(Editor's Note: The following is a statement from Mark Bulmash, group vice president, development with Taubman Centers, Inc. regarding last week's article entitled 'Residents Gather Near Cerro Site to Push for Building Moratorium.')

The community has been ill-served by those who have shut down dialogue, prevented compromise and forced this issue to be decided by a series of court room rulings. The latest protest was equally cruel, our neighbors standing in a cold rain while being told that continuing to stonewall this project will keep it from being built. It is simply not true and the courts have affirmed it time and again.

The professional opponents to the Oyster Bay Mall have enforced a terribly flawed strategy on the local community. Their efforts show a level of blinding cynicism that have ensured their clients are prevented from having any role in what will be built on this property. They have choked off the discussions that had been underway at the start of this process destroying the role of compromise and consideration.

Equally troubling is that [Town of Oyster Bay] Supervisor Venditto would allow himself to participate in this shadow game of rhetoric on behalf of those who do not have the interests of the community at heart. And it is a strategy that has been employed for previous projects and the results have always been the same - a building has been built without input from the community. Today there are few legal options left to the opponents of this reasonable recycling of industrial property and delay merely gives professional critics another payday.

The ultimate irony will be obvious the day the ribbon is cut on the Oyster Bay Mall and an economic transformation is completed. Gone will be the images of an industrial relic on this 39-acre property, finally replaced by a world class retail economic engine that is powered by the legendary Neiman Marcus, the prestigious Lord & Taylor and others. In the meantime I can only commiserate with my neighbors who are being misled and ill-served by a strategy that has proven time and again to offer little more than delay but no change to the ultimate resolution.