BPCA Board Relents, Will Allow Public to Comment at Its Meetings

Battery Park City Authority chairman and CEO Dennis Mehiel at Oct. 20 meeting of board, after it voted to allow public comment at future meetings. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

Bending to months of pressure from elected officials and residents, the Battery Park City Authority board of directors voted on Wednesday to allow public comment at their board meetings. Concerned that the new policy could become a disruptive and combative addition to their staid monthly meetings, the board is giving the new policy a trial run.

“We’re going to get beat up,” BPCA Chairman and CEO Dennis Mehiel told his fellow board members, later adding: “If it becomes abusive then we’ll eliminate it.”

A joint letter to Mehiel from elected officials in April sought the policy change, which they said would put the BPCA board in line with many other authorities and city agency boards that open their meetings to public comment. And in July, state Sen. Daniel Squadron addressed the board in person, saying a comment period is “one important way to break the ongoing cycle of board decisions, followed by public outcry, followed by the promise of better communication from the board.”

As a result of such outcries in the last couple of years, the board had commenced quarterly public meetings where residents can speak directly to authority officials. But elected representatives, led by Squadron, pressed their case for a board comment period. Mehiel said he recently met with local elected officials, all solidly behind the new policy.

The protocol adopted by the board would allow a comment period of up to 30 minutes and a maximum of 10 people who could each speak for two minutes—likely without answers from the board.

“The likelihood of us responding to individual speakers is extremely remote,” Mehiel said. “We’ll certainly take account of what we’re hearing in our process but I’m not looking for debates with individual members of the public.”

People who want to speak will be required to submit an email request, with their topic, to boardcomment@bpca.ny.gov by 5:30 p.m. the day before the meeting. Board agendas are posted on the BPCA web site 48 hours before the meetings.

Mehiel made it clear that the board was testing the waters with its new policy, which would be reviewed after three meetings.

“We retain and reserve the right as a board to change this policy for any reason or no reason,” he said. “That is critical because what we need to see as a practical matter is how it actually affects the meetings, what’s the decorum and what’s our ability to manage the process.”