Indescribable

A close reading of the recent statements by Mr. Kurt Wittek, managing director of Blackrock Realty, LLC and developer of the Fairfield Metro Center, in the March 6 Connecticut Post and March 11 Fairfield Citizen reveals some very telling facts.

Consider the following:

Mr. Wittek repeats, in glowing terms, his prediction that a completed FMC will be a great boon to the area a claim he's been making for six years, while very little progress has been made on the project.

However, Wittek claims that Blackrock doesn't have the funds to fulfill its obligations under the tripartite agreement with the state and the town to continue building the project right now. Yet, Wittek has never explained why BRR could not have fulfilled some of its obligations since 2006, when it had close to $14 million in funds available to it.

The unfulfilled obligations of Blackrock for the public portion of the project of which Mr. Wittek speaks are:

1. to remediate the land under and build the access roads;

2. to remediate the commuter waiting area; and

3. to provide a $500,000 letter of credit to assure building the train depot.

So how does Mr. Wittek intend to fulfill these obligations, if the FMC is going to be completed as he predicts?

Very simple! Just do nothing and let the town get stimulus funds to do it for you!

The Town of Fairfield has requested $33 million in stimulus funds to complete the obligations of Blackrock for the public portion of the project. (You can see this request by going to the Web at www.recovery.ct.gov). The state wants the project completed because it already has the platforms and bridge half-built, so, most likely, the state will grant the town's request.

It's not clear as to who will control this money and/or who will do the work to satisfy these obligations for which Blackrock was always supposed to pay. We can only hope that the state will prescribe strict guidelines for using the funds and the town will have enough sense to not let the money out of their control and to select a contractor whom they can be certain will avoid the failures of the past on this project. Strict scrutiny of the use of these funds by all parties is certainly now in order.

What is clear, however, is that Blackrock will be the only one to get the real benefit of the $33 million, since neither the state nor the town ever had an obligation under the tripartite agreement to perform Blackrock's obligations for the public project. (Wittek certainly has a knack for seeking public funds to finance his private projects. According to the Los Angeles Business journal, Wittek is looking for $61 million in public funds to finance another private project of his in California.)

So, once the town has done this $33 million of work for Blackrock's benefit, Blackrock can just get on with the rest of its commercial project at a very considerable saving.

Maybe this is why Mr. Wittek says, "We also chose to take the course of action with our bank that resulted in foreclosure proceedings." How do you choose foreclosure other than by choosing not to pay your mortgage payments? There must have been some hidden agenda in this maneuver because Wittek then says, "We believe this was in the best long term interest of the project and are confident we can successfully resolve the foreclosure."

Aha! So you intentionally stop paying your mortgage because in the long term you can successfully resolve the foreclosure. Very clever! But how do you do it?

Simple! You just avoid paying the $33 million that you were obligated to pay for work you were responsible to do under the tripartite agreement. Then, you simply sit back and wait until the state and the town have obtained the $33 million in stimulus money and the town has done your work. Then you will have the road land remediated, sparkling new access roads built and a finished train station and depot to service your commercial project free of charge to Blackrock, thus making your property incredibly more valuable.

Then, Blackrock won't have any trouble getting refinancing so it can resolve its foreclosure problem.

And that's how it's done.

Gotta hand it to ya, Blackrock, that's quite a "sting!"

Shame on all of us who have been stung! Shame on the Obama administration! Shame on our state! Shame on our town! And especially, shame on us poor innocent taxpayers who always wind up footing the bill.

But, wait a minute! Before we close the book on this sting, nobody has told us whether or not Blackrock will be obligated to repay this $33 million in the future. We have read that this was the basis on which the banks and the auto makers were receiving their stimulus funds. If Blackrock is expected to repay the state and town, what steps are being taken to assure that obligation?

We always believed that when someone breached their agreement with you and that breach caused you damages, that you had a right to sue them to recover what their breach caused you. Well, it certainly looks as though Blackrock has breached the agreement by not fulfilling its obligations under the agreement and that this breach is causing us $33 million in damages we have to come up with. Mr. Wittek even admits Blackrock is unable to fulfill its obligations. So, why are the state and the town not attaching Blackrock's property or getting Blackrock to sign an agreement to pay back whatever is spent to fulfill its obligations, since Blackrock's property will be extremely more valuable once it resolves its foreclosure at our expense?

Shouldn't our town attorney, Mr. Saxl, already be taking steps to tie up Blackrock's property? Regardless of what happens with the stimulus money, Blackrock's breach has already caused us very provable damages because the town inevitably has to do its work.

Instead, Mr. Saxl has only said " it may be possible to recoup some of the stimulus money spent on the public part of the project " but that depended on some other questions. Well, Mr. Saxl, now is the time to figure out the answers to those questions before the money is spent and it's too late to get any of it back!

If Blackrock will not be expected to repay the $33 million, then Blackrock getting off the hook like that will rank up there as one of the greatest stings of all time. You can picture Blackrock completing its commercial project someday, and just sitting there raking in the big profits, while we poor taxpayers are still struggling to pay off the $33 million debt that Blackrock just dumped in our laps.

What adjective could we possibly apply to describe this damnable scenario?

"Disgraceful?" "Shameful?" "Deplorable?" "Scandalous?" "Outrageous?" All of these seem woefully inadequate to describe what is being foisted on us taxpayers.

We're at a loss for words.

This letter was signed by Edward J. Bateson III, Alexis P. Harrison, Jeanne Konecny, Philip Meiman, Pam Ritter, Les Schaffer, Joy Shaw and Jane Talamini.