Deutsche Bank fire: Your public authorities at work

A Google News search for "Bovis" brings up a huge number of articles about the recent deadly fire at the Deutsche Bank building at the World Trade Center. A news search for "ESDC" brings nothing, which is odd when you think about it. The New York State Economic Development Corporation is in charge of this area.

Public authorities, which include the ESDC and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC), were created to cut through the red tape that prevents development. That's all well and good, but the case of the Deutsche Bank Fire, that manifested into a disconnected water standpipe.

Public authorities have been failing to address environmental concerns in various ways in various projects. At the proposed Atlantic Yards development, where the ESDC is nominally the lead developer, the collapse of the parapet of the Wards Bakery led to promises of an Ombudsman... which never materialized. In Harlem, a judge recently ruled that there appeared to be collusion between the ESDC, AKRF and Columbia University.

The controversy over environmental oversight in the Downtown Brooklyn redevelopment plan includes another aspect of what the state defines as "environment," namely historic resources. The experts hired by the EDC through its contractor AKRF came to the conclusion that the Duffield Street homes should be preserved, but the EDC ignored their advice.

These are just part of the problems of public authorities like the ESDC. An audit released in May 2006 by New York comptroller Alan Hevesi reported that the Corporation loses track of its subsidiaries and recommended that "significant improvements be made in ESDC’s recordkeeping for and control over subsidiary operations."

Firms like Bovis and AKRF are for-profit businesses accountable to their owners. They are taking advantage of a situation created by public authorities like the EDC and the ESDC. (AKRF has a tenuous connect to the Deutsche Bank fire, since its role was limited to leading the team that wrote the GEIS.)

Neither our mayor or nor governor seemed to be concerned about insuring that the public authorities serve the public.

The mayor and governor are supposed to serve the citizens. But if they are not doing their job, it is up to the citizens to force them to do the right thing.



It sounds idealistic to say that the citizens should really be in control, but what choice do we have after the Deutsche Bank fire? What choice do we have when the mayor wants to destroy the Duffield Abolitionist homes to build a parking lot?

AKRF takes some heat

The New York City Economic Development Corporation/AKRF probably didn't expect much of a fight on Duffield Street, since the businesses and homes they want to destroy don't have deep pockets.

But this story is different in Harlem, where Columbia University/ESDC/AKRF want to destroy several businesses, including one that does buy the proverbial ink by the gallon.

Meet Nick Sprayregen, "real estate investor, king of the Tuck-It-Away storage empire, and newly minted newspaper owner." He is featured in a Village Voice article, "Big in Yonkers— Columbia foe buys house organ, ponders playing it."

Sprayregen vows to drag Columbia all the way to U.S. Supreme Court, and says he's got the money to do it. With the help of civil rights lawyer Norman Siegel, he won a Freedom of Information case against the state on June 27. At issue are 117 documents that the Empire State Development Corporation, the public entity that would condemn his properties, has refused to hand over. The ESDC is appealing, so Sprayregen still has nada.

But he did succeed in revealing, by means of the judge's order, that the school and the state are perhaps overly close on this one. At the outset, Columbia hired the AKRF consulting firm to advise it in dealings with the state. As part of those dealings, the state is conducting a study of the neighborhood, known colloquially as the blight study—a task for which it called in the same firm, AKRF.

The judge in Sprayregen's suit took a dim view of the ESDC's official stance on the relationship, that a "Chinese wall" existed between AKRF's work for Columbia and its work for the public. AKRF referred questions to the ESDC, where a spokesperson declined to comment on why the agency won't release the paperwork. Columbia's spokesperson, La-Verna Fountain, says the school did nothing wrong, since it hired AKRF first. Who is Columbia to tell anyone, including the state, how to conduct their business?

It's great the our public authorities are encouraging economic development. But they are supposed to serve the public, not the other way around. Unfortunately, the ESDC and the EDC have almost no public accountability, and firms like AKRF seem shameless in exploiting the situation.

Round up of press criticism of public authorities & AKRF

Another week, another scandal. The Empire State Development Corporation (the state agency, which is not the same as the NYC Economic Development Corporation, which is in charge of destroying the Duffield Street homes) got in trouble again for the "practice of favoring political over economic criteria" and for conflicts of interest with firm like our friends AKRF.

The recent revelations were released in a report by A. T. Kearny, and were covered by:

• Atlantic Yards Report: Revamping Empire State Development: stop playing politics, says report
• Reuters: Start revamp of NY economic arm with its name: study
• The NY Sun: Study Calls for Big Changes At Empire State Development
• Develop Don't Destroy: Report: Stop Playing Politics With ESDC
• NoLandGrab.org: Revamping Empire State Development: stop playing politics, says report
  

The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods released a related statement: AKRF-ESDC-FCRC Connections Raise Questions About Objectivity of "Atlantic Yards" Environmental Review. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle followed up with an article: Consulting Firm Counts Both Developer and State As Clients on Atlantic Yards.

All of this raises questions of the credibility of the public authorities to use eminent domain for public purposes. The EDC admits that Duffield Street was home to Abolitionists, and it offers vague benefits of their proposed parking lot. The ESDC has been caught playing politics with their friends AKRF, and it looks like the same thing is happening on Duffield Street.