[Part 2 of 3 of "THE CURSE OF ENLIGHTEMENT"]
From all accounts, Cohen never liked Eckstrom, who was already the City's Building Commissioner when Cohen became mayor. Earlier, Cohen had tried to eliminate Eckstrom's position, but was blocked by a majority of the city council. In 1999, while Widewaters was looking to slip into the old "Wal-Mart site," a new opportunity presented itself for Cohen to remove Eckstrom as an obstacle to "fast track" development at the location.
Cohen suspended Eckstrom on July 27, three weeks after Eckstrom's letter to Widewaters, amidst charges from the Tompkins County Human Rights Commission (including some strong Cohen allies) of racially discriminatory enforcement of building codes at the minority-owned J.C.Knight barbershop. The allegations of racism were quickly dropped by Cohen who, nonetheless, kept Eckstrom off the job by adding six non-related charges of "incompetence" and "misconduct" against him.
Eckstrom appealed and was entitled to a hearing. The city selected and paid for the Hearing Officer, John Crotty. Crotty heard testimony for 13 days and agreed with Eckstrom on the legal substance of all six charges brought against him by Cohen. In a Kafkaesque turn, Crotty ruled against Eckstrom on two of the charges based on other factors not included in the original charges or defended by Eckstrom. Crotty recommended Eckstrom's termination, and Common Council agreed on June 15, 2000 after "deliberating" behind closed doors for about an hour.
On November 21, state Supreme Court Justice Walter Relihan found Crotty's decision "arbitrary and capricious" and ordered Eckstrom's reinstatement.
The city failed to appeal, and Eckstrom returned to work on Feb. 27, 2001. Cohen then humiliated the Commissioner by isolating him "on display" in a downstairs office, denying him contact with his Department. Relihan placed Eckstrom on paid-leave, and the case was finally resolved on May 2nd when the city agreed to pay $375,000 plus $160,000 in legal fees and other considerations in exchange for Eckstrom's departure.
When asked why his client agreed to cease defending his reputation and regaining his job, Eckstrom's attorney Peter Walsh offers a French legal proverb: "Un mauvais arrangement vaut mieux qu'un bon procès" (a bad settlement is better than a good lawsuit).
Cohen says, "This is not the vindication of an innocent person. This is a damnation of a long and convoluted process."
Walsh responds, "This is, from (Eckstrom's) perspective, despite the mayor, a vindication. There is now nothing left open between Rick and the city. There has been an exoneration from the charges brought against him. It speaks for itself--between the lines, the city acknowledges that (it has) been exposed."
Ithaca's taxpayers are the big losers in the mayor's expensive witch-hunt, with full costs likely to exceed $1,000,000.
Ongoing litigation no longer silences Eckstrom, and now he's talking about the Widewaters permit, including the long held knowledge of city officials about plans for a large Target retail store across from Buttermilk Falls State Park.
"In the late spring of 1999, I was told by staff in the Planning Department that they could tell me who the proposed tenant was but then they `would have to kill me,'" Eckstrom told me by e-mail. "Also that spring, at a mayor's senior staff meeting, there was talk of a Target development at the site."
Specific Plans and a Segmented Permit
Widewaters submitted a map to DEC in August 1999 showing the footprint of the main buildings in the Buttermilk viewshed. Cohen told me, "Had we been in possession of that (DEC) information, we could not have legally justified a segmentation permit."
On October 4, the city received plans for a 200,000 square foot Target store from Widewaters' builder L.P. Ciminelli Management, a Buffalo construction firm. Cohen and other city officials reviewed the plans, and returned them on October 18, the same day Widewaters submitted another, identical application for a fill permit - again indicating that no building was planned. No trace of the Target submission was left in the Building Department, and it wasn't discovered until many months later.
On November 12 (a week after Cohen's re-election), Phyllis Radke -- former Deputy Building Commissioner and Cohen's handpicked successor to Eckstrom--granted Widewaters' fill permit. Radke allowed "segmentation" on the advice of then-City Attorney Mariette Geldenhuys, thus bypassing SEQR's requirement for an environmental impact statement or review by the city's Planning Board.
Eckstrom writes that during "a routine review of Radke's work in June 1999, I discovered she was about to sidestep the full environmental process and issue a fill permit to Widewaters.... I told Phyllis I thought this was improper and asked the city attorney for advice.... Geldenhuys advised me to require an EIS before issuing the permit. She then reviewed my letter to WW before I sent it. Also before sending the letter, I informed the mayor that the permit would require environmental review."
Geldenhuys resigned at the end of 1999, saying the city needed a full- time lawyer. Radke told a reporter last fall, "I wish I had never been involved, although with the `permissible segmentation' ruling, I don't know even today (that) I would do anything differently."
"The sequence of events shows a clear pattern of secrecy, deception and manipulation," says Dan Cogan of the Citizens' Planning Alliance (CPA), an environmental watchdog organization.
Facts on the Ground
This is a case of Cohen and Widewaters getting their "facts on the ground." This strategy required obtaining the fill permit first, without public awareness or proper environmental review. They could then build the pad for the planned mall, afterwards telling the Planning Board that its site-plan authority had been pre-empted and the buildings HAD to be built on the existing pad. This could only be accomplished by maintaining, at the time of the fill permit application, the fiction that "there are no site-specific plans."
Cohen now admits that all of the foregoing may, with the benefit of hindsight, be seen as erroneous, although he staunchly maintains his innocence of any wrongdoing. Others simply call it fraud.
SEQR: A Toothless Law
CPA's Bill Carini researched Widewaters' permit thoroughly, and wrote a letter to DEC analyzing the "Omissions and Deficiencies in the Environmental Assessment Form, Widewaters Project," completed by Widewaters and Radke (http://www.lightlink.com/crisbill/cpa/EAFconcerns.html).
Carini expected DEC to be upset learning that lies were submitted on documents required by State law. He found, however, that DEC's enforcement authority is specifically limited under SEQR. Instead of having the right to request state investigators, local governments or citizens are required to undertake expensive "Article 78" appeals against large corporations with deep pockets and powerful contacts.
