DEP Invoice or Financial Record, September 30, 2001

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document AMERICA'S ORDEAL Bill Pushes Recovery Effort By Curtis L. Taylor STAFF WRITER A bill to create a powerful loca] commission to over- see the rebuilding of lower Manhattan is expected to move swiftly through the City Council when it is in- troduced tomorrow at an emergency meeting. “Clearly, the message [to terrorists] is we are not going to rol] over,” said council member Victor Rob- les (D-Brooklyn), who supports the proposed legisla- tion. “You need to have some mechanism put in place. . . to set the tone and the direction of how we are going to rebuild and move forward.” The ambitious proposal, co-authored by Mayor Ru- dolph Giuliani and Council Speaker Peter Vallone, would establish a seven-member panel with “broad and sweeping powers” to coordinate city government resources to accelerate the difficult and emotional re- building process, city officials said. Robles said that he was confident his colleagues would “overwhelmingly vote for the recovery plan” after reviewing the proposa) and satisfying policy-re- lated questions that might arise. “This is an emotional time for people and we all want to do something,” Robles said. “We are united.” But several other elected officials, privately, have accused Vallone, who is seeking the Democratic may- oral nomination, of trying to use the proposal to gen- erate publicity for himself days before Tuesday’s pri- mary. Vallone has denied the allegation. “It is essentia) that this be a cooperative effort be- tween the mayor and council) to form a commission that will most effectively deal with the crisis in our city,” said Vallone, who is running against Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, Public Advo- cate Mark Green and city Comptroller Alan Hevesi. Eric Lane, a Hofstra law professor and former ex- A NYC-WTC_000152301 Q.20:01 ecutive director and counsel to the 1989 Charter Re- vision Commission, has said that there’s nothing ille- gal about city officials setting up the commission. Council members said they have not yet seen de- tails of the proposal, which was undergoing revi- sions. Deputy Majority Leader Archie Spigner (D-St. Albans) said he would like the council to be able to vote on the commission’s appointees, which would be made by the mayor. The city proposal comes as state and federal offi- cials have promised to deliver potentially billions in aid to help New York recover from the Sept. 11 ter- rorist attacks that toppled the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, The federal government will pay for cleanup costs for the collapsed buildings and state lawmakers have proposed various bills to help victims, includ- ing free college tuition in the state and city universi- ty systems.