The rumors began when Erin Starr, mother of Summer Starr, wrote an email about Summer’s detention at Pier 57 during the Republican National Convention. In that email, Ms. Starr asserted that she and her husband were told by the NYPD that they had to contact the RNC for any information about who was managing the pier and who possessed a Certificate of Occupancy or Fire Safety Inspection documentation for the facility. Ms. Starr’s email created a flurry of activity on the internet as people sought to find the documents in question. The actual facts about the use of Pier 57 show that this early speculation was inaccurate, but new questions arise from the information now available to this author. Pier 57 is among the properties controlled by the Hudson River Park Trust (HRPT), a $380 million partnership of New York State and New York City managing 550 acres of property from Battery Park to West 59th Street. Their Board of Directors includes Charles Dorkey III, Chairman of the HRPT. This area is known collectively as the Chelsea Piers. Dorkey is a major contributor and fundraiser for the Republican Party. In 1992, a new company known as Chelsea Piers Management, Inc. was awarded the rights to lease the piers and develop the sports and entertainment facilities now in the area of Piers 59 through 62. These new facilities opened in stages beginning in late-1995. This was a privately financed project costing at least $100 million. Pier 57 is not currently among the piers operated by CPM, and earlier this year the Hudson River Park Trust began taking bids for contracts to rennovate Pier 57. A public hearing took place on September 22nd for discussions and presentations about the two finalist proposals -- Chelsea Piers Management and Cipriani. Chelsea Piers Management (CPM) was founded by its Chairman, Roland Betts. Betts is also Director of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp, charged with rebuilding Lower Manhattan (among other things, this gives him primary responsibility in the plans to rebuild the World Trade Center site). Roland Betts is also President George W. Bush’s former roommate at Yale, and in 1989 he and Bush formed a group of investors to purchase the Texas Rangers baseball team. He remains one of Bush’s closest friends. Another investor in the Texas Rangers purchase is Tom Bernstein, co-founder of CPM. Bernstein has had a long relationship with Betts, both of them being the co-founders of Silver Screen Management, Inc., financing films by Walt Disney and HBO. The third founder of CPM is David Tewksbury. All three men attended Yale. In 2002, President Bush appointed Bernstein to act as a Council Member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in D.C. Equally significant is that Roland Betts was among a meeting group that also included Karl Rove, Cablevision CEO Chuck Dolan, and Michael Bloomberg. Rudolph Giuliani was not reported to be present at this dinner meeting, but he was certainly a member of the final team Bloomberg composed -- along with Dolan and Betts -- to lobby the RNC on behalf of New York as the site of the 2004 Republican National Convention. The group met with Rove to finalize the deal. Betts then served on the Host Committee for the RNC. During preparations for the convention, events occurred related to Pier 57. The Host Committee signed a written agreement with the HRPT to use Pier 57 during the Republican National Convention, a fact confirmed by HRPT spokesman Chris Martin. Martin also says that the New York City Police Department also entered into a written agreement with HRPT to utilize Pier 57 as a detention facility. According to Martin, the NYPD approached HRPT to initiate the request to use the pier. The arrangement made with the RNC Host Committee was for the second floor of Pier 57, for use as a parking facility. Martin states that all agreements for the pier’s use were for “as-is†conditions, meaning that the HRPT was not responsible for any safety inspections or clean-up of the piers that might be necessary to prepare the site for use. That responsibility, Martin maintains, was left to the NYPD and the RNC Host Committee. Pier 57 had previously been used by the Metro Transit Authority as a bus depot, but that lease ended and the pier was turned over to HRPT on June 1st, 2004. There are no records currently available concerning clean-up of the pier after HRPT took possession of the site. Repeated attempts to obtain information about sanitizing and repair of the pier, in the form of phone conversations and faxes of a list of questions, remain unanswered. Several sources within the NYPD, who did not wish to be named, stated that they believed the NYPD was directed to Pier 57 for use as the detention facility by other persons outside of the Department. One source, when asked if the suggestion came from someone within the RNC Host Committee, stated, “That sounds about right.†This author has also learned that, contrary to the current assertions that Pier 57 was safe and contained no hazardous materials that might have endangered detainees, a specialist in toxic site identification has information proving the site is indeed contaminated and dangerous. A “large body†of data indicating significant toxic contamination exists concerning Pier 57, according to sources familiar with details of several toxic site contamination documents related to the Pier. Prior to the Republican National Convention, the Pier even had a special apparatus attached to the base of the pier to prevent toxic seepage into the Hudson River, but it was removed prior to the Convention. With Pier 57 now in the process of being renovated, and with a leading contender for the development headed by Roland Betts, significant questions arise not only about the conditions of Pier 57 but also concerning how much money was spent to prepare the site for the Convention and what if any clean-up took place. One attorney familiar with the situation informed the author that there is a possibility that responsibility for the clean-up and for safety of the Pier might now be passed on from the developers to the City of New York or even perhaps the NYPD. The attorney says that the costs might run into millions of dollars. Potential lawsuits from detainees, who are taking legal actions for their arrest and for conditions at Pier 57, would further add to the costs. Finally, any costs incurred by the RNC Host Committee to prepare the pier as a parking area could possibly reduce eventual development costs for the pier -- Chelsea Piers Management’s own proposal calls in part for parking space at Pier 57. Costs for any possible construction, clean-up, repairs, etc to the site during the RNC would be paid for by the City of New York. This is an ongoing story, as the development project moves forward at the same time more questions surface about the link between the RNC Host Committee and Pier 57, and as lawsuits raise the possibility that more documents and information may come to light. Drew Poe noprofits4lies (at) yahoo.com