Dear Civic Alliance:

Thank you to those who attended Monday’s meeting at the Salmagundi club. Pasted below are the minutes from the meeting and some other announcements. You can also find a copy of the minutes on our website, www.civic-alliance.org.

In other news, I had a chance to check out the new Civic Amenities website, www.downtownnyc.org. It does an excellent job of illustrating the recommendations of the Civic Amenities working group of the Civic Alliance and is already generating some interesting feedback. I encourage you to check it out.

This email contains:

1. NYC City Planning Department seeks Deputy Executive Director for Land Use and Environmental Review

2. LMDC holds first public hearing Thursday, May 23, 6:00 PM Pace University

3. Minutes from May 20 Civic Alliance meeting, Salmagundi Club

1. POSITION AVAILABLE

New York City Department of City Planning

DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

LAND USE AND ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW

RESPONSIBILITIES:

The Department of City Planning is seeking to fill the position of Deputy Executive Director for Land Use and Environmental Review. A key member of the agency's executive management, this position requires familiarity with New York City's environmental review and land use processes and significant managerial experience. The Deputy Executive Director works closely with the leadership of City Planning in the development of land use policy and the implementation of the agency's strategic plan.

Specifically, this Deputy Executive Director oversees projects as they move through the Uniform Land Use Review Process and is responsible for overall management of the following three divisions:

* Land Use Review Division

* Technical Review Division

* Environmental Assessment and Review Division

To read the full description, please visit our website at:

www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/03002034.html

2. Notice of Public Hearing

THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER SITE, ADJACENT AREAS AND RELATED TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE

The Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation (LMDC), a subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (Port Authority), are working together to revitalize Lower Manhattan. The Port Authority and the LMDC issued a Request for Proposals for a three-phase study to develop options for the World Trade Center site, adjacent areas and related transportation infrastructure. The LMDC and Port Authority will hold a joint public hearing to solicit input on possible ideas, including those that are suggested in the LMDC Principles and Preliminary Blueprint for the Future of Lower Manhattan.

The public hearing, which will be open to the general public and will provide an opportunity for public comment, is scheduled for:

Thursday, May 23, 2002, 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

The Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University Spruce Street (between Gold Street and Park Row), New York, NY 10038

The Port Authority and LMDC also invite written public comment. The deadline for submissions regarding the Principles and Preliminary Blueprint is May 27th. The deadline for submissions of ideas to be considered for Phase 1 of the RFP is June 26th. Comments may be submitted via e-mail to RenewNYC@empire.state.ny.us or by mail to:

LMDC/Port Authority Comments

c/o Empire State Development Corporation

P.O. Box 4438, Grand Central Station

New York, NY 10017

To obtain a copy of the draft Principles and Preliminary Blueprint in English, Spanish or Chinese, please visit the LMDC web-site at www.renewnyc.org or visit any of the locations listed below. To obtain a copy of the Request for Proposals, please visit the Port Authority web-site at www.panynj.gov or the LMDC web-site.

3. Civic Alliance Minutes Monday, May 20, 2002 8:30 AM Salmagundi Club, 47 5th Avenue, New York City

MINUTES

1. Bob Yaro brought the meeting to order and reviewed the meeting’s agenda.

2. Petra Todorovich outlined the process for the revision of the Draft Planning Framework. There will be an official two-week comment period during which Civic Alliance members (and anyone else) should submit comments to Petra by email, mail, or fax. Petra’s email is Petra@rpa.org, and her fax number is 212-253-5666. The two-week comment period ends Monday, June 3.

2.1. The Civic Alliance working groups should plan to meet during the first two weeks of June to review comments received. Working groups will be forwarded any comments that pertain to their chapter, or a chapter that contains overlapping information with theirs. Working groups are asked to make changes to their chapters to reflect comments made, if they are in agreement with the comment. In the case that consensus cannot be reached among a working group, or between two different working groups, the issue should be identified and brought back to the Steering committee. It is possible that in the final version of the Planning Framework, there are certain issues that cannot be resolved, and the chief opposing view points will both be stated.

2.2. During this time RPA staff members will also be closely reviewing the draft planning framework to detect inconsistencies among different chapters, and issues that still need to be resolved between different constituencies.

2.3. Working groups should also identify a handful (or less) of key recommendations that they wish to be included in the updated executive summary. These should be forwarded to the Civic Alliance steering committee by their June 10 meeting. 2.4. The top recommendations of the Civic Alliance working groups will be vetted and (hopefully) approved at the June 24 Civic Alliance general meeting. Issues on which consensus cannot be reached will either be identified as such in the final document, or groups will continue to attempt to reach consensus over the next several weeks.

2.5. A revised document will be available online on approximately July 1, for final approval at a late-July Civic Alliance meeting.

3. Carolyn Lukensmeyer of AmericaSpeaks gave a short presentation on the upcoming “Listening to the City July 20, 2002.” Listening to the City will take place on a Saturday in late July and will host up to 5000 people a the Jacob Javits Center to participate in a modern town hall meeting. (Please note: at the meeting Carolyn announced that the forum would be a two-day event. However since Monday morning it has been decided that the event will take place on a single day because of the prohibitive expense of doing a two-day event.)

3.1. The Civic Alliance hosted a preliminary Listening to the City event on February 7, 2002 at the South Street Seaport, which over 600 people attended. The July 20 event will use the same format and technology as the February event, but will be open to greater number of people.

3.2. Bob Yaro added that this is a joint venture with LMDC and that they will be providing about a third of the funding. 3.3. The LTC team will strive to reach out to wide and diverse groups of people in the region to ensure that the diversity of people affected by the September 11 tragedy is represented on July 20. Carolyn noted that the most daunting aspect of producing this event is making sure that the participants come from all walks of life. We will aim for a representation from mixed demographics; however Lower Manhattan residents, victims’ families, survivors, and rescue workers will be “appropriately over-represented.” We aim to have up to 30% of this aforementioned category at the event.

3.4. The participant discussion guide will represent a synthesis of public input so far, including content from the Civic Alliance Planning Framework; the MAS Imagine New York process, NYNV, LCAN, and other reports. The participant guide will also contain content straight from LMDC.

3.5. The format of the meeting has several advantages over the traditional public hearing model including: the intimacy of small group discussions and the power of the collective wisdom of thousands of people; and the immediacy and transparency of the process.

3.6. Carolyn introduced some of the project consultants for Listening to the City including:

• Amy Chester & Michael O’Loughlin, M&R Strategic Services, Outreach

• Andy Cooper, Cooper Katz, Communications

• Jeremy Soffin, Jasculca/Terman, Events

3.7. Amy Chester briefly outlined the strategy of the Outreach team of working with a team of organizers, working with the Civic Alliance to reach the memberships of the member organizations, and reaching out to business associations, religious groups, tenant groups, Community Boards etc. The Outreach team will also conduct street outreach, and constantly track the results of their efforts, and redesign their strategy if necessary.

3.8. Questions and Comments:

3.8.1. Ashok Gupta, NRDC suggested that we look at elected officials, city council, legislative branch, state assembly, etc.

3.8.2. Paul Elston asked about the nature of this joint venture of LMDC, and wondered what is price tag for the entire event (Answer: Approximately $2 Million.) He argued that if the Civic Alliance were to spread $2 Million among its member organizations, we could effectively do some work with the downtown community to design plans for Civic Amenities, such as a Brooklyn Bridge park.

3.8.3. Bob Yaro responded that it seems Alliance members want more input into the content of the program. In crafting the content, which options do we put on the table?

3.8.4. Diane Horning, who lost her son on September 11, voiced her concern that LMDC is heavily weighted with allegiance to Governor Pataki. LMDC also is focusing on the 16 acres while the Civic Alliance looks at all of Lower Manhattan. Her comment to the communications team: family members are not being considered in this process at all. Also, families are not organized together, and they’re not all located in New York.

3.8.5. Jeanine Thomas, Community Services Society commented that she represents undocumented workers and the like. How much representation do we need from her organization?

3.8.6. David Kallick hoped that the concluding sentiment of Charles Bagli’s article in the NY Times after the February conference would not be true for July: that we hope this isn’t just a chance for citizens to vet, and that building public involvement isn’t just a matter of siphoning off that responsibility to the Civic Alliance. There needs to be follow through after the event to truly affect the public process.

3.8.7. Rivka Mazar: We need to pay careful attention to the visual images that we use. Also, what is the thinking behind involving facilitators from all 50 states? 3.8.8. Carolyn: there has been significant interest in this issue from around the county, and this a way that people can donate their time. Also: we will provide translation the day of the event in six languages.

3.8.9. Rick Bell: Content will be influenced by the timing of LMDC’s process. Listening to the City is currently scheduled for nineteen days after the first deliverable of LMDC, if they stick to their schedule. Also, NYNV has released their Growth Strategies report today. The Civic Alliance should be cognizant of all the materials available, and especially the NYNV work for visuals.

3.8.10. In response to numerous concerns about crafting the content for Listening to the City, a “content committee” has been formed, which will be chaired by Paul Elston. The content committee will work with Alex Marshall, Senior Editor at RPA, and the Listening to the City team to form the briefing book for Listening to the City. In the case that the LMDC deliverables get pushed back, we should still be able to get a preliminary sense if direction coming from the consultants for use at Listening to the City

4. Bob Yaro: This brings us to the next item on the agenda. We have had a series of conversations with LMDC and the Port Authority – and many of their members were at the Regional Assembly. The next step is for the working groups of the Civic Alliance to meet with key staff members of LMDC and PA to make their points of view known to LMDC staff members. Working groups should begin to identify key recommendations to focus on in their meetings with LMDC staff. LMDC has 1-2 people working on each area.

As for the Port Authority, it’s not as clear how we will be relating with them. We had a meeting with Joe Seymour and have explained to them what we are doing.

4.1. Holly Leicht, MAS: Civic Alliance should be advocates for public involvement. Apparently, McGreevey’s office asked for a public hearing in New Jersey and the LMDC said no.

4.2. Gene Russianoff, NYPIRG: LMDC is a fast-moving process and I know that everyone in this room wants to influence it. On the other hand, we are committed to a rich, inclusive process. There is a tension there. The Civic Alliance might consider putting together its own ideal process.

4.3. Rob Lane: Our ideal process would probably take a lot longer than LMDC is thinking.

4.4. David Kallick: RPA has been thinking about the region for a long time. Accepting the constraints of LMDC, there is significant diversity in Lower Manhattan alone with Chinatown, the Lower East Side, etc. Of the people who worked in the WTC, 80% were people from other parts of the region.

4.5. Bob Yaro: With all the work that has been done by the Civic Alliance, New York New Visions and others we have the components of a Master Plan in the making. We now need to refine 50 or so recommendations throughout the Planning Framework down to about 10.

5. In other business, we’d like to announce the formation of a Finance working group. Janette Sadik-Khan will be chairing this committee and we are looking for people to work on it that have significant amounts of transportation infrastructure financing experience. Interested parties should contact Petra and the first meeting will be set up in the next few weeks. 6. Julie Caniglia of Project for Public Spaces next gave a presentation on the new website, “DowntownNYC.org.” This website is a creation of the Civic Amenities working group of the Civic Alliance and aims to outline different issues, problems, and questions at stake in rebuilding Lower Manhattan and especially in creating public amenities to make downtown a more pleasant place to live, work, and play.

7. The goal of the site is to put the recommendations of the Civic Amenities working group online for people to read and react to. The site is currently live and comments are already being received. Check it out at www.downtownnyc.org.

8. The next Civic Alliance meeting will take place on Monday, June 24 at 8:30 AM. Location will be announced.

9. The meeting adjourned at approximately 10:25 AM.