Brand Names Live On After the Stores Are Closed

Abstract: In the last year or so, a string of retailers have gone into bankruptcy — Sharper Image, Linens ’n Things, Circuit City and Fortunoff among them. But while the stores have disappeared, their names live on. And the companies that have breathed new life into these brand names are, paradoxically, some of the same ones that had led the stores through their dying days — the liquidators. Hilco Consumer Capital in Toronto, a division of the liquidator Hilco Trading Company and Gordon Brothers Brands, a division of another liquidator, Gordon Brothers, in Boston, have bought the rights to use the names of Sharper Image, Linens ’n Things and Bombay, the onetime furniture retailer. The liquidators — who prefer to be known as asset recovery specialists — have also expressed an interest in buying the Circuit City and Fortunoff names. Already, new merchandise with the Sharper Image name is available at retailers like Macy’s, J. C. Penney and Bed, Bath & Beyond. A new Web site for the Linens ’n Things brand, lnt.com , is up and running. In addition to the bedding and bath products the chain was known for, the site also carries toys, pet products and baby accouterments. Jamie Salter, the chief executive of Hilco Consumer Capital, said he expected that Bombay would become a furniture line. Mr. Salter estimated Hilco and Gordon Brothers spent about $175 million to acquire the Sharper Image, Linens ’n Things and Bombay names. He predicted a billion dollars a year in sales for Sharper Image and Linens ’n Things in each of the next five years. Hilco got its start in the business of buying naming rights two years ago, when it acquired, in partnership with the Weinstein Company, the name of the fashion designer Halston. But the business of naming rights has accelerated in the last six months with the rise in liquidations by retailers that have been unable to borrow money to reorganize and emerge from bankruptcy protection. In the process, the value of brand names is being redefined. “The liquidators are taking the definition of assets and extending them to the brands themselves,” said Martin Brochstein, a spokesman for the International Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association in New York. Amanda Nicholson, assistant professor of retail management at the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, took a similar view. “The brand name has value,” she said. The liquidators say they see themselves as brand licensing experts who will receive royalties for the products without the need to pay rent or a sales staff. “It’s not a capital-intensive business,” Mr. Salter said. “It’s a royalty-driven business. It’s like an annuity.” Bradley Snyder, principal and managing director of the Gordon Brothers Group, agreed. For these operations, “the store-based model is flawed,” he said. In court papers filed last week, Circuit City asked a bankruptcy judge in Richmond, Va., to name Systemax in Port Washington, N.Y., to be the so-called stalking horse bidder at an auction on May 11. The initial bid for the trademark and Internet domain names would be $6.5 million in cash plus a share of future revenue. It would essentially set the floor for competing bids, said Thomas Salerno, a bankruptcy lawyer at Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Phoenix and an author of “The Executive Guide to Corporate Bankruptcy.” A hearing on the motion for an auction is set for Tuesday. Systemax, though not a liquidator, is also in the market for brand names. Last year, it paid about $30 million for the CompUSA name and now operates 24 free-standing stores, more than half in Florida, and a Web presence at www.compusa.com . Those familiar with intellectual property rights say there is no guarantee that a revived brand will be successful after a retailer has gone under. The brands will compete with others that do not have troubled histories. And it is still too early to tell whether there is a market for the brands being licensed by Hilco and Gordon Brothers. Still, with the recession continuing, merchandise with a familiar name may prove attractive to consumers. Frederico de Bellegarde is vice president for licensing at Sharper Image, now a joint venture of Hilco, Gordon Brothers and Blue- star Alliance, and worked for the defunct company as vice president for wholesale and international distribution. He said he had met with enthusiasm. “Retailers are embracing it,” he said. Previously, other retail stores sold an earlier generation of Sharper Image merchandise, while dedicated Sharper Image stores and catalogs sold newer merchandise, he said. “Now, with no store channel to protect, we have a much broader distribution strategy.” He said the brand would be extended to include categories like bedding, which is scheduled to arrive in stores in September. Mr. de Bellegarde said that the molds used to make Sharper Image merchandise were part of the liquidation sale but that those products would not necessarily be brought to market again. The ready identification can come with a special burden, though, experts said. “Consumers might make inferences about why a company went under,” said Ryan Hamilton, assistant professor of marketing at the Goizueta Business School at Emory University. “And if those inferences are about product quality, then resurrecting the brand might not be a good thing.” He said that even consumer sentiment about layoffs can figure in the success of a brand’s revival. “Any negative association can spill onto the brand,” he said. Still he acknowledged that creating a good brand is enormously expensive. One that is already well known has a leg up. Yet, with consumers cautious about discretionary spending, it remains uncertain whether an influx of new brands, even ones with familiar names, will persuade customers to buy. The Bed, Bath & Beyond Web site has a Sharper Image garment steamer for $19.99, a wireless indoor-outdoor speaker for $49.99 and an entertainment projector for $99.99. “It remains to be seen whether they create brands that the stores want to carry,” said Stevan Buxbaum, executive vice president for marketing and business development at the Buxbaum Group, a liquidation company in Agoura Hills, Calif. At least one expert said consumers might be confused by the new products or even feel deceived by the practice. “If you think of the trademark as a way of protecting the identity of the brands, once it’s sold, it isn’t the same,” said David K. Levine, an economics professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Others disagree, saying that the bankruptcy courts have an obligation to dispose of all the assets and that it is possible that the liquidators overpaid for the names. “I see nothing wrong on the face of it,” says Phillip Beutel, who heads the intellectual property practice at National Economic Research Associates in White Plains. “The courts have to get the best value they can in the marketplace,” he said. The stores can use the brands to try to attract customers. Charles R. McManis, a professor of intellectual property law at Washington University in St. Louis, said the new owners have to be vigilant in protecting their investment. He said a business had to maintain quality control or the courts might conclude that it was trying to commit fraud. “A consumer is entitled to get what the trademark symbolizes, with merchandise roughly the same quality as before,” he said. Any trademark misuse could be considered abandonment and result in a loss of rights.

Trademarks and Trade Names
Shopping and Retail
Bankruptcies
Advertising and Marketing
Sharper Image


Wondering What the Fed’s Statements Mean? Be Patient

Abstract: patient adj. “bearing or enduring pain, trouble, etc. without complaining or losing self-control; refusing to be provoked or angered, as by an insult; forbearing; tolerant; calmly tolerating delay, confusion, inefficiency, etc.” — Webster’s New World College Dictionary When the Federal Reserve convenes next week to ponder the most momentous monetary policy decision since the financial crisis — when to raise interest rates — it will also be grappling with the meaning of one deceptively simple word: “patient.” What, exactly, does it mean if the Fed keeps “patient” in its outlook for monetary policy, or, as investors now seem to think more likely, drops the word? Billions of dollars in profits and losses will be riding on the outcome. The market has been gyrating on every comment by the Fed’s chairwoman, Janet L. Yellen, who has had to explain at length just what “patient” means. This isn’t how the new transparent Fed was supposed to work. In 2004, Ben Bernanke , then the Federal Reserve chairman, proclaimed the end of “Fedspeak” — the “turgid dialect of English,” as the Princeton economist Alan Blinder put it — by which central bankers made wordy pronouncements that said little or nothing, or even obscured or distorted the Fed’s intentions. As Mr. Bernanke stressed then in a much-cited address, central banks should communicate their intentions about rate changes clearly and succinctly. “There is much that a central bank can do — both by its actions and its words — to improve the ability of financial markets to predict monetary policy actions.” But 10 years later, the public, news media, financial analysts and investors are still struggling to figure out what the Fed’s words mean. I don’t doubt that Ms. Yellen and her colleagues at the Fed are trying hard to carry out Mr. Bernanke’s mandate for better communication. But they also seem more comfortable with what seems to be a deliberate level of ambiguity. To better understand why that is the case, I reached out to some experts in the field of linguistics rather than economists or market experts. I wondered: Is language itself up to the task? Take the market’s current epistemological fixation. “Patient” would seem a virtue, especially as opposed to its opposite (“hasty” or “impetuous”), and a quality that one would hope would be second nature to central bankers. Last Dec. 17, the Fed injected the word “patient” into its statement on monetary policy, saying it would be “patient in beginning to normalize the stance of monetary policy.” Even this shows a drift back into Fedspeak: “Normalize the stance of monetary policy” seems a needlessly convoluted way of saying “raise interest rates.” That aside, what was new? At a news conference the same day, Ms. Yellen said the statement meant something quite specific: that the Fed would not raise interest rates for at least a “couple” of meetings in 2015, adding, “I believe the dictionary says a couple means two.” Immediately, stocks soared and interest rates plunged as investors concluded that any rate rise was further off than previously expected. Then, late last month, in testimony before Congress, Ms. Yellen said the word “patient” would at some point be dropped, and the Fed would consider raising rates on a “meeting by meeting” basis. This message seemed to puzzle investors, who showed no immediate reaction. But last week, after a strong jobs report, they concluded that “patient” may be dropped sooner rather than later — even as soon as the Fed’s meeting next week — paving the way for a rate increase as soon as June. Last Friday and again on Tuesday, stocks swooned. Image Chairman Richard C. Shelby, left, and ranking member Sherrod C. Brown at a Senate hearing where Janet Yellen testified. Credit Kevin Lamarque/Reuters That seems a lot of baggage for one adjective. But by now it seems clear that “patient” has become a term of art, a word with a meaning specific to the Fed. That’s because the meaning of “patient,” like many adjectives, depends on context. Lawrence Solan, who has both a law degree and a doctorate in linguistics and teaches at Brooklyn Law School, cited three distinct situations: standing in line at a Staples store to have a copy made, waiting to see a doctor and waiting to get a mortgage approved. “Patient” in the first example might mean five minutes. For the doctor, perhaps a half-hour to an hour. For the mortgage, several weeks. “When have you waited long enough to have been ‘patient’ so you can politely complain again in the doctor’s office, the copy shop or to your mortgage bank? There is no real answer,” he said. As another example, he cited the adjective “tall.” A “tall” first grader is likely to be far shorter than a “tall” professional basketball player. “We automatically contextualize ‘patient’ to fit the context of the Fed’s decision, just the way we do for other quite specific situations,” Professor Solan said. “There really can be a meaning of ‘patience’ that applies only to the Fed, the same way there can be a meaning of ‘tall’ that applies only to first-grade children. Of course, it really isn’t the meaning that has changed. Rather it is the context that has changed for a word whose application is highly context-sensitive.” Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard and author of “The Language Instinct,” agreed that context was essential to understanding the Fed’s meaning. “It’s more akin to the language of diplomacy, politeness, tact, innuendo, euphemism, veiled threats and bribes and oblique sexual come-ons,” he said. “Cases in which the content of a speech act is highly fraught.” “When the chair of the Fed speaks, she knows that she is not just conveying information about the Fed’s plans, but sending a signal that changes the way that millions of people will behave, and how each will expect all the others to behave,” he said. “Investors not only interpret the remarks but try to guess how other investors will interpret the remarks. In that regard, her words are like an oath or a pronouncement of a jury verdict or marriage ceremony, or a prayer or a magical incantation — the mere act of uttering them changes the world. So the words take on formulaic meanings, and she is aware of that fact when choosing them.” The fact that the meaning of “patient” can vary so significantly depending on context, and even then may be difficult to pin down, can work to policy makers’ advantage. After all, if Ms. Yellen were to say exactly when the Fed planned to raise rates, and by how much, market rates would immediately rise, which would render further delay by the Fed all but pointless. (Recent pronouncements by the head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, seem to have had this effect in Europe, driving down European interest rates even before the central bank embarked on its campaign of quantitative easing .) “Clever language users can make use of ambiguity and what linguists call ‘modals’ ” — words like “possible,” “may” and “could” — “to indicate possibilities, while staying vague about actual plans or detailed strategies,” said David Pesetsky, professor of modern language and linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “My feeling is that such language doesn’t necessarily violate a commitment to transparency, while at the same time it is less informative than it might be.” Professor Solan made a similar point. “When Yellen speaks of patience having its limits, she is saying that while the Fed will not raise interest rates as soon as doing so is justifiable, neither will it wait until raising rates is an immediate necessity,” he said. “This tells us very little, of course. But it tells us much more than nothing, which is why there is so much chatter about it. If Yellen had said, ‘We can’t be patient any longer’ or ‘We will remain patient for at least another year,’ the reaction would have been quite different.” All should become clear next week, when the Fed holds its March meeting and Ms. Yellen is scheduled to give a news conference. Or will it? “It is important to emphasize that a modification of the forward guidance should not be read as indicating that the committee will necessarily increase the target range in a couple of meetings,” Ms. Yellen said in February. So much for clear and succinct.

Federal Reserve
English language
Banking and Finance
Ben S Bernanke
Janet L Yellen
Quantitative easing
Speeches


Paterno Has Broken Bone; Wants to Coach

Abstract: Penn State Coach Joe Paterno is expected to coach this Saturday’s home game against Temple, but will decide in the next few days whether he will have surgery on the top left shin bone that he fractured during Saturday’s 13-3 loss at Wisconsin, the assistant athletic director Jeff Nelson said yesterday. Paterno, who will turn 80 next month, also sustained ligament damage in his left knee when the Nittany Lions freshman tight end Andrew Quarless crashed into him on the sideline in the third quarter. He later left the game and the defensive coordinator Tom Bradley filled in. A statue of Paterno outside Beaver Stadium had a bandage wrapped around its left leg yesterday and bore a yellow handwritten sign, “Get well soon!!” Nelson said it had not been determined if Paterno would coach from the sideline or the press box. Wayne Sebastianelli, Penn State’s director of athletic medicine, who examined the injuries, declined additional comment on his condition last night. After the game Saturday, Bradley was upbeat about Paterno. “He’s a wiry old rascal,” he told reporters. “He’s not going anywhere; he’s pretty tough.”

Pennsylvania State University
Paterno Joe
Athletics and Sports
Temple University


Hillary Clinton’s Health Care Proposals, Focused on Cost, Go Well Beyond Obama’s

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Hillary Rodham Clinton , as she offered up a sheaf of new health care proposals , said she was “building on the Affordable Care Act.” But lurking in those proposals was a veiled criticism of President Obama ’s signature domestic achievement: For many families, the Affordable Care Act has not made health care affordable. Mr. Obama has spent five years minimizing cost issues still confronting many health care consumers. Mrs. Clinton is taking those on without apologies. She would go beyond the president’s 2010 law, capping a patient’s share of the bill for doctor visits and prescription drugs. She would repeal the law’s planned tax on high-cost employer-sponsored insurance — a tax the White House says is needed to constrain the growth of health spending. And Mrs. Clinton, like Bill Clinton when he was president, appears to be more willing to confront insurers and drug makers over high prices. She said she would seek “authority to block or modify unreasonable health insurance rate increases” and stop “excessive profiteering” by drug companies. Those comments echoed her criticism of the industry 22 years ago. As chief architect of her husband’s plan to remake the nation’s health care system in 1993, she accused insurance and pharmaceutical companies of “price gouging” and “unconscionable profiteering.” “Health care is one of highest-ranking issues she hears about over and over,” said Chris Jennings, an informal adviser to Mrs. Clinton who worked on health issues in the Clinton White House. Mrs. Clinton’s recent comments surprised and irked Obama administration officials. A White House spokeswoman said that, to her knowledge, the Clinton campaign had not consulted the administration. Who’s Winning the Presidential Campaign? History suggests that each party’s eventual nominee will emerge from 2015 in one of the top two or three positions, as measured by endorsements, fund-raising and polling. The White House press office issued a statement describing the tax on high-cost health plans — the so-called Cadillac tax — as “a key part” of Mr. Obama’s health care law . Repealing it “would hurt our economy by increasing the deficit, raising health care cost growth and cutting workers’ paychecks,” the White House said. It would also blow an $87 billion hole in the government’s revenue stream over eight years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Even as she proposed changes in the health law, Mrs. Clinton said it was working, and she promised to fight Republican efforts to dismantle it. Republicans said she was trying to have it both ways, embracing popular parts of the law while rejecting those that are unpopular. Mrs. Clinton’s health policy proposals were calculated to appeal to Democratic voters and labor unions who might be tempted to support Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her main rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. Many unions say the Cadillac tax, scheduled to take effect in 2018, will hurt their members, including schoolteachers and factory workers who gave up higher wages to secure generous health benefits. But her aggressive approach is nothing new. The health care plan she drafted for her husband, as presented to Congress in 1993, had the same goals as Mr. Obama’s health law, but it took a more aggressive regulatory approach. The government would have set lower limits on out-of-pocket costs and provided more generous subsidies to many consumers and employers. A new agency, the National Health Board, would have set a health budget for the nation and would have regulated most private insurance premiums. And “regional health alliances” would have been responsible for collecting premiums and could have set fee schedules for doctors. Mrs. Clinton revealed her opposition to the Cadillac tax five days after a dozen senators introduced legislation to repeal it. Among the senators were Mr. Sanders, who has support from many rank-and-file union members, and Chuck Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, who is expected to take over as Democratic leader with the retirement of Senator Harry Reid of Nevada next year. Mr. Obama has long boasted about the law’s provisions that hold down consumer costs. The law imposes limits on out-of-pocket costs and requires insurers to cover preventive services, like vaccinations and cancer screenings, at no cost to consumers. And the big rate increases sought by some health insurance companies for 2016 are less significant than they appear, administration officials maintain, because most people buying insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s public exchanges receive federal subsidies that cover most of the premium. They do not need to worry about the “list prices,” officials said, and if they do, they can switch to less expensive plans. Video Hillary Rodham Clinton said that she would refuse to let Republican lawmakers “start the health care debate all over again” by repealing the Affordable Care Act. Credit Credit Jonathan Bachman/Associated Press But Mrs. Clinton said that many families still struggled with medical costs. She wants Congress to give them financial assistance: tax credits up to $2,500 a year for an individual and $5,000 for a family if out-of-pocket health costs exceed 5 percent of income. Each insurer sets its own limits on out-of-pocket costs, up to a federally imposed maximum. The limits this year cannot be more than $6,600 for an individual plan and $13,200 for a family plan. The Affordable Care Act requires health insurers to disclose the costs to consumers of specific medical services, but the Obama administration has yet to enforce that requirement, disappointing consumer advocates who say the data would be useful to patients. Mrs. Clinton said she would “vigorously enforce” these provisions and broaden them so consumers could make more informed choices about coverage and save money. The Obama administration does post information about the benefits and costs of different health plans, but making comparisons can be difficult because the plans do not use a standard definition of deductible — the amount that consumers owe before their insurance begins to pay. Mrs. Clinton would go further than the law’s guarantee of free preventive health services and would require insurers and employers to cover three “sick visits” a year without charging a deductible. The White House pointed out that one of Mrs. Clinton’s proposals — to let Medicare negotiate prices for high-cost drugs and biotech medicines — was in Mr. Obama’s budget in February. Again, Mrs. Clinton would go further. She would limit consumers’ out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs to $250 a month, or $3,000 a year. She would eliminate tax breaks for drug advertising aimed at consumers. And she would put pressure on pharmaceutical companies to spend more of their revenue on research and development. She is also proposing measures to protect consumers against “surprise medical bills.” Health plans often have networks of preferred doctors and hospitals. Even when patients use one of the preferred hospitals, they sometimes receive tens of thousands of dollars in unexpected bills from anesthesiologists, surgeons and other doctors who were not in the network . Under her proposal, Mrs. Clinton said, consumers would not have to pay those extra charges for care at hospitals in their health plan’s network. In a series of reports in recent years, the Obama administration has cited data to show that health costs were growing at the slowest rate in decades. But that overall trend may stem in part from costs landing directly on patients, causing them not to seek needed care, experts said. “One way to lower premiums is to increase deductibles, shifting costs back to consumers,” Mr. Jennings said. “Mrs. Clinton worries that high deductibles lead to the underuse of necessary medical care.” A recent study by the Commonwealth Fund , a foundation that specializes in health policy, said that “the growing use and size of deductibles in both employer and marketplace plans as a means to lower premiums threatens to undermine the gains Americans have made in coverage since 2014.” Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and a longtime confidante of Mrs. Clinton, said the health care law poses a challenge for Democrats. The law, she said, has expanded coverage and slowed the growth of national health spending, both major achievements. But, Ms. Tanden said, “consumers feel their costs have risen” because wages are stagnant and many employers have required workers to shoulder a greater share of their medical expenses.

Health Insurance
Obamacare,Affordable Care Act
2016 Presidential Election
Hillary Clinton
Barack Obama
Democrats


Fed’s Optimism on Economy Improves Wall Street’s Mood

Abstract: Stocks reversed an early slide and ended higher on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve issued a more upbeat assessment of the economy. Major stock indexes were down before the Fed released its statement, then advanced as investors digested the central bank’s comments after a two-day meeting on interest rates. Treasury prices also reversed direction after the announcement, falling as investors withdrew money. The Fed said it believed “economic activity has continued to strengthen” since its last meeting in December, but it did not repeat its assertion that the housing market was improving. Although it left interest rates near zero, as expected, the Fed noted that Thomas M. Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, had voted against the decision. James A. Cox, managing partner at the Harris Financial Group in Colonial Heights, Va., said Mr. Hoenig’s vote signaled that the central bank was moving closer to raising rates. “That means there are a couple of people who feel that the economy is getting better at a nice rate that no longer warrants these exceptionally low rates,” he said. Stocks fell early in the day as the Commerce Department said sales of new homes fell 7.6 percent in December . At the close of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 41.87 points, or 0.41 percent, at 10,236.16. It was down 40 points before the Fed’s statement. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index rose 5.33 points, or 0.49 percent, to 1,097.50, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 17.68 points, or 0.8 percent, to 2,221.41. The Treasury’s benchmark 10-year note fell 8/32, to 97 24/32, and the yield rose to 3.65 percent from 3.62 percent late Tuesday. The dollar rose against most major currencies, while gold fell. Reassurance from the Fed could not erase all investor worries about the economy. Caterpillar hurt the Dow industrials when it issued a cautious forecast. The stock fell $2.41, or 4.3 percent, to $53.44. Shares of Apple rose $1.94, or 0.94 percent, to $207.88 after the company announced a tablet-style computer , the iPad, that looks like a large iPhone screen. The Fed’s announcement was the latest event in Washington to command investors’ attention. In hearings on Capitol Hill, the Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, defended the government’s rescue last year of the American International Group. Traders are also waiting to see whether the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, whose term ends Sunday, will win Senate approval for a second four-year term. A vote is expected on Thursday. The hearings came after President Obama said last week that he would seek to limit trading by major financial institutions. That drew concerns from investors that bank profits would suffer. Following are the results of Wednesday’s auction of five-year notes:


Takata Saw and Hid Risk in Airbags in 2004, Former Workers Say

Abstract: Alarmed by a report a decade ago that one of its airbags had ruptured and spewed metal debris at a driver in Alabama, the Japanese manufacturer Takata secretly conducted tests on 50 airbags it retrieved from scrapyards, according to two former employees involved in the tests, one of whom was a senior member of its testing lab. The steel inflaters in two of the airbags cracked during the tests, a condition that can lead to rupture, the former employees said. The result was so startling that engineers began designing possible fixes in preparation for a recall, the former employees said. But instead of alerting federal safety regulators to the possible danger, Takata executives discounted the results and ordered the lab technicians to delete the testing data from their computers and dispose of the airbag inflaters in the trash, they said. The secret tests, which have not been previously disclosed, were performed after normal work hours and on weekends and holidays during summer 2004 at Takata’s American headquarters in Auburn Hills, Mich., the former employees said. That was four years before Takata, in regulatory filings, says that it first tested the problematic airbags. The results from the later tests led to the first recall over airbag rupture risks in November 2008. Video In the course of reporting, The Times obtained video showing the potentially dangerous consequences of mishandling Takata’s airbags. Millions of vehicles with the airbags have been recalled worldwide. Today, 11 automakers have recalled more than 14 million vehicles worldwide because of the rupture risks. Four deaths have been tied to the defect, which can cause the airbag’s steel canister to crack and explode into pieces when the device deploys in a crash. The airbags are inflated by means of a propellant, based on a common compound used in fertilizer, that is encased in the canister, which together are known as the inflater. Complaints received by regulators about various automakers blame Takata airbags for at least 139 injuries, including 37 people who reported airbags that ruptured or spewed metal or chemicals. Takata is one of the world’s largest suppliers of airbags, accounting for about one-fifth of the global market. The former Takata employees, who between them had four decades of experience at the company, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of continuing ties to Takata. They said they were speaking up because of concerns that their former employer was not being forthright about the defective airbags. “All the testing was hush-hush,” one former employee said. “Then one day, it was, ‘Pack it all up, shut the whole thing down.’ It was not standard procedure.” A spokesman for Takata, Alby Berman, declined to comment on the disclosure of the testing. In the past, a spokesman for Honda said it was assured by Takata in 2004 that the episode in Alabama, which involved a 2002 Honda Accord, was an anomaly. On Thursday, a Honda spokesman, Chris Martin, said in a statement, “This is a serious allegation about actions taken by Takata. It is our intention to determine whether anyone at Honda has any evidence that these claims are credible.” Takata Airbag Recalls: Affected Vehicles This list of affected vehicles was compiled from information automakers provided to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Separately, materials reviewed by The New York Times cast doubt on Takata’s claims to federal regulators that it had resolved manufacturing and quality control problems with its airbag propellant in the early 2000s. Takata has said, in regulatory filings, that by November 2002, it had ensured that there was “proper handling” of the propellants at a factory in Moses Lake, Wash., where it had traced problems with the rupturing airbags. But as recently as April 2009, Takata engineers scrambled to repair a flaw in a machine at another factory in Monclova, Mexico, that made the airbag propellant more volatile, according to materials from a company presentation given that year. Two former quality-control managers at the company’s main distribution center in Texas, moreover, described in interviews a series of quality problems that arose as the company raced to meet a surge in demand for its airbags. The Times reviewed internal Takata documents, emails, photos, videos and regulatory filings. Emails show workers raising concerns that airbag units were being delivered to automakers wet or damaged because of transportation mishaps. Closed-circuit television footage shows forklifts dropping stacks of the airbag units. The dropped airbags were not always properly inspected for damage, especially in the early 2000s, according to the former quality-control managers who said they later pushed for stricter controls at the facility. The two spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retribution. Takata is facing renewed scrutiny for its handling of the defective airbags, which The Times reported in September had been the subject of a short-lived investigation by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that was closed in 2010 without any enforcement action. The federal agency has now reopened its investigation into Takata, a House committee has asked the Government Accountability Office to conduct its own investigation, and federal prosecutors in Manhattan have also taken an interest. “Claims such as these have raised additional concerns about Takata’s handling of airbag issues and are one of the reasons we’re compelling them to produce documents and answer questions, under oath,” the highway safety agency said. The Takata spokesman, Mr. Berman, said, “Takata will continue to fully cooperate with the government investigation as we also support the needs of our customers.” In Tokyo on Thursday, the company’s chief financial officer apologized broadly for the problems caused by the defective airbags, while the company announced that legal uncertainty and rising recall costs would result in a larger-than-expected quarterly loss. “We don’t know at this point how things will play out,” said Yoichiro Nomura, the chief financial officer. The most recent death linked to the airbags involved an accident in a suburban Los Angeles parking lot last year. Hai Ming Xu, 47, was killed by an airbag that deployed explosively in his 2002 Acura TL. The police in Alhambra, Calif., initially treated the case as a homicide because of the nature of his injuries, before an autopsy suggested the wounds were caused by the airbag, according to a Los Angeles County Coroner’s report. The report concluded that extensive lacerations on Mr. Xu’s face came from “a metallic portion” of the airbag inflater that “hit the deceased on the face as it deployed.” The report also said tears had been discovered in the airbag. Image A Takata distribution center in Texas. Former employees say quality problems arose as the company tried to fill demand for airbags. The first known rupture of a Takata airbag occurred in Alabama in 2004, according to Honda. The inflater that ruptured in the Accord and injured the car’s driver that year “looked like it had exploded, and had a hole punched out of the side of the canister,” said one of the former Takata lab employees who examined the airbag. Takata and Honda have declined to disclose further details of that accident, which ended in a settlement between the automaker and the driver, according to Honda. Behind the scenes, however, the former Takata lab employees said, the manufacturer wanted to know more. The tests on the 50 airbags were supervised by Al Bernat, then Takata’s vice president for engineering, they said, and were unknown to all but a small group of people, that included lab technicians, fabricators and engineers. The employees said that they did not know under whose authority Mr. Bernat was operating. The tests’ results worried the technicians: Two of the airbag inflaters Takata had retrieved from the junkyards showed cracks and the start of “rapid disassembly” during the tests, Takata’s preferred term for explosion, according to the two people. They said Takata engineers at the time theorized that a problem with the welding of the inflater’s canister, intended to hold the airbag’s explosives, made its structure vulnerable to splitting and rupturing. The two people said engineers designed prototypes for possible fixes, including a second canister to strengthen the unit. But after three months, they said, the testing was ordered halted. The lab employees were also instructed that all data, including video and computer backups, be destroyed. Inflaters and prototypes of fixes were also to be disassembled and disposed of in a scrap-metal Dumpster, the senior lab employee said. No explanation was offered, the employee said, though the order was not considered surprising given the secret nature of the testing. As for the two problematic airbag inflaters, Mr. Bernat, the supervisor, told people at the time that they were not significant because they had been retrieved from cars with cracked windshields and were likely “corrupted by weather,” according to the two former employees. Takata Internal Documents Documents related to Takata’s handling of an airbag inflater problem and the company’s guidelines on handling airbags and other safety equipment. Reached at his home in Rochester Hills, Mich., Mr. Bernat declined to comment and referred questions to his former employer. Takata also declined to comment. As automakers have recalled the airbags in recent years, Takata has suggested that weather plays a significant role in making its airbags prone to rupture. Takata said humidity could hurt the stability of the airbag’s explosives. In explaining the defect, the company has also pointed to manufacturing flaws involving the airbags’ explosive, or propellant, including improper exposure to moisture, and problems with a machine that presses propellant powder into tablets. Takata has said both troubles were corrected in the early 2000s. But the internal documents suggest Takata engineers scrambled as late as 2009 to repair a machine at its Monclova plant that pressed explosive propellant powder into pellets after “inflaters tested from multiple propellant lots showed aggressive ballistics,” according to the internal presentation in June 2009. The internal materials and interviews with the former quality-control managers also suggest that quality control problems at Takata stretched beyond its production lines. Airbag modules would get wet during transit, arriving wet at automakers’ assembly plants on leaky trucks, the managers said. The problems were addressed in an overhaul of operations at the plant starting in 2004, but local managers struggled to maintain the stricter controls. Image Yoichiro Nomura, Takata’s chief financial officer, apologized on Thursday for the problems caused by the defective airbags. Credit Thomas Peter/Reuters “The whole situation makes me sick,” one manager wrote in a February 2007 email addressed to multiple colleagues in which he complained that checks the center had introduced to try to keep the airbags dry — including hosing down trucks to check for leaks — were being ignored. A 2009 presentation of guidelines on handling inflaters and airbag units stressed the dangers of mishandling them. The presentation included a link to a video that appeared to show side-curtain airbags deploying violently, sending the inflater hurtling into the car’s cabin. (The inflater does not rupture in that video.) And in an email, dated October 2005, a second manager urged employees to examine the propellant visible in a cross section of an airbag inflater. “The propellant arrangement inside is what can be damaged when the airbags are dropped,” that manager wrote. “Here you can see why it is important to handle our product properly.” Still, even after stricter controls were introduced at the distribution center, Takata’s production facilities would resist taking back possibly damaged or wet airbag modules, according to the two managers. One reason, they said, was that Takata struggled to keep up with a surge in demand for its airbags through the early and mid-2000s as it won big new clients like General Motors. And as automakers drove down costs using “just-in-time” production — which require parts to arrive at assembly plants only as they are required — Takata was under pressure to meet intense delivery schedules, they said. Workers were often told that if a client like Honda or Toyota was required to stop production at their plants because of a late Takata shipment, the parts supplier would be fined tens of thousands of dollars for every minute of lost production. “That put a lot of pressure and incentive on us to never miss a shipment,” said one of the former managers. “I’d argue, ‘what if my daughter bought the car with the bad airbag?’ But the plant would tell us, ‘Just ship it.’ ”

Takata
Automobile safety
Recalls and Bans
False Data
Car Crash
Manufacturing


Metta World Peace Cites ‘Passion,’ Not Anger, in Elbowing

Abstract: EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — Peace? Not in the Lakers ’ time. Metta World Peace , their starting forward once known as Ron Artest, is on the N.B.A.’s clock now, suspended seven games for elbowing Oklahoma City’s James Harden. That left his teammates, who started the season shrugging off an aborted trade for Chris Paul, shrugging off the loss of World Peace for one regular-season and six playoff games, assuming they last that long. World Peace changed his name last summer, after having threatened the peace for 14 seasons. He had been suspended nine times for a total of 102 games — 86 after he touched off the 2004 Auburn Hills brawl, going into the stands after a fan threw a beverage at him and punching the wrong one. The Lakers, whose late surge coincided with World Peace’s revival and who now must find his replacement on a bench that was No. 27 in scoring, issued no-comments about the suspension. Nevertheless, one of them, at least, was horrified after viewing a replay that showed World Peace pushing past Kevin Durant, dunking left-handed over Serge Ibaka, pounding his chest with his right fist as he turned upcourt and, finding Harden in his way, hitting him squarely in the head with a windmilling left elbow. “Oh, yeah,” World Peace said. “It was a brutal elbow. When I saw it, I’m like ‘Ohhhh ... ’ “During that possession there was so much passion. A lot of people get mistaken when they hear Metta World Peace’s name. When I’m out there on that court, that passion is bottled up.” Coach Mike Brown had been starting the second-year forward Devin Ebanks ahead of World Peace, whose struggles continued after Brown put him back in the lineup. When he was averaging only 5 points and shooting 34 percent on Feb. 14, World Peace put it down to adjusting to Brown, saying: “His background is video coordinator or whatever, so he’s all stats. But Ron Artest is all feel. He doesn’t understand that.” Sticking up for himself, Brown, who is in his first season as the Lakers’ coach, said he told World Peace that Synergy Sports Technology, the N.B.A.’s numbers-cruncher, ranked him No. 192 as a defender. Noting his poor numbers on offense, Brown says he told him, “If I was a stats guy, the guy that should be playing at the small forward spot is Devin Ebanks, because he’s shooting better than you and Matt” Barnes. Artest rallied in April, averaging 14 points, shooting 50 percent, even dunking three times against the Thunder, which he said explained his excitement. “I got the one dunk, which I hadn’t seen in years, over, I guess, most of the team,” World Peace said. “The second one, I got the offensive rebound, bumped Kevin out of the way, went straight up. “And the third one, fast break— Kevin had no chance. Bumped him out of the way, went up, dunked. And at that point, I was just way too emotional. It seemed like anger but it was a lot of passion involved. “But it was erratic. it was erratic fire, erratic passion. It was way too much. Definitely. “It definitely wasn’t meant to hit him how I hit him.” World Peace said he did not expect to be suspended for so many games. “I just don’t want to make any excuse,” he said. “I should really say what’s on my mind for Laker fans. But I don’t want to make an excuse right now. “There are only two things that matter right now. In basketball, it’s just wins and losses. This is no time for excuses.” It is no time for explanations, either. No one, including World Peace, has ever been able to explain his eccentricities, like applying for a part-time job at Circuit City as a rookie in Chicago. On the floor, Indiana teammates once said opponents were “scared of him.” Michael Jordan was an admirer, even after World Peace broke two of his ribs in a summer pickup game. Eccentric or not, he is a favorite of Laker staff members. As gung-ho in charity as in basketball, he raffled off several items, including his championship ring, donating the $651,000 it brought for mental health causes. “It’s funny” he said, “a lot of guys who were able to guard me had no chance now. My game’s feeling great. It’s just the worst timing for me right now. “I didn’t lose it. It was bad timing for me. And physically, it was bad timing for Mr. Harden.”

Basketball
Los Angeles Lakers
World Peace Metta
Brown Mike
Harden James


UConn Survives a Scare From Unranked Buffalo

Abstract: Hasheem Thabeet had 21 points and 18 rebounds, Jeff Adrien added 18 points, and No. 2 Connecticut survived a big scare on the road Thursday night, holding off Buffalo, 68-64. Two years ago, Buffalo (3-3) nearly upset Pittsburgh, then ranked No. 2, at Alumni Arena, losing by 70-67 after leading by 10 points with 14 minutes left. A repeat performance seemed unlikely against the Huskies (8-0), who won their first seven games by an average of 24 points. But Rodney Pierce scored a career-high 28 points to keep Buffalo close. He had a chance to force overtime with the Bulls trailing by 66-64, but Max Boudreau bobbled his pass with four seconds left and Kemba Walker made two free throws for the Huskies. There were 15 lead changes and four ties in the game. “If Pierce turns and throws up a 3 as the clock goes off, they get themselves a win,” Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun said. “They were that close.” OKLAHOMA 73, U.S.C. 72 Blake Griffin, a preseason all-American, scored 11 of his 25 points after getting elbowed below the waist in the second half, and No. 6 Oklahoma (7-0) staved off a rally by visiting Southern California (5-3). TEXAS 68, U.C.L.A. 64 A. J. Abrams matched his career high with 31 points, including the last 6 of the game for No. 8 Texas (6-1), lifting the host Longhorns over No. 12 U.C.L.A. Darren Collison had 22 points for the Bruins (4-2). VILLANOVA 93, HOUSTON BAPTIST 57 Scottie Reynolds scored a season-high 23 points as No. 17 Villanova stayed unbeaten with a victory over visiting Houston Baptist. The Wildcats (8-0) won by 20 or more points for the fourth time this season. IN OTHER GAMES James Harden had 22 points as No. 19 Arizona State beat visiting Jackson State, 81-60. ... Stefan Perunicic scored 28 points to lead St. Francis of Brooklyn (2-4) over host Robert Morris (3-4), 87-79, in the Northeast Conference opener for both teams. ... Long Island University (2-3) opened NEC play on the road with a 73-58 victory over St. Francis of Pennsylvania (3-5). Women MARYLAND 70, PURDUE 59 Kristi Toliver scored 22 of her 24 points in the second half, helping No. 8 Maryland beat No. 17 Purdue in an A.C.C./Big Ten Challenge game in West Lafayette, Ind. The Terrapins (7-1) have won seven straight. Lindsay Wisdom-Hylton led Purdue (5-2) with 20 points. DUKE 71, IOWA 47 Chante Black scored 18 points and No. 12 Duke beat visiting Iowa in an A.C.C./Big Ten Challenge game. Joy Cheek added 13 points for the Blue Devils (5-1). Hannah Draxten scored 9 points for the Hawkeyes (4-4). Megan Skouby, who entered the game averaging 17 points a game, missed most of the first half after sustaining a cut over her left eye and finished with 8 points.


Cambodia: Workers at Khmer Rouge Tribunal Strike

Abstract: Nearly 200 staff members at the Khmer Rouge tribunal, which is supported by the United Nations, have gone on strike to demand wages that are several months overdue, a court spokesman said Monday. A majority of the court’s Cambodian employees, including interpreters and translators essential to the court’s functions, did not show up for work on Monday because their wages had not been paid since June, said the spokesman, Neth Pheaktra. Budgetary shortfalls, along with the defendants’ advanced age and poor health, have raised concerns that the tribunal’s trial may grind to a halt. A United Nations spokesman at the court, Lars Olsen, said the strike threatened to delay proceedings at the tribunal, which was set up to seek justice for atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s. An estimated 1.7 million Cambodians died under the Khmer Rouge as a result of forced labor, starvation, medical neglect and executions.

War Crimes,Genocide,Crimes Against Humanity


Clippers Draw Some High-Profile Offers

Abstract: The potentially frothy bidding to purchase the Los Angeles Clippers began Wednesday with at least three offers submitted to Rochelle Sterling, whose husband, Donald, has been barred for life by the N.B.A. for racist statements made in a recorded conversation. She extended the bidding beyond the initial deadline of 5 p.m. Wednesday and hoped to choose a buyer over the weekend. The bids ranged from $1 billion to $2 billion, according to a person who was briefed on the negotiations but was not authorized to speak publicly. One bidding group, according to multiple reports, is a supersize one filled with boldface names: Oprah Winfrey; David Geffen, an entertainment mogul; Larry Ellison, the billionaire chief executive of the software giant Oracle; and Guggenheim Partners, which paid $2.15 billion for the Los Angeles Dodgers two years ago. Another group is led by Antony Ressler, who founded and runs Ares Management, a private equity firm that just went public. A third offer has come from Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft chief executive who tried to buy the Sacramento Kings and move them to Seattle last year. The league is looking to oust the estranged Sterlings as the Clippers’ owners and has scheduled a Tuesday hearing and vote of its Board of Governors. Sterling seems engaged in two parallel strategies that do not appear linked: He seems that he may want to sell, but he is vowing to battle the accusations against him “to the bloody end,” his lawyer said. He has indeed authorized his wife to sell the team, according to a letter to the league that was obtained by The New York Times. The Sterlings share ownership of the Clippers in a trust. The letter, dated May 22 and sent to Commissioner Adam Silver and Richard Buchanan, the league’s vice president and general counsel, read, “This letter confirms that Donald T. Sterling authorized Rochelle Sterling to negotiate with the National Basketball Association regarding all issues in connection with a sale of the Los Angeles Clippers team, owned by LAC Basketball Club Inc.” Donald Sterling’s lawyer, Maxwell Blecher, said that while Rochelle Sterling had the authority to negotiate a deal, she could not complete one without her husband’s approval. “She does not have his power of attorney,” Blecher said in an interview Wednesday. “Shelly doesn’t see it that way, and you can read it and draw your own conclusions.” He added, “The authorization letter doesn’t close the case; if Group X comes in with a $2.5 billion bid, Sterling, Shelly and the league have to agree to it.” Yet in his 32-page response to the charges, a document made public Tuesday, Sterling sounded as if he was willing to fight to keep the team that the league was trying to wrest from him. He rebutted the league’s accusations; said he was being punished illegally for remarks that he did not know were being recorded in a private conversation; and said Silver had not proven that he violated the N.B.A. constitution. Blecher described Sterling as being in a state of shock when he was hired to represent him and said that he initially had difficulty communicating with him. “What we’re seeing now is an evolution: from shock and awe to ‘Oh, I’m not going to take this lying down,’ ” Blecher said, vowing that Sterling would not sign any deal that had been negotiated by his wife until the league dropped its case against him. “They have to do something to restore his dignity,” Blecher said. “These are false and scurrilous attacks based on evidence that California courts have declared cannot be used in any proceeding.” He said that Sterling might file suit against the league before Tuesday, rather than wait until the owners cast their votes. Sports law experts suggested there might be some logic in Sterling’s letting his wife negotiate the sale while pursuing a full-throated, all-or-nothing defense. “It could be a matter of principle for Sterling, of trying to save his name,” said Gabe Feldman, the director of the sports law program at Tulane University Law School. “It could be a leverage play — that it’s going to take a sizable offer for him to sell his team, that he will sell only for the right price, but not because he’s required to.” Irwin P. Raij, a partner at Foley & Lardner, said: “This is a reluctant seller, but you have to pay attention to a worthwhile price. Maybe he knows it’s not worth the continued battle, but he could be establishing value. They seem to be employing multiple strategies; one may benefit the other.” The sale is moving at an extremely rapid clip to beat the Tuesday hearing, in which owners could terminate the Sterlings’ ownership. Rochelle Sterling hired Bank of America over the weekend and soon afterward was spotted meeting with Ballmer. The fast-tracked process means bidders will have less time than usual to perform their due diligence, like examining financial records and interviewing potential media partners. If the sale is not completed before Tuesday’s hearing and the Sterlings are ousted as owners, the league will sell the team at auction and give the couple their profits. A three-quarters vote of the 29 other owners is required to oust the Sterlings. Sterling declared in his response to the charges that his constitutional rights required that “these sham proceedings be terminated” in his favor. His tone suggested that he was primed to fight his fellow owners, even as he conceded that the support many of them had shown for Silver’s actions suggested that he was engaged in a losing battle. Sterling noted that no one in league history had ever been fined $2.5 million and that no owner had ever had his team confiscated for “any offense, much less an alleged offense originating in a conversation in a private setting that was illegally recorded.” Sterling also cited league penalties against players and owners for inflammatory speech or misconduct that did not approach the punishment proposed against him. “In view of these facts,” he said, “the commissioner’s request to compel Mr. Sterling to sell the Clippers is internally inconsistent with prior punishments, is discriminatory, and is arbitrary and capricious.” He also said that forcing him to sell the Clippers would result in “vast and avoidable financial consequences” that would require payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in capital-gains taxes, which would be levied at a 33 percent rate. If the team passes to his heirs, the tax burden will be much smaller.

Basketball
Clippers
NBA
Donald Sterling
Adam Silver
Rochelle Sterling


More New York Students Meet State Standards In English

Abstract: The number of elementary and middle school students meeting standards in English rose sharply in New York City and across the state, according to test results released on Thursday by the State Education Department. But the scores used to determine who has met the standards showed much smaller gains, with signs that many students continued to struggle. In New York City, 69 percent of students from Grades 3 through 8 met state standards, meaning they reached Levels 3 or 4 on the test. Last year, 58 percent met state standards in the city. Statewide, 82 percent of students reached Levels 3 or 4, up from 74 percent. Test scores rose more modestly. In New York City, the average was 662, up 7 points from the year before. This year’s test scores are more crucial than ever to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has staked his reputation on improving the city’s schools and is seeking a third term in office. He also is pressing state legislators to renew the 2002 law that gave him control over the city schools; the law expires on June 30. The mayor, speaking to reporters in Washington, pointed to the gains as the latest evidence of his success, saying, “It is nothing but good news.” But the raw numbers behind the news also drew scrutiny, both because they show more modest progress and because skeptics wonder whether the tests are becoming easier to pass. “We’ve learned that statistics can both sometimes illuminate successes, but also sometimes obscure the facts,” said Merryl H. Tisch, the newly elected chancellor of the State Education Department. “Focusing on only those who are meeting state standards hides important data.” The actual test scores and the percentage of students meeting standards can tell very different stories because it takes only a few correct answers to cross the line between Level 2, which is considered failing, and Level 3. For example, in the eighth grade, 57 percent of students met standards in New York City, compared with 43 percent last year. The actual scores show a different picture, with the average rising to 653 out of 790, up just 6 points from 647 last year. Ms. Tisch said that while the improvements were moderate, “you cannot look at this data and not see trends of progress.” The mayor and the city’s schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, have said that their success should be judged on the numbers, and the results released on Thursday could raise questions from state lawmakers about how effective their policies have been. While the scores show moderate and steady gains, they suggest more subtle improvements than those that the administration has trumpeted over the last several years. New York City students performed better than students in the other four big cities in New York, with more students meeting state standards and earning higher mean scores. But students in three of those cities, Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, have shown larger improvements on the average scores since 2006, when the state began annual testing of students in the third through eighth grades. There are other signs of progress. This year’s sixth graders, who were in kindergarten when Mr. Bloomberg took over the school system, have posted roughly the same scores on the test over the last four years, gaining just one point from last year to this year. Yet compared with other years, when student scores typically dropped between the fifth and sixth grades, it was a sign of improvement. The percentage of students scoring at the lowest level on the state test has also dropped significantly in the last four years, to just under 3 percent in 2009, from 11 percent in 2006. In past years, the release of scores was typically met with jubilant news conferences in the city, but on Thursday, Mr. Klein and Mr. Bloomberg were in Washington, where the mayor met with President Obama to discuss school reforms. “This is confirmatory of the fact that results continue to grow and increase,” Mr. Klein said in a telephone interview while he was on his way back from Washington. “I think we have multiple data points now that show that we are making that progress.” Mr. Klein said he still defined success much as he did when he began — to bring the performance of city students up to the statewide average. Over all, the state average score was 668, six points higher than in the city. He said he was particularly proud of gains made at the middle school level, where students have often stagnated. The test is given to public school students in the third through eighth grades. Math scores are expected to be released later this spring. Several lawmakers and critics have said they were suspicious of gains in the state tests, compared with results on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, which showed few signs of progress for New York City students in 2007, the most recent year for which results were available. City officials dismissed that criticism on Thursday, saying that the national assessment results for 2009, which will be released in the fall, could show a different picture. “Nothing is clear here,” said Michael Petrilli, vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Washington. “You can spin these results however you want.” Ms. Tisch suggested that New York and other states should adopt a single standard so that scores and proficiency levels could be compared. She raised questions about the difficulty of the state’s tests. “As a board, we will ask whether the test is getting harder or easier,” she said.

Tests and Testing
English Language
Education and Schools
New York City
Standards and Standardization
Tisch Merryl H


Maine Provides Barely a Glimmer to a Team With No Hope

Abstract: PHILADELPHIA — The Mets ’ elimination from playoff contention had been a foregone conclusion for some time when Sunday night rolled around. The number of Mets on the disabled list had grown right along with the number in the loss column, and the weight of mediocrity had dragged the Mets down the standings. But every unfortunate chapter of this Mets season seemed to come with a little extra — some embarrassing mishap or poignant twist. So it was only fitting that their futility was confirmed by the team that would enjoy it most. With two victories Sunday in a day-night doubleheader , 5-4 and 1-0, the Philadelphia Phillies mathematically squashed any possibility of postseason baseball for the Mets. And of all people to finish them off, it was Pedro Martinez, the pitcher they rejected after last season, unsure his body could withstand another year in the majors. In his gem of a start in the nightcap, Martinez shut out the Mets for eight innings — he allowed six hits and struck out seven — flashing a glimpse of what might have been. The arm the Mets thought they could no longer trust after four seasons delivered 130 mostly wicked pitches. Martinez, 37, made his desire to stay in New York abundantly clear at the end of last season, but his rash of injuries during his last two years with the team, combined with his hopes for a contract worth $5 million plus incentives, ultimately dissuaded the Mets. Most other teams shared their doubts, and Martinez languished without a club until the Phillies signed him after the midpoint of the season. The gamble has paid off. Still armed with his trusty changeup and a livelier fastball, Martinez is 5-0 in seven starts for the Phillies. Philadelphia did not do much to protect his 1-0 lead because Tim Redding delivered six capable innings for the Mets, so Martinez did it himself from the mound, even waving off Manager Charlie Manuel in the eighth. Martínez said he did not know until after the game that the Mets had been eliminated. “And I have to tell you, I’m sorry for them because they have a bunch of good guys,” he said. Sunday afternoon had already been a sharp reminder that the Phillies’ relievers could not be trusted. Trailing by 4-0 in the first game, the Mets jumped all over the Phillies’ quickly collapsing bullpen — much the way they did Saturday, when they scored five runs in two innings — before running into Brad Lidge and a handful of generous calls from the home plate umpire Paul Emmel in the ninth. John Maine pitched for the Mets for the first time since June 6, and he quickly realized how much things had changed since his last start. Half the players around him were different, and when he last played, the Mets were three games out of first place in the National League East. With a characteristically uneven start, Maine restored a modicum of familiarity to the Mets. “I was really jittery,” he said. “I was anxious, I was nervous coming in.” Before he went on the disabled list with what was described as a sore shoulder , Maine routinely bemoaned his lack of efficiency. He had a habit of burning through too many pitches early and letting teams jump ahead of him. His outing Sunday suggested that the habit had survived. Struggling with his command, Maine needed 45 pitches to get through the first two innings before he settled down for his third and final inning. “I thought he was O.K.,” Manager Jerry Manuel said. “This was his first time out. I think we would have all liked to see a little more life on the fastball.” Maine threw 57 pitches and allowed two hits, including a run-scoring double by Ryan Howard. It earned Maine his first major league loss in three months. He did not have much help from the Mets’ offense, which mustered only seven hits against Kyle Kendrick, who pitched well until he wore down in the eighth inning. That is when he allowed two hits, including a two-run homer to Anderson Hernandez, giving the Mets a glimmer of hope. But just as they did when the Mets were chasing the playoffs at this time in 2007 and 2008, the Phillies were all too happy to extinguish their hopes. INSIDE PITCH Jerry Manuel said that John Maine would join the rotation for the rest of the season and, barring any setbacks, would make another start this week. ... Fernando Tatis left the nightcap in the second inning with a sprained left index finger. ... The rookie catcher Josh Thole went 4 for 4 with a run batted in in the opener, matching his hit total from the previous four games.

Baseball
New York Mets
Maine John
Philadelphia Phillies


The Edge’s Plan for West Coast Home Rejected

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — Turning that Malibu dream house into reality is never easy, even when you are a world famous rock star. The California Coastal Commission, which oversees development near the shoreline, this week rejected a plan from David Evans, better known as U2 guitarist the Edge, to build five mansions along a remote stretch of scenic Malibu coastline. The commission’s 8-to-4 vote capped four years of wrangling over the project, and the battle may now move to court. “This is one of the most environmentally devastating projects that I’ve seen in the 38-year history of the Coastal Commission,” said Peter Douglas, the agency’s executive director. While celebrity mansions are hardly new to Malibu, Mr. Evans’s building plans have been a source of particular controversy, which pitted environmental groups against each other. The houses Mr. Evans envisioned boast state-of-the-art green building techniques: solar panels, rainwater catching systems and native plants. But despite that, environmentalists particularly opposed the road that would have to be built just to access the homes, while some potential neighbors in this most exclusive of enclaves disliked the idea of five homes — each more than 7,000 square feet — marring their view of the cliffs. Mr. Evans and the four other property owners mollified one conservancy group that had opposed the project with a donation of $1 million, an open space dedication and a trail easement that would allow hikers to pass through an area currently closed to the public. “The property owners worked diligently to develop home designs that would meet some of the highest standards for sustainability,” Fiona Hutton, a spokeswoman for the property owners, said in a statement. She noted dozens of other homes of similar size in the area that the Coastal Commission had supported. But Mr. Douglas said the lack of infrastructure greatly multiplied the environmental impact of any project at the site. Ms. Hutton said the owners were now considering their options, including litigation. A judge would then rule on whether the commission’s decision amounted to an unconstitutional “taking” of the land, which legally can be developed.

Mansions
Malibu (Calif)
Edge The
California Coastal Commission
Environment


Going Way Back With Cubans, Tampa Leads Push Forward

Abstract: TAMPA, Fla. — Decades before Miami danced to a Cuban rhythm, Tampa’s Ybor City grew up and got rich to the sounds of Cuban-inflected Spanish as thousands of workers rolled cigars by day and plotted the island’s independence from Spain by night. The city was America’s first touchstone for Cubans from the island. José Martí, the poet and the hero of Cuban independence, visited often during the 1890s to plan insurrection and to raise money from the successful cigar barons and their employees. A young Fidel Castro retraced Martí’s steps in the 1950s, hoping for a similar infusion of money and inspiration to boost his own revolution. Later on, exiles and former Cuban political prisoners streamed in, escaping Mr. Castro’s Communist grip. Today, Tampa sees itself as pivotal to Cuba once again: The city is taking the lead in the Obama administration’s effort to rekindle diplomatic ties to Cuba, a move that runs counter to the anti-engagement orthodoxy of Miami and Florida’s state government. In fostering closer ties to Cuba — a stance some here embraced long before President Obama’s December announcement — Tampa is positioning itself to one day reap the economic benefits of helping rebuild the crumbling country. Tampa’s port allows for a straight shot to Havana’s, giving it a major advantage if the United States lifts its economic embargo. Beyond that, city officials want to begin mending the historical kinship and once-powerful economic links between Cuba and Tampa that reach back more than six generations. “You can’t write the history of Cuba without Tampa, and you can’t write the history of Tampa without Cuba,” said Patrick Manteiga, who runs La Gaceta, a daily newspaper. “This relationship between Tampa and Cuba means a lot here.” La Gaceta — which publishes in English, Spanish and Italian — was founded in 1922 in Ybor City by Mr. Manteiga’s grandfather Victoriano, who was Cuban and once a lector who read to cigar workers as they worked. The Cuban imprint is hard to miss in Tampa, where Cuban restaurants, busts of Martí and architectural gems, including the Cuban Club, are scattered across Ybor City, now a historic district. Cuba even owns a small plot of land in Ybor City, once the site of a house where Martí regularly stayed. A wealthy Cuban husband and wife bought the house as a memorial long after Martí’s death and donated it to Cuba in 1956. Today, the land is home to José Martí Park. And the deed for the land reads Estado Cubano, the Cuban state. During its halcyon cigar days, Ybor City, named after its founder, a cigar manufacturer, brimmed with radical ideas and people. Strikes were common, mutual aid societies were abundant, women worked alongside men, blacks worked alongside Hispanics and whites, and Cubans raised money for revolutions at home. Now Tampa officials are even pushing to open a Cuban Consulate here — something Miami leaders view with antipathy. In April, the Tampa City Council approved the idea of a consulate, as has the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, a longtime advocate of strengthening ties between Cuba and Tampa. The Council also voted to offer Tampa as the place where the United States and Cuba would sign any official accord. While some of Tampa’s 80,000 Cuban-Americans disagree with rapprochement on Cuba, most do not, officials said. Image Rolling tobacco at Tabanero Cigars in Ybor City. Anti-Castro sentiment, tempered by deeper assimilation, is more muted in Tampa than in Miami. Credit Melissa Lyttle for The New York Times “We welcome the normalization and really believe it’s beneficial to people in Cuba,” said Councilwoman Yvonne Yolie Capin, a fourth-generation Cuban-American. “You go back a couple of years, and this would never have happened, but a lot has changed. Even though some are resistant, this is the time to do it.” Standing inside his 4th of July Cafe in West Tampa, a hub for Cuban-Americans here, Armando Padrón Jr. agreed that a different approach was overdue. He arrived in the United States in 1979 with his sister, mother and father, once a political prisoner in Cuba. “The top brass in Cuba doesn’t come to the table, you have to come to them,” Mr. Padrón, 52, said. Tampa’s politicians have lobbied for closer ties for years. A turning point came in 2013 when Representative Kathy Castor, a Tampa Democrat, called for the end of the economic embargo and traveled to Cuba on a fact-finding trip. Calling the five-decade embargo a failure, Ms. Castor said she had decided the best way to help Cuba’s citizens and push the country toward more openness and democracy was through closer contact. Her position played a role in Mr. Obama’s decision, political and business leaders said. “I think the Tampa community gave him greater political space and support to turn the page,” Ms. Castor added. She is not the only Tampa political figure to visit Cuba. Former Representative Jim Davis, a Democrat, made a controversial trip in 2003, the first member of Florida’s congressional delegation to openly visit Communist Cuba. Members of the Tampa City Council, including Ms. Capin, also have visited. And Dick Greco, who was the mayor, traveled there in 2002 and sat down with Mr. Castro, which drew sharp rebukes back home. More than a decade ago, the city’s business leaders began forging connections with Cuba, meeting with Cuban diplomats in Washington and inviting them here. This month, the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce is leading a third trip to Cuba. Long ago, Tampa imported tobacco and cattle from Cuba. “We were smart to see around the bend,” said Bob Rohrlack, the chamber’s president and chief executive officer. “I wouldn’t expect that the first time I go into any country to come back with a bunch of contacts. We need to establish relationships there and grow business that way.” But some Cuban-Americans in Tampa are rankled by the rush to cozy up to Cuba, an impoverished country that still imprisons and harasses citizens for their political views. “Everybody is saying that a country that buys less than the city of Lakeland is going to provide riches to the city of Tampa,” said Ralph Fernandez, a well-known Cuban-American lawyer in Tampa who has represented former Cuban political prisoners. Calling the business elite here “carpetbaggers” with no moral compass, he said their efforts were misguided. Tampa, though, is not Miami, which is certain to please Cuban officials. While anti-Castro sentiment still runs deep here, it is a more mellow strain, tempered by years of assimilation. Many of the Cubans who came to Tampa did so to find jobs long before the Castro revolution; they routinely traveled back and forth to the island. By contrast, Miami’s Cuban-Americans thronged to the city fleeing Communism. They lost property, relatives and their homeland, which left an angry, bitter taste, one not easily dulled even by the decades. “You can’t ignore a fundamental difference — that the Cubans in Tampa have gone through a much longer churning, maturing period than the Cubans in Miami,” said E. J. Salcines, a retired appellate judge from Tampa and an expert on the city’s Cuban history. “Give the Miami Cubans another 50 years, and they might be sounding more like Tampeño Cubans, but they are not there yet.”


Lennar Reports Fewer Orders for Homes

Abstract: Lennar, one of the nation’s largest home builders, reported lower quarterly orders on Tuesday, signaling continued weakness in the housing market. Shares fell 3.4 percent as the company said the important spring selling season, which began in early February, was not shaping up into a recovery from the five-year housing slump. “The long-awaited spring selling season of 2011 has not yet defined itself as the beginning of a recovery cycle,” Stuart A. Miller, Lennar’s chief executive, said. Lennar’s revenue fell 3 percent, to $558 million, while orders dropped 12 percent, to 2,267 homes. Orders are a leading indicator for home builders, which do not book revenue until they close on a house. Industrywide, home prices fell for the sixth consecutive month in January, according to data released on Tuesday. Lennar, which has operations in 14 states, including most of the East Coast, Texas and California, said it made a first-quarter profit of $27.4 million, or 14 cents a share, in contrast to a net loss of $6.5 million, or 4 cents a share, a year ago. Earnings were helped by a legal settlement and other one-time gains. Analysts on average expected a loss of 5 cents a share on revenue of $507.9 million, according to Thomson Reuters, but it was not clear if the numbers were comparable because of the many one-time items. The company said its distressed land investment and development arm, Rialto, generated $11 million in operating earnings and called it a “bright spot.” The company lost $25 million from home building. As a result of the weak orders, Lennar will probably have to use more incentives — like upgraded features or cash gifts to buyers — to move homes it has built in anticipation of more demand, said Joel Locker, an analyst at FBN Securities. “The housing market is still dismal,” he said. In the first quarter, Lennar offered $33,100 in incentives per home, or 12.1 percent of home sales revenue, about flat with last year.

Company Reports
Lennar Corp
Housing and Real Estate


Did Newark Bet on the Wrong Sport?

Abstract: NEWARK — When the first pitch was thrown, there wasn’t much of a crowd in the ballpark to see it. Entire sections were unoccupied. The flow of people through the front gate was a trickle. The most fan-generated noise came from a children’s birthday party on a concourse in the right-field corner. The Rev. Joe Kwiatkowski, among the few in attendance, said this was not the loneliest feeling he had ever had at Bears and Eagles Riverfront Stadium, capacity 6,200. “I’ve been here on nights when I literally counted the crowd and it’s been like 90 to 100,” he said from a seat behind first base. “Tonight will probably be a little more because they’ve got fireworks.” It was an overcast Saturday evening, rain on the way, but that only partly explained the meager attendance to watch the Bears play the Quebec Capitales in an independent Can-Am League game. After a promising start to the return of minor league baseball here 13 years ago, a persistent dark cloud has settled over the Bears and their cozy ballpark near the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. In recent years, the team has changed ownership several times, gone into bankruptcy and emerged to an almost nonexistent fan base and grim financial reality. The Bears are more than $800,000 in arrears on rent to Essex County and have provided little in ticket and sponsorship revenue due the county. Whatever the team’s fate, the county and the city must each pay $1.1 million a year in debt service on the ballpark until 2029. Given the large soccer constituency in the city’s Portuguese and Latino strongholds, did Newark get its demographics crossed and build the wrong field of commercial dreams? Did the city bet on the wrong sport? A Yankees fan who said his priest’s salary was better preserved by spending a few dollars at a minor league game than paying a small fortune at Yankee Stadium, Kwiatkowski, 54, who has a Roman Catholic parish in Glen Rock, N.J., has attended Bears games because he once lived in Newark’s Ironbound district and hoped that a successful team could contribute to the city’s revitalization. “I was within walking distance, right over there,” he said, lifting his chin in the direction of the outfield fence. Within the hour, a multitude of fans “over there,” in the Ironbound, would stream from restaurants on Ferry Street and across a nearby bridge to help pack another area sports facility, the 17-month-old Red Bull Arena, in the neighboring town of Harrison. While Major League Soccer was growing in Harrison, minor league baseball appeared to be dying in Newark, along with the expensive dream of restoring a slice of its vintage past. Shift Away From Baseball “It’s two different things, totally separate,” said Philip Alagia, the chief of staff for Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr., the executive for Essex County, which partnered with Newark to build the baseball stadium for $34 million, including cost overruns. “The Red Bulls get major media coverage. You don’t get that with minor league baseball.” Alagia called the ballpark an important recreational site for Newark, hosting numerous high school and college games, and community events. He said it would continue to operate if the Bears were to go out of business and no team could quickly be attracted to take their place. A soccer fan himself, Alagia said he parked in the Ironbound and walked to Red Bull Arena with many of the ticket-holders who filled restaurants and bars before games. In other words, the soccer stadium — while situated in another town and county (Hudson) — has also served Newark’s business interests. But how much better off would Newark be if Newark had pursued professional soccer instead and had Red Bull Arena to go along with the Prudential Center and other development projects, including a $7 million movie theater renovation spearheaded by Shaquille O’Neal? While the Bears fend for scraps, the Red Bulls averaged 18,796 fans for their first 12 home games this season — and that does not include the sellout for the M.L.S. All-Star Game and other exhibition matches. Although the Newark-Harrison story is an extreme and somewhat unusual case, it reflects an urban cultural shift on which soccer hopes to capitalize as an emergent and faster-paced sport in 21st-century America. Still enormously popular in many markets, baseball has lost traction with young people, especially African-Americans, with a 26 percent decline in youth participation between 2000 and 2009, according to the National Sporting Goods Association . “In terms of drawing people, the soccer stadium in Harrison has been a success,” said Rick Cerone, a former Yankees catcher and the Bears’ original owner, who grew up in Newark and lobbied county and city politicians for the return of the Bears, a popular Yankees farm team more than half a century ago. He acknowledged that misjudgments might have been made about the Newark of then and now. “Probably the best thing to do would have been a soccer stadium or maybe coordinate one stadium that could have been used for both,” Cerone said. “But, you know, it’s easy to look back.” According to Cerone, the original plan for the baseball revival included a 12,000-seat soccer stadium in the area of Riverbank Park in the Ironbound. But neighborhood opposition to the complex mounted, and Cerone preferred the less-congested and more easily accessible site along McCarter Highway where the ballpark was built. On the subject of a clear vision for which sport Newark’s population was best suited to support, Jim Hague, a longtime Newark-area sportswriter and the Bears’ publicist and stadium announcer until this season, said: “No one could see the forest through the trees. If they had built a soccer stadium in Newark, it would have been a huge success. But you also have to remember that at that time M.L.S. had grand glories of selling out bigger stadiums.” The league has since opted for smaller, soccer-specific arenas that have fueled hopes for sustained growth and long-term profitability. Meanwhile, the baseball project in Newark went forward with the blessing of Sharpe James, then the city’s mayor. “It was a political arrangement,” Alagia said. “The previous county executive had to build a new jail and the mayor said, ‘You can build a jail in Newark, but we want something, too.’ ” James and James W. Treffinger, then the county executive, dismissed concerns about investing in independent baseball, which many consider to be a risky proposition. James called the project “affordable family entertainment that will change the image of Newark forever.” Cerone said he would naturally have preferred a major league affiliate but struck out with George Steinbrenner in that pursuit. “I said to him, ‘Let’s be partners in Newark,’ ” Cerone said. “He said, ‘I’m not interested in minor league baseball.’ A year or so later, he did the deal to put a minor league team in Staten Island.” Without territorial permission to pursue another affiliated team, the Bears became members of the Atlantic League, which has operated a successful franchise in Bridgewater, N.J., owned by the car dealership magnate Steve Kalafer. In 2003, Cerone sold controlling interest of the Bears to Kalafer, whose father was a bat boy for the original Bears and who had warm memories of the city as a child. “When I came in, I believed with all my heart that the Bears could be just as successful in Newark as the Somerset Patriots in Bridgewater,” Kalafer said. “I just had no idea how broken it was, not the city, but the franchise infrastructure. There was no community involvement whatsoever.” Kalafer soon took on a partner, Marc Berson, and divested himself completely in 2005. Three years later, the team was in bankruptcy. “Independent ball is very much like a restaurant: how it starts is how it ends,” Kalafer said. “If there is not a community infrastructure, it’s empty within six weeks.” Jerry Izenberg, the influential sports columnist for The Star-Ledger of Newark, grew up in Newark rooting for the Bears and pushed hard for their resurrection. He said the early focus was too much on drawing suburbanites and not enough effort was spent on developing relationships within the city. “My Newark Bears didn’t need the suburbs; they were totally supported by the city,” said Izenberg, now a columnist emeritus who lives in Las Vegas. “I realize I was emotional and sentimental. People tell me I’m living in the past, and obviously the soccer constituency is different and large, but I still believe that baseball could have made it again in Newark. They just did everything wrong.” Cerone disagreed. “We had the most diversified crowd of any minor league team,” he said, blaming a lack of individualized and fully attentive ownership after he left for the Bears’ failure. “I’ve taken some hits on this,” he said. “That I was a typical baseball owner and that I took my money and ran. But I put my heart into it — slept in a trailer next to the stadium while they were building it and basically wore myself out to the point where I had two stents put in my heart.” Cerone said that he made a profit as the Bears’ owner and from the sale and that he occasionally got calls — even from the new owners — “trying to get me back in.” So far he has decided to pass. Fighting to Pay the Bills While the Bears went about the competitive business of baseball, Danielle Dronet, the team’s co-owner and chief executive, sat in her office before a recent game and explained the current challenges of the complicated business of the Bears. In a one-word nutshell: bills. “None were taken care of — vendors, utilities, suppliers, everything,” she said, her long, dark hair flowing out from under a Bears cap with a large old-fashioned N. As if to validate her claim, soon there was a knock on the door from an agent of the Internal Revenue Service. She directed him to the office of the team’s chief financial officer. “See what I’m saying?” she said. Dronet and her boyfriend, Dr. Douglas Spiel, wrested control of the team from a former partner, Tommy Cetnar, an ex-police officer, and his girlfriend, Shelley Garrett, in July, ending a one-year partnership that was awash in disputes. Spiel, a radiologist, opened a medical office inside the stadium to go with several others in New Jersey. Dronet, who ran a marketing agency for models, dancers and showgirls in New Orleans, is tending to the Bears on a daily basis. “Is there a way we can turn this around?” she said. “Yes, I think there is. We’re in it for the long haul.” For the time being, she and Spiel have been sorting through invoices, renegotiating contracts and cutting corners and salaries while trying to lighten a scheduling load of community events that have taken their toll on the playing surface, which needs to be replaced. She has her own revenue-generating plans, including holiday parties at the ballpark and a reality television series starring the Bears — or maybe their owners — and titled “The Real Spiel.” But some lament the harsh reality of affordable and family-oriented minor league baseball in Newark given the city’s reputation as a dangerous place. While crime and murder rates in the city reflected national trends and fell after Cory A. Booker succeeded James as mayor in 2006, there has been an uptick the last two years, particularly after Booker was forced to lay off 167 police officers last December. Hague, the former Bears publicist, said his car was stolen one night during a game. Father Kwiatkowski, the minor league fan, said that he had never felt unsafe going to a Bears game but that perception became reality for suburbanites. He has failed in his attempts to organize outings from his parish in Glen Rock to Bears games. “They’ll go to the games on the Montclair State University campus but not here,” he said, referring to the New Jersey Jackals, Can-Am League rivals who play at Yogi Berra Stadium in Little Falls. Dronet said that the crime fears were overstated and that the majority of the fans who did come semi-regularly were from the suburbs. There just are not enough to support a team. “We do have groups and camps from Newark,” she said. “That’s where I’d like to highlight next season. It’s very important to build that relationship, but there’s a lot of mending we have to do.” From her office window she can see Red Bull Arena beyond the scoreboard with the big 42, honoring Jackie Robinson, and said she had called and e-mailed the soccer team, hoping to foster a partnership on promotions. “I’ve never heard back from them,” she said. “Maybe their system is down.” A New Arena’s Problems Over in Harrison, where the Red Bulls entertained a sellout crowd of 25,177 on the rainy Saturday night, tying the Chicago Fire, 2-2, the soccer team had its own problems despite a surge of fan interest. Traffic on narrow streets leading into the arena was snarled, parking around the handsome arena was a challenge and that was the least of the dissatisfaction brewing between the team and the blue-collar town of 14,000. In June, Bloomberg News reported that the Red Bulls were involved in a $1.4 million property tax dispute with Harrison, which had to borrow $3.1 million last December to make its annual payment on the $39 million debt it incurred to buy and clean up the land used for the stadium. (The Red Bulls spent $200 million to build the stadium.) In addition, Moody’s Investors Service in May downgraded Harrison five levels to a junk-bond rating, and the town had to close a $6 million budget gap with painful cuts. Mayor Raymond McDonough, who declined to be interviewed for this article, told Bloomberg that he had had “some sleepless nights” over the situation but that “it’ll work out in the end.” According to a person with direct knowledge of the issue, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the Red Bulls are contending that Harrison officials made the tax claim to save face and raise money in desperate times. The person said that Harrison was hurting because state aid for distressed cities was cut and the recession delayed development projects near the arena that were supposed to pay down the land debt. “The timing of the stadium opening was just bad,” said Norman Guerra, the executive director of the Hudson County Improvement Authority, through which the bonds for Harrison’s land purchase were sold. “But what I’m hearing is that some of these things are starting to be resolved.” He mentioned that a 331-unit townhouse development was close to completion and that the county had been making good commuter use of the 1,400-car garage it built for $45 million. Conversely, another planned housing development has yet to begin, leaving a large grassy lot in front of the stadium and a backdrop of abandoned warehouses that at night creates the look of a spooky movie set. “The happy story there is running through the operation of the club,” said Erik Stover, who as Red Bulls managing director until he resigned in June was a key player in getting the stadium built. “The team has only been there two years. When the development gets done, when it’s all complete and the tax ratables start flowing, I think it will be a success story.” How long it takes for a residential community to attract the promised commercial development in this economy is anyone’s guess. In Harrison, at least there is hope. In Newark, there is only the sight of fans crossing the bridge, out of town. Back at the ballpark, where the Bears have listed their season’s attendance average as 916, Father Kwiatkowski settled in for the game with plenty of room to stretch out. “I’ve been coming since the beginning, about 15 games a year,” he said. “I don’t know if it was the novelty, but they used to get two or three thousand a night.” Making a sweeping gesture with his hand, he added, “But this is so sad to see.”

Stadiums and Arenas
Baseball
Newark Bears
Soccer
Minor Leagues
Newark (NJ)
Kwiatkowski Joe
New York Red Bulls (Soccer Team)
Harrison (NJ)