Lipsky: "One's view of process is colored by, in this case, first principles."

In an 8/24/07 post on his Neighborhood Retail Alliance blog headlined West Harlem's Not For Sale, lobbyist Richard Lipsky wrote some reflections that cast a more noble light on his work than the corruption charges issued today:

Which brings us to a post that was done by the Wonkster yesterday on the CB 9 vote. Calling the CB9 vote a "bump in the road," and referring to Curb's description of the vote as "meaningless,"the web site went on to point out that Richard Lipsky's representing the area's largest property owner and according to the indefatigable Norman Oder, is making arguments that he supposedly refuted when he was representing FCRC on the Atlantic Yards controversy.

First, it would have been nice if Wonkster had linked to us if it was going to link to Oder's exhaustive deconstruction of our arguments. But that being said, we are flattered by the almost hermeneutic-like attention Oder pays to our positions on the topics of eminent domain and the land-use process. He has an almost Talmudic fascination for what he sees as our inconsistencies in these areas.

And in some ways he's right since politics is so often a case of, "whose ox is being gored." But in another important way he's off the mark. One's view of process is colored by, in this case, first principles. In any land use matter first principles emanate from your view of the merits of the project itself.