The Contractor RIOC Wasn’t Allowed to RememberLiRo-Hill returned to RIOC’s panel despite earlier questions about its oversight. When directors challenged its inclusion, the explanation raised a new question about RIOC’s procurement rules.
Professor Lydia W. Tang recognized the name LiRo-Hill. During the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation’s September 10, 2026 board meeting, Chief Operating Officer Mary C. Cunneen presented eleven construction management firms recommended for contracts lasting up to six years. Among them was LiRo-Hill, a company whose previous work for RIOC had already prompted questions about oversight, payments and accountability. Professor Tang wanted to know why it was being considered again. The question did not remain hers alone. Director Marc Jonas Block pressed management about the company's history, while Director Conway Ekpo, who chaired the Governance Committee when it reviewed RIOC's revised procurement guidelines in June, suggested removing LiRo-Hill from the proposed panel. What followed was an explanation that treated a documented past-performance concern as something the board was not entitled to weigh, even though RIOC’s own guidelines and State Finance Law require exactly that weighing.
Government contracts should not be awarded according to personal preferences or grudges, but RIOC’s own procurement rules require a separate determination of vendor responsibility that expressly includes past performance. Nobody at the meeting explained how LiRo-Hill’s earlier record had been addressed under that requirement. No amendment removing LiRo-Hill was adopted, and the board ultimately approved the panel unanimously, including Professor Tang. The official minutes reduced the exchange to three words: “further discussion.” Eleven Firms, One InvitationThe September vote did not decide who would oversee the next waterfront repair, roadway project or aging facility. It decided which firms RIOC could call when that work came. A pre-qualified panel allows contractors to compete for a place on the list, after which assignments can be made without another public solicitation. The arrangement saves time, but it separates the public decision to approve firms from later decisions that determine which ones receive RIOC’s money. For the September panel, RIOC received 26 proposals and recommended eleven firms that scored above an 89-point technical threshold based solely on the qualifications and proposals they submitted. The board memorandum presented the arrangement as a means of obtaining expertise efficiently while preserving competition. According to Exhibit B of the original solicitation, RIOC may issue a job notification to “one or more” approved firms. That means an assignment can proceed with a proposal from just one member of an eleven-company panel, subject to the documented selection and best-value procedures. During the September discussion, management also described mini-bidding and direct selection as available approaches. The financial implications are substantial even without a predetermined total contract value. In its June 25 response to prospective bidders, RIOC said most anticipated assignments would range from $5,000 to $175,000, while acknowledging that the annual number of assignments had not been determined. Management told the board that task orders of $175,000 or more would require its approval. Many smaller awards may therefore proceed under delegated authority, while even larger items returning to the board may reveal little about how one firm was chosen over another. The panel makes contractors available. The task orders decide who gets paid. The Contractor RIOC Already KnewAt the May 14, 2024 board meeting, former Director Ben Fhala questioned LiRo’s work as owner’s representative on the Octagon Sports/McManus Field project. The immediate business was an amendment to the contract with architectural firm Abel Bainnson Butz, commonly known as ABB. Changes to the project’s scope had generated additional design work and a prolonged compensation dispute. By the time the board revisited the matter, ABB’s claim had been negotiated down to $150,000, which directors were being asked to authorize. Fhala wanted to know what RIOC had received from the company responsible for overseeing the project. Chief Financial Officer Dhruvika Patel Amin reported approximately $453,000 in payments associated with LiRo’s work, including about $98,000 for the field and $355,000 for the comfort station. Fhala questioned whether LiRo had tracked the contract properly, identified problems as the project changed and warned RIOC before the disputed compensation accumulated. The concern was not simply that ABB had waited for payment. It was that RIOC had paid for oversight and still found itself resolving a problem that oversight was supposed to help prevent. LiRo representative Mark J. Swanson explained that he had not been involved during the earlier period and described the difficulties created by changing project requirements and instructions from RIOC. He said project management involved several parties and that RIOC itself had directed additional work. The May 2024 minutes document a disagreement over performance and responsibility. Fhala nevertheless remained dissatisfied. He voted against the ABB amendment, which passed with Professor Tang abstaining. Two years later, the same corporation was being asked to approve LiRo for additional work without publicly explaining what it had concluded about that earlier experience. The Rule the Board Had Just ApprovedOn June 23, 2026, less than three months before Professor Tang questioned LiRo-Hill’s inclusion, RIOC’s board approved revised procurement guidelines. Section 9.7 requires an affirmative review of vendor responsibility before awarding a contract. Known as FLIP, the review examines financial capacity, legal authority, integrity and past performance on government contracts. This was no obscure legal provision. It was a requirement the board had just adopted. Section 9.9 requires RIOC to maintain evaluation scores and vendor-responsibility documentation in its procurement records. Somewhere in those records should be an answer to Professor Tang’s question. Did RIOC examine LiRo’s performance on the Octagon Sports/McManus Field project? Were the concerns raised by former Director Ben Fhala in 2024 considered? What did RIOC conclude about the company’s responsibility to undertake additional public work? None of those answers emerged during the September discussion, even as directors questioned LiRo’s inclusion.
The construction management solicitation reinforces the distinction. Exhibit B expressly reserves RIOC’s right to consider a consultant’s previous poor performance or lack of responsiveness when making later work assignments. A firm with a difficult history need not be automatically excluded. It is entitled to a fair evaluation, and a negative responsibility finding requires procedural protections. Yet fairness does not require RIOC to forget documented concerns about its own contracts. The unanswered question is whether LiRo’s prior record was examined separately from its technical score, what RIOC concluded and why that explanation never reached the directors who asked. When the Decisions Leave the RoomConstruction management is only part of RIOC’s expanding reliance on professional panels. The corporation has also pursued arrangements for architectural and engineering work, legal services and real estate advice. These systems may be efficient, but they move the decisive allocation of individual assignments into procedures that residents rarely see. The original competition establishes who is eligible. The subsequent task orders determine who receives work, how much is spent and whether the corporation continues rewarding companies whose earlier performance raised concerns. RIOC has already been warned about what happens when procurement oversight fails. A 2014 Inspector General investigation documented contract steering, kickbacks and serious weaknesses in internal controls. An April 2025 investigation found that former RIOC executives used a $168,680 contract with Status Labs to suppress unfavorable news coverage and improve their personal reputations. Six firms had competed for that contract, whose value fell just below the $175,000 threshold for board approval. Competition took place. The Inspector General still found the expenditure improper. Both investigations demonstrate why approving a contractor is only part of effective oversight. The decisions that follow, particularly those made without further board approval, deserve scrutiny. The September vote raises the question of whether those safeguards function visibly enough for directors to exercise meaningful oversight. RIOC’s new guidelines require documentation. Its on-call contracts permit judgment about previous performance. Its board memorandum nevertheless presented eleven recommended firms without explaining how the concerns previously raised about LiRo had been resolved. Professor Tang noticed the name. Mr. Block and Mr. Ekpo joined the questioning. The panel passed anyway. Whether LiRo ultimately receives substantial work remains unknown, but the authority to assign that work now exists. The Questions RIOC Has Not AnsweredThe LightHouse has requested, under New York’s Freedom of Information Law, the original evaluation scores, LiRo-Hill’s vendor-responsibility assessment and the records governing future assignments under the construction management panel. We also asked RIOC’s communications office, General Counsel Lance Polivy and the board to explain whether LiRo’s documented history was considered, whether that assessment was shared with directors and why the distinction between technical scoring and vendor responsibility was not explained when the directors challenged the recommendation. We asked whether the omission was inadvertent or intentional. We invited a substantive response by November 1, 2026. As of publication, none has reached. If RIOC, its counsel or any director provides information that clarifies or corrects the record, we will update this article accordingly. The requested FOIL documents may take months to arrive. The board approved eleven companies. It did not publicly resolve the questions about the one its directors remembered. The question is not whether LiRo deserved another opportunity. It is whether the corporation can demonstrate why it deserved one, and whether the directors responsible for oversight were given the information they needed before making that decision. This newsletter travels best hand to hand. If you know someone who would read this all the way through, they are probably who it is for. Subscribe for free to receive updates on new posts and support our work.
|
