The Niagara Falls City Council did not act at its Wednesday night meeting on a revised plan to establish a local development corporation (LDC) to move forward with the proposed Centennial Park project.
Instead, city lawmakers moved to postpone, until at least the council’s Nov. 4 meeting, consideration of the formation of the Niagara Falls Entertainment and Sports Complex Local Development Corporation.
“We have had extensive discussions on this and are trying to craft language that we can agree on,” Council Chair Brian Archie said.
Archie has reportedly been leading conversations among the council members on issues such as the size of the proposed LDC board of directors, how those directors would be appointed and clarifying language in the LDC’s certificate of incorporation over the division of financial responsibility for the proposed Centennial Park project between the city and the not-for-profit corporation.
It’s just taking time,” Archie said of the efforts. “People don’t understand the LDC and we should have more dialogue on that.”
The council chair also said that some lawmakers would prefer a seven-member board of directors as opposed to the five-member board authorized in the LDC resolution.
The resolution before the council authorizes the formation of a not-for-profit LDC, which would develop, finance, construct, and operate the proposed Centennial Park entertainment and sports complex. A previous attempt to create the LDC, in July, stalled when council members objected to the proposed composition of its board of directors.
Mayor Robert Restaino had proposed a governing board structure for the LDC where the Falls mayor would serve as chair of the board while also appointing two of its proposed five directors. The City Council would have appointed the other two directors.
The current proposal calls for a five-member board of directors, with two appointed by the mayor and two appointed by the City Council. The fifth director would be jointly appointed by the mayor and the council.
If the mayor and council cannot agree on a joint appointment, the resolution calls for each of them to submit a list of three nominees to the City Clerk. Should those lists have one name in common, that individual would become the fifth director.
Should the lists contain six different names, that group of nominees would be sent to the Chief Administrative Judge of the New York State Supreme Court Eighth Judicial District, with a request that the judge designate a sitting justice in the district to select the fifth director.
If the chief administrative judge were to decline to act, the resolution calls for “the Fifth Director (to) be selected from the (six-member) nominee pool by lot, in a drawing conducted by the City Clerk at a regular meeting of the council open to the public.”
Restaino has championed the creation of an LDC for the Centennial Park project. He has said an LDC offers “several significant advantages” over having the city act as the developer for Centennial Park.
“This is a proven structure for delivering a major public facility, and it is the right approach for Niagara Falls,” the mayor said when first announcing plans for the corporation. “An LDC gives us a dedicated, purpose-built organization with the legal authority to access tax-exempt financing, pursue grants, negotiate the complex development and operating agreements a project like this requires, and deliver a world-class arena and events center for our residents and visitors. It also provides a structure to protect the city against financial exposure related to the project.”