"Developers Hung Out to Dry"

"This is like the Mayor calling and Town Hall Meeting and not bothering to show up," said James Kaufman after Monday night’s aborted community meeting. Kaufman, an attorney and active Republican, has grown increasingly disillusioned with the management performance of Republican Governor George Pataki’s appointee, RIOC President Dr. Jerome Blue.

Kaufman later viewed the situation from a lawyer’s viewpoint: "It strikes me that once again a developer has been hung out to dry by Jerry Blue. This has been evident in every proposed development to date. A builder is enticed by promises that RIOC cannot deliver on – ‘approvals are in place,’ or ‘variances to the General Development Plan are not needed,’ or ‘the Board has approved the development,’ or ‘it’s on the agenda for the next Board meeting’ – all of which were detrimentally relied on by the builder to spend more money ‘past the point of no return,’ to keep pouring good money after bad."

Kaufman’s use of the phrase, "detrimentally relied on," is a lawyer’s way of saying the developers involved may have grounds for legal action against RIOC to recover their costs, having counted on RIOC’s representations about progress.

"If there is a purveyor of fraud and deceit," Kaufman continued, "it is almost obvious that the blame resides with RIOC, not the developer."