NYSERDA’s lawyers briefed members of the state energy agency’s board on plans to transfer the 180-acre Saratoga Technology + Energy Park in Malta to SUNY Polytechnic Institute weeks before a Sept. 21 meeting where they failed to approve the deal.

Several NYSERDA board members appeared to be surprised or blindsided by the idea of the proposed transaction, part of a plan by NYSERDA to provide $10 million in funding to a SUNY Poly semiconductor research program.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="445"] NYSERDA general counsel Noah Shaw responds to questions by board member Ken Daly at the Sept. 21 board meeting[/caption]

The most vocal was National Grid executive Ken Daly, whose suggestion that a independent review of the sale was needed in light of “ongoing audits” of SUNY Poly led to the vote being postponed.

However, internal documents obtained by the Times Union show that NYSERDA lawyers began talking with individual board members about plans for the STEP transfer to SUNY Poly more than a month before the scheduled vote.

And board members received documents related to the sale two weeks before the Sept. 21 meeting, the documents show.

The documents also show that NYSERDA and its legal department began drafting documents for the sale of STEP to SUNY Poly back in May and that the outside law firm of Harris Beach in Albany was brought in at the very beginning to ensure compliance with the Public Authorities Accountability Act and proper notification of the NYSERDA board.

That work included having new appraisals done of the two parcels of land that make up the STEP campus. Together, the two parcels were valued at $9 million in appraisals completed in mid-July by Bauer Appraisal Group on Wolf Road in Colonie.

READ MORE   |   TU Authority briefed on SUNY Poly deal (pdf)

By Larry Rulison on October 15, 2015 at 11:29 AM