Town Consultants Not Being Paid By Lighthouse Group
Final Environmental Impact Report Delayed
Could $80,000 owed be holding up a 3.7 billion dollar project?
Well, so it would seem.
Apparently, the consulting firm (Frederick P. Clarke Associates) retained by the Town of Hempstead to do the environmental impact study hasn't been paid the outstanding sum of $80,000 (out of some $500,000 billed), so, allegedly unbeknownst to the folks at the Lighthouse Project, they simply stopped work as of August 17.
With a public hearing on the project slated for September 22, and the firm's report a necessary component in moving the project forward, just who is stalling here, and what gives on all sides?
Did the Town know that Frederick P. Clarke Associates had stopped work?
Did the consulting firm consult with Charles Wang, et al, informing the Lighthouse Project that work on the Environmental Impact Statement would come to a grinding halt if the outstanding bill was not paid?
And on an initiative of such magnitude, with so much money on the line, why the devil was Frederick P. Clarke Associates not paid in a timely fashion?
And what about Town Supervisor, Kate Murray, who not until recent months, in an election year, showed any enthusiasm whatsoever for the Lighthouse Project? Could she be behind the consulting firm's sudden and secretive work stoppage? [Conspiracy theorists are welcome to comment on this point! ;-)]
Whatever the hold up, everyone, from Clarke to Murray to Wang, needs to get on the ball here, and keep the Lighthouse Project moving forward, this despite the dim (witted) bulbs whose intent to delay this milestone development would leave all Long Islanders in the dark.
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From Newsday:
Payment issue stalls Lighthouse project review
by EDEN LAIKIN / eden.laikin@newsday.com
Officials of the Lighthouse project may have slowed down the approval process by falling behind in payments owed to a consulting firm reviewing the mega-project's environmental impact.
The developer is responsible for paying Hempstead Town's consultant for the project, Frederick P. Clarke Associates, and currently owes at least $80,000.
As a result, the consultant has not done any work on the project since Aug. 17 - the day the environmental review's public comment period ended.
And that means the firm hasn't started reviewing the nearly 1,000 comments submitted since an Aug. 4 public hearing. That input will be considered in the creation of a final environmental impact statement, which is required before zoning can be created and approved.
"Anything that's come in since Aug. 17, I've put to the side," David Stolman, president of the Rye-based firm, said Tuesday.
Principals of the Lighthouse Development Group acknowledge that payments have been late since spring.
Stolman and Lighthouse president Michael Picker disagree on how much is owed. Stolman said there is $120,000 in outstanding bills. Picker said it's $80,000.
Picker said the group has paid the consulting firm $432,000 so far and is reviewing the most recent set of bills, which he called lengthy. He said he has kept in touch with the town attorney's office about his review of the bills.
When he was told in July the Lighthouse group owed $300,000, he said, he sent a $150,000 check. A week later, he said, after reviewing more bills, he sent an $82,000 check.
Picker said town officials never told him the firm had stopped work on the project.
"They've billed us nearly $500,000 and they're not doing work because we owe them $80,000?" Picker said Tuesday. "If they would have told me they stopped work on the 17th, I never, never would have let that go. There's no way."
Town Supervisor Kate Murray said this week she is calling for a zoning hearing - the last major step in the town's approval process - for Sept. 22. Town board members will vote on the date at Tuesday's meeting.
Before the board can make a decision on a new zoning designation for the site - which would include what can be built there - the town and its consultants must issue a final environmental impact statement.
This is a transparent attempt to disrupt this project. Whatever her reasons might be, Murray's lack of support for Lighthouse has been obvious for months. Even though some of her recent rhetoric has been somewhat more supportive, this has more to do with the fact that she's smart enough to know that it would be politically inadvisable to be against something that might actually create some jobs in an economy that is in such desperate straits. My guess is that what she'd like most of all is to have the Lighthouse proposal cancelled but only in a way that insulates her from blame. Meantime, Frederick P. Clarke Associates is a firm that was selected by her, and continues to work for the Town of Hempstead only to the extent that she permits. (Undoubtedly, they helped their own cause by contributing to her campaign as well.) Far better, from her perspective, to have these guys come up with yet another roadblock for this project.
ReplyDeleteThe Community Alliance Blog headline to this story says it the best. Who?
ReplyDeleteThe lighthouse project is just another breeding ground for more coruption and patronage jobs. The last thing we need is more density in an area already over built,congested and a sewer system ready to collapse.
ReplyDeleteThe lighthouse project is a desaster waiting to happen and is really just a big pay day for a few and a mess for the residents of Nassau County.
The current sewerage problems alnoe should stop this project dead in it's tracks but the promise of money, money, money has fuled this insane project on.
Newsday knows the current state of our sewer sytem and brushes it under the table becaus it is told to do so by the current administration.
If the general public was informed truthfully by our current administration and media about the state of our sewer systems and the nutty fix they have in mind they would all be fired and out of business.
To those who are for the lighthouse project shame on you for not even looking at the mess you are making.