WPCNR THE DAILY BAILEY. News Comment By John F. Bailey. May 31, 2007: Deep Throats with liaisons with The Little Four: Councilpersons Benjamin Boykin, Rita Malmud, Dennis Power and Thomas Roach, tell The CitizeNetReporter that the Little Four have a solidarity of 4 votes and will not approve the Super Developer’s Exclusivity Agreement, at Monday evening’s June Common Council meeting at least as written (and available for viewing on this website).
Paul Schwarz, their mentor and leading policyist for the City Committee has even gone on record with a letter to The Journal News demanding the Station Square project be defused promptly. Oh! The pressure! Schwarz wrote: “We can only hope that the council majority will prevail and repudiate this monstrous proposal. True sanity will only return when both men (Louis Cappelli and Mayor Joseph Delfino) have left city hall.”
Is that a setup to make the Little Four look good Monday night?
That’s pressure. If one of the Little Four switches – the Exclusivity Agreement passes. Who will be the weak link? Someone needs an excuse to wimp on the votedown and approve the agreement.
However, since the Little Four have not shown any stomach for voting down anything Louis Cappelli wants in the last seven years, I would be surprised if the Exclusivity Agreement were not altered in some way to give the Council the political face-saving it needs to avoid road-blocking a proposal that has obviously some hidden big time clout behind it. I mean, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has not said, “Forget about it.” The County has not said “Hold on, Mr. C.” The State DOT has not said, “Louis Who?”
If I were Louis Cappelli, I’d be directing his battery of Super Lawyers, Zoning Zenists, and Nuancing Negotiatiors, and Facilitating City Commissioners, and the Conciliatory Counsel of the city legal department to draft language toning down the language in the Exclusivity Agreement that, in its present form, essentially commits the Council to the Station Square project big time, before the number of floors are even pegged. (That’s very important in analyzing a Cappelli Enterprises project.)
The agreement upon examination, is not just an agreement that allows the Super Developer to be sole negotiator with the city for the city-owned sites he proposes to build Station Square. It infers what some would interpret as a strong vote of confidence by the Common Council in the proposal that this is what they want.
The Council, when it accepts the agreement commits to “continuing” the negotiating Exclusivity conferred by the agreement after the developer furnishes a Redevelopment Plan, to wit, page 2,
“the exclusivity conferred upon Developer by this Agreement shall be continued and the Exclusivity Period shall be extended without need for any further or additional action by either the City, the Agency or Developer until the date on which the Common Council either endorses or rejects the Redevelopment Plan.” This, appears, in effect to prevent the city from seeking other proposals for the area until after it rejects finally the Cappelli Redevelopment Plan.
This is robbery of time.
The Agreement commits the city staff to working on the Redevelopment Plan, to wit, “make City and Agency staff reasonably available to meet and consult with Developer and its consultants at the City’s offices and at the Redevelopment Site, including, but not limited to, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York State Department of Transportation and County of Westchester.” But, the city does this for most projects anyway, but this is a mammoth project, 5 buildings, a major highway out of the city. To make staff available free, is going to take a lot of time away from the staff’s other duties.
This Exclusivity Agreement goes far beyond giving Cappelli Enterprises exclusive negotiating rights. It appears to prohibit competitive proposals for the property being developed until the Council decides on whether or not to accept or deny the project.
Another thing this Exclusivity Agreement commits the Common Council to is a favorable attitude towards the project, to wit, Article II is even called “Endorsement of the Redevelopment Plan and Negotiation of Development Agreement.” The language of the document says the Council endorses the plan, to wit, while acknowledging that approving the Exclusivity Agreement, “shall not constitute a final approval of the Proposed Project under the Zoning Ordinance or any State or local low, or a commitment by the Common Council to approve an Applications or the Proposed Project prior to the completion of review of the Proposed Project under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA).
Sounds great, right? “not constitute a final approval.” But then in the same paragraph the Exclusivity Agreement says this:
“Not withstanding the foregoing and any other provision of this Agreement, the Common Council and the (Urban Renewal) Agency acknowledge that the Proposed Project initially presented by Developer (on MAY 10) and which induced the City, the Agency and Developer to enter into this Agreement is a fundamentally sound concept for the redevelopment of the Redevelopment Site and an appropriate and acceptable basis and framework for the formulation of a Redvelopment Plan, and the Common Council and the Agency agree that they shall in good faith consider the Redevelopment Plan.”
That is a very strong paragraph. It could be construed to be a “pre-approval” before details have been worked out. It could be saying, “We love this.” And the Council would if they eventually rejected it, by subject to who knows what.
However, whether or not the Exclusivity Agreement is revised to take out this strong endorsement language, it has served its purpose.
Cappelli Enterprises has marked its territory, the moribund Railroad Station area is their baby and other developers should be beware.
With Councilmen Boykin, Malmud, Roach and Power under pressure from Robert Stackpole, Robert Levine and Marc Pollitzer, announced candidates for Common Council, it would be a self-serving, political manipulation to vote down the Exclusivity Agreement as evidence to hold up to Stackpole, Levine and Pollitzer that they are strong and not just “stampheads” for Mayor Delfino.
However, the Council’s silence on the whole Station Square project when they have known about it for a month when they had no problem with granting exclusivity to negotiate, shows a lack of sophistication and awareness, at best – and a contempt for the community.
Why wouldn’t the Common Council President say – “Hold everything. This is so big that I am calling for the Mayor to throw this open for Requests for Proposals.”
The Common Council President could have done that. Drawing a line at voting an Exclusivity agreement is a token gesture at best simply because the Council was playing politics and going along with the Administration request to keep Station Square quiet until the proper time.
But why keep it quiet? That is the question here.
Nonethe less, the Big Dog Wants the Puppy Developers To Stay on the Porch.
The crafty device of the Exclusivity Agreement puts competitors for White Plains prime real estate on notice that this is Cappelli Country, whether or not the Council approves the agreement or not or even a sanitized version of it.
It is a master stroke by the Chessmaster who, as one sage news commentator has said privately is always six moves ahead of everybody else on the White Plains chess board.
Perhaps even now, the Common Council is writing their speeches saying why they will approve a watered-down Exclusivity Agreement. Or, since the Cappelli-ests have already announced their intentions on the property – the work of the Exclusivity Agreement has been done. As long as he gets his Exclusivity even if he takes out the “endorsement” language, he has shut out the competition.
He’s also flush with $30 Million in cash from his sale of voting control of City Center to Entertainment Properties Trust. So far Cappelli Enterprises has not responded to WPCNR requests for why they sold voting control of City Center policies to their New Roc partner.
Or, perhaps the councilpersons are working on their speeches saying why they will not grant Exclusivity.
And as they read those self-righteous speeches Monday evening, White Plains citizens have to read between the lines, that until the duplicity of pre-knowledge of the council was revealed by this reporter last week, nobody cared. The council would have been coming at the Exclusivity Agreement cold in the public’s opinion.
But they knew about Exclusivity a month ago. They never raised objections. They should have killed it right when they first heard it. One more instance of not putting the land out for bid. Requests for Proposals or whatever.
On the political front, if I were challenging for Council seats of Dennis Power and Benjamin Boykin, and the anointed newcomer Milagros Luocona, I would forget about putting out position papers as opposition has announced. Nobody will read them. Messrs Stackpole, Pollitzer and Levine should have been pounding this coverup issue all week – somehow. It was a golden opportunity to pound them.
Tonight, Battle Hill Association hears Council President Rita Malmud speak. That should be interesting. They should ask her specifically why she did not make this public when she first heard of it – if she was told not to and why? Doesn’t anybody on the Common Council remember?
And, I’m sorry but the biggest issue on this Station Square is not how many minority persons are featured in the renderings, for crying out loud. Wake up you editorial boards out there? How dumb is that certain editorial board that wasted ink on that? How about the traffic increase of 15,000 people daily into those office and hotel buildings? How about how will all those cars exit only into Tarrytown Road? Bill Belosi, we will need you!
How about how this works with the light rail link across county? How about who is going to pay for it?
You cannot make this stuff up.
