Bond, Contracts and a Demonstration

A demonstration

WPvideo 1.10

The June 16, 2008 City Council meeting’s first public hearing began with a plea for affordable housing. Community Voices Heard held a march preceding the meeting to raise awareness about the need for affordable housing initiatives in the master plan. They sat in the audience until the first opportunity to spoke arose. One of their members then read their prepared statement as others around the room began to get up and chant “What do we want? Affordable housing! When do we want it? Now!” See additional coverage in the Times Herald-Record and the Mid Hudson Times.

A bond

WPvideo 1.10

Mayor Valentine wanted to bring up the comptroller to discuss a bond authorization for $6,325,000 but Councilwoman Bell moved to table the resolution and was seconded by Councilwoman Dickinson. Councilwoman Bello also voted to table the resolution, leaving Mayor Valentine and Councilwoman Angelo the only “no” votes to table. There was no discussion regarding the tabling but based on the work session discussion there were many unanswered questions Councilwoman Dickinson, for one, had.

Contracts

There was some discussion on Resolutions 100-2008 and 101-2008, both contracts for services related to the burying ground at Broadway School. Councilwoman Bello in particular was concerned about excessive costs with no ceiling for the professional services of Landmark Archaeology, Inc. at $5,018.57 per day (Resolution 100-2008) and Professor Kenneth C. Nystrom, a qualified anthropologist at $50 per hour (Resolution 101-2008). However, both contracts did pass, the latter with the additional provision of a ceiling of $5000.00.

WPvideo 1.10

More controversial was Resolution 102-2008, “A resolution to authorize the award of a bid and the execution of a contract to McGoey, Hauser & Edsall, P.C. for professional construction management services for the First Street Fishing Pier project at cost of $17,060.00.” The roll call was: Councilwoman Angelo – Yes. Councilwoman Bell – No. Councilwoman Bello – Yes. Councilwoman Dickinson – No (after a thoughtful pause, and followed by audience applause.) Mayor Valentine – Yes.

Following the vote there was an exchange between Mayor Valentine and Councilwoman Bell.

Valentine: “I’m not going to get into the personalities of it… .”

Bell: “Mayor, this doesn’t have to do with personalities… It has to do with impropriety, the appearance of impropriety, I think as someone [said who] came up earlier, double and triple dipping… we all know that there’s a huge problem around this.”

June 19, 2008 | Newburgh Advocate | Tags: , , | No Comments »

Why aren’t we suing?

Authorize another $6.313 Million?

WPvideo 1.10

The City Comptroller Charles Emberger asked the Council for a resolution last night that would increase a 2004 bond authorization by $6,313,000 to cover additional costs associated with the new City Courthouse. Located at the intersection of Broadway and 9W, the Broadway School is undergoing renovations to become the new City Courthouse.

The original cost allotted for the courthouse was $12, 240,000 in 2004.
At Broadway School, the current cost is $18,553,000.

Why the big difference?

Mr. Emberger cited increased construction costs due to inflation, such as steel being up over 131% from last year. “And we had the additional costs of the asbestos.”

The current cost comes to $15,227,000.
The original bond approval was for $12,240,000.
That comes to “a difference of $3,287,820.”

Mr. Emberger noted that there were also previous expenses that had been outlaid (with the other site) chosen prior to the Broadway School’s final selection. (For those that don’t remember, there was some conflict about where the new courthouse would be located and the terms of the previous deal.)

Those other expenses bring the additional cost to $6,313,000.

The Comptroller urged the council to authorize the additional bond since he has been paying courthouse expenses out of the general fund, and there is a need to replenish the fund.

“I had pages of questions that I didn’t get to ask”

Councilwoman Maryann Dickinson was determined to meet with the auditors before considering an additional bond authorization.

“Before I’d even consider this, back when we first had the problems with the courthouse… we were supposed to meet with Nugent and Hauser to go over the audit. But that never happened. And so I have a lot of questions that I would want answered about what’s going on right now before I would even consider this.”

The City Manager and the Comptroller agreed to have a meeting with the auditors set up in the coming weeks. Councilwoman Dickinson and others will get to ask their questions.

“Why aren’t we suing?”

WPvideo 1.10

“But my question is, we have this asbestos, in this building. Now anybody who lives in Newburgh has got to know there’s asbestos… why aren’t we suing the people who didn’t tell us about the asbestos before?”

There was a burst of spontaneous applause from the audience at Councilwoman Dickinson’s question. The City Manger immediately said “May I ask that that be a subject for executive session? …That will be part of the discussion on pending litigation…”

So perhaps there already is pending litigation against whomever is deemed responsible for not knowing when they should have known about the asbestos.

It remains to be seen if the partners of Den Cass will hold any liability. Den Cass was a partnership created to buy ownership of Broadway School from the City of Newburgh in 1986 and included the partners of William Hauser, Richard McGooey (of the consulting firm McGooey, Hauser and Edsall, consulting engineers to the City) William Loewenstein of “Community Development Group, Inc.” and the City of Newburgh Local Development Corporation. (Does the name Loewenstein sound familiar? He’s the consultant that proposed the prior site and deal for the city courthouse, much to the consternation of many local citizens.)

Did the consulting engineers know their own building had asbestos?

The partners do make a representation that is revealing in its selection for a mortgage dated from 1991. The signatories are McGooey, Hauser, Loewenstein and Donald Presutti, then Mayor, signing as partner for the Newburgh Local Development Corporation.

The partners had to choose between two representations about asbestos in the building. They did not choose “No asbestos or urea formaldehyde foam insulation is located in any of the buildings or structures improving the property.” They did choose this: “[Alternative: No urea formaldehyde foam insulation, no friable asbestos insulation and no unencapsulated asbestos-containing material is located in any of the buildings or structures improving the property.]

June 13, 2008 | Newburgh Advocate | Tags: , , | 2 Comments »

City Council Breaks Open Meetings Law

To commemorate gratuitious use of executive session

It’s time to award another Closed Door Award. This one goes to City Manager Jean Ann McGrane and Economic Development Director Robert McKenna for shutting out the public to a meeting that had a majority of the city council present and thus fell under the Open Meetings Law.

According to Jenny Loeb, a community organizer for Community Voices Heard, she and one of her organization’s members, Maretta Melvin, endeavored to attend a meeting this evening the council held to discuss the Master Plan. Mayor Valentine, Councilwoman Angelo, and Councilwoman Bell were already in attendance when Ms. Loeb and Ms. Melvin were asked to leave.

Marge Bell expressed concerns that it should be an open meeting and that closing it would be a violation of the law.

However, both Robert McKenna and Jean Ann McGrane told Ms. Loeb the meeting did not fall under the Law and that she and Ms. Melvin were not welcome. Ms. Loeb explains that “they said it was considered ‘staff providing information.’ We asked if the Council members were speaking as well, and they confirmed that they were.”

To shed light on how the City Council broke the Open Meetings Law, I turn to Robert Freeman, Executive Director of the New York State Committee on Open Government. The following text is transcribed from the video below, recorded during Mr. Freeman’s visit to the Newburgh Free Library in the fall of 2006.

WPvideo 1.10

What is a meeting?

The Open Meetings Law applies to meetings of public bodies. A public body is a group of two or more, that would either be elected or appointed to carry out some sort of governmental function collectively as a body.

Like a city council, a school board, a town board, a planning board, a zoning board of appeals, a state assembly or senate; all of those groups of people, who function collectively as a group, constitute public bodies required to comply with the Open Meetings Law.

But back in 1977, the law defined the term “meeting” to mean the formal convening of a public body for the purpose of officially transacting public business.

Well, gee, all over the state, all kinds of boards and councils and committees were saying, look, we’re not conducting a meeting, we’re just going to talk. We’re not going to vote, we’re not going to take action. We won’t be transacting public business. This isn’t a meeting, it’s a workshop, it’s a work session, it’s a study session, it’s everything but a meeting.

Now, I have no idea whether there’s anybody here today who might have been on the city council in 1978, but the contention was that the so-called work session was held solely for the purpose of discussion and there’s no intention to take action were not meetings, and that they fell beyond the coverage of the Open Meetings Law.

Well, anybody here from the Times Herald Record?

Well, they sued. And they won. And the case went all the way to the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, and the Court of Appeals said very simply, that any time a majority – a quorum, if you will – gathers for the purpose of conducting public business, that’s a meeting covered by the Open Meetings Law, even if there’s no intent to take action, irrespective of the manner in which the gathering may be characterized as.

Now, I know that the city still has work sessions, but they’re open to the public.

Right? Damn well better be. They have to be open.

Thus, even though the meeting was characterized as “staff providing information,” because there was a quorum, the meeting should have been open to the public.

Ms. Loeb believes the council may have been trying to escape her organization’s scrutiny. CVH is engaged in a campaign “to get [the council] to support better protections for affordable housing for Newburgh residents in the Master Plan.”

Will it take another lawsuit to assure the council complies with the law?

June 3, 2008 | Newburgh Advocate | Tags: , | 4 Comments »