•  Based on sheer numbers alone, BOMA/NY brass personally met with 14 key decision-makers this year—the most ever.

Face-to-face meetings were held with US Congress members Charles Rangel, Joe Crowley and Pete King; Deputy Mayor Steven Goldsmith, who oversees the DOB, FDNY and NYPD; NYC Council members Erik Dilan, Peter Vallone and Elizabeth Crowley; and Commissioners Cassano (FDNY) (twice), LiMandri (DOB) (twice), Pinsky (Economic Development  Corp.), Bruno (OEM), Sherry (Homeland Security) and Holloway (DEP). 

•  Testimony/expert advice given throughout the year by our Codes & Regulations/Government Affairs Committee achieved critical success with the Greener Greater Buildings Legislation by securing revisions in the provisions on lighting, benchmarking and audits/retrofits to save owners thousands of dollars and man-hours. Codes & Regs also added a Labor Subcommittee to keep the membership informed on the 32BJ (residential) contract negotiations occurring earlier this year and the Local 94 negotiations about to begin.

•  Backing up all these efforts is the newly-formed ARC or Advocacy Response Committee—BOMA/NY’s "swat team" that digs out the details and works the legislative issues at the micro-level. On its front burner now--how to educate rank-and-file NYPD and FDNYofficers on building EAP plans. More action-oriented than a standing committee, ARC zeros in on the most pressing issues and provides the continual, sometimes dogged, follow-up needed to shepherd issues to a successful resolution.

•  Also underway is the Preparedness Committee's Lessons Learned initiative, which is studying incidents which cause/may cause, disruptions to commercial building operations, such as the recent Times Square incident or the steam pipe explosion of several summers ago. More than two dozen BOMA/NY members have volunteered to be in the pool of potential buildings that may need to be interviewed for response feedback, should an emergency event occur.

2011: Stepping Up Political Influence, Social Networking and the Day We Will Never Forget

•  With a feasibility study underway to form a BOMA/NY Political Action Committee (PAC) to make financial contributions to local candidates (see Must Know Info), BOMA/NY’s advocacy program hopes to ramp up to a new level of importance and influence in 2011.

•  www.bomany.org is being thoroughly revamped to interface with social networking media, and be more timely, responsive and interactive. New features are being planned to provide more information, more quickly and conveniently.

•  The legwork of writing the rules and details needed to make New York greener and greater shifts into high gear in 2011. With BOMA/NYadvising the City on the rules-writing process, we expect to have extensive input on the practicalities of implementing the law.

•  And not to be forgotten amid the stepped-up pace of 2011, BOMA/NY will devote time to remember the fallen of 9/11 as it commemorates the tenth anniversary of the most devastating day in New York City real estate history.  Preliminary plans are now being made for the event, which is set for September 14th.