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Meeting
Minutes
Monday, May 20, 2002 8:30 AM
Salmagundi Club
47 5th Avenue
New York City
click here for a pdf version
1.
Bob Yaro brought the meeting to order and reviewed the meeting's
agenda.
2.
Petra Todorovich outlined the process for the revision of
the Draft Planning Framework. There will be an official two-week
comment period during which Civic Alliance members (and anyone
else) should submit comments to Petra by email, mail, or fax.
Petra's email is Petra@rpa.org,
and her fax number is 212-253-5666. The two-week comment period
ends Monday, June 3.
2.1. The Civic Alliance working groups
should plan to meet during the first two weeks of June to review
comments received. Working groups will be forwarded any comments
that pertain to their chapter, or a chapter that contains overlapping
information with theirs. Working groups are asked to make changes
to their chapters to reflect comments made, if they are in agreement
with the comment. In the case that consensus cannot be reached
among a working group, or between two different working groups,
the issue should be identified and brought back to the Steering
committee. It is possible that in the final version of the Planning
Framework, there are certain issues that cannot be resolved,
and the chief opposing view points will both be stated.
2.2. During this time RPA staff members
will also be closely reviewing the draft planning framework
to detect inconsistencies among different chapters, and issues
that still need to be resolved between different constituencies.
2.3. Working groups should also identify
a handful (or less) of key recommendations that they wish to
be included in the updated executive summary. These should be
forwarded to the Civic Alliance steering committee by their
June 10 meeting.
2.4. The top recommendations of the
Civic Alliance working groups will be vetted and (hopefully)
approved at the June 24 Civic Alliance general meeting. Issues
on which consensus cannot be reached will either be identified
as such in the final document, or groups will continue to attempt
to reach consensus over the next several weeks.
2.5. A revised document will be available
online on approximately July 1, for final approval at a late-July
Civic Alliance meeting.
3. Carolyn Lukensmeyer of AmericaSpeaks gave
a short presentation on the upcoming "Listening to the City
July 20, 2002." Listening to the City will take place
on a Saturday in late July and will host up to 5000 people a the
Jacob Javits Center to participate in a modern town hall meeting.
(Please note: at the meeting Carolyn announced that the forum
would be a two-day event. However since Monday morning it has
been decided that the event will take place on a single day because
of the prohibitive expense of doing a two-day event.)
3.1. The Civic Alliance hosted a preliminary
Listening to the City event on February 7, 2002 at the South
Street Seaport, which over 600 people attended. The July 20
event will use the same format and technology as the February
event, but will be open to greater number of people.
3.2.
Bob Yaro added that this is a joint venture with LMDC
and that they will be providing about a third of the funding.
3.3. The LTC team will strive to reach
out to wide and diverse groups of people in the region to ensure
that the diversity of people affected by the September 11 tragedy
is represented on July 20. Carolyn noted that the most daunting
aspect of producing this event is making sure that the participants
come from all walks of life. We will aim for a representation
from mixed demographics; however Lower Manhattan residents,
victims' families, survivors, and rescue workers will be "appropriately
over-represented." We aim to have up to 30% of this aforementioned
category at the event.
3.4. The participant discussion guide
will represent a synthesis of public input so far, including
content from the Civic Alliance Planning Framework; the MAS
Imagine New York process, NYNV, LCAN, and other reports. The
participant guide will also contain content straight from LMDC.
3.5. The format of the meeting has
several advantages over the traditional public hearing model
including: the intimacy of small group discussions and the power
of the collective wisdom of thousands of people; and the immediacy
and transparency of the process.
3.6. Carolyn introduced some of the
project consultants for Listening to the City including:
- Amy
Chester & Michael O'Loughlin, M&R Strategic Services,
Outreach
- Andy
Cooper, Cooper Katz, Communications
- Jeremy
Soffin, Jasculca/Terman, Events
3.7. Amy Chester briefly outlined the
strategy of the Outreach team of working with a team of organizers,
working with the Civic Alliance to reach the memberships of
the member organizations, and reaching out to business associations,
religious groups, tenant groups, Community Boards etc. The Outreach
team will also conduct street outreach, and constantly track
the results of their efforts, and redesign their strategy if
necessary.
3.8. Questions and Comments:
3.8.1. Ashok Gupta, NRDC suggested
that we look at elected officials, city council, legislative
branch, state assembly, etc.
3.8.2. Paul Elston asked about the
nature of this joint venture of LMDC, and wondered what is
price tag for the entire event (Answer: Approximately $2 Million.)
He argued that if the Civic Alliance were to spread $2 Million
among its member organizations, we could effectively do some
work with the downtown community to design plans for Civic
Amenities, such as a Brooklyn Bridge park.
3.8.3.
Bob Yaro responded that it seems Alliance members want
more input into the content of the program. In crafting the
content, which options do we put on the table?
3.8.4. Diane Horning, who lost her
son on September 11, voiced her concern that LMDC is heavily
weighted with allegiance to Governor Pataki. LMDC also is
focusing on the 16 acres while the Civic Alliance looks at
all of Lower Manhattan. Her comment to the communications
team: family members are not being considered in this process
at all. Also, families are not organized together, and they're
not all located in New York.
3.8.5. Jeanine Thomas, Community
Services Society commented that she represents undocumented
workers and the like. How much representation do we need from
her organization?
3.8.6. David Kallick hoped that the
concluding sentiment of Charles Bagli’s article in the
NY Times after the February conference would not be true for
July: that we hope this isn’t just a chance for citizens
to vet, and that building public involvement isn’t just
a matter of siphoning off that responsibility to the Civic
Alliance. There needs to be follow through after the event
to truly affect the public process.
3.8.7. Rivka Mazar: How
we frame the "Listening to the City" is critical. This
includes the texts, images and the environment created
in Jacob Javits Center. Texts: To represent "public
input" the Participant Guide should draw on the outreach efforts
of NYNV and Imagine NY, not just represent the specific interests
of member organizations of the Civic Alliance. The images
used should present a balanced background- in particular as
pertaining to memorial.
3.8.7.1.1.
Also, the way the event was staged on February 7-
discussing "Rebuilding" first and "Memorial" later
in the day effectively framed the memorial discussion within
the rebuilding plans.
3.8.7.1.2. Finally, what is the
thinking behind involving facilitators from all 50 states?
3.8.8. Carolyn: there has been significant
interest in this issue from around the county, and this a
way that people can donate their time. Also: we will provide
translation the day of the event in six languages.
3.8.9. Rick Bell: Content will be
influenced by the timing of LMDC’s process. Listening
to the City is currently scheduled for nineteen days after
the first deliverable of LMDC, if they stick to their schedule.
Also, NYNV has released their Growth Strategies report today.
The Civic Alliance should be cognizant of all the materials
available, and especially the NYNV work for visuals.
3.8.10. In response to numerous concerns
about crafting the content for Listening to the City, a “content
committee” has been formed, which will be chaired by
Paul Elston. The content committee will work with Alex Marshall,
Senior Editor at RPA, and the Listening to the City team to
form the briefing book for Listening to the City. In the case
that the LMDC deliverables get pushed back, we should still
be able to get a preliminary sense if direction coming from
the consultants for use at Listening to the City
4. Bob Yaro: This brings us to the next item
on the agenda. We have had a series of conversations with
LMDC and the Port Authority--and many of their members were at
the Regional Assembly. The next step is for the working groups
of the Civic Alliance to meet with key staff members of LMDC and
PA to make their points of view known to LMDC staff members. Working
groups should begin to identify key recommendations to focus on
in their meetings with LMDC staff. LMDC has 1-2 people working
on each area. As
for the Port Authority, it's not as clear how we will be relating
with them. We had a meeting with Joe Seymour and have explained
to them what we are doing.
4.1. Holly Leicht, MAS: Civic Alliance
should be advocates for public involvement. Apparently, McGreevey's
office asked for a public hearing in New Jersey and the LMDC
said no.
4.2.
Gene Russianoff, NYPIRG: LMDC is a fast-moving process
and I know that everyone in this room wants to influence it.
On the other hand, we are committed to a rich, inclusive process.
There is a tension there. The Civic Alliance might consider
putting together its own ideal process.
4.3. Rob Lane: Our ideal process would
probably take a lot longer than LMDC is thinking.
4.4. David Kallick: RPA has been thinking
about the region for a long time. Accepting the constraints
of LMDC, there is significant diversity in Lower Manhattan alone
with Chinatown, the Lower East Side, etc. Of the people
who worked in the WTC, 80% were people from other parts of the
region.
4.5. Bob Yaro: With all the work that
has been done by the Civic Alliance, New York New Visions and
others we have the components of a Master Plan in the making.
We now need to refine 50 or so recommendations throughout the
Planning Framework down to about 10.
5. In other business, we’d like to
announce the formation of a Finance working group. Janette
Sadik-Khan will be chairing this committee and we are looking
for people to work on it that have significant amounts of transportation
infrastructure financing experience. Interested parties
should contact Petra and the first meeting will be set up in the
next few weeks.
6. Julie Caniglia of Project for Public Spaces
next gave a presentation on the new website, 'DowntownNYC.org.'
This website is a creation of the Civic Amenities working group
of the Civic Alliance and aims to outline different issues, problems,
and questions at stake in rebuilding Lower Manhattan and especially
in creating public amenities to make downtown a more pleasant
place to live, work, and play.
7.
The goal of the site is to put the recommendations of the
Civic Amenities working group online for people to read and react
to. The site is currently live and comments are already being
received. Check it out at www.downtownnyc.org.
8. The next Civic Alliance meeting will take
place on Monday, June 24 at 8:30 AM. Location will be announced.
9. The meeting adjourned at approximately
10:25 AM.
Attendance
Abby Suckle
Alana Smith
Amy Chester, M&R Strategic Services
Amy Levine, Listening to the City
Anne Morris, Baruch. CUNY
Arthur Fried, NYU Center for Excellence in NY City Governance
Barbara Graham, Salmagundi Club
Beverly Dolinsky, Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the
MTA (PCAC)
Bill Shore, NYU
Bob Yaro, RPA
Bruce Rosen, NYC Department of City Plannning
Cara Griffith, University of Pennsylvania
Carol Ausubel Blumenfeld, National Executive Service Corps
Carolyn Lukensmeyer, America Speaks
Chris Jones, RPA
Dan Slippen, Pace University
David Herman
David Kallick, Fiscal Policy Institute
Deborah McManus, Womens City Club
Deborah McManus, Womens City Club
Denise Poche-Jetter, Jobs with Justice
Diane Horning, Family – WTC Victim
Doug Offerman, Citizens Budget Committee
Ellie King, Womens City Club
Eva DuBuisson, Lawyers Alliance for NY
Eva Hanhardt, MAS
Frederic Schwartz AIA
Gene Russianoff, NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign
Genie Birch, University of Pennsylvania
George K. Penesis, P.E., Konheim & Ketcham, Inc.
Holly Leicht, MAS
Jane Berkow, Listening to the City
Janeene Thomas, Community Service Society
Janet Helin
Janette Sadik-Khan, Company 39
Jeff Zupan, RPA
Jeremy Reiss, CWE/CLC
Jeremy Soffin, Jasculca Terman
Jim Wright, AIA New York New Visions
Joan Byron, Pratt Center
Joe Weisbord, Housing First!
Judith Davidoff
Judith Rubenstein, Henry Street Settlement
Karen Kahn, Port Authority
Laura Engler, Office of Manhattan Borough President
Laurence Frommer, CIUS
Elliot Sander, Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management,
NYU Wagner School
Marcia Bystryn, NY League of Conservation Voters
Marian Imperatore, RPA
Michael Bradley, Riverside South Planning Corporation
Michelle Horning, Family – WTC Victim
Miranda Banks, Housing First!
Nicolas Arture
Patricia Lancaster
Paul Elston, NY League of Conservation Voters
Paula Gerard, ASPA
Peter Brightbill, Brightbill & Brightbill
Peter Marcuse Columbia University
Petra Todorovich, RPA
Rick Bell, AIA
Rivka Mazar, New York New Visions
Rob Lane, RPA
Roger Herz, TIME/ 2 Improve Municipal Efficiency
Shirley Secunda
Suja Rao, Asian Women in Business
Sumner M Rosen, Five Borough Institute
Tara Colton, NYU Center for Excellence in NYC Governance
Trevor MacDermid
Yvette Ramone
Zoe Cohen, New York New Visions, AIA
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