The meeting was called to order at 7:17 PM at the Half King on 23rd St. Mike Cook, Ray Fusco, Jeff Folmsbee, Bill Bergeron and Marcus Demuth were present.

Bill Bergeron outlined the agenda:

•    Paddling Film Festival follow-up, including review of letters to sponsors, letter to Guild Members, survey to participants, reconciliation of pro formas.
•    Website updates
•    Kayak Safety Awareness Day
•    New business: a proposal from Marcus.

1.    Mike Cook reported on new members, financial updates and reconciled financial records from the Film Festival. (For details, see email to Guild Members dated 02 XX 08). The Email Report to Guild Members on Film Festival was approved for release, with revisions; Film Festival Survey to Attendees was approved; financial reconciliation report was approved. The Teva Reel Paddling Film Festival Questionnaire was completed, citing many issues with the selection of films, offering comments to help build a positive future relationship.
2.    It was approved that the HRPG.net website be upgraded to allow forms to be processed and to post information-collecting software. Other features to develop on the website include a photo gallery and trip postings. It was observed that no one else in the area is a collecting and posting information on all local paddling organizations and it was resolved that the Guild should pursue this initiative. It was also agreed that a page should be built to announce a Local Film/Slide Show for 2009, encouraging paddlers to start shooting pictures & movies this season, and to offer advise and resources such as free software to edit slide shows and movies.
3.    It was agreed that the Guild should participate in the City of Water Festival on July 26th; a contribution of $100 was approved.
4.    Membership renewals were discussed.
5.    Jeff reported on progress in planning the Kayak Safety Awareness Day. The weekend of May 23/24 has been floated to the USCG, NY Water Taxi and MKC; soon, volunteers will be sought to help plan & participate in the event, including reps from other paddling organizations, guild members, passenger vessel operators and other safety/enforcement organizations.
6.    The meeting was adjourned at 9:18pm.

Jeff Folmsbee
Secretary
Hudson River Paddlers Guild

Minutes
Board Meeting
December 5, 2007

The meeting was called to order at 7:20 PM at the Half King on 23rd St., attended by Mike Cook, Ray Fusco, Jeff Folmsbee, Bill Bergeron, Marcus Demuth and David Rhodes.

1.    Bill’s written report on the Brooklyn Bridge Park Meeting (posted at HRPG.net) was discussed, with a focus on how to support interim uses while park is being built, such as placing a container there for boat storage. Liability and logistics were discussed. It was observed that the guild’s role should be to facilitate storage, not to go into the storage business. It was agreed that the best way to help get things done would be to approach the Conservancy directly, as Rob Buchanan has done. [Subsequent to board meeting Rob announced that he has succeeded in scheduling a meeting with the Conservancy, tentative date January 18th, which Bill will attend.] Jeff will email Rob and Bill to hook them up prior to meeting.
2.    Recent list serve threads regarding reconstituting a Human Powered Boating Group were discussed. It was agreed that if such an organization needed to be an alliance of organizations (as opposed to a member-based organization) the Guild would participate.
3.     Support was expressed for Nancy Brous’s initiative to put insurance issues in front of the Trust so as to clarify issues towards eliminating some of the obstacles and inconsistencies that currently hamper various human-powered boater organizations efforts to sponsor activities on the waterfront. It was observed that this initiative should make sure that the insurance requirements between parks be in sync so that one policy, plus individual riders, would suffice for all. It was suggested that the various organizations consider forming a buyer group, and Ray will email Nancy to share his recent experiences in this area. It was agreed that this initiative could be the first step towards exploring the creation of an alliance of organizations (as in #2 above).
4.    Plans for The Teva Reel Paddling Film Festival consumed the remainder of the meeting. Discussion included:
•    Date set as February 23rd; if that sells out Feb. 24 can be added. [Subsequent to meeting, it was learned that Kenco, a retailer in Kingston, is hosting the Reel Film Festival on Feb 23rd/24th; Rapid Media has offered Feb. 16/17 as US premiere.]

•    Agreed that Pier 66 is target venue, alternates include Municipal Art Society and The Tunnel at New York Waterfront.
•    Mike will secure insurance, estimated at $150, policy starting in February. (Larry emailed 12/11/07 that each additional insured costs $20.)
•    Bill will update HRPG.net for public access to any forms required for ticket purchase.
•    Mike has spoken to an outfitter regarding possibility of donating services for silent auction and/or raffle; Marcus has spoken with New York Water Taxi regarding same; other promotional items may be sought from Werner, Necky, Perception, Patagonia; Patagonia may be pitched for a small cash grant to support event; it was agreed we should all think about other possible sponsors.
•    Possible sources of food discussed include Black Cat Bakery, Gramercy Park Tavern, Half-King, Whole Foods on Union Square, Fresh Direct.com, Fairway and Claustenhauler re alcohol-free beer; rental of popcorn machine will be researched.
•    Mike will contact the Friends of the Park for possible support.
•    Mike will confirm Pier 66 availability.
•    When press release is approved Marcus will announce Festival on NycKayaker, Yonkers, Conyak, Paddle.net, Atlantic Kayak Tours
•    Jeff will send a “save the date” notice on NycKayaker, and invite people to check out HRPG.net.
•    Marcus will set up a Paypal account (a “willcall office” can be established at venue for people who use Paypal, email address as ID)
•    Possibility of classroom sidebar for local trip shows discussed.

Meeting was adjourned at 9PM.

Submitted for review by Jeff Folmsbee December 11, 2007
Secretary
HRPG

Hudson River Park Trust Board of Directors Meeting
November 29, 2007
Spector Hall
22 Reade Street

Reported by Mike Cook

The regular HRPT Board meeting got off to a slow start.  As a quorum was not yet present, President Connie Fishman began by giving a general report on Park activities, focusing on statistics such as:

•    $170 million in construction projects are underway in the park.
•    Educational activities attracted a number of participants during the past season:
•    5800 students were enrolled in educational programs.
•    1700 children went to the Park’s summer camp
•    5100 participants used the sports facilities an average of twice a week

The Chairman of the HRPT Advisory Council, Marc Ameruso, then gave his report.  Some of the highlights:

•    The Council is forming a working group to look at in-water and out-of-water safety measures in the Park, drawing ideas from safety programs at other parks in the US and other countries. (Note: at the Council meeting Bill Bergeron had volunteered that the Guild would participate in this working group.)
•    The Council will likely re-establish a Pier 57 working group (more on P 57 below)
•    Marc reported on the presentation made to the Council by the Pier 40 Partnership. They want to develop Pier 40 through a community effort (see Bill Bergeron’s comments on the presentation in his report of the Council meeting on November 27, 2007.)
•    Mark also reported on the Department of Sanitation’s plans to spend about $300-400 million on a garage facility near Pier 40.  While there was negative reaction to that type of facility in the area, the point was also made that if a portion of that money were spent to redevelop Pier 40, the pier could accommodate some of Dept of Sanitation’s parking requirements. It would require legislation for Park facilities to be used for that purpose. The sanitation facility issues will be explored further by the Council.

Some of the Board members began a discussion on the lack of any progress in developing Pier 57.  It was mentioned that investigations and legal issues were blocking any activity there.  The staff and Board members would not go into details at the public meeting, and said they would discuss the matter in Executive Session after the regular Board Meeting.

A quorum having been achieved, the Board approved the minutes of their last meeting, then discussed and passed a number of Authorizations to contract for work in the Park:

➢    Torsillieri, Inc. for landscaping on Pier 64 and upland area from West 24 Street to West 26 Street: $291,130 + 10% contingency
➢    Aqua Turf Irrigation for irrigation systems for Piers 62, 63 and 64: $439,489 plus 10% contingency
➢    Mongrove Associates for Pier 40 general construction work for interim FDNY Marine One Facility.  To be reimbursed to Park by FDNY: $853,193 + 10% contingency
➢    ARA Plumbing for Pier 40 plumbing construction work for interim FDNY Marine One Facility.  To be reimbursed to Park by FDNY: $189,317 + 10% contingency
➢    Pulsar Electric, Inc. for Pier 40 electrical construction work for interim FDNY Marine One Facility.  To be reimbursed to Park by FDNY: $219,740 + 10% contingency
➢    MEC-COM Associates, Inc. for Pier 40 mechanical construction work for interim FDNY Marine One Facility.  To be reimbursed to Park by FDNY: $168,000 + 10% contingency
➢    J. D’Annunzio & Sons, Inc. for Pier 86 upland park construction work.  New York City will fund most of this work and the Intrepid Museum is committed to cover any shortfall. The funds will be put up by the Economic Development Corp. in advance of the work: $9,887,000 + 10% contingency.

During the discussion on these authorizations, a few points relating to use of the Park were brought up:
    The FDNY facilities are on the North side of Pier 40, and are temporary while reconstruction work is done on Pier 53, which is supposed to take about a year. The agreement with the Fire Department requires that the pedestrian walkways remain available for unrestricted public access.
    While discussing the landscape contracting from Pier 64 to 26 Street, Board member Julie Nadel asked if the Park’s contractor could put in conduit through which John Krevey could run utility hookups (water, sewer, electric) for the barge at Pier 66a. Staff responded that Krevey needs to get permits for those hookups, which would specify how the lines are to be run. Julie then asked if the staff would help Krevey navigate the City’s bureaucracy as he pursues the permits.  Staff indicated that they had been helping him do that, though his situation had been complicated by uncertainty over which agencies have jurisdiction over a marine facility that is fixed in place to serve as a restaurant, historic center, etc. The Chair indicated that while the staff has a lot to do, she was confident that they would give Krevey all the help they reasonably could.

The meeting adjourned into Executive Session.

Hudson River Park Advisory Council Meeting
November 27, 2007
City Center Comptrollers Office

Meeting came to order at 6:15.
Bill Bergeron represented for the Guild.

Pier 40
The majority of time was taken up with an informal presentation of Pier 40 Partnership. Representatives of the group, and their advisor HR+A, outlined the status of their ongoing, self-funded, study to achieve the goals set out by the HRPTA working group recommendations. This is a direct response to the public meeting in May where the community rallied against the two RFP responses to develop Pier 40.
The group was given the go ahead by the Trust to fund their own study with the stipulation that they would not implement the plan thus they are not competing with the RFP proposals as such but developing an alternate approach that the park could undertake. They are very earnest concerned citizens who are involved in a number of other groups, like the little league, that currently utilize the Pier. They have until Dec 15th to make a formal presentation of their findings. They are humbly optimistic that the goals can be achieved but still do not have all of the components in place.
They currently believe that 400,000 square feet of the pier would be developed for revenue generating uses and that expanding the parking at Pier 40 from the current 2000 to 2800 spaces is the lowest impact way to achieve the goals of the community. The only design details they noted were that they felt the existing walkways would be widened and that the amount of open space at the pier would be increased. They foresee maintaining the ball fields in their current locations.
The barrier they have yet to solve, but are working on, is how to finance the rebuilding of the pier and how to phase that reconstruction. The Trust currently estimates the immediate repairs needed at Pier 40 to be $25 – 35 million which would simply maintain the building at its current state of use.
They answered some questions from members of the public as well as board members.

Arthur Schwartz, who chaired the Pier 40 working group, expressed his gratitude to the group by making a short impromptu speech about just how unprecedented it is within civics to have a group of citizens respond to the situation as they have and to do so with such a high level of dedication.

SANITATION:
The other big item was that a presentation was made, by Michael Kramer and other members of the Community Sanitation Steering Committee to point out that the sanitation department is planning a huge, $300 – 400 million, garage at Spring and West Street to comply with the park act which pushes them out of the facilities they have now. A DEIS was issued on November 7th which lays out the sanitation departments plan. The point was made that this is a horrendous blight being borne by one community due directly to the park act. They would like the HRPTA to advise the HRPT to become involved in this ongoing issue.
A board member made the situation clearer which is that the park needs millions for the redevelopment of pier 40 and here is a pile of cash about to be spent which could underwrite the park even if they only agreed to have a portion of the sanitation traffic routed to Pier 40. The Park act does not allow this so it would require new legislation. This will be followed up in next months meeting.

SAFETY:
Marc Ameruso intends to create a working group for this issue. The working group will study what other parks around the world have addressed these issues and would ultimately create a recommendation to the Trust to adapt and implement further safety along the park and in the adjacent water areas. The Guild has volunteered to be part of this working group as did Nancy Brous.

PIER 26:
It was briefly noted that Judy Nadel had applied to the DEC for a grant to study how an estuarium would impact the site. She made this request via a CB1 working group. The DEC has yet to respond.

In addition it was noted that $10 million dollars was recently appropriated, via the Army Corp of Engineers, which could be applied to the rebuilding of Pier 26 at least for infrastructural uses. Applications for this money cannot be made until 2009.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
A board , member of Friends of Hudson River Park, brought up the need to study the environmental impact of the park and what could be done to improve its ‘greenness’ generally. In addition to conservation, it was expressed that this is an educational issue as well. This will be an agenda item for next time and a list of potential ideas and improvements as well as what other parks are doing will be forthcoming.

Pier 57
This will also be added as an agenda item for next month. (This was one of the revenue generating sections of the park and is currently stalled at the city level due to some indictments of key players.) The chair will be looking to have a representative from the city to come before the board and discuss the status and process to move this development forward.  

Brooklyn Bridge Park
Strategic Plan for Programming
Congregation Mt. Sanai
250 Cadman Plaza West

November 26

Bill Bergeron attended along with about 200 - 250 other members of the public, some of whom were standing.

The meeting had an ambitious agenda, even for a three-hour event; to update the public on the latest of the parks designs, to discuss potential programming in a large group and  in break-out sessions devoted to Recreation, Arts and Culture and Education.

I should mention the news cameras from channel 12.

The meeting started congenial enough with the presenters going through the motions and the architect presenting his latest design on three 6’ x 20’ printouts around the room each labeled differently in an effort to get across “more information”.

As soon as the main presenter of the meeting, a consultant hired to develop the programming and program funding plan for the park, opened for the first suggestion the meeting broke down completely. Many citizens, often older but not always, had come to demand answers to questions that they had been sitting on for quite sometime as there had been no public meetings for 10 months.

Some came with legitimate concerns about building schedule and demolition phasing, 9 months of demolition, unphased and simultaneous throughout the park, others to complain about being shut out of the process, others to vent frustration about the process, the lack of oversight, transparency and costs unrelated to building the park. (I should note that there are ongoing lawsuits against the EDC with regards to the residential development within the Park.)

These concerns continued to be expressed until one helpful citizen began to list the expenses of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy, staff expenses vs programming for instance, which no one was all that interested in. (He stated that they spent $500K on staff out of a $850K budget)

Public officials, who’s names I did not write down, some of whom were hissed at made short impromptu statements that basically said, “Hey this is going to be a great park why don’t we just decide what we are going to do here and get this thing built”

Along the way we learned that, in fact, no one present at the meeting had any stake in the outcome of the meeting as there is no governance for the park in place. There was not a mention of even passing the findings on as a recommendation to whomever it was that would eventually run the park.

I attended the breakout session on recreation, naturally. This breakout sessions got nowhere as the moderator was the paid consultant and led the group in a very earnest but patronizing tone. The citizenry spent much time explaining that this exercise had in fact been completed at least 3x prior and that the outcome was identical to this evenings list. The number one request was swimming. (Actually, one very reasonable woman explained that in fact swimming was number two the number one request was for having drinks at the waters edge) This degraded badly enough that reps from the Conservancy came over to talk pool.
The cost of an in-ground pool, which could be used year round, was stated at $40 million and thus was too expensive for the park. However, they were looking into the possibility of funding a floating pool via the Neptune Foundation. Aparently, the floating pool cost $5 million but has to be drained in the winter. (The Conservancy stated that 70,000 people visited the floating pool last summer while it was anchored in the park. The floating pool will be in the Bronx next summer.)

I asked about the boating facilities, the plans show a boathouse but as with the rest of the park there are no details in pictures or writing of any kind. The ‘plan’ is to have boat build and “kayaking” including storage at the boathouse. (The boathouse is currently placed too far from the water, in my opinion, for either access or to run public programs within the “artificial” boat basin the park proposes) With no details at hand it is hard to say what the facility may look like or include. I made a suggestion that kayak storage could be provided throughout the year and during construction. They estimate it will take until the end of 2009 to complete the park.

There was much discussion of the ‘wave attenuators’ which have been in the plan for sometime and are hoped will create an artificial basin for public kayaking and to protect a couple of artificial beaches which are planned. Only one person in the entire evening expressed the opinion these were a good idea. Many asked how much they would cost, since no one wants them, but no answers were forthcoming.

Currently, the plan is that kayaks will have access to the harbor out of the lower portion of the park Piers 5 and 6, nearest Red hook, and at the current State Park site at Dumbo.

There was discussion of winter use and why no skating could be provided. The Conservancy explained a process where they discussed proposals from 3 temporary rink operators and no one could make any of the available space work this year. They plan to have skating in the park when complete which the Conservancy explained in minute technical detail.

Representatives from Floating the Apple and Gowanus Dregers were in attendance and both expressed to me how much better the current plan was for boaters since prior to this version of the plan no harbor access was to provided nor a boathouse.

The room had emptied by the time the breakout groups came back together for a summary. The interesting thing to note was that Recreation was by far the largest group with the Arts and Culture close behind only 6 people made up the Education component.


Afterward, I spoke to a Conservancy rep about wave attenuators and why I thought a pool would serve the function of training kids to kayak better than the current plan.

I also spoke to another Conservancy rep and the architect about the marina. No one in the public wants yachts of course but the marina persists. It had been stated by the Conservancy that a marina is expensive to build but they were considering making a long-term lease to a developer who might then recoup the expense of building it by renting slips etc. I explained our findings from the RFP process at 66 that modest boatslips could be a good source of revenue to fund public programming.

An additional survey for programming suggestions will be made to the general public, and the world, via the Conservancy website in the next couple weeks. I plan to notify members when it becomes available but you can also sign up at the Conservancy website here: www.brooklynbridgepark.org