What if a public body advertised and held an annual hearing about an important policy and no one showed up to suggest changes? And then people complained about the implementation of the unchanged policy, going so far as to accuse the members of the public body of being corrupt?
That’s what’s been going on in Ulster County.
A 2016 state law requires New York State IDAs to explain their decisions “as necessary to afford a reasonable basis for the decision by an industrial development agency to provide financial assistance for a project.” Ulster County’s IDA does that. Its fundamental instrument is a twelve-page Uniform Tax Exemption Policy (UTEP), which contains the IDA’s detailed rules and procedures for assessing applications. Tax breaks are available on the basis of applicant point scores.
Within the past few months, five new members have been appointed to the seven-person board of the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency. To a one, the five new members seem to have had only the vaguest idea of how the agency makes its decisions. The IDA follows its rules. Members who would like to change its decisions need simply to push for changes in those rules.
That may be about to happen. A training session for the new IDA members is scheduled for next Wednesday, July 25 from noon to 5 p.m. in the sixth floor library of the county office building in Kingston. IDA members are expected to ask about UTEP. They may well bring up such lively issues as payment-in-lieu-of-taxes, prevailing wages, and allowable deviations from UTEP.
The public can attend but not participate.
Seating arrangements both prepared and improvised can have an influence on what happens at meetings. That was certainly true at this last Wednesday morning’s meeting of the Ulster County IDA in the same room in the county office building.
Seating at the rectangular room that is the Karen L. Binder library between the county executive’s offices on one side and the county legislature’s on the other side was symmetrical in every detail. IDA vice-chair Randall Leverette was at the head of the table, flanked on his left by agency attorney Chris Canada and on his right by county economic development director Suzanne Holt. Next to the legal counsel were four newly appointed members of the IDA: Faye Storms, Paul Andreassen, Mike Ham and Rick Jones (two other IDA members, Jim Malcolm and Daniel Savona, were absent). Next to Holt on the other side of the table were county staff Evelyn Heinbach, Chris Rioux and Bernadette Andreassen.
The four onlookers had their places, too. In the back of the room on the legislature office’s side but not at the table sat GOP majority leader Jim Maloney and Democratic minority leader Hector Rodriguez — who chatted amicably despite their deep differences over the recent IDA personnel changes. In the few seats reserved for visitors on the sides of the small room sat intrepid Freeman reporter Bill Kemble on one side and myself, Geddy Sveikauskas from Ulster Publishing, on the other.
The main order of business was the appointment of officers. With five of the seven members newly appointed in the last couple of months, who would lead the IDA? In terms of experience — and position at the table — Leverette was the obvious choice. He was the only person in the room who had ever chaired an IDA meeting.
But Leverette, who ran an unsuccessful race as a Republican for New Paltz town supervisor in 2013 and later for the county legislature, was associated in some minds with the previous IDA board whose members had resigned or been replaced. Several of the new board members were anxious for a thorough review of board policies and procedures, in particular the agency’s payments in lieu of taxes (Pilot) rules, which some critics had characterized as boondoggles, often unwarranted tax giveaways to unworthy recipients.
The fix wasn’t on. Under the circumstances, the independent-thinking Leverette was the logical choice as chair. Rick Jones nominated him for chair. Mike Ham seconded. There were no other nominations. The vote was unanimous.
That vote set the pattern. All the other votes were unanimous, too.
The absent Jim Malcolm, the only other holdover, was enthusiastically nominated for vice-chair by his fellow union organizer Ham and seconded by Jones.
Much of the IDA paperwork is handled by staff. The designated board members review staff work and are responsible for it.
Treasurer? “That’s easy,” said Ham genially, giving Jones, a retired bank executive, a nudge on the shoulder. “I nominate Rick Jones.” The treasurer also heads the audit committee, which has responsibility over enforcing that successful IDA applicants do as they have promised the agency; IDA financial support is subject to “clawbacks.” Andreassen was later named assistant treasurer.
Who would replace Malcolm as agency board secretary? “I’ll do it,” said Ham after a moment of silence. “I’m good at delegating.”
Who had seconded? “He nominated himself,” replied Leverette smoothly. “I seconded it.”
Faye Storms, sworn in as a member that very morning by Nina Postupack, accepted the post of assistant secretary.
Leverette was also named chief executive officer. Though the usual management practice has increasingly been to separate the top positions of chair and CEO, Jones reminded Leverette, “We’re small enough and you’re competent enough that you can do it.”
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