Jennifer Gill

Bill Van Ness's Instinct Was to Fight the Plan to Build A School Next to His Factory

 

The Experts Weigh In

A flawed strategy

Van Ness made the right decision, but he should have communicated with his employees about what he was doing and why. If he had done so, his employees would have had a message to carry outside the company. There are only two choices when a situation is being widely discussed already: Control the message yourself or let the rumor mill control it. By keeping his staff out of the loop, Van Ness denied himself a force that could have worked to his advantage.

Jonathan Bernstein
Founder
Bernstein Crisis Management
Sierra Madre, California

Best choice for the business

This case proves that there are ways to win eminent domain battles outside court. Speaking from experience, it probably would have been much more costly for Van Ness to choose the legal route. My company lost its building after a six-year eminent domain battle that cost about $200,000. Even worse, we temporarily lost our biggest client because of the time and energy we put into the legal fight.

Mary Beth Wilker
Founder
Wilker Design
Cincinnati

The safest bet

Van Ness didn't have much of a chance in court. Even if he had pressed the safety issue, there would have been a presumption by the court that the Board of Education knew what it was doing. The government is given a tremendous amount of discretion to acquire private property. In 20 years of practice, I've been able to stop the government about 10 times. That's why you have to fight an eminent domain case in the press, at city hall, and only then in the courts, if it comes to that.

Fred Werdine
Eminent domain attorney
Fowler White Boggs Banker
Tampa

What do you think?
Would you have handled the eminent domain battle differently? Let us know at casestudy@inc.com.

On the day of the vote, Van Ness, his son, and a sales manager were attending a Wal-Mart vendor conference in Kansas City, Missouri. Van Ness was not optimistic. He had spent nearly $300,000 and a third of his time on the issue, but he didn't feel that he had convinced enough voters that the Brighton Road school was a bad idea. "We were resigned to the fact that they were going to destroy Clifton as a viable place for our business," he says. Sitting alone in his room at the Embassy Suites that night watching CNN, Van Ness got a call on his cell phone. It was Denyse Dabrowski, an executive with the Marcus Group, calling with the results of the vote. Van Ness knew the outcome as soon as he heard her voice. He had won, by a 3-to-2 margin. Voter turnout was double what it had been for the first referendum. "I was shaking, I couldn't believe it," he says.

Despite Van Ness's victory, the variance for the freshmen annex was still up in the air. Van Ness and his team of experts continued to attend hearings. Finally, after 17 three-hour meetings spanning seven months, the zoning board issued its decision in March with a 5-2 vote: No variance. The Board of Education appealed the ruling to New Jersey's Superior Court, which heard oral arguments in November and can uphold it, overturn it, or send the variance back to the zoning board for changes. The loser can appeal to the court's appellate division. "It's not over yet," Van Ness says. Nevertheless, his new driveway and parking lot should be done by the end of December.

The Experts Weigh In

A flawed strategy

Van Ness made the right decision, but he should have communicated with his employees about what he was doing and why. If he had done so, his employees would have had a message to carry outside the company. There are only two choices when a situation is being widely discussed already: Control the message yourself or let the rumor mill control it. By keeping his staff out of the loop, Van Ness denied himself a force that could have worked to his advantage.

Jonathan Bernstein
Founder
Bernstein Crisis Management
Sierra Madre, California

Best choice for the business

This case proves that there are ways to win eminent domain battles outside court. Speaking from experience, it probably would have been much more costly for Van Ness to choose the legal route. My company lost its building after a six-year eminent domain battle that cost about $200,000. Even worse, we temporarily lost our biggest client because of the time and energy we put into the legal fight.

Mary Beth Wilker
Founder
Wilker Design
Cincinnati

The safest bet

Van Ness didn't have much of a chance in court. Even if he had pressed the safety issue, there would have been a presumption by the court that the Board of Education knew what it was doing. The government is given a tremendous amount of discretion to acquire private property. In 20 years of practice, I've been able to stop the government about 10 times. That's why you have to fight an eminent domain case in the press, at city hall, and only then in the courts, if it comes to that.

Fred Werdine
Eminent domain attorney
Fowler White Boggs Banker
Tampa

What do you think?
Would you have handled the eminent domain battle differently? Let us know at casestudy@inc.com.

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