Breaking Down Bankruptcy: GGP

Sorry folks, did you miss me? Think back . . . decades ago you too were approaching the end of your last semester of college. You were busy right? Well its good to be back and discuss the finer points of bankruptcy law. I'm not an economist or even an economics major but as a journalist, I have the benefit of calling on the knowledge and wisdom of economics professors.

I spent my weekend in correspondence with Joe Pomykala, a professor of economics at Towson University who specializes in bankruptcy law. Hopefully after reading this, you will have a better understanding of the intricacies of chapter 11 bankruptcy in relation with General Growth Properties.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy allowed GGP to freeze it's debt of $4 billion and avoid interest payments to its creditors. Additionally, all legally binding contracts such as leases and labor contracts which exist outside of said bankruptcy can be accepted or rejected at the company's discretion.

While in bankruptcy, GGP may take out new loans which must be paid before the existing debt which are referred to as DIP (Debtor In Possession) loans. The interest rates for said loans are substantially lower than those of the company's existing loans.

Next, GGP develops a restructuring plan to reorganize and streamline it's operation, which creditors vote over. Creditors are usually paid less than the original contract allows. However the creditors should receive payment equivalent to the sum negotiated under chapter seven liquidation.

It should be noted that creditors of the preexisting debt may not necessarily receive cash as payment. In some cases, creditors receive stock in the restructured company. The bakruptcy and restructuring process may take as much as two years to complete. When asked if the process seems unfair, Pomykala says it is legalized theft.

Left On Lake Elkhorn, Right?

I like to bicycle around lake Elkhorn among other places in Columbia, primarily because I live right on the edge. I'm sure this sounds pedantic to most and excessive to some but I wish people understood which side of the path to walk on in relation to the direction they are traveling in.

In America we drive on the right side of the road going forwards and on the left going backwards respectively. This is a fairly simple concept for me to grasp and for most people I would imagine. Yet every single time I bike around Lake Elkhorn, I see people walking towards me on the right side of the path.

How can you pass a pedestrian or group of pedestrians on the if they walk shoulder to shoulder? Some people walk confidently towards me on the right side of the path as though they truly believe they are in the right. My favorites are the people who walk on either side holding a stroller in one hand and a dog leash in the other; with an energetic dog at the other end of the leash.

I've never hit anybody though sometimes I may give the offender a rat face. This is in no way a major problem but if you're still reading this, thanks for letting me vent my frustrations on you. Have a nice weekend and if you have a little free time tomorrow, go out and volunteer your time to help clean up Columbia's green space!

2010 Census Circling Angelina Addresses

I hope the headlines hits on Google. Guest speaker David Alexander from the Baltimore Sun lectured our class today on SEO optimization, coding keywords for headlines like search engine slugs for spiders. I saw a 40ish-year-old blond woman in a shiny black sedan circling Angelina circle at 7:45 p.m., on my way to the mailbox.

At first I thought she was lost, looking for a house number, maybe a family member making a reunion? "2010 Census, I work for the government, we do this every 10 years . . . didn't you learn about this in school?" she said. I stared back at her blankly, its spring 2009 I thought. I remember feeling burned, searching census bureau data for sociology class assignments on the dot-gov site. 2000 never felt recent or accurate enough, but if they did it my way, the bill would give Geithner gastrointestinal distress, rivaling our field trip into Iraq.

Approachable, polite and eager to lengthen the life of her Marlboro light while time and light faded into the gray. I was walking to the mailbox with my copy of the Columbia Flier. I decided to place the ads at the communal mailbox as a sort of common courtesy & that's when I saw her. After learning she had ties to 75 and worked for Rouse, Mort & Robert, she rolled away. I photographed the car on a sort of afterthought impulse.


I will give one hundred grand to anyone who can locate Baltimore Sun deputy editor David Alexander. Good hunting--think of it like Highlights for hypertext

A Conversation With Barbara Russell

"You ran into people wherever you went, except the mail box (laughs), never at the mailbox! When I would go shopping at the Giant in Wilde Lake, it would take me literally hours to get out of there, not that I was shopping so much but you know you'd have a conversation in every isle, in isle four with Helen and you know that's how it was with everybody. You'd go to the grocery store and you'd spend an eternity there because you met everybody you knew and you just had conversations."

One summer day in 1967, Barbara and Charles Russell were driving down Route 29 from Baltimore to visit friends in Rockville when they noticed the do not enter sign near the development of Columbia had been removed, so they entered. In July, they moved in, become two of the first 100 residents in Columbia.

"There was almost nothing in Columbia at the time, there wasn't even a village center. In fact, when we drove around there were these little muddy circles and we asked somebody what they were and they said oh those are going to be cul-de-sacs. And we said what the heck are cul-de-sacs?"

At the time, the Russells had followed their jobs at the Social Security Administration from California. Before moving to Columbia, they had lived in Woodlawn and even had to get married in Washington D.C., because it was illegal for an interracial couple to marry in Maryland.

"When I married Charles, my family was dead set against it and they felt and told me that they thought that I would forever be living on the fringes of society and my children."

Russell says that for most of the early residents, Columbia was their first experience in an integrated community. She recalls the day an older couple moved into the apartment above them. They mistook Charles for the maintenance man, requesting that he help them move in.

"So he did, he helped them move their stuff upstairs and when he was all finished he said let me introduce myself, I'm your neighbor Charles Russell, from the apartment down below."

42 years later, Russell thinks things have changed, that after James Rouse stopped driving the Rouse Company, the bottom line took the wheel instead of the vision. In her mind, the biggest problem of early Columbia was public transportation. When asked about current problems, she spoke about General Growth Properties.

"GGP is not giving anything to the county, it just wants the density and zoning changes worth billions and is not agreeing to pay for the costs of infrastructure to pay for affordable housing, to pay for cultural amenities, its not, it doesn't want to pay and hasn't promised to pay and hasn't agreed to pay for anything. And now it can't afford to pay for anything. And so it would be in my mind, a real rip if you will off to the taxpayers, to allow them to do that without any of the trade offs."

Columbia's Architect: Robert Tennenbaum

Robert Tennenbaum, 72, not only lives in Wilde Lake, he helped design it as the Chief Planner & Architect for Columbia. A job posted on a bulletin board brought him to Washington and the Year 2000 Plan ultimately brought him, Morton Hoppenfeld and William E. Finley to Jim Rouse. Tennenbaum recalls the day when he Morton Hoppenfeld took him on the drive that would change the course of his career.

“So we're driving up 29, it was a two lane road. We get up to about 29 and Route 32, the old Route 32, and he said okay. He says okay look both sides until I say stop. So I looked at both sides, I see trees and fields, some stuff growing like corn and grass areas with cows and all very rural, very nice. Hilly land and oh there's a small subdivision, oh there's another subdivision. Then he said okay you can stop, when we got to 108, right up the road. He said, Finley and I are working with the Rouse Company, we're going to plan a new city here, would you join us? I said okay.”

Tennenbaum says one of the big problems in Columbia has to do with the affordable housing. He believes its a good idea, but the management and maintenance of some of the properties has become lax over the years.

"It's the people that come from the outside, from the inner city of Baltimore that come down and causes problems. Long Reach is a prime example of this. Too many section eights in one area, now that's a major problem that Howard County has not addressed.”

The issue of design review came up a lot in our interview. Tennenbaum comments that its a crucial step in the development process, one that has been overlooked in the past and has been the central focus of public planning meetings between the Howard County council, Columbia residents and General Growth Properties over the new 30 year master plan.

“Owen Brown was ruined when the village center was changed. It was a very nice village center. Giant owns it, and then when Giant wanted to increase the size of the supermarket, it totally screwed it up.

Tennenbaum says the Rouse Company, at least of the last 15 years should have changed their name to the bottom line company. When asked about General Growth Properties and phases, he explains that phases actually hinder development because the developers can't for see the future and need the flexibility to change their plans with the times. He believes the new GGP plan needs to be approved without phases.

Tennenbaum says that before Rouse Company sold to GGP, it was run by a bunch of MBA bottom liners.

“They [Rouse Company] totally ignored the community. And even the press didn't have the guts to go and say what are those bulldozers doing here? You never knew what was going to happen until the bulldozers came on the site and started scraping the land."

Tennenbaum is disappointed by some of Rouse Company's development decisions, including the gated apartments build around the mall. He says the four foot fence around the apartments is a joke, a marketing ploy and that it wasn't built with Columbia's principles in mind.

Though Tennenbaum left Rouse Company in the early seventies, he continues to fight to maintain Symphony Woods, village centers and the vision that Jim Rouse had for the city.

"The land sales guy, the guy who's trying to sell the land and create income for the Rouse Company would go to the top people and say the architects are causing problems. The top guys would say f--- em, you know, sell the land we need the money. That's what's been happening over the years.”

Podcast: Tennenbaum Interview

Thursday February 26, 2009 at 7:42 PM. I returned a phone call from Robert Tennenbaum in which he threatened to sue me if I did not remove the interview I posted, then revised. I believe the truth should be presented objectively. That is why I've posted the interview files as podcasts. These are parts 1-3 of my interview with Robert Tennenbaum, Wednesday February 18, 2009 at the Lakeside Cafe.

Part 1 - CLICK HERE
Part 2 - CLICK HERE
Part 3 - CLICK HERE

Sam Berkowitz

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. In the following days, riots ensued all over the country. Sam Berkowitz, a clinical psychologist, recalls the ripple effects in Crofton, Maryland.

"You could only get into Crofton through I think there were two gates on Route 3, two entrances. And there was a committee that went down, from what I heard, didn't see it, but this vigilante group went down with shotguns to protect the town itself.”

In 1972, Governor George Wallace spoke at Merriweather Post Pavilion and won 70 to 80 percent of the vote in Crofton. Berkowitz saw this as the handwriting on the wall.

In 1973, Berkowitz moved to Wilde Lake with his family where he met Ron Klein, a psychologist who was on the planning committee. Klein started the Family Life Center in Wilde Lake, a non-profit providing mental health services to residents where Berkowitz worked as an adjunct. Berkowitz says he served on low level committees with Barbara Russell.

“As far as I know, I knew of only one black family in Crofton, in fact they had a screening committee that my understanding was to not include minority groups coming into Crofton, so this was very very different.”

Berkowitz says he moved in next to a black family and learned that the first child born in Columbia had interracial parents. Our neighbors were friendly, he says, adding that they would often visit with their children.

Columbia, he says, has lost its small town feel and that along with the over-commercialization disappoints him. He says Columbia could do without the cookie-cutter housing lots as well.

“What they did get right was the quality of the schools and the racial mix I think has been very successful. I think the quality of the schools have lived up to the high expectations."

36 years later, Berkowitz has no regrets about moving to Columbia. He says the city is just want he and his wife wanted for their children.

Introduction

To many residents, Columbia is a town without a past. Before the Rouse Company developed the area, it was a patchwork of farms with pockets of real estate. Then in 1967, James Rouse unveiled his vision of what a town should be.

"Visions describe what best should be, could be - if and when mankind has the will to make them real." -James Rouse

This January, I had a vision of what could become an important conversation about Columbia through the voices of its residents. I decided to write this blog to capture those voices, and to create a conversation about the people who live in Columbia, all 97,000 of them.

I attended planning meetings for the new downtown, read through articles in Columbia Archives and spoke with residents. On February 1st, I began tracking down original residents with a copy of the 1969 phone book I obtained from the archives. Every resident with an e-mail address received a copy of this letter:
___________________________________________________________________
Hello Resident,

My name is Jack Cole. We spoke earlier on the phone. First off, thank you for taking my call. As you can imagine, I really only have about thirty seconds to get my point across before people usually end hang up.

I'm a graduating senior of journalism at Towson University and a resident of Owen Brown. This semester, I'm taking an independent study in the form of journalism through blogging. I'm in the process of creating a comprehensive review of Columbia, in all of its facets. Currently, I'm trying to get to know Columbia's first residents: who they are, where they came from, what they were expecting and whether or not their expectations were met.

I would like to set up a date and time when you would be available for an interview. The only days I am not available are Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I can be reached through e-mail at this address: jcole9@towson.edu.

Thank you for your time and interest,
_________________________________________________________________________________________________