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James F. Goldstein is described in today's Daily Breeze as the National Basketball Association's "favorite eccentric...he attends at least 110 games every year. He sits courtside and wears broad-brimmed hats, python boots and ostrich leather jackets. He is friendly with the players and coaches, who seem to get a kick out of his clothes and his obsession with the game....NBA Commissioner David Stern once said, 'We love him as a sort of superfan.'" The Breeze story, however, looked into where the mysterious Goldstein gets the money to jet to NBA playoff games and to Paris fashion shows. A lot of it comes from mobile home parks in the city of Carson, where some of the residents think him a robber baron:
Most of them are poor and elderly. Nevertheless, Goldstein routinely asks municipal rent control boards for steep increases. For example, last year he sought to raise rents $300 per month -- a 60 percent hike -- at Carson Harbor Village.Each year, the residents trudge down to City Hall to fight him. When he doesn't get his way, he sues, and sometimes tries to pass the litigation costs to his tenants, who also say he has cut services and skimped on maintenance. (He disagrees.) This conflict has been going on for nearly 25 years.
"He does act like a feudal lord sometimes," said Joanne Swan, a homeowners' association board member at Carson Harbor Village. "I don't resent that he goes to playoff games. I don't resent how he spends that money. What I resent is that his idea of what would be an equitable return on his investment is pretty exaggerated.
Goldstein compiles his press clippings and many, many photos at his website. Gene Maddaus wrote the Breeze piece.
Photo: Exit magazine via JamesFGoldstein.com