Javits Approval Put on Hold
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
Plans to expand the Javits Convention Center — in the works for about a decade — will need to wait at least another week for final approval after state officials realized that a scheduled vote in Albany yesterday would have violated the open meetings law.
Governor Pataki had scheduled a vote on the $1.7 billion proposal, which would expand Javits by roughly 1.3 million square feet, to go before the Public Authorities Control Board yesterday, but a reporter alerted state authorities that they had not given the public enough notice of the vote, or properly posted that notice. Fearing that the approval could be undone by a lawsuit, the final vote was rescheduled for next Wednesday, July 26, according to state officials.
A spokesman from the state budget division, Scott Reif, said in a statement, “Moving these critical projects forward is of great importance, as is adhering to the letter of the law and ensuring that the appropriate periods of public notification are meticulously followed.”
Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Democrat who has been an outspoken critic of the state’s handling of the expansion, said yesterday that there could be more to the postponement than a violation of the open meetings law.
“Most people are assuming it is a technical snafu, but with the governor’s office you never know,” Mr. Brodsky said. Mr. Brodsky said the plan that was put before the board for approval might not include key its provisions, including the financing.
The Public Authorities Control Board, whose three voting members include Mr. Pataki, the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, and the state Senate majority leader, Joseph Bruno, was a little-known state body until last June, when Mr. Silver used his vote on the board to terminate Mayor Bloomberg’s plan for a West Side stadium for the Jets and the Olympics. Supporters of the Javits expansion have worried that Mr. Silver might bestow a similar fate on the convention center plans.
Yesterday, a spokesman for Mr. Silver, Charles Carrier, ended weeks of speculation over the speaker’s position on the expansion.
“Had the vote taken place today, the Assembly would have been in the affirmative,” Mr. Carrier said.
