Development

Otis White's Civic Strategies newsletter reports on a Los Angeles-based real estate developer, Rick Caruso, who is finding that the most effective way to get big development projects done is to work with neighborhood and community groups on plans and designs from the very beginning rather than shutting them out of the process:

Last night's public hearing on the proposed NASCAR track on Staten Island turned into a melee. Union members, many of whom were apparently shipped in by the developer, shouted down and physically intimidated community people who had come out to voice concerns about the project. New York 1 showed video last night of one particularly huge union guy throwing Staten Island Councilmember Andrew Lanza into a headlock and wrestling the microphone out of his hands. The scene looked more like a drunken bar fight than a community meeting. NY1 hasn't put the video on its web site [Update: Here is the NY1 footage. Pretty incredible], but ABC 7 caught some of the action and put it online. The NYPD rolled in and shut down the meeting after just a half an hour.