Schenectady Planning Commission held closed meetings on casino plans State official: Sessions legal but ‘evasive’ By Haley Viccaro June 18, 2015
SCHENECTADY — The city Planning Commission met with Rush Street Gaming officials prior to Wednesday’s meeting to discuss the design of the Rivers Casino and Resort at Mohawk Harbor.
Four commissioners met with the casino’s development team Monday and another four met with the team Tuesday, according to City Planner Christine Primiano.
By doing so, they avoided a five-member quorum. With a five-member quorum, the meeting must be announced to the public and conducted in public.
During the public meeting Wednesday, the commissioners did not comment on the casino’s design “because we met before the meeting,” Chairwoman Sharran Coppola said during the meeting in Room 110 at City Hall.
Coppola could not be reached for comment Thursday.
The Planning Commission is made up of nine members appointed by the mayor and approved by the City Council. Commission members include Coppola, Matt Cuevas, Brad Lewis, Jason Bogdanowicz-Wilson, Mary Moore Wallinger, Chris Rush, Tom Carey, Julia Stone and Sara Bonacquist.
Cuevas has recused himself from voting on the site plan of buildings on the Alco site due to his involvement with the project as an employee of Albany engineering firm CHA, formerly Clough Harbour & Associates.
Primiano said discussions at the two meetings before the public meeting were centered on the change of the operator’s design of the casino from modern to traditional.
“The overall consensus was that everyone was expecting something similar to the first design — a more contemporary structure — and didn’t know it would change so drastically to the structure they submitted,” she said.
Like a majority of local residents, Primiano said the commissioners are not in favor of the new design.
“They felt it didn’t generate any excitement,” she said. “They were trying to design a building they felt fit into the context of our environment, but we were looking for something different.”
Rush Street Gaming of Chicago is partnering with Rotterdam developer Galesi Group on a $330 million casino at the old Alco site off Erie Boulevard, renamed Mohawk Harbor.
The casino is in addition to Galesi’s plan to revitalize the 60-acre brownfield with housing, hotels, office and retail buildings and a 50-boat-slip harbor. The total price tag of the development is about $480 million.
Primiano labeled the meetings “subcommittee meetings,” but they were not announced to the public or the news media.
“Maybe if we feel there needs to be more discussion, we will do the subcommittees again,” she said. “It’s hard to have that discussion during one meeting.”
The Planning Commission plans to vote on the site plan for the casino during its next meeting Wednesday, July 15, at 6:30 p.m. in Room 110 at City Hall.
The meeting Wednesday was meant for Rush Street officials to get feedback from the commission and the public about the design to take back to the drawing board and present a tweaked version to the commission at the July meeting.
Bob Freeman, executive director of the state Committee on Open Government, said although the Planning Commission didn’t violate the Open Meetings Law because they did not meet as a quorum, it demonstrates a lack of transparency.
“If there is an attempt to evade the Open Meetings Law by ensuring that a series of gatherings will include less than a quorum, it’s possible that a court could find that the entity failed to comply with the law,” he said.
He added that the actions of the Planning Commission left the public in the dark about a major development.
“It may be legal, but it does not represent the best possible way to be accountable to the public,” he said. “Clearly this practice demonstrates a lack of transparency and accountability.”
Mayor Gary McCarthy said the developers meet with city staff and members of the commission on an ongoing basis, “so it is more evolutionary.”
“This is a major project, and it has been covered fairly extensively in the media," he said. ”They complied with the law, but the law may not be quite as open and structured in a way that you would be 100 percent. This is just part of the process.”
Primiano said commissioners met with Galesi Group officials before approving the developer’s other buildings on the site, including a Courtyard by Marriott hotel, 191-unit apartment building and 50-unit condominium building.
“We have done it a lot for the Alco project,” she said. “We have done it in the past for other large developments, but it’s not a regular thing we do for smaller projects. We have met before for several buildings on the Mohawk Harbor site.”
The commission also approved the site plan for Galesi’s 24-unit townhouse building and 60,000-square-foot office and retail building on the site.
During the meeting Wednesday, three of the commissioners initially voted against the project, but changed their minds after Copolla argued their reasoning for disapproval was not within the commission’s purview.
Commissioner Lewis said he did not like the building’s dark brick exterior and that it “looks like an Alco knockoff.” He added, “I simply don’t want to see this.”
Lewis could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Commissioner Rush said he disliked the stairs leading up to each unit of the townhouse building. Commissioner Stone also disliked the design and spoke out against it.
If the commissioners stuck with their original vote of 4-3, the site plan for the townhouse building would have been shot down because approval requires five votes, a majority of the commission’s total membership.
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,"
“If there is an attempt to evade the Open Meetings Law by ensuring that a series of gatherings will include less than a quorum, it’s possible that a court could find that the entity failed to comply with the law,” he said.
He added that the actions of the Planning Commission left the public in the dark about a major development.
“It may be legal, but it does not represent the best possible way to be accountable to the public,” he said. “Clearly this practice demonstrates a lack of transparency and accountability.”
Color me surprised.
There will be a day, someday, that the machine is taken down just like those jokers in state government were.
There will be a day, someday, that the machine is taken down just like those jokers in state government were.
and you think that 'you let the city down'????? YOU, my cyber friend are one of the smart ones!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
"the mayor is doing a wonderful job" He and his political appointees and cronies keep secrets from the taxpayers who pay them.
It all started with the mayor of BS who REFUSED to tell taxpayers he was giving himself a raise.
And unfortunately, the people fall for all their BS.
I'm beginning to think the corruption in the city is far worse than at the state level.
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
The Mayor said a bunch of blather. He isn't doing right by the citizens, as usual. That "part of the process" remark is something they throw out there that really doesn't mean anything, when they want to sound like they are doing the right thing while doing the wrong thing.
Another example of "working together works"? Gazette had nice editorial today about this.
The editorial.
Quoted Text
Public not served by secrecy June 20, 2015
Dictatorships are nothing if not efficient.
No politics. No horse-trading for votes. No citizens bugging you with their annoying ideas, opinions and objections. In a dictatorship, things get done quickly, efficiently and without a fuss.
And if we lived in a dictatorship, then what the Schenectady Planning Commission did by holding secret meetings with developers of the proposed Mohawk Rivers development and casino projects would have been perfectly appropriate.
But we don't. And it wasn't.
The board, in case you missed Friday's front page, revealed that it had been regularly meeting with developers over designs for the old Alco site. The commission is reviewing hotels, a parking garage, townhouses, retail buildings, the casino and assorted parking lots, signs, landscaping and lighting for the site.
To get around a requirement of the state Open Meetings Law that meetings of public bodies for the purpose of conducting public business must be announced beforehand and open to public view, the board cleverly made sure that each time they met with developers, they had less than a quorum of the nine-member board. If you have a quorum, you have to do all those annoying public meeting things that dictatorships don't have to do.
It was no less than an abuse of the commission's power and a violation of the public's trust. But it also raises a key question: Who was served by this?
By meeting secretly with developers, did the public benefit? Were the people of Schenectady and the region served by not having the opportunity to observe the review process in its entirety? Were they served by not knowing if the commission members were asking the right questions? Were they served by a board that came to the announced public meeting and silently rubber-stamped elements of the project because they'd already asked their questions and already knew the answers they were going to get? Were the people served by not having the opportunity to ask their own questions and receive answers and offer ideas and concerns?
Don’t they realize that this whole fiasco with the casino design is the direct result of the developers secretly deciding to change the original plan without public notice or input, and then springing an ill-conceived new design on us right before final review? Did that serve anyone well?
The development of the Alco site is the biggest thing to hit Schenectady in many, many years. And everyone has a vested interest in how this all turns out.
Yet the Planning Commission — whose members serve as the citizens' last line of defense against a poorly designed project that fails to serve the community’s needs — decided to shut those citizens out of the process just because it's easier when they’re not involved. Again, who does that process serve?
If developers don't want the public freaking out about their plans, then the smartest thing to do is include them in the process as it goes. Post changes on a website. Call one of our reporters. If developers and the Planning Commission want the process to have fewer bumps, the commission doesn't have to allow public comments at each meeting. Public hearings do indeed need to be held, but not every time. The board can legally and ethically meet with developers and not let the public speak, as long as the public gets a chance to observe. The people can ask their questions and make their comments to board members and developers afterward or at the public hearings.
But, they whine, scheduling public meetings is inconvenient. Well, if meetings can be arranged with four members, they can be arranged with a quorum of five and held in the open. Meetings also can be recorded and posted online for the other commission members and citizens who can't attend each one.
But what can't happen is what is happening here — which is the public being deliberately excluded from these important discussions in the name of expediency.
If they want to do that, they'll need to find more than a good rationalization. They'll need to find a good dictatorship.
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,"
No politics. No horse-trading for votes. No citizens bugging you with their annoying ideas, opinions and objections. In a dictatorship, things get done quickly, efficiently and without a fuss.
And if we lived in a dictatorship, then what the Schenectady Planning Commission did by holding secret meetings with developers of the proposed Mohawk Rivers development and casino projects would have been perfectly appropriate.
Metroplex and Schenectady County have been giving taxpayer money away in secret for better than a decade, and the redesign of the Casino and closed Planning Commission meeting is the straw that broke the camels back? All the Metroplex businesses located downtown negotiated tax exemptions, and received grants and loans in secret. I don't recall public meetings to discuss any of the terms of the deals they received. The entire development of downtown has been done without public transparency.
Metroplex and Schenectady County have been giving taxpayer money away in secret for better than a decade, and the redesign of the Casino and closed Planning Commission meeting is the straw that broke the camels back? All the Metroplex businesses located downtown negotiated tax exemptions, and received grants and loans in secret. I don't recall public meetings to discuss any of the terms of the deals they received. The entire development of downtown has been done without public transparency.
The Metroplex Authority IS the dictatorship.
And Roger Hull one of it's architects.
"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix,"
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