Despite goal to deliver meeting notes within 3 weeks, ESD hasn't posted notes from July 12 meeting, where tough questions about timetable & fines were ignored

This may seem like a small thing, but it's another sign of a lack of accountability.

For months, Empire State Development (ESD), has been very late in posting official meeting notes from the bi-monthly Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Quality of Life meetings. That means that, for example, as of the May meeting, the official meeting notes had not yet appeared.

For those who rely on those notes, or for those (like me) who seek to compare the notes with our notes and see what may be left out, that's a significant gap.

In May, Tobi Jaiyesimi, ESD's Atlantic Yards Project Manager, offered an apology, saying the notes were "currently under review by the project team to ensure the accuracy of the information that we presented and what was summarized from the previous meetings."

Going forward, "turnaround time for the meeting notes will depend on staff availability," she said, but they'll aim to have them posted within two or three weeks of the meeting.

Missing notes

Well, I just took a look at ESD's page regarding such meetings.

The notes from the 7/12/22 meeting, more than seven weeks ago, are still not posted, as shown in the screenshot at right.

Pending questions

Let's see what those notes say, for example, about the candor of developer Greenland Forest City Partners's (GFCP) Scott Solish, who claimed, in response to a question about the May 2025 deadline for affordable housing, that "We are working on hitting all of our targets, as we always have."

If that deadline is not met, will ESD enforce the $2,000/month fines for each missing affordable unit?  Jaiyesimi ignored that question.

If GFCP aims to complete the project in eight or nine years, as Solish claimed, what are the milestones? For example, when must the second phase of the platform be completed?

There was no answer. Let's see if that makes the notes.

The next Quality of Life meeting is tentatively schedule for September 13, in less than two weeks.