BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | Former state Senator Franz Leichter is stepping down from the board of directors of the Hudson River Park Trust.
Leichter announced his intention in a Dec. 23 letter to the Trust’s chairperson, Diana Taylor, and his fellow board of director members. He noted that he had informed Madelyn Wils, the Trust’s president, a week earlier.
Leichter, 84, co-wrote the 4-mile-long waterfront park’s founding legislation.
He said he had initially planned to resign at the end of this year, but wanted to be present at the Trust board’s meeting on Feb. 11 when they will take up the matter of Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg’s proposed Pier55 project, and will then resign after that meeting.
“I have been involved in working with the staff to assure that this pier will be accessible to the public and an integral part of our magnificent park and want to participate when this issue is taken up,” Leichter wrote.
“I take great pride in the Hudson River Park as the architect, with Assemblyman Dick Gottfried, of the passage of the Park Act in 1998,” he added. “I have served as a board member since then in working with an exceptionally dedicated staff and you my colleagues on the board to realize turning a deteriorated waterfront into what is becoming a world-class park. I have been fortunate to travel to many of the world’s great harbors and have not seen anything that is its equal,” he said of Hudson River Park.
“I know we have some ways to go to finish the park and put it on solid financial footing,” Leichter went on. “I would have been ready to continue to serve. However, Gale Brewer the current borough president, has made it difficult for me to function and represent the neighboring communities.
“She has during the whole year not met once with all the community board members, has ignored requests to meet with her and has not returned phone calls,” he charged of Brewer. “If she doesn’t have confidence in me after my long involvement with the park, I do not believe I can be as effective a board member as I want to be. I hope she will be supportive of the park and realize that it exists to serve the neighboring communities as well as the city.”
Leichter concluded by expressing his admiration for Taylor’s leadership as chairperson, as well as for the work of Wils and her two predecessors, Connie Fishman and Rob Balachandran.
However, Brewer wrote Trust President Wils on Dec. 23, saying that it was Leichter who had been avoiding meeting with her, not the other way around. Brewer said Leichter canceled a meeting scheduled for Dec. 22, and that her scheduler set up another one for Jan. 8 and that she was looking forward to meeting with him then.
Obviously, it sounds like that meeting is now moot, and likely won’t happen.
The Trust’s 13-member board has five members appointed each by the governor and mayor and three by the borough president.
Arthur Schwartz, a Community Board 2 member and longtime waterfront park activist, said of Leichter’s resignation, “He is a true hero of Hudson River Park. He and Dick Gottfried pushed the park bill through over [Assemblymember] Deborah Glick’s objections, and clearly crafted very protective legislation.
“I do, however, think it’s time for the community boards to each have a representative on the Trust board,” Schwartz added. “I believe that this was the original notion, but right now none of them do. I hope the borough president asks the community boards for recommendations for all three slots, since the terms of all three are up this year.”
The other two community appointees are Lawrence B. Goldberg, who was formerly on C.B. 2, and Pam Frederick, who formerly was on and chaired C.B. 4.
