The Tyranny of Tolerance: A Sitting Judge Breaks the Code of Silence to Expose the Liberal Judicial Assault

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LOOK THE OTHER WAY OR FACE DOWN THE CORRUPTION?


Is it true that nice guys always finish last?

IN 1972, DAVID Stein was enjoying a terrific career on the East Coast with the largest home-building company in the world. He was so successful at it, in fact, that he wasn't sure whether he was good or just lucky, so he decided to move to California.

"I liked the company I was with," David explains, "but frankly, it was the largest home builder in the world because it built houses the way Ford builds cars, mass-produced. I wanted to do something more creative. I chose California because it was, and probably still is, the leader in terms of planned community development and architectural and interior design."

He went to work as a project manager for ACDI, one of the largest planned community developers in the country. Probably the company's most important development was in Laguna Beach, a seven-thousand-acre planned community that stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the interstate highway that connects Los Angeles and San Diego. The prospect of working in this area seemed like a dream job for David, but he quickly realized that all was not well.

"Not only was the company not run the way my former company was," he recalls, "but I felt there was real corruption within the company and it was very disheartening for me."

David's concerns had to do with the process of getting projects approved. "It was clear that in order to get a project approved, it required political support, so the company's overriding concern was getting the support of politicians and not of the community."

David wanted to manage good projects, but he found that at this company it was less important to manage good projects and more important to manage projects that could get political approval. "The way to do that was support the campaigns of politicians. And what made this corrupt in my opinion was that the decisions were not to be made on the basis of the projects' merit but purely on political influence."

David made another uncomfortable discovery. ACDI had a terrible reputation in the community itself. "They used to say that ACDI is a four-letter word," he laughs. "It was clear to me that my first priority as a project manager was to build bridges with the community."

David felt, not only as a matter of personal principle but also in the interest of the business, that a company should strive to be a good citizen of the communities in which it operates, and he personally intended to be a good citizen of the community. He could not choose to compromise either his personal or his business principles.

He knew, however, that building bridges was not going to be easy. Before David arrived, the California legislature responded to concerns about development by passing the California Coastal Act, which established the California Coastal Commission to set up criteria for development.

David explains ACDI's response as the reason for community hostility toward the company: "ACDI had a huge property on the coast, so to beat the clock before the new law took effect, they started grading the property. They moved millions of yards of earth, and they did it in twenty-hour shifts, bringing in big spotlights so they could work night and day. There was also a piece of property on the sea that was a very popular surf spot. They cut off public access to it. They just seemed to do pretty much everything they could to piss off the people in the community.

"Even though I worked for the company, I came to feel that the bad reputation was deserved and that I should try to do something about it."