Newburgh Mystery: Here is the organizational chart from the 2009 City Manager’s Budget, prepared by Jean-Ann McGrane.  Can you spot what’s missing? (click on picture to enlarge)

Leave your suggestions as a comment…

9.17.09 Update:

Most commenters (what a wise, wonderful, bright bunch you are!) caught the Economic Development/Planning Department omission.  I think this is the cause of some of the more serious conflicts and confusions over recent years on the council (and in other areas) because agencies have been operating with minimal to no supervision or, in some cases, no awareness of their own existence (as in the recent example of the Newburgh Community Development Agency or the Newburgh Local Development Corporation).

Since E.D./Planning was funded from, as I understand it, a combination of Newburgh Industrial Development Agency money and NCDA money, at a time when the boards of those two agencies were principally council members, it was one-stop shopping to do business in Newburgh.  The two agencies even shared offices and a “received” correspondence stamp: NIDA/NCDA, documents will show, or you can see it on even fairly recent letterhead of RFP or RFQ documents.

The problem with all this is the absence of any kind of hierarchy of authority. With no chain of command, no boss or board to answer to, no department head or manager checking the time cards at the end of the day (time cards that apparently couldn’t be conveniently coughed up when the Department of Housing and Urban Development asked to see them, so Mr. Emberger pinned the tail on the NIDA’s donkey to foot the bill); not to mention the foibles of former economic development administrative directors Robert McKenna as well as his replacement Lourdes Zapata, Mr. McKenna in particular who has been vigorously and repeatedly thrown under multiple buses so many times by those left in City Hall it is a miracle he has any flesh left, even in effigy.

When it stopped: it was after 2005 that the City Council ceased passing resolutions appointing members of the NCDA.  Oddly enough, in 2005 there was the passage of the Public Authority Accountability Act, and perhaps, just perhaps, somewhere in City Hall this attracted some notice.

DiNapoli’s Office: No problem hereRecently, I checked with the Office of the State Comptroller as to whether there was any problem according to state law with the city acting on behalf of the NCDA without the agency’s knowledge.  Jennifer Freeman responded at length, citing General Municipal Law § 503-a:

§  503-a.  Cooperation  with  agencies.  For  the purpose of aiding an agency established pursuant to the provisions of  article  fifteen-A  of this chapter a municipality may:
1. Delegate to such agency such of its powers enumerated under section five hundred three of this article as it may deem appropriate, necessary or  desirable  to effectuate the purposes and provisions of this article and as are not inconsistent with the powers reserved  to  the  governing body or the commission under this article or the powers granted to such agencies in article fifteen-A of this chapter.

Ms.Freeman continues her citation, but the gist is that in this case, it looks like the City has the okay from the Comptroller to act for the NCDA.

But what if it wasn’t the city that was acting? What if, as a hypothetical example, it was a small group of individuals operating in abeyance of open government, including, as a purely fictional example, the mayor, the corporation counsel, the former acting city manager, and possibly an additional city council member?

Back to reality… At any rate, the organizational chart needs to be redrawn.  ALL of the suggestions mentioned by commenters below should be incorporated, and additional suggestions should be solicited, perhaps at a city council meeting and additionally at a public location such as the Newburgh Free Library.  It is only with a clear understanding of how such decisions get made that we can rest assured that our tax dollars are going to the right places.