Editorial

Armory Secrecy
When it comes to choosing a development proposal for the Kingsbridge Armory is the city interested in what the community thinks, or isn’t it?

Does it want the process to be open and transparent or doesn’t it?

If our cover story on the bizarre confidentiality agreement the Economic Development Corporation wants Armory task force members to sign is any indication, the simple answers to these questions is that it isn’t and it doesn’t.

The whole point of inviting community leaders and elected officials to participate in the process of selecting a developer is to seek their advice on what proposal would best suit northwest Bronx neighborhoods. If task force members can’t talk to anyone in their own communities about the proposals (in addition to the safeguard of masking which proposal belongs to which developer), how can they develop a reasonable sense of what would best serve the community?

Congressman Jose Serrano and Council Member Oliver Koppell made the sensible judgment that they would be abdicating their responsibility to their constituents if they kept secret the details of one of the biggest area development projects in decades.

The EDC deserves credit for incorporating task force recommendations into the final request for proposals. But if the city blocks task force members from being able to talk about the various proposals, it raises the concern that the task force is just window dressing on a done deal.

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