Charges of Cronyism in Pier 26 Pick

By Carl Glassman
POSTED NOV.1, 2006

The River Project, a Hudson River study center, occupied Tribeca’s Pier 26 for 20 years, until the pier was closed last year for rebuilding. When the new pier opens, sometime in 2008, scientists are expected to be back there, investigating local marine life once again. But a controversy is brewing over just whose fish tanks, laboratories and educational programs will be on the new Pier 26, located near Hubert Street, and how the institutions will be selected. The board of the Hudson River Park Trust, the state agency that oversees the five-mile waterfront park, appears to be close to confirming its choice. Critics call the selection process closed and unfair. They say that other institutions, including the River Project, have not been given equal access to the process.

The Trust’s favored operator is a partnership between the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries, headquartered in Beacon, N.Y., and the Marine Science Research Center at SUNY, Stony Brook. The Beacon Institute is a three-year-old organization established by Gov. George Pataki. Among its board members is Charles “Trip” Dorkey, a major Republican political donor and also the chairman of the HRPT board. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is funneling $10 million to the institute for a satellite station on the pier. On Oct. 20, Pataki announced an additional state grant of $335,000 to the Beacon Institute to refine concepts and develop designs for the Pier 26 center.

In a letter sent late last month to Dorkey, Rep. Jerrold Nadler expressed “growing concern” that a developer of the estuarium, as the marine center is commonly called, will be chosen “without any open, public process.” He urged Dorkey to hold off on the appointment of the institutions until the matter can be aired in a public forum.

Besides Dorkey, who contributed more than $65,000 to Republican causes in 2003 and 2004, other Beacon Institute board members include: Brian Ruder, the chairman, who was appointed by Pataki in 2004 to chair the Dormitory Authority Board; Michael Finnegan, Pataki’s former chief counsel; and William F. Plunkett, Jr., a former Pataki law partner and longtime friend.

Nadel said she doubts that the next governor will “prop up” an organization—mostly supported by state funds— that is heavily weighted with Pataki appointees. The Poughkeepsie Journal quoted an Elliot Spitzer spokeswoman as saying that, as governor, Spitzer would “evaluate whether or not money should be appropriated to the Beacon Institute.” Last month, Connie Fishman, president of the Hudson River Park Trust, appeared before CB1’s Waterfront Committee to talk about the future of a rebuilt Pier 26. Some board members seemed perplexed that the Beacon Institute may be designated to co-operate the estuarium without first presenting a plan to the board.

“I’m concerned that [the estuarium plan] moves past us and they come here and it’s a fait accompli,” said committee member George Olsen.

“That’s part of the reason we tried to get them here last year, so they could put their ideas on the table and you’d hear what they had to say,” Fishman replied, referring to an earlier CB1 meeting. At that time, she told the committee that Beacon Institute officials would not return calls from the Trust. Fishman said she believed that further attempts to bring them to a CB1 meeting have failed because institute officials first wanted a “financial commitment.” She said she believed that in the next month or two Beacon Institute representatives will appear before the board.

But committee members urged Fishman to open up the selection process with a formal request for proposals or by convening a number of institutions that would establish guidelines for what the estuarium should be.

Cathy Drew, a long-time Tribeca resident who founded the River Project in an abandoned produce shed on the pier, said she had submitted a proposal five years ago but could not later refine it because the Trust failed to clarify its guidelines in a formal proposal request. In the meantime, she said, “We know that Beacon has been meeting with the Trust for more than a year now in private meetings that we have not been invited to.”

Drew’s complaint was echoed in an e-mail to Nadel from Mark Bain, director of Cornell University’s Center for the Environment, which Nadel read at the meeting. “No one has shown me plans to define objectives and constraints or describe the application proposal process,” he wrote.

Fishman said she was surprised by the e-mail, having recently met with Bain. But she said she questioned whether a formal proposal was needed.

“What we want is a little bit uncertain,” Fishman told the board. “Each potential operator would presumably have a program that would cater to what they feel they do well.”

“One of the things about the original concept of this [estuarium],” she continued, “is other than something generic that says marine research and public education, there’s not really a model that says what it should be.”

Jeff Levinton, a River Project board member and a marine biologist at SUNY Stony Brook, disagreed. He said there are “many models around the country where there are consortia of public outreach and community involvement.”

“Maybe you can give me a list and I can spend the next three months visiting all of them,” Fishman joked. Messages left at the Beacon Institute for the director, John Cronin, and the deputy director, Amy Norquist, were not returned.

David Conover, director of the Institute’s likely partner, the Marine Science Research Center at SUNY Stony Brook, said in a telephone interview that it is too soon to talk about plans for the estuarium.

“We have to make sure everything is in place and we’ve reached out to the right people before anything is finalized,” he said. “I don’t think it will be very much longer.”

To see Hudson River Park Trust's design plans for Segment 3, go to: http://www.hudsonriverpark.org/development/seg3.htm