In Response to Mr. Campbell Dear Mr. Campbell, I am writing this letter to Mr. Campbell and asking that it be printed in the RP News in an effort to specifi- cally address the issues raised by Mr. Campbell in his letter which appeared on November 8, 2013. I have been re- luctant to directly respond to anything in the local paper as it circumvents the proper Cooperative Communication’s channels and it creates an expectation that I will do so again. However, after several friends and fellow Board Mem- bers read last week’s paper, they urged me to put a response into the letters to the editor to help clarify the work going on in the community to protect ourselves from future storms. First, I wish to point out that one of the great ironies of the weekly letters sent by Mr. Campbell is that we agree on many things. He has said that he supports barrier protection for the entire community. The Land Management Committee is dedicated to that very goal. Mr. Campbell wants the govern- ment to pay for the protection. The Land Management Committee couldn’t agree more. As taxpayers who generally ask little from the government, the people of Breezy Point deserve nothing less. The only issue the Board and the Land Management Committee have ever had with government funding is when it was tied to public access to our beaches. I don’t know where you stand on that issue, but no one on the current Board has indicated to me that they would trade government money for the privacy we have fought for 53 years to protect. Where we seem to disagree is that it seems you believe that we should do nothing unless the government pays for it. You are entitled to that opinion. I will tell you, however, that the Com- mittee and the Board have not supported that position. While no one wants the Cooperative to literally pay millions of dollars to build barrier protection, until some government agency commits to spending money to protect our com- munity (which, of course, may never happen), it has been our position that, given the choice between doing nothing and risking another disaster or develop- ing our own plan, we must proactively develop our own plan. This brings me to my first point. I have been accused of keeping informa- tion confidential from the community. I plead guilty. On June 20, 2013, several days after the City announced a plan to possibly build a double dune system in Breezy Point only if we grant access to our beaches, I was contacted by Brad Gair from the NY City Office of Hous- ing Recovery Services. He asked me, first by phone and later by confirming e-mail, if we would be interested in having his office file for a $50 million grant from the FEMA sponsored HMGP program to provide Breezy Point with a double dune system. His e-mail, a copy of which I could forward, specifically asks me to keep the request confidential. Your letter speaks of fiduciary duties, and, as you correctly point out, as a lawyer I know what fiduciary responsi- bilities are. Given the chance to possibly obtain up to $50 million in grant money to protect this community by confiden- tially green lighting a grant application, I felt that my fiduciary responsibility was to future of this community. Fail- ing to keep this confidential would not only jeopardize millions of dollars in aid, it would have also destroyed a trusting relationship between myself and the person running the City’s re- covery operation. In fact, I believe the relationship I built with the Recovery Office was one of the reasons Mr. Gair was willing to use his office to file for a grant on Breezy Point’s behalf. So, yes, I kept this information confidential. Please note that Artie Lighthall had nothing to do with this decision. The next step in this process came when it was decided that this grant application would become one of five requests made by the City that would be given priority. I have already de- tailed in this paper what happened next, but essentially we threw ourselves at completing this application under very tight deadlines. The vast majority of the work to get this application completed was done by our coastal engineer. The original application was only for the ocean double dune, and the application was completed after many late nights of work. Ironically, I would think this would be a decision you would fully support. Essentially we turned our pri- mary focus into getting a ring levee system fully funded from F.E.M.A. After our double dune system appli- cation was filed, we learned that nothing would happen before the anniversary of Sandy because of the government shut- down. The City came to us and offered to use the time to expand the application to include not just the ocean dune but also our bayside and flank protection. Our coastal engineer, working with the City, modified the entire application to try to get FEMA to fund all of our ring levee design. I have been told that this entire application was filed timely in the last week of October. Since it is technically the Recovery Office’s application, they filed the plan. I have asked them for the entire application but as of this writing I have not received it. Notwithstanding, I do have the earlier (ocean only) application, which I had offered to the RP News, and I could e-mail to you. As we have developed a strategy of not counting on any financial assistance until we actually receive confirmation we will get it, the members of the NY Rising Committee, and your fellow shareholders who have attended the NY Rising Program, have overwhelm- ingly stressed that protection on the ocean and the bay is our highest prior- ity. NY Rising is completely different from HMGP. It is a program set up by the State to determine how to spend CDBG money. It should be noted that if we qualify for either HMGP money or NY Rising money, the Cooperative will not be receiving any money, nor do we expect to spend any money. Rather, we will be allowing these programs to perform work on our property. The Cooperative by-laws only require a shareholder vote when there is an “expenditure” in excess of $200,000. As you know, in addition to pursu- ing aid from every possible government source, we have already taken action to protect our community. We have com- pleted the construction of a dune in the area of the oceanfront that traditionally has been the most significant source of destruction through wave action and flooding in community. After completion of construction, the community rallied together to plant sea grass on the dune. This activity was one of the most inspir- ing I have ever witnessed in Breezy Point. I think this project demonstrates that, if necessary, this community can act to protect itself. In the interest of brevity, I want to provide you some quick facts. First, the proposal that was submitted to HMGP (approximately $47 million) is one that will be far too expensive to expect the shareholders to pay. If we need to go to the shareholders, it will be for far less money. The plan submitted to HMGP is based on using government requirements and work rules. Therefore, to suggest that if the government fails to pay for our project the shareholders will be asked to pay $47 million is simply inaccurate. Everyone on the Board knows the financial condition the Cooperative is in. Additionally, we have been told by several sources that even voting on and approving our own plan could disqualify us from any consideration of any grant money. As a result, at our last Board meeting, the Board adopted the strategy, as suggested by the Committee, to see through the grant process before we take any action that could be enormously costly to the shareholders. It was also discussed that any publication of any fully engineered plan that is substantially less costly than what we have asked for may seriously jeopardize our ongoing efforts to receive government assistance. No response to your letter would be complete without discussing communi- cation. I believe that communication is an essential element of serving on the Board. I completely disagree that speaking publicly at meetings and trying to answer shareholder questions is “obfuscation”. In fact, I believe public meetings, where information is conveyed first hand, are one of the best ways to communicate and interact with shareholders. Since I became President of the Cooperative (pre-Sandy) I have spoken every year at one or more of theAssociation meetings when invited, even though this was not traditionally the role of the President. Since Sandy, I have given a presentation and been available for questions at every Town Hall and public meeting. Recently I spoke to the Point Breeze Association at a special meeting set up entirely to discuss the topics of Land Management and NY Rising. I am scheduled to do the same for both R.P.A. and Roxbury. I also make a point of trying to stay after meetings so that shareholders who may not wish to speak publicly can approach me privately. Finally, on the issue of Mr. Fox. I agree his credentials suggest he would be “well qualified” to serve on the committee. Mr. Fox was left off the committee list this year because of his conduct while serving as a member of the committee. As a person who is elected to serve this community on a voluntary basis I have no intention to discuss the reasons behind this in a newspaper that circulates outside of our community and is, in fact available worldwide on the internet. When you are chosen by the shareholders to serve the community, there are a lot more obliga- tions placed upon you by virtue of the trust people have placed in your leadership ability. The extent of that responsibility can be enormous. I will tell you that Mr. Fox has already told me that he plans to take me down. As a member of the Board, I will not engage in individual attacks and will continue, as I have done for the last ten years, to serve every member of the community, including those who have always been supportive of me and those who take pleasure in attacking my char- acter. Volunteering to serve on the Board always leads to detractors. However, I do it because I hope that my presence will help keep this community the great com- munity it is. I also feel that after a lifetime of enjoying the beautiful beaches, the unique lifestyle and the greatest neighbors in the world, helping out, particularly in these times of greatest adversity, is the least I can do. Sincerely, AJ Smith
Posted on: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 12:49:59 +0000
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