Wild Pitch
When they moved to condemn her land, city officials informed Patricia Ghiglino that her property in Southeast D.C. was worth $1.8 million. They just wouldn't show her how they came up with that number.
Cover Story
Patricia Ghiglino and her lawyers should have known the city couldn’t afford to play fair.
Director of a nonprofit sculpture center near the Navy Yard in Southeast D.C., Ghiglino owned roughly 9,600 square feet of land that sits right in the footprint of a baseball-stadium site the city envisions for the Anacostia waterfront. In order to pave the way for D.C.’s next great entertainment destination, District officials planned to condemn her land and give her $1.8 million in compensation. In mid-November, Ghiglino and her counsel sat down with representatives of the District government at the John A. Wilson Building to negotiate for more money.
Dale Cooter, one of Ghiglino’s lawyers, says that this “settlement meeting,” as it was billed, had little chance of ending in smiles and handshakes across the table. The city’s point man in the room was Stephen Green, director of development in the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development and an old buddy of Mayor Anthony A. Williams’ from Yale University. Green bears a reputation as a hard-nosed negotiator, and he made it clear to Ghiglino’s people that the city wouldn’t stray far, if at all, from its original offer.
“The city’s approach was obnoxious; they essentially declared themselves all-seeing and all-powerful,” says Cooter. “We’re experienced in cases like this, and measured against our experience, their performance was laughable.”... Continued 
Issue of Feb. 17 - 23, 2006
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