In a rare moment of cooperation between the two, Public Works Commissioner Thomas McTygue accepted Mayor Valerie Keehn’s amendments to his proposal that 60 Weibel Ave. be formally selected by the city council as the site for the city’s $6.53 million indoor recreation facility.
Keehn, reading from a prepared statement at the Tuesday, Dec. 19, meeting of the City Council, proposed the site be selected contingent on a number of actions.
First and foremost, she said, she wants the city council to be lead agency on the state environmental quality review (SEQR); a position the city’s planning board now holds. She also wanted the feasibility study done over the summer regarding the Weibel Avenue site adopted as policy, and that the plans for the facility be reviewed by the planning board and zoning board of appeals before any further action was taken.
McTygue questioned whether the mayor could get the boards to act quickly on the project.
This amendment that you propose may hold us up for a couple of years, McTygue said. `I have no problem letting the planning board give us an advisory opinion, but to have it go through every board in this city could take a very long time.`
Public Safety Commissioner Ron Kim suggested a coordinated review, in which all of the city’s boards would be present so that only one presentation would have to be made. This would save both time and money, Kim said.
Keehn added that her amendment gave a timeline for the completion of the review, stating the coordinated review would be performed and returned to the city council by Jan. 16.
A new recreation committee appointed two weeks ago by Finance Commissioner Matthew McCabe backed McTygue’s Weibel Avenue proposal. Committee chairman Richard Flaherty said the committee voted unanimously to support placing the recreation building at 60 Weibel Ave. and also agreed that the Department of Public Works should take the lead on the engineering work for the project and to issue the request for proposal to solicit bidders to construct the facility.
Flaherty said, however, that he suggests the DPW seek the input of the committee on the request for proposals process, as there are committee members whom Flaherty said can be of service to the process. McTygue, who two weeks ago criticized McCabe’s decision to form another committee, said he would work with them in the future.
McCabe said he did not take McTygue’s initial opposition as an affront, and even went so far as to say that there are times when he appreciates McTygue’s `independent streak.`
`Mr. McTygue and I have been on separate planes going to the same place,` he said at the meeting.
Actions taken last week by the DPW may have made those plane rides a little turbulent, however.
On Dec. 11 and 12, Public Works crews began clearing the 5.2-acre site on Weibel Avenue ` a full week before the city council adopted it as a tentative site.
This drew criticism from the mayor and some residents.
Longtime McTygue critic David Bronner, who said he favors a westside location for the facility, took pictures of the crew clearing trees and uprooting stumps from the site.
`This is Tom McTygue at his worst,` he said. `It’s just another case of him taking things into his own hands and saying ‘It’s my way or the highway,’` Bronner said.
He told the council Tuesday that he considered it financially irresponsible for the crew to be out there on the taxpayers’ dime without the city council’s approval.
McTygue and his brother, Director of Public Works Bill McTygue, said the primary reason for the clearing of the site at 60 Weibel Ave., was to keep the work crews busy in this snow-scarce December.
`Unlike some other cities, we don’t sit in the municipal garage and play checkers,` Thomas McTygue said.
For his part, McCabe said whether or not there was wrongdoing in the clearing of the site was unrelated to his committee’s recommendation.
`The issue of his clearing is a separate issue,` he said.
McCabe said his focus ` and that of the new recreation committee ` is to make sure quality is not sacrificed in what he says may be the largest financial undertaking, in adjusted dollars, in recent memory. “
