Inc.com published an article in December 2006, Bill Van Ness’s Instinct Was to Fight the Plan to Build a School Next to His Factory, explaining that in May 2005, Bill Van Ness, owner of Van Ness plastic Molding, received notification that the Board of Education for the city of Clifton, NJ, wanted to buy a neighboring property he had only recently purchased for company expansion. It was made very clear that if he didn’t agree to the purchase, the property would be condemned and siezed using the power of eminent domain. And so the battle began.
Faced with losing his property either by selling or having it taken from him, Van Ness went to his lawyer only to be told to not bother going to court. Rather, he was advised to take his battle public, to gather support from the public to vote against the school bond issue that would pay for the land and the school to be built on the land.
Van Ness experience some success in his campaign — the voter turnout was more than double and the referendum lost by a 3-to-2 margin. But there was still a variance to be decided (read the full story of his public relations efforts).
While the campaign was well-prepared and a better choice than going to court, the article pointed out that communications expert, Jonathan Bernstein, felt there was a missing element. “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 keep his staff out of the loop, Van Ness denied himself a force that could have worked to his advantage.”
In a follow up article, The Fight of His Life, dated April 2008, Inc.com reports that Van Ness has been able to turn his parcel into a tractor-trailer entrance and expanded employee parking as he had originally planned. The cost was high, however, with over one-third of his time and $300,000 devoted to defeating the plan of the School Board. While it is rare to win an eminent domain fight outside of court, I will say again, that if Van Ness had gotten their employees involved, those employees could have taken the message outside the company.
Oddly enough, the battle is not over. Van Ness is still fighting the Board of Education’s next plan which is to build the school two doors down from Van Ness’s property. Van Ness says, he has “remained in the fight on principle; he feels that the new school shouldn’t be built in an area that was originally zoned for industry.” Read the complete story on Van Ness’s public relations campaign.
At our website, there are several articles that outline various strategies for crisis prevention, crisis management and crisis communications.
Jonathan Bernstein
www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com