Confusion Reigns over New Rochelle’s Stimulus Wish List

City Councilman Richard St. Paul set off a chain reaction two weeks ago that has resulted in the City of New Rochelle having to withdraw millions of dollars in proposed stimulus package spending after a devastating report in Talk of the Sound found that 20% of the proposed $97.775 million in spending was ineligible or submitted improperly. The after effects of St. Paul’s remarks are still reverberating around City Hall with the City now preparing a revised project list for lawmakers in Albany.

On Thursday February 26, 2009 three members of the City Council told a meeting of New Rochelle’s Confederation of Neighborhood Associations that council members had no input into the list of projects submitted to Albany as part of the City’s request for funds under the recently signed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

District 4 City Councilman Richard St. Paul expressed his displeasure in no uncertain terms over the way the stimulus list was created — accusing City officials and some fellow Council members of operating in secret, a possible violation of New York State’s opening meeting laws. St. Paul said that there was “no discussion with city council”. According to St. Paul he and his fellow councilman were given just two days to review the list and that he and other council members were not happy. Councilman Trangucci from District 1 and Councilman Tarantino from District 2 concurred with St. Paul although they were not nearly as vocal as St. Paul.

Peggy Godfrey of The Westchester Herald, quoted St. Paul saying:

“The way in which it was moved forward without approval of Council runs amuck of the Obama administration mandates for open government and accountability. How can we have an open government and accountability in our City when administrative officials and some members of Council are making decisions for whole legislative body?”

City Manager Chuck Strome disputed St. Paul’s claim, telling Talk of the Sound in an exclusive interview that although he was aware of the councilmen’s concerns it was untrue that the councilmembers were not solicited for input into the list. According to Stome, all members of City Council were provided a draft of the potential projects on December 28, 2008. Strome said no members of the City Council had any comments prior to the City Council meeting on January 13, 2009. Strome went on to note that the stimulus package list was part of the public discussion at the January City Council meeting agenda. According to Strome, neither St. Paul, Trangucci or Tarantino offered any comments. Councilmen St. Paul and Trangucci continue to dispute Strome’s version of events. Councilman Tarantino did not respond to an email requesting comment.

The Stimulus Bill was approved by Congress on Friday February 13, 2009 and signed into law by President Obama the following Tuesday. After the bill was signed into law, a final copy of the City of New Rochelle list was sent to members of the City Council — two days before it was sent to Albany.

UPDATE: Chuck Strome emailed to say the City submitted its list to the State at the end of the week of February 9th after February 12th which by process of elimination, assuming normal business hours in New Rochelle and Albany, means Friday, February 13th.

The dispute appears to center on the differences between the draft list sent around in January and the final version sent to Albany in February. The original draft listed just seven projects and identified several others recommended for further study — some of which were not on the final list which bears only a partial resemblance to the draft version. St. Paul, Trangucci and Tarantino say the first time they saw a proper, detailed list of recommended projects was just 48 hours before the list was sent to the state government. They argue that this was not a sufficient amount of time for them to seek input from their constituents and reflect that input to the City Manager. All parties are in agreement that no members of the City Council commented on the final list before it was submitted for consideration in Albany.

As is often the case in these matters, it appears that both sides have a valid point, to some degree, hence the vehemence of the dispute.

The initial list was drawn up by the Capital Improvement Program Committee the month before Barack Obama became President. The Committee was compromised of Assistant to the City Manager Omar Small, Development Commissioner Craig King, Public Works Commissioner Jeff Coleman, and Finance Commissioner Howard Rattner. The committee was tasked with selecting projects that “required a substantial investment, could begin within 90 days, and provided a secondary economic benefit. As later events would show the final listed contained a number of projects that did not meet this criteria.

Mayor Bramson, upon reviewing the list at the January City Council meeting, noted the bill was not finalized (Obama had still yet to be inaugurated as President at the time of the meeting) and the the list was incomplete in any case because it did not contain estimates of job creation, revenue generation and energy savings that would result from each project. This gives some support to the arguments made by St. Paul, Trangucci and Tarantino.

All in all, 7 projects were initially recommended:

• North Avenue Reconstruction
• Replacement of City Hall Windows
• Street Resurfacing Citywide
• Main Street Resurfacing
• North Avenue Resurfacing
• Security Camera Network
• Marina Dredging

Several other projects with longer lead times were identified for further analysis and/or design if the final bill would permit projects that need longer lead time than expected at that time. The law did not provide for a longer lead time but all but one of these projects was submitted anyway.

• DPW Maintenance and Operations Center
• Church Division Garage Replacement
• Davids Island Subsurface Remediation
• City Park Renovations
• Municipal Marina Parking Deck Repairs
• Echo Bay (Infrastructure, Acquisition, Parks)
• Lecount Square (Additional streetscape improvements)

The initial draft of the stimulus project list (PDF)

The cover letter for the draft package states the intent of the City Manager’s office to distribute an updated version after the bill was finalized on Capitol Hill. The minutes from the January meeting appear to support this and this, all sides agree, was done. This appears to support Strome.

Although not yet finalized the draft version of the minutes reads as follows:

Economic Stimulus Program
Requested by City Manager

City Manager Strome said that City staff has been working on the development of a list of projects that might be eligible for the expected Economic Stimulus Program from the federal government. He presented City Council with a draft list of projects.

Mayor Bramson commented that details of the federal program are not yet known and the list will have to be expanded to include estimates of job creation, revenue generation and energy savings that would result from each project. He added that storm water improvement projects should be added to the list.

Council Member Fertel suggested that the inclusion of an ice rink at City Park be included on the list.

In response, City Manager Strome said that the projects need to be construction ready to be included in the program.

Council Member Sussman stated that she is familiar with all the projects on the list except the proposed camera security network which raises certain issues and would require additional discussion.

In response, City Manger Strome commented that the project would include cameras in City facilities such as parking lots and not on individual streets.

In response to questions from Members of City Council, City Manager Strome stated that staff would be hesitant to propose a renovation the Church/Division Garage due to the age of the facility. He added that the construction of a new garage may be a better option. He stated that there is a current planning study being undertaken for the Church/Division Garage property and the Prospect Street Parking Lot property so proposing a project for these areas is premature.

In response to questions from Members of City Council, City Manager Strome stated that should the City receive funding for stormwater projects, the funding currently available for such projects could be used to design additional stormwater projects.

Council Member St. Paul arrived at the meeting at this time.

After being contacted for comment on St. Paul’s remarks at the New Rochelle Confederation of Neighborhood Associations meeting the night before, Strome provided Talk of the Sound a copy of the final list (PDF) which was published on this site on February 27th: New Rochelle Submits List of Shovel-Ready Projects for Stimulus Funds.

Talk of the Sound published a highly critical analysis of the project list later that evening: New Rochelle Lines Up For Its Helping of Pork: $100mm for Skating Rinks, Boat Storage, Soccer Fields, Streetscapes. The list was described as “long dormant or unworkable plans coupled with goodies for multi-million dollar real estate developers”. Talk of the Sound noted that mixed among some genuine infrastructure projects was a a request for $8,000,000 for a skating rink, a boat storage facility, $1,500,000 for soccer fields, basketball courts and picnic tables, more for bike paths and improvements intended to benefit real-estate developers such as Louis R. Capelli and Forest City Enterprises with their plans for LeCount Place and Echo Bay respectively.

This article was repackaged as a 700 word Op-Ed for The Washington Examiner, a DC-based newspaper owned by the parent company of the San Francisco Examiner: How one city is using Obama’s stimulus

The articled noted that some of the proposed projects appeared to run afoul of Senate Amendment 309 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 which reads:

None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, art center, and highway beautification project.

The day these two stories ran on Talk of the Sound, Strome was asked to square Section 309 with the City’s stimulus request list. Later that evening, on a Friday night, Strome informed Talk of the Sound he would have to look into it. The next week Strome sent Talk of the Sound a prepared response.

“We put the package together to be inclusive of everything we thought might be eligible”, Stome said. It was not until sometime after the list was sent to Albany that the City discovered “some projects will not be eligible – such as the ice rink and drainage projects.”

Strome did not explain why Mayor Bramson was still citing the original $97.775 mm figure in an interview he gave to the Journal News two days after our stories on the stimulus project list first appeared.

New Rochelle seeking $98 million in stimulus money.

Raising additional questions is the involvement of the City’s favorite newspaper reporter, Aman Ali, two days after Talk of the Sound began to question the City’s spending priorities.

This story is suspect for several reasons:

– Mr. Ali has a history of serving as the City government’s stenographer, writing stories that reliably present the government’s point of view without challenge.

– The story appeared two days after we began raising questions about the stimulus list but more than a week after the stimulus list was finalized.

– The opening sentence of Mr. Ali’s story seems oddly familiar:

Now that the federal government has approved an economic stimulus package, city officials want a $98 million slice of it.

– Note the opening sentence of the Talk of the Sound story from 2 days earlier:

New Rochelle’s City Government has submitted its Stimulus Package Wish List to Albany in the hopes of getting a slice of New York State’s share of the stimulus pie.

Readers will note that the use of the word “slice” makes no sense in referring back to the “economic stimulus package” unless you are already thinking in terms of a “slice of pie”, the metaphor used in the lede to our story two days before Ali’s story.

– Strome’s statement to Talk of the Sound the following Monday appears to suggest that the City already knew that a large amount of their proposed spending was ineligible for stimulus funds yet Bramson is still citing the then-incorrect figure.

There seems little reason to doubt that the City of New Rochelle was completely unaware of the Coburn Amendment restrictions until after our story ran and we asked Strome for comment that Friday night.

The good news coming out of all this confusion is that Strome has informed Talk of the Sound that a revised version of the stimulus project list will be submitted to Albany — all of the ineligible items we first reported on here are to be removed from the list.

UPDATE: Strome emailed to say that a revised list was already sent to Albany. We have asked but he has yet to provide a copy or a revised list or a date when the revised list was submitted.

Readers can rest assured we will have a copy of the revised list published as soon as it is made available to Talk of the Sound.

UPDATE: We received a phone call this afternoon from Omar Small, Assistant to the City Manager, who provided some additional information. Small told Talk of the Sound that the “final list” PDF document sent to Talk of the Sound on February 27th was never submitted to the State of New York nor was intended as a formal submission. It was meant, instead, for New Rochelle’s local representatives in Albany — people like Amy Paulin and George Latimer as a sort of brochure. It was this document that has been repeatedly referred to as the “final” list and as having been “sent” to Albany on February 13th.

Small now tells Talk of the Sound that each project on that final list except the skating rink was entered individually into a special New York State web site set up to manage and track spending requests for the The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This contradicts an earlier email from Chuck Strome who told Talk of the Sound the storm drain project was also withdrawn from consideration.

The good news for our City Council members and, in fact, for all New Rochelle residents is that there does not appear to be any requirements as to who can complete the Project Submission Form on the New York State web site. Any City Council member who feels that their input was not considered can fill out a request for stimulus money for any project they care to submit. Small indicated that the New Rochelle City government may even being submitting its own new requests.

New York State Project Request Form

Mr. Small tells Talk of the Sound that he completed the forms on the new State web site on February 23rd, which is 10 days after the City originally said the list was “sent” to Albany. This does not explain why we were sent a list on February 27th without any notice that the skating rink project was not being submitted. Nor does it explain why the skating rink project was dropped but the “streetscapes” and City Park projects were filed even though all three are ineligible Senate Amendment 309.

The confusion over the “list” then it more readily explained. There is no list and there was no deadline. Anyone can add a project today.