NOTICE concerning the inapplicability of the term "holdout" to Willets Point property owners This Notice is to correct the

news media's routine mis-use of the word "holdout" to describe Willets Point property owners and members of Willets Point United Inc. ("WPU"). We are not "holdouts", and we insist that the media depict us, and the City's rapacious exercise of power against us, accurately. The dictionary definition of the noun "holdout" is: "One that withholds agreement or consent upon which progress is contingent." (Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/holdout) First, as concerns the City's use of eminent domain to forcibly seize our properties, that entire process never requires our agreement or consent. The City alone acts to acquire our property, and the courts determine the payment that we must accept. There is no negotiation. Under such circumstances, our lack of consent is not and cannot be a factor affecting "progress". Second, the definition of "holdout" suggests that a purpose of holding out is to exercise leverage in a negotiation. We emphasize that the eminent domain process is absolutely not a negotiation, but rather, a unilateral decree by the government; and that eminent domain law provides condemnees no leverage whatsoever. As eminent domain is not a negotiation and we have no leverage, there is not even an opportunity for us to be "holdouts". In summary, a "holdout" is involved with exercising leverage in a negotiation, the outcome of which affects progress. None of those factors is applicable to the members of WPU, and we are therefore not "holdouts" by any means or definition. We also note that the use of the inaccurate and pejorative word "holdout" to describe us, creates the absolutely false impression that we are somehow acting inappropriately while deflecting attention away from the City's actions in this matter. It is not our actions, but rather those of the City, that are most inappropriate and shameful. After all, the City relies upon its own self-created dilapidation to try to justify condemning our property; the City will not support, but instead will eradicate, scores of inter-related industrial business and employers and in the process, disproportionately harm minority and immigrant people and families; the City squashes small businesses, for the aggrandizement of politically-connected developers; and the City acts inconsistent with its prior representations to decision-makers. Stay tuned.