« NYTimes Sports section salutes Yormark, calls promotion a "modest success" (*) despite failure to come close to 15,000 attendance | Main | Under authority reform bill expected to be passed, below-market land sale by MTA (as in AY?) would be precluded »
November 18, 2009
Agreement Reached on Authorities Reform
NY Observer
by Jimmy Vielkind
Assemblyman Richard Brodsky just swung by to announce an agreement between legislative leaders and David Paterson to increase oversight of public authorities.
"It's an idea that is about the control of rogue institutions. I've called them Soviet-style bureaucracies. This is the end of that era," Brodsky said. "For people worried about debt reform or who are worried about secretive decision making or who ware worried about people taking political orders and about people lobbying without disclosure."
Both the State Senate and Assembly passed a bill this spring that would have strengthened the authority budget office--it will have subpoena power and will keep on file copies of required documents--create a fiduciary duty for authority board members, sell property only at "fair market value" and require review by the state comptroller of contracts over $1 million.
..."The M.T.A., for example, could not longer sell property at below market value for economic development purposes," Brodsky explained. Other authorities whose explicit purpose was economic development--or housing development--could. This would preclude development projects like the Atlantic Yards and Hudson Yards. The chapter amendments also reduce the number of contracts the comptroller is required to review.
NoLandGrab: Hold the champagne — we assume that he means "would have precluded developments like the Atlantic Yards" had it been passed three years ago.
Posted by eric at November 18, 2009 11:27 PM