Tacoma SDS

Rather than face the giant inflatable rat and educating JwJ activists, Mr. Cohen suddenly closed his condo sales center and ducked into hiding for a day. Potential clients were left outside a locked gate taking leaflets from us and listening to the risks of buying million-dollar condos on the Asarco toxic waste site that was the sole domestic producer of rat poison.

We shared with condo buyers the toxic warning guide that Mr. Cohen's contractors give to Pt Ruston workers and asked if they had seen anything like it in the promotional materials. Many potential buyers could not understand it and couldn't imagine Spanish-only readers understanding it. Pt Ruston workers are now coming forward to expose that they are not getting proper training and being handed false federal hazardous material training cards. These stunning allegations are now available in an interview posted by the Carpenters union. We expect Mr. Cohen and other plantation capitalists to retaliate against these whistle-blowers who betray the rules of immigrant slavery.

If workers are treated this way under EPA supervision, condo buyers will wonder how safe is Pt Ruston LLC in the long run. Workers have safety rights that extend for decades after a project is completed while condo owners have only a few years to pursue their rights after Mike Cohen dissolves the LLC and his responsibility. A quick viewing of this slide show reveals Mike Cohen's practices of spreading Asarco dust in the surrounding community may answer that question for condo buyers. Asarco dust is back in the news for lead poisoning of Tacoma and Ruston's children causing brain, kidney,nervous system and liver damage, lower IQs, and other very serious health issues in adults as well.

JwJ activists decided to visit the sales center after Mr. Cohen planned to exploit the Tall Ships Festival to get free Pt Ruston advertising. In a cheesy move, Mr. Cohen located his $1 Billion Pt Ruston condo project "floating sales center" on public property in the middle of the Tall Ships Festival. He excluded the public to focus on privately entertaining wealthy boaters, his condo clientele. Before the festival, Mr. Cohen was probably employing a mole to ferret out JwJ plans circulating on the web to catch the rat. Condo buyers had confirmed with sales staff the center's open hours as recent as two days earlier and the Pt Ruston website info contradicted the shut down. For more background, see below.

Point Ruston Background
Mike Cohen wants to pull a fast one on the taxpayer dime at his $1 billion Point Ruston project. As the South Sound has learned from previous JwJ messages, Mr. Cohen's track record is evasive, anti-worker and community, corrupting our democracy, and doused with grinchy behavior.

Mr. Cohen can easily afford to behave better. He is selling $2 million condos while paying 7 times less in land costs than Downtown Tacoma. He could become a civic leader without too much sacrifice. He's made millions of dollars building luxury condos with government welfare from Rick Talbert's Tacoma City Council and from McMansion sprawl projects in the South Sound.

Instead, Mr. Cohen is hostile to community leaders requesting to explore common ground. Recently Mr. Cohen failed to appear at scheduled appointments and share promised information. Rather, Mr. Cohen hired 2 public relations firms an expensive team of lawyers. He has coordinated with the City of Tacoma to use our tax dollars to hire attorneys from Seattle and attack with procedural technicalities. Only our community's democratic activity will break Mr. Cohen's injustice.

Mr. Cohen has become a prime example of a broken property development system. He is one of the developers climbing over each other in a greedy rush for special treatment and tax-dollar funded subsidies. In the last few months, Mike Cohen has . . .

* Demanded that Tacoma extend the 8 year property tax break to his isolated Pt Ruston (even the developer advertiser News Tribune feels this is going too far)
* Manipulated Tacoma city managers to expedite construction and skip steps that responsible developers must take.
* Influenced Talbert's Council to enact fishy laws that exempt Pt Ruston from legal Shoreline protections while holding other property owners to the statewide standard.
* Pursued special city and state subsidies to build Point Ruston infrastructure while whining about JwJ calls for responsible practices

Creating chaos and chronyism in government land use plans, Mike Cohen and his Master Builders Association are ruining our quality of life. JwJ and allies have tried talking with the City Council and with industry-leading developers. But so far, Cohen and MBA's influence with the help of Rick Talbert is blocking a more full democratic debate by Council members.