Battery Park City Authority board chairman Dennis Mehiel, right, joined by board president Shari Hyman, left, and member Martha Gallo, took questions from residents at a Dec. 16 forum.
BY DUSICA SUE MALESEVIC |
The Battery Park City Authority recently held a public forum to hear from the locals — and boy did it get an earful.
Following a series of unpopular decisions — and accusations of ignoring residents’ concerns — the board that manages the neighborhood took questions from a packed room at 6 River Terrace on Dec. 16.
Residents lined up to take the authority to task, relishing a chance to speak directly to the board, which is appointed by Albany and can seem aloof to locals.
“I think there’s a general attitude among the staff of Battery Park City Authority that they’re lords of the manner and we’re the peasants,” said B.P.C. resident Pat Smith.
Many of the questions focused on the authority’s latest move that upset the community — bringing in private security “ambassadors,” who have no enforcement powers, to replace the city’s Parks Enforcement Patrol officers, who do.
“This issue with the P.E.P.s is super disturbing,” said Elizabeth Lara, a Battery Park City resident since 2007. “We’re bothered by it. You don’t seem to care.”
B.P.C.A. board chairman Dennis Mehiel said he couldn’t respond because of ongoing negotiations with the Parks Dept. about the future of the P.E.P. contract that expires at the end of January, but he suggested the fears that the city peace officers will be eliminated were unfounded.
“The presumption is that when the dust clears, there wasn’t going to be anybody here that had the power to issue a summons,” Mehiel said. “Why do we assume that’s the case?”
Mehiel acknowledged that the controversy unleashed by the surprise move to reduce the P.E.P. role prompted the board to hold the unprecedented meeting with residents.
“This discussion we’re having here tonight about a joint role to provide this service in this area results from the pushback we got from you guys with the concerns you expressed,” he said. “So we’re trying to be responsive.”
The forum was an effort to improve communication, but some of the authority’s responses only exacerbated its reputation for stonewalling the public.
Asked about why the authority didn’t inform residents about its intention to hire a private security firm, board members said that when they posted the request for proposals — a formal invitation for contract bids — on the authority’s website, that counted as informing the community.
On several occasions when residents asked for more information about the authority’s decisions, rather than answering the questions, the board instead invited residents to file a formal request under the Freedom of Information Law, a state law created to force uncooperative government agencies to divulge information not normally made public.
Residents packed the room at 6 River Terrace and lined up for a chance to grill a board that many see as aloof and distant.
One exchange earlier in the meeting seemed to epitomize the authority’s disconnect with residents.
When the authority’s vice president of administration, Benjamin Jones, referred to the P.E.P. in his report to the residents, he gave the impression that the city officers would continue to patrol in the community.
“The Parks Enforcement Patrol contract that the Battery Park City Authority has with the New York City Parks Dept. remains in effect,” he said, prompting applause from the audience.
It wasn’t until later, when Assemblymember Deborah Glick asked a question about the P.E.P. contract, that the board made clear that it was only in effect until Jan. 31. That led to shouts of “That’s not what you said.”
Mehiel said there was no intention to mislead, but residents suggested that a habitual lack of transparency had eroded trust in the authority.
“I get that you guys do things that you can’t always hold our hands or have us hold your hands,” said Justine Cuccia, a public member of Community Board 1. “We get that. The problem is the trust is broken.”
Smith pointed out that the community and the authority had a very successful partnership until the last two years, but he said now public confidence in the authority’s leadership is gone.
“The partnership is frayed. And there’s a very simple, but very necessary fix to this — the authority leadership must be replaced,” Smith said, sparking applause and shouts of agreement.
“I serve at the pleasure of the governor,” said Mehiel, whose three-year term is up at the end of the year.
Battery Park City is owned by the state, and Gov. Cuomo appoints the authority’s board.
In an effort to move past complaints about the authority’s lack of communication, Mehiel asked residents for examples of specific outcomes that had an adverse impact on residents’ lives and strained the relationship with the community.
Residents were armed with answers.
Some shouted, “Tessa,” referring to Tessa Huxley, who ran the neighborhood’s parks conservancy for almost three decades before being forced out by the board over the summer.
Others mentioned North Cove Marina, which Michael Fortenbaugh ran for ten years before the board replaced him with the current operator, Brookfield Office Properties, in another recent decision that many residents disagreed with.
CB1 member and resident Tammy Meltzer never even got to ask her question because the authority cut off the question time when the meeting ran half an hour beyond schedule.
“I was going to kill them on communication,” Meltzer said afterwards. “They need to engage in a dialogue with the community. It’s an interesting start.”
This won’t be the last chance residents will have to confront the board. In a bid to improve relations with the community it runs, the authority plans to make the forum a quarterly event.
“I think it is a beginning,” Martha Gallo, the only member of the board who lives in the neighborhood, told the Downtown Express afterwards. “We had to start somewhere.”
