serving as a savings and loan officer or director. [He
can't even sit on a stool in the corner of the meeting room!]
...
"I think we all need to say thank you to Homer Williams, for taking
risks all over this city, [Yeah, with at least $100 million in
tax dollars] for his role in making the Pearl District
what it is," [Mayor] Katz said.
------------
For full article, see Friday's Oregonian - main section.
[www.oregonlive.com]
___________________________________________
Bob Tiernan
Wherever there is a jackboot stepping on a human
face, there will be a well-heeled Western liberal
there to assure us that the face enjoys free health
care and a high degree of literacy.
--John Derbyshire
Martin Edwards
> face, there will be a well-heeled Western liberal
> there to assure us that the face enjoys free health
> care and a high degree of literacy.
>
> --John Derbyshire
>
his own lifetime and continues unabated. His horror of Stalinism
began when he was a member of the POUM militia in Spain. This was the
militia of a far left party, though Orwell was not a party member. He
called himself a socialist till the day he died, and referred in his
journalism to "the vulgar lie that Communism and Fascism are the same
thing". The origin of the myth of "well-heeled" liberals is a harder
nut to crack. I am both liberal and very clever. I am, on the other
hand, now only sporadically employed and in a career of thirty years
never got above £24,843. There are probably similar stories in New
York, Boston, Portland, Berkeley and all the other places where
weirdoes like me hang out, though few of us creep in the night and
sleep in phone booths. That should wake the trolls up.
******Martin Edwards.******
Come on! Nobody's gonna drive that lousy freeway
when you can take the Red Car for a nickel.
-Eddy Valiant
Martin Edwards
>
>
> Wherever there is a jackboot stepping on a human
> face, there will be a well-heeled Western liberal
> there to assure us that the face enjoys free health
> care and a high degree of literacy.
>
> --John Derbyshire
This is typical of the right wing hijacking of Orwell that started in
his lifetime and continues unabated. His horror of Stalinism began
when he was in Spain, a member of the POUM militia. The POUM was a
far left party, though Orwell was not a party member. He called
himself a socialist to the day he died and referred in his journalism
to "the vulgar lie that Communism and Fascism are the same thing".
The myth of "well-helled liberals" is a harder nut to crack. I am
both liberal and extremely clever, but am now only sporadically
employed and, in a career of thirty years, never got above Ł24,843.
There are no doubt many similar examples in New York, Boston,
Baxter
--
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"Bob Tiernan" <zulu.pac...@shell1.pacifier.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.GSO.4.58MAILDI...@shell1.pacifier.net...
>
> Portions from: The Oregonian
>
> Oct. 24, 2003
>
> MONEY PROBLEM SHADOW DEVELOPER
>
> by JEFF MANNING and DYLAN RIVERA
>
> Homer Williams' past debt is news to city officials, but
> they stand by their pick to resurrect the South Waterfront
>
>
> In spring 2001, the star developer who had helped transform
> Portland's gritty Pearl District into a ritzy new neighborhood
> set his sights on the waterfront just south of downtown.
> Portland officials were delighted.
To what end do you complain about this small fry? If they choose a
different developer, the Streetcar will still be extended into South
Waterfront. And compared to PGE/Enron and Ken Lay, this guy is a piker -
yet we don't hear a peep out of you about PGE and the PUD.