Syed concedes there's a reasonable chance Dismas would have won the contract regardless of his application, but he can't hide his bitterness in the way it played out.
He was criticized for just about everything – although, one-on-one, he offers ready explanations. Sweeney, the former City Hall insider, was painted as evidence of a proposal based more on who you know than merit. Syed claims the lawyer was referred to him by a St. Alexius marketer and bristles at the suggestion he hired him to game the system. "If he has so many connections, why hasn't he been able to solve this?"
And then there was Syed's lawsuit against the city, which was construed as an attempt to dodge the public. In reality, the city had barred Syed from even applying for a permit. A Division of Building and Inspection employee refused to accept his paperwork, arguing that it would be automatically rejected because it was too close to at least one school and a church.
But that decision wasn't just seemingly arbitrary – it didn't seem to track with the city's code.
In denying Syed, the staffer claimed the project fell into the same category as homeless shelters and facilities for battered women, which require petition signatures from 51 percent of neighbors – not the far less onerous category in the International Building Code that specifically refers to halfway houses. That category doesn't have the same prohibitions against setting up near schools and churches, and it doesn't require the neighbor signatures. Syed's team claimed that Dismas House had been granted a permit under that simpler classification (and, yes, sits right next door to a school).
But when the staffer announced he wasn't taking the application, Syed's advisors claimed their only option was suing the city. So, on November 2, 2015, Syed and his lawyers asked the judge for a declaratory judgment to force the city to at least consider the project – a move that could help them avoid a time-consuming trial as the clock on their Bureau of Prisons application continued to tick away.
In response, the city's lawyers claimed Syed didn't provide enough detail about the project and the would-be residents "or even what they are 'halfway' between."
To Syed and his lawyers, it was nonsense. They accused the city of trying to run out the clock.
"Defendants are merely trying to muddy the facts to avoid a swift ruling on Plaintiff's pleadings," they wrote.
On December 30, Circuit Judge David Dowd ruled he didn't have enough information about the building code or Syed's plans to tell the city how to handle the permit. Syed could try to beat the city at trial, but the setback left no telling how long that would take. The expiration of Dismas' contract was just five months away.
Syed made one last attempt to file for the permit on New Year's Eve. This time, an employee took the documents, but the result was the same. Syed received a letter on January 11 from the Division of Building and Inspection, informing him of the commissioner's recommendation to reject his permit. He could appeal, the letter told him. He could also pursue a case in court.
Syed saw the clock ticking away and knew it was over. He told St. Alexius CEO Michael Motte he was abandoning the project – and then volunteered the information to an RFT reporter on January 21. He has taken himself out of the game – a loss by forfeit.
As he mulls the events of the past months, Syed says he'll do something else. He'll come up with some other kind of project.
"All my life, I survived as a hardworking person," he says. "So I'll keep on working hard. That's what this country is about."
Still, he can't stop replaying the failed halfway house bid in his head.
"It was like we were racing, and they stopped me before I could start."
