Kalt named in new Yankee Stadium squabble

The New York Daily News is reporting that former aides to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, including current Rays vice president Michael Kalt, pressured the city's property appraiser to inflate the value of the land under the new Yankee Stadium so the Yankees could qualify for nearly $1 billion in tax-free bonds.

According to the Daily News, the city's chief tax assessor put the market value for the stadium site in March 2006 at $27 million, far lower than the Yankees wanted. A Finance Department official ordered him to redo the report. Within hours, he jacked up it up to $204 million.

The appraisal is important because it is tied to how much in tax-free bonds the Yankees could issue. While the Yankees make the payments on the bonds, it is the city actually issuing the debt.

According to the Daily News, on Dec. 22, 2005,  Kalt wrote city Economic Development Corp. officials, "I don't want to get into this much further on e-mail, but we have to take into consideration that the AV [assessed value] is only so high because we're choosing a methodology to support the tax-exempt financing."

Kalt was City Hall's point man for the Yankees project. He knew the Yankees needed a high assessment because the team was planning to pay back $940 million in tax-exempt financing with something called PILOTs - payments in lieu of taxes. The higher the assessment, the more tax-free bonds the team could ask the IRS to approve.

Kalt, now a vice president of the Tampa Bay Rays, declined to comment Tuesday, according to the Daily News. "No one influenced the assessment," Bloomberg spokesman Andrew Brent said.

You can read the whole story here.

Comments

[atrulyconcernedcitizen]

Aaron,

THANKS FOR POSTING THIS STORY. While there is no need to use personally disparaging descriptions of Michael Kalt it is critical to realize what kind of person we are dealing with!!!

Without engaging in name calling the facts are SCREAMING that Michael Kalt has NO CREDIBILITY. Not to make him out as a bad person...simply to realize he has ONE MOTIVATION!!! TO ENRICH HIS EMPLOYERS. We can debate the morality all day long but please will the Mayor, Rick K, and other Kalt sycophants stop saying Kalt was working on the Waterfront stadium idea out of consideration for St. Petersburg. Puhleeze it makes me want to puke. Mikey is simply trying to MAXIMIZE Stu's profit. Not a crime...but again puhleeze not exactly altruistic either.

Combine this story with the rest of the Yankee stadium debacle...how much the cost for infrastructure has gone up...the rest of the cost...and the most disgusting part of it all...the Yankees opening up the bank for C.C. Sabathia..what was it 160 million?..still in the market to spend millions more...and they are contemplating going back to the taxpayers for even more assistance on their stadium.

THIS IS EXACTLY THE KIND OF GREED THAT HAS THIS COUNTRY'S ECONOMY IN THE TOILET. WHEN WILL IT STOP?

[John]

SHOCKER!!! Ok, not really.

Rick K economics at it's best here folks....you say it's worth 27 million, Rick K says nah....it's worth $204 million. Why? Because he says so.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!

[Scaramouche]

As Homer would say, "D'Oh!"

[bevo]

How does Kalt's action not constitute fraud?

[Scaramouche]

Fraud is, as these guys know, a tough case to make out, especially as it is an "intentional tort," not just a bit of negligence, like the guys who advertise on every page in the phone book and all 300 TV channels, are glad to take on.

One source, the Restatement of Torts, which is a common legal reference that supposedly tells exactly what the law in an area is, "may have changed the nine elements of fraud to something like this: 1) Representation of an existing fact, opinion, intention, or law; 2) Its materiality (defined); 3) Its falsity; 4) The speaker’s knowledge of its falsity or ignorance of the truth of the representation; 5) The speaker's intention that it be acted on or that a person refrain from acting; 6) The good faith of the person to whom it is made; 7) The hearer's reliance on the truth of the representation; 8) The hearer's reliance is justifiable; and 9) The hearer's damage is caused by the reliance." See

http://fraudlaw.org/Definitions%20and%20concepts/DEFINITIONS%20fraud%20defined.htm

for one source on the subject.

THAT's why it's maybe "not fraud" -- not too many attorneys want to try to prove up a case based on that theory, whether civilly or in criminal court. Prosecutors hate a big public loss on their resumes (limits their access to corner offices on leaving Public Service.) Civil fraud cases would usually be undertaken if at all on a contingency arrangement, where the lawyer doesn't get paid unless he gets a big win and has to invest a whole lof of money up front to pursue it.

So all the BS the Rays owners have been putting out, false or not, in the hope that the community would rely on it, is "not fraud."

[get-smart]

AAron tell me this isn't so .. I believed like Tinker Bell that Mikey was cool. Next you will say BO ain't a god (lower g).

I have been doing a little gum shoeing in D.C. myself and I will release my findings next week. I was ordered by the prosecutor to keep quite. Your in the business so you know what I'm talking about. I got the scoop on BO, et al and it ain't pretty. Clinton Thunder 2012; only a preview. Mums the word!

[fiscal responsibility]

Was anything promised to the NYC government employee in exchange for his actions to get another branch of government to change the baseball stadium's assessed value? Oh, right, that guy is now working for baseball. I think Congressional Representative Dennis Kucinich would love to hear more about these particular acts!

[fiscal responsibility]

Perhaps not fraud but what about corruption?

[Scaramouche]

I read that in Germany, an apartment that is leased without heat (or utilities) is rented Kalt -- as in "cold" and "inhospitable," maybe?

Nothing personal, it's all just business.

[erick]

http://tbrowdies.com/

[Paul]

And in quite predictable Rick K. fashion, he refuses to answer my question and goes silent. He'll be back in ohh, a week or two. I'll keep asking though.

[Geo]

I can't even begin to address all the errors, misguided assumptions, and speculation on this blog about the Yankee stadium deal, Mr. Kalt, and the law. It should suffice to say that there is nothing reported in the Daily News article that indicates that Mr. Kalt did anything illegal or even immoral; and it appears very unlikely that the Bloomberg administration did anything improper regarding the Yankee Stadium tax assessment, despite the ramblings of one obscure politician quoted in the Daily News article, which is a tabloid playing to type.

It's one thing to express myopic, ill-informed opinions about matters of public debate like the Rays' ballpark proposal, as we've all come to expect from the likes of scaramouche/atrulyconcernedcitizen/paul/get-smart/POWW/etc. on these blogs over the past 8 or 9 months. It is another thing entirely, however, to so carelessly and irresponsibly cast personal aspersions and make baseless accusations of fraud, corruption, or any other king of criminal conduct. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Free speech is a great thing; use it responsibly.

By the way, Aaron, your first sentence in the story at the top of this blog contains an error: the Daily News story does not say that Mr. Kalt had a hand in the "pressure" that was supposedly applied to the tax assessor. The Daily News story quotes an email Mr. Kalt sent to a different city agency (i.e. NOT the tax assessor) about 3 months BEFORE the alleged pressure was applied to the tax assessor to change the assessment. I'm not sure, but I think Mr. Kalt had already left NYC government by the time of the alleged pressure in March 2006 -- I think he was already working for the Rays by then. Perhaps you could clarify that point.

[Paul]

'myopic, ill-informed opinion...' nice, Geo. Let's see, I've never seen you on here before, unless of course you're yet another of Rick K's personas (not saying you are, but there is a chance given his vanishing act) and I've been on here for over a year now.

So you're standing up for the dirtbag, NYC carpet bagging, ream the citizens' of St Pete and transfer HUGE wealth to people who will not put it back into the community, Kalt?! Wow, I'm baffled anyone could think that whole NYC stadium deal was on the up and up... let along the not-so-smooth talking Kalt and his band of bottom feeding pond scum. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, you know the rest. But hey, that's just my opinion which according to you is 'ill-informed'. Tell me how I've been reading every single document I can get my hands on, watching and attending every Council meeting I can, reading darn near every single blog entry for over a year, studied my tax bills and spoken with dozens of fellow St Pete residents and yet I'm 'ill-informed'. Please give me links to the materials you think I'm overlooking.

By the way, Geo, are you a registered St Pete voter? If so, have you signed your forms yet so you can have a say on the matter of a new stadium, by way of a vote?

Say hi to Rick K. for me.

[Geo]

Paul: There you go again . . .

And, I really wanted to vote on the matter of a new stadium back when there was actually a proposal on the table, but POWW publicly opposed putting it to a vote. We voters never had a say thanks to you and your friends.

[Thomas]

Hi Geo!

You're misdirecting your appreciation.

Voters never had a say because the Rays pulled the proposal before it could ever reach the ballot.

Accordingly, you should direct all thanks/adulations/appreciations to the Rays - not to POWW or Paul.

[Paul]

Geo, you are a spinmeister for sure. So, for the 7th time Rick, are you going to sign the forms so you can in fact vote on a new stadium, if/when the time happens?

How is it that I ask you as direct of a question as possible and you completely avoid an answer?

I'm just thankful I have a bigger white board, seems I'll need it, haha!

[Scaramouche]

CAUTION: LONG, ANGRY POST AHEAD!

Let's see now: What's "legal" and "illegal" is defined by "laws," and "codes" or "regulations" that are created by "legislative bodies" and "administrative agencies," the latter usually with public comment and input and possible judicial review.

And outfits like the Yankees and Rays owners, and so many others, have figured out the game of "regulatory capture the flag," under which they get to write the laws and rules to suit themselves -- and be "legal." Like the tax scam sham that the Yankees' new edifice will be built on. To be made good, eventually, out of "the taxpayer's" pocket.

Think on the claims that, since the federal Food and Drug people have told cigarette makers and drug manufacturers what to put on their labeling, those folks are immune from lawsuits for the damage their products do. That's called "federal preemption."(Let's skip firearms, for now. I LIKE guns -- sexy, powerful, violent -- WAY cool!)

As an EPA staffer through the Reagan years, I got to see lots of rules actually written by the people who were supposed to be regulated, where the rules were "approved" by courts where the judges were appointed by Reagan and consented to by a "conservative" Congress. I got to watch "conservatives" create the Regulatory Interpretive Memoranda, and other "hidden law" that people like Ed Strongarm are the masters of, that so often turned the clear meanings of statutes on their heads, to make something "legal" by barring the Agency staff from enforcing the actual law as written.

As an attorney, I also got to watch the process by which ethical rules that ought to protect clients and the legal process became business rules designed to protect the attorneys. Something of the same order has been at work in the ranks of physicians, and of course Realtors and other licensed persons.

And we are learning, drop by waterboard, Chinese-water torture drop, how completely the people working the "legal system" have screwed the rest of us. Think on the federal Minerals Management staff in Colorado, giving and/or getting sex and cigars and apparently "illegal drugs" in transactions that gave away, for a bad song, huge amounts of PUBLIC WEALTH, in land and minerals and oil and such.

And what was the SEC staff doing when Madoff was making off with $50 billion? And when are we gonna see where the "$700 billion that is now more like $2.1 trillion in present dollars to be somehow paid off or back or undergirded by some real actual wealth, not CDOs, by our heirs forever" is actually going? We already know that bonuses and huge executive compensation and spa trips and corporate perks are still being "bought" with OUR PATRIMONY, without much positive impact on the "recession" that comes from all those years of the same kind of funny-money shenanigans. Any of you out there having trouble with a mortgage? Do YOU belong to the same club as Mr. Paulson. so you can get a little green TARP to put over your roof?

So Geo (what's the next square in the ego jumping game, "Neo?" Do you think you are The One?), don't go on about whether what Kalt and Sternberg and Mr. Madoff Magoo and all those people at AIG and Bear Stearns and and various legislators like our own FL speaker Sansethics, and all those people who prey on the rest of us, was and is "legal" and "moral."

And your sudden affection for the "democratic process" and "voting on it" is the sorriest kind of revisionist-history fraud. The "ilk," yours that is, didn't even want to allow the single question of use restrictions on Al Lang Field to come to a vote -- which until the pending referendum petitions get converted into ballot mandates was the ONLY chance the voters, ALL OF US, would have had to say yea or nay to any pert of your Paired Revoltin' Developments. The idea was to shove the Two Evil Towers up the taxpayers' as..., ah, noses, via the machinations of Our Own Mayor Richard J. Daily-Screw-The-Mopes and Attorney Strongarm and the other go-along scavengers and freeloaders who saw a chance to convert the future real-wealth generation ability of this area into present dollars in their pockets. That would have been a pretty sorry mortgage for the whole of this community to write for our grandkids to pay down, long after "the home team" had gone another way. And the ABC cabal is still working from the same premise.

Are we finally discovering, maybe not as an entire species but as the class that is the loser in the class warfare we were too stupid to see was under way (Was it Warren Buffet who observed recently, "There was a class war, and my class has won!"), that bubbles are not sustainable, that real wages have lost ground while we were jumping our productivity as good little corporate wage slaves? That the value and wealth we have created has simply bled off into the pockets of the people who like to see themselves at gala soirees as pictured in the Times' own insert magazine and the "Washingtonian" and such? That we don't have decent health promotion, let alone health care, unless we are among the well-to-do?

Folks, we can't afford $1.8 billion Sugarland "Save-The-Everglades" phony "purchases," let alone a billion-dollar gift of a Sports Palace to one set of the people who have been defrauding us worse than Jacob ever did to Esau.

"Vote?" My flaming foot. So Rick and Geo and all you other multiple personalities out there, you only get one vote per body, but it looks like the issue of spending public debt (not even REAL TAX-RECEIPT MONEY, there is already a deficit of that) on a gift-subsidy stadium might be forced onto an actual ballot.

Any bets on how the vote to give a billion, that's around a thousand bucks from every man, woman and child in Pinellas County, to Messrs. Rays Owners, is likely to go?

Anyone know how the voting went in the other City By The Bay, out there on the Left Coast, when it seemed that the fevered phony bubble economy we can now perceive we were financing with our credit cards was seemingly headed ever upward?

Just asking.

[Geo]

Dear scaramouche: I think your tinfoil hat is on a bit too tight. Time to go back on your meds, buddy . . .

[Paul]

So Geo? I'm sure by now you've printed, signed and mailed in your forms.... right? Rick?

[Scaramouche]

Add up a few thousand Bay Plazas and BayWalks and New Yankee Stadiums and CDOs to "underwrite" them and what have you got?

The US Economy, circa December, 2008 and thereafter. LOOOONNNG thereafter.

Geo, Rick, whoever, you can put that under your own gold-plated tin hardhat, and "develop" it some more like an overexposed, doubl-exposed Kodachrome.

Don't forget to vote, good buddy and fellow citizen. And if your damp dream of a "paired development" ever comes, to pass, despite any actual plebiscite on the issue, maybe you will pay in addition to your own pittance, the shares of the burden dumped on the hated and despised "cotton-tops" living on cat tuna and Ramen. And other such social-Darwin weaklings.

[Don]

As I recall this was reported earlier in the NY Times but I may be mistaken. Either way Geo either has blinds on or has an interest in protecting Mr. Kalt. Anyone who has followed the stories of this huge taxpayer rip-off knows that there have been a lot of lies and scheming going on in NYC to accommodate the Yankees. Their venture to build and finance a stadium for a VERY wealthy owner should be a new definition in Websters under boondoggle. And I believe corruption might deserve an added definition as well. I think that if they were to spill their shameless guts Mr. Kalt and his cronies would admit that they never expected the opposition they received in St Petersburg. Obviously their exit from Wall Street was just in the nick of time. Unfortunately, (for them), their entrance into the new stadium market at the expense of taxpayers was ill-timed. Geo tell me once again with an honest face that Mr. Kalt and others of his ilk have not pressured and or greased the palms of local pols and that it is okay to do so.

[Scaramouche]

FBI Determines Florida Is Number One State In Official Corruption!

We're Number One!
We're Number One!
We're Number One!
We're Number One!

[atrulyconcernedcitizen]

Geo,

Your earlier post where you stated...
"It's one thing to express myopic, ill-informed opinions about matters of public debate.." reveals a classic case of what can be referred to only as "projection". You have clearly taken YOUR OWN FLAWS and tried to project them on others...let's examine who is myopic and ill informed.

Since Scarmouche is an attorney and did a terrific job of explaining the golden rule...those with the gold make the rules..and how the rich and powerful have manipulated our laws to their extreme benefit...I shall not speculate on Kalt's legal culpability...but it is very clear that he is a HUGE PART OF WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY AS ARE YOU GEO!!! He is an immoral carpetbagger by any reasonable use of the term!!!

In that earlier post you said.."Mr. Kalt sent to a different city agency (i.e. NOT the tax assessor) about 3 months BEFORE the alleged pressure was applied to the tax assessor to change the assessment. I'm not sure, but I think Mr. Kalt had already left NYC government by the time of the alleged pressure in March 2006 -- I think he was already working for the Rays by then. Perhaps you could clarify that point."

It doesn't matter which city official Kalt contacted. HE WAS THE ONE RECOGNIZED BY EVERYONE...AS THE POINT MAN FOR THE PROJECT. It's his responsibility..and whether HE OR ONE OF HIS LACKEY's influenced the appraisal is not really germain...it was under his guidance...and anyone who uses language like ""I don't want to get into this much further on e-mail, but we have to take into consideration that the AV [assessed value] is only so high because we're choosing a methodology to support the tax-exempt financing." is obviously not a public official committed to transparency!!!

As for Kalt's already leaving NYC Gov't by March of 2006...you REALLY need to document that one because your conjecture that he was with the Rays is either totally bogus or only adds to the deception of Kalt and our own local officials during our very own LDR hearings. Read this from the TIMES published on April 11th 2007...a story when St. Pete Citizens were trying to get the park designation for Al Lang the city had promised.
http://www.sptimes.com/2007/04/11/Neighborhoodtimes/High_rise_to_replace_.shtml
This was OVER A YEAR AFTER THE MARCH 2006 DATE YOU MENTIONED.
If Kalt had actually been working with the Rays back in March of 2006 it would only be a further indictment about the lack of transparency in ALL OF KALT'S DEALINGS. HE IS A SNAKE!!!!

As for what he has accomplished for his friends and neighbors in New York...how about the New York Times...are they also a tabloid? There reporting last month ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/nyregion/04stadiums.html?_r=2&ei=5070&emc=eta1&oref=slogin
reveals that infrastructure costs for the city have jumped OVER 61%. Michael protected the citizens he worked for as part of the Bloomberg administration so well that JUST INFRASTRUCTURE HAS JUMPED FROM 281 MILLION TO 458 MILLION!!!! I know..close enough for government work right? And to think after doing the Yankee's/MLB dirty work for them Kalt immediately segues to a high paying job with the Rays/MLB is obscene.

Yes Geo free speech is a wondeful thing. It's the ONLY chance we have to hold scumbags like Michael Kalt accountable. The Yankees payroll for 2008 EXCEEDED 200 MILLION DOLLARS!!!!
THEY HAVE JUST SIGNED CC SABITHIA TO A CONTRACT WORTH MORE THAN 160 MILLION DURING A TIME OF ECONOMIC CRISIS. Do you suppose as others have suggested that a portion of that over 200 million annually would have amortized a new stadium nicely without taxpayer support? Screw the schools...screw our healthcare system..screw our infrastructure but by all means take care of the uber wealthy and their super wealthy athletes!!!

Geo it is YOU..WHO ARE MYOPIC AND COMPLETELY LACKING IN YOUR FACTS!!!

[Peter]

This blog is like a schoolyard full of bullies, when one persons writes anything positive abotu the Rays/ballpark/Kalt, the 4 people actually paying attention to this blog gang up on them like thugs. This was case case all along with POWW, intimidation and lies. The sad thing is, just like your annoying aunt at christmas dinner, the loudest people are usually heard the most, regardless of the quality of their message.

People like atrulyconcernedcitizen, scaramouche, get smart, etc etc, are the most cynical group of *ssh*les I think I've ever heard. Have you ever meet anyone from the Rays? Ever met Kalt or Silverman, anyone? What information other than newpaper articles are you using to base your opinion of their character? To assume you know the whole story, let alone someone's internal motivations for their chosen profession is perhaps the most arragant display I've seen in a long time. Judgemental pr*cks. Have a nice Christmas complaining about everything all the while thinking you have all the answers. You're "Everything would be perfect if we did it my way" attitude shows a true naivete about life, making tough decisions, and how to get things done. That's right, you don't seem to care about taking action, you appear to just like sitting on the sidelines and complaining.

[atrulyconcernedcitizen]

Peter,

The truth must really hurt eh!!! Wow such vitriol. And just like Rick K you attack with broadbased, mindless, ad hominem attacks WITHOUT ANY FACTS TO SUPPORT YOUR CASE...JUST YOUR OPINIONS AND YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT OPINIONS.

Can't really speak for the others but yes I have been with Michael Kalt and met him on several occasions and watched him in action. He absolutely slandered one of our hardest working ciizens...a person who has served in public office. His New York arrogance is unchallenged..and I went to college in NYC and have seen some arrogant people but Kalt takes the cake.

As far as doing something besides post in this blog...I spent many hours last year as a speaker, organizer during the stadium debate. So YES I DID TAKE ACTION!!!. In addition I volunteer time in service to our community on an ongoing basis. I love this city...and am simply sick of the uberwealthy who have ruined our nation's economy.
But while you are guilty of your charge...judging someone without ever meeting them..I HAVE MET KALT..YOU HAVEN'T MET ME..and then twisting your comments to fit your perspective. No we are not "COMPLAINING" about everything. It wasn't the POWW people who loaded this blog with snide remarks about how ST. Pete is full of old people...green benches..is nowhere.
No far from complaining on more than one occasion I and others have remarked about how blessed we to have our precious waterfront...the sidewalk cafes..the museums...the Saturday Morning Market...Mainsail...but I do COMPLAIN about the concept of supporting billionaire owners with tax breaks and tax money so they can pay CC Sabathia 160 million dollars. Do you suppose poor old CC could make it on just 16 million? And before you go on your rant about me simply being jealous..I don't want his money...but I would love to see some of it used to help homeless, sick and less fortunate among us. Of course for the past 8 years thinking of those less fortunate has been viewed as somehow wrongheaded.

And so Paul/Geo/Rick my holiday wish for you is Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all men. I hope you and Kalt and the carpetbaggers return to NYC where they can afford your largesse. We love St. Pete as it is..we are ready for REAL progress...enriching wealthy owners and players is hardly progress.
Long live the Trop!!!