QUESTION
Can a community representative serve on the EDC board, and how does this compare to other boards like Health and Hospitals?
0:42:06
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4 min
The New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC) discusses the structure and administration of its board in relation to community representation and compares it to other city boards.
- The EDC initially explored appointing a community representative to the board after a suggestion in a previous meeting, but determined it was not feasible for lease administration purposes.
- Unlike other city boards, the EDC board is focused on lease administration, limiting public participation.
- Reference is made to the Health and Hospitals board, which includes mayoral and council appointees not directly affiliated with agency staff, highlighting a difference in board structures.
- The history and purpose of the EDC board, established in 2004, are discussed, emphasizing its role in facilitating communication between the city and the Port Authority.
Brooks Powers
0:42:06
Has EDC considered leveraging one, if not more of those mayoral appointments to be a representative from the community to serve on that board?
Mikelle Adgate
0:42:19
Thank you for the question, chair.
0:42:20
After this came up at our last hearing in January, we did have extensive conversations with the lot apartment about, you know, a mayorial appointment outside of EDC staff.
0:42:34
Our understanding is that because this board functions to help support and facilitate the lease, that it is not open to the public in the same way that the community advisory council meetings are.
0:42:48
So while we did have this discussions about it.
0:42:50
The ultimate decision was that the Mayor La Puentes will continue to be EDC staff as a as that series of meetings being about lease administration rather than, you know, as we've discussed earlier, the implementation of the redevelopment plan.
Brooks Powers
0:43:32
I'm just curious about that ruling by the the state's or the city's attorney and and only because what I think about the health and hospital board, for example, they have members that are appointed from the mayor on that board, similarly from the council, that are not necessarily agency, staff, or bureaucratic in any way.
0:43:56
And they deal with leases.
0:43:58
They deal with a lot of contracts as well on behalf of the city.
0:44:03
So I'm not really following the rationale for that find
Mikelle Adgate
0:44:09
I'm not familiar with the Health And Hospitals board.
0:44:12
I guess my question back would be Is the health and hospital's board administering a triple net lease?
0:44:21
So going back to our testimony and the description of the function of that lease leaving all of the operations to the Port Authority as the tenant.
0:44:31
Rather than to the city and by extension EDC as the lease manager.
0:44:38
So just based on what you've explained.
0:44:41
I imagine that the structures are different because of this being a tool of lease administration.
0:44:49
I will also just add, you know, anecdotally, as Jennifer and I have been sort of Learning a lot of the history, as you can imagine, at least going back to 1947 has a lot of ups and downs between the various administrations both on the mayoral side and the gubernatorial side.
0:45:08
One of the things that we've come to understand is that you know, when the 2004 lease was negotiated and this airport board was established, part of that was to solve a problem with the fact that the city and the port authority had very negative, very negative relation ship at the time.
0:45:29
Right?
0:45:29
You think of some of the history of the Giuliani administration threatening to privatize both JFK and LaGuardia.
0:45:37
And so our our sort of reading between the lines of that 2004 lease being that the airport board was initially established to ensure that both parties were speaking to one another.
0:45:52
In a way that they had not been.
0:45:56
You know, as we had mentioned when we were back here in in January 2023, our understanding was that there were also years in the previous administration where the airport board was not being convened And so what I will say is that under the new administration, both from the mayoral side and the gubernatorial side, is that it has been a goal to have those meetings to ramp up as Jennifer explained and to ensure that there are more open lines of communication than what our predecessors have had.
Brooks Powers
0:46:37
And thank you for that.