http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2015/sep/10/schenectady-casino-sign-get-new-review/

Schenectady casino sign to get new review
City officials decline to provide rendering of updated design

SCHENECTADY — Rush Street Gaming must appear before the city Planning Commission again for final approval of the design of its future casino’s 80-foot-tall pylon sign.

The Planning Commission approved the site plan for the Chicago-based operator’s Rivers Casino and Resort at Mohawk Harbor in July, but some of the commissioners requested minor changes in the design of the main sign advertising the presence of the casino.

A preliminary rendering of the sign with the requested changes was submitted to the city’s Department of Development for a four-member subcommittee to give its nod of approval.

Galesi changes look of townhouses
The Galesi Group has changed the design of the townhouses it is proposing for Mohawk Harbor and is again seeking site plan approval from the city Planning Commission.

The townhouses at the site of the future casino off Erie Boulevard have been downsized from 24 units to 15 units and the facade redesigned. The commission will review the project during its Sept. 16 meeting.

The commission previously approved the townhouses in June, but the nine-member board will review the changes and vote again on the new design.

David Buicko, chief operating officer of Galesi, said the number of units was decreased because the building couldn’t fit at the site’s location as previously proposed.

“On the construction side when we laid it out, the way the road configuration was, we weren’t able to fit it all,” he said. “We just couldn’t fit 24 there.”

The three-story townhouse building will have a garage on the first floor and living areas on the second and third floors. All of the units will have balconies and face the Mohawk River.

“We wanted to redesign it to have everyone look out at the water,” Buicko said. “I’m pretty bullish about this building.”

The previous design of the 35,000-square-foot building featured a dark brown brick exterior that received negative comments from several members of the Planning Commission when reviewed in June.

The new design by Re4orm Architecture of Schenectady has more of a white/gray exterior with some dark brown. The building design also appears more modern and looks similar to the apartment, office and retail buildings slated for the site.

The Planning Commission’s Sept. 16 meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. in Room 110 at City Hall.

The 60-acre Alco site is being transformed by the Galesi Group to house the future Rivers Casino and Resort at Mohawk Harbor in partnership with Rush Street Gaming of Chicago, along with housing, hotels, office and retail space and a 50-boat-slip harbor.

- Haley Viccaro

But Commissioner Brad Lewis, who was one of the members of the subcommittee, said Wednesday evening that he never received the rendering for review.

Instead, the changes will come before all members of the Planning Commission, probably during the commission’s meeting Oct. 21, Corporation Counsel Carl Falotico said.

After some back and forth, Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy said Wednesday night that only city staff reviewed the design and decided to present the changes to the full commission rather than the subcommittee.

He said all of the commissioners would review the changes to the sign, which features a 32-foot-tall digital display atop a pylon, to “end the perception of subcommittees.”

“This term ‘subcommittee’ is almost like a mischaracterization, but I don’t have a better term for how it has evolved,” McCarthy said.

Falotico and McCarthy declined to provide an updated rendering of the casino pylon sign. They did allow a Daily Gazette reporter to look at the rendering at City Hall — but not take photos of it, only to sketch a drawing of it.

Changes appear minor, including a white wall around the perimeter of the sign so the portion that reads “Rivers Casino,” previously sitting separately on top of the sign, is encompassed in the overall structure.

In July, The Daily Gazette reported that the Planning Commission opted to task a four-member subcommittee to review the sign’s design and exclude the public from the discussions.

At the time, Falotico said the four commissioners wouldn’t actually meet, but would receive an updated rendering of the sign with their requested changes for review.

Also in June, The Daily Gazette reported that Planning Commission members met with architects and developers of the casino project in closed meetings ahead of the commission’s regularly scheduled public meeting.

City Planner Christine Primiano said then that four commissioners met with the casino’s development team one day and another four the next day — avoiding a five-member quorum and making those meetings not subject to the state’s Open Meetings Law.

She characterized those meetings then as subcommittee meetings. She has not returned repeated calls over a period of months seeking comment regarding the casino project.

Planning Commission Chairwoman Sharran Coppola said in July that the closed meetings were for planning purposes only and no decisions were made during the meetings.

Coppola recently resigned as chair of the Planning Commission, effective immediately, even though her term was set to expire at the end of the year, McCarthy confirmed. She could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

“She indicated she really was looking to resign last year but stayed on as part of the project for the casino,” McCarthy said. “She really did it as a favor to me and to the city.”

During a City Council committee meeting Tuesday evening, McCarthy recommended appointing Curtis Eatman to fill Coppola’s empty seat. The Democratic Party had considered him as a City Council candidate this year.

The Planning Commission members will appoint the chair of the Planning Commission, but it is unclear when they plan to do so. In the meantime, vice chair Matthew Cuevas will temporarily head the commission.

The commissioners are appointed by the mayor and approved by the City Council. Members include Matthew Cuevas, Brad Lewis, Jason Bogdanowicz-Wilson, Mary Moore Wallinger, Christopher Rush, Thomas Carey, Julia Stone and Sara Bonacquist.

The casino was recommended for a casino license by the state Gaming Facility Location Board in December. The Gaming Commission plans to adopt casino licensing regulations during its meeting today.

If the licensing regulations are adopted, that means the commission could award Rush Street a casino license as early as Sept. 30. Rush Street expects to have the casino built within 16 to 18 months of receiving a license.

The $330 million Rivers Casino and Resort at Mohawk Harbor is part of a $480 million revitalization of the 60-acre Alco site off Erie Boulevard by Galesi Group that includes plans for housing, hotels, office and retail space, and a 50-boat-slip harbor.

On Sept. 16, the Planning Commission will review the site plan for Galesi Group’s townhouse building at Mohawk Harbor. The developer has changed the design of the building and downsized the townhouses from 24 to 15 units.

MR. BUICK will eat them for lunch and spit them out!!

the politicians are just that STUPID....and Mr. Buick knows it.

Mr. Buick is shaking his head and laughing all the way to the bank!!

looks like ya can't blame Mr. Buick for getting what he wants when he's dealing with stupid idiots!!

Rush held that phoney job fair ... getting hopes up for our local jobless ... they attended and were told: Come back in two years... we know nothing. SHAME !!!

DIRTY DIRTY DIRTY SHAME OF A SHAM.....

this was a gazette editorial today...............interesting............

Quoted Text

End secrecy over casino sign review September 11, 2015  


The other day, when we asked Schenectady city officials for a photo of the new rendering of the giant casino sign so we could share it with the public, this is what they gave us.

A big fat nothing.

Oh, they let us come down to City Hall to look at it. But they wouldn’t give us an image to put in the paper or upload to our website. We weren’t even allowed to take a photo of it. It’s not some priceless Picasso that will be ruined by exposure to a flashbulb, is it? They did say our reporter could draw a sketch of it. No thanks. It wouldn’t do it justice.

This is what is passing for transparency these days in city government regarding the new casino — and particularly the controversial “pylon” sign — the 80-foot behemoth that casino operators insist must tower over Erie Boulevard on the off chance that a few blind gamblers won’t be able to find the place.

This was supposed to be a simple review. The casino operators had already provided a sketch and description of the pylon. But back in July, members of the city Planning Commission said they wanted some minor changes made.

No problem, right? A subcommittee of the commission would take a look at the changes and report back to the full board with their thoughts.

Had this actually gone according to plan, we wouldn’t be talking about this right now.

But right from the get-go, city officials got cagey. The subcommittee, they announced, wouldn’t actually meet in public to review the renderings, as clearly required under the laws of New York state regarding open meetings. Instead, subcommittee members would somehow obtain the drawings and produce a collective opinion — perhaps by exchanging an envelope in a Washington, D.C., parking garage or maybe through a psychic.

But even those blatant violations of the Open Meetings Law didn’t materialize. Instead, according to city Mayor Gary McCarthy, the drawings were reviewed by “city staff,” who then decided to present them to the full Planning Commission — now mysteriously minus its chair, Sharran Coppola, who has suddenly resigned in the interim. The full commission, the mayor announced, would review the renderings in order to “end the perception of a subcommittee.”

First off, there was nothing wrong with the idea of a subcommittee reviewing the documents and reporting back to the full board. That’s what subcommittees do. The problem was the plan for the subcommittee to review the documents in secret and not share them with the public.

Whether city staff or a subcommittee looked over the documents doesn’t matter. It’s the secrecy that creates the impression that the city is trying to pull something over on its citizens.

Now we learn that the full Planning Commission will review the drawings at its meeting on Oct. 21. But until then, presumably, the city will keep the drawings under wraps from the general public — unless you know someone who knows how to draw.

This whole mess could have been avoided if the city had simply vowed to conduct the process in full view of the citizens — the same citizens who will have to live with this sign for the next 30 years.

The Planning Commission, as we recommended months ago, should have scheduled a public meeting of its subcommittee to review the drawings. Members of the public could have looked them over. Maybe a few people would have objected to some elements of it. But as long as the sign complied with the zoning rules, some version likely would have passed muster and been approved. Problem solved. Issue gone.

But no, the city has pulled this cloak-and-dagger junk, making what should be a minor sign issue seem like much more than it is. And maybe that’s a clue that there’s more to this than meets the eye.

The city needs to get control over this mess it created right away — first by releasing an electronic version of the new design so that all members of the public can see what it looks like, then holding a public meeting, at which time the Planning Commission can review it and either approve it or send it back for more tweaking. Then keep holding meetings in public until the issue is resolved. Each minute of delay raises more suspicions and generates more mistrust between the government and its people. Enough of this nonsense.

"mistrust between the government mayors puppets and its people. Enough of this nonsense."