Yonkers council meeting with developers draws fire
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- August
- 24
Guest blogger Ernie Garcia writes:
Yonkers Councilman John Murtagh, R-5th District, is accusing City Council President Chuck Lesnick of holding a secret council meeting tonight at his Yonkers law offices with developers who want to remake downtown.
Murtagh said today that when he was informed of the meeting with representatives of the SFC development partnership, he assumed the meeting would be in City Hall. Yesterday he learned otherwise. “It immediately raised the appearance that things are not being done above board,” Murtagh said.
Lesnick confirmed that tonight’s meeting is to be held at his law office at 733 Yonkers Ave. Lesnick explained that the law office has two different conference rooms on two different floors in order to avoid holding an illegal City Council meeting.
Lesnick said that he and Councilwoman Patricia McDow, D-1st District, are co-chairs of the council’s Real Estate & Economic Development Committee and that they wanted to include all the council members who are favorably disposed to supporting the SFC redevelopment proposal for downtown.
“We’re at the point of final negotiations and I wanted to be inclusive to as many council members who wanted to participate,” said Lesnick, adding that he was unsure if more than three council members will attend tonight’s meeting.
A quorum would be four members, and if that many showed up Lesnick said the meeting would have to be held in different rooms.
Despite Lesnick’s spirit of inclusion, councilwomen Sanday Annabi and Joan Grownowski were not
invited to the meeting because Lesnick said they’ve already voiced their opposition to the SFC proposal.
“As soon as we have an agreement we’ll bring it to the Real Estate Committee and discuss it in an open forum,” Lesnick said.
Murtagh said that from the start tonight’s meeting should have been held by the Real Estate Committee and proper public notice given. Murtagh said tonight’s meeting reminded him of secret meetings held years back on Ridge Hill, to which he was not invited.
“It was one of the things that poisoned the air. There were meetings behind closed doors,” said Murtagh, acknowledging that even if the Real Estate Committee held tonight’s meeting, it could be closed to the public for delicate negotiations with developers.
UPDATE: Robert Freeman for the state Committee on Open Government said this afternoon that Lesnick’s stated desire to comply with state public meetings law by having council members sit in different rooms in the same building could be construed as an effort to evade them.
This entry was posted
on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 3:21 pm by Liz Anderson.
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Having a meeting about public issues in a private office? Very shady. Mr. Lesnic forgets the election is around the corner and people in this City are tired of the nonsense. How many times has this happened before? Time to make phone calls and send e-mails citiznes: (914) 377-6060 and chuck.lesnick@YonkersNY.gov.