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Q&A
Non-disclosure agreements for resident leaders in PACT conversion process
3:10:20
ยท
144 sec
Council Member Banks questions NYCHA officials about non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) for resident leaders participating in the PACT conversion process. NYCHA officials explain the purpose and scope of these agreements.
- NDAs are part of the RFEI (Request for Expressions of Interest) process when reviewing developer submissions with residents.
- The agreements protect the procurement process integrity and ensure no conflicts of interest among review committee members.
- NDAs are meant to safeguard sensitive information in proposals and prevent leaks that could disadvantage applicants.
- Resident leaders have access to independent advisers to explain the reasoning behind the agreements and vet them for propriety.
Chris Banks
3:10:20
We've also heard that resident leaders at some of the developments have been asked to sign a non this nondisclosure agreements for their participation in their development's pack conversion process.
3:10:33
Are you aware of any such nondisclosure agreements?
3:10:39
And why would a tenant leader be asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement?
Jonathan Gouveia
3:10:46
This is part of the RFEI process, so when we are reviewing with the residents submissions for packed projects and selecting the developer.
3:10:56
And Simon's team oversees that specific process, so he can give you a little bit more detail.
3:11:01
But yes, they do sign these agreements.
Simon Kawitzky
3:11:04
So as I previously described, resident review committee that the tenant association forms to evaluate proposals, that committee is required to sign a confidentiality and conflict of interest agreement.
3:11:18
And what that does is it protects the procurement process that we're going through to make sure that if it were challenged, we can ensure integrity in the process.
3:11:32
It also ensures that there's no conflict of interest of any review committee member in connection with the candidates that they're interviewing.
3:11:43
So say somebody maybe works for a property management company that they're interviewing, the agreement just requires them to disclose that conflict to us so that we can take appropriate action.
3:11:53
There's also no recourse if any information that's confidential is shared.
3:11:58
It would just result in that member not being permitted to remain on the committee.
3:12:03
But again, there's a lot of sensitive information contained in those proposals, as you can imagine.
3:12:08
And if any of that information were disclosed publicly or leaked, it could lead to one of the applicants having a disadvantage.
3:12:19
And that could jeopardize the entire process and require us to start over again.
3:12:24
So those are the reasons why we require the members to sign those agreements.
3:12:29
And lastly, again, they do have that technical assistance, the independent advisers that work with them, along with NYCHA to explain all of the reasoning and also to vet that agreement to make sure that everything is proper.
Chris Banks
3:12:43
Okay.