There’s a weird dispute in Panama where the owners of a condo tower under a Trump management contract is trying to get out of the contract, the Trump Organization is resisting and Panamanian police are intervening. Wonkette tells it pretty well.
What she doesn’t mention is that the building is the most literal white elephant ever built. The street level is huge and empty, with that godawful bigfoot statue. The base is a normal box, topped by a giant sail. This being absurdly overcrowded Panama City, it’s invisible from pretty much everywhere on land.
That the owners want Trump’s company out & his name off is pretty easy to understand. As the Toledo Blade put it:
The building’s residents and condo owners had invested in the namesake, a 70-story waterfront tower along Panama Bay, on the strength of Trump’s reputation. But during the four years that Trump Panama Condominium Management LLC had managed the property, Central America’s largest building, a team installed by the Trump family was accused of running up more than $2 million in unauthorized debts, paying its executives undisclosed bonuses and withholding basic financial information from owners.
The Trumps had done all of this through fine-print chicanery, the board said. A clause in many residents’ purchase agreements prevented them from voting against the Trump company’s wishes. That allowed the Trumps to install their top employee as chairman and the residents’ representative on the board — even though the Trumps’ actual stake in the building’s residential area was merely a storage closet on the 15th floor.
Is that hard to understand?
Anyhow, if you’re ever down there a better place to check out is the Panama Canal Museum in Old Town, where the docents will be sure to direct you through the complete history of how the canal was built (brutally) and eventually recovered by Panama (much protest, a bit of violence).