Client: The Citizens Emergency Committee to Preserve Preservation

In August 2006, M2C Consulting was approached by an independent group of New York City Landmark advocates known as the Citizens Emergency Committee to Preserve Preservation (CECPP), seeking to reform the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). Specifically, the client sought to address the:

1. Lack of fairness in the process

2. Lack of independence on the Commission:

3. Lack of resources

To address CECPP's reform agenda, M2C Consulting crafted a multi-year advocacy strategy to highlight the need for change at LPC. A summary of M2C Consulting's work with CECPP includes:

1. Developing a website (www.savelpc.org) and email list to help spread the word and provoke activist action.

2. Assisting CECPP in taking specific actions to highlight the lack of transparency. These actions include:

*issuing a number of Freedom of Information requests to LPC, seeking to determine the number of Requests for Evaluations (Landmarking requests) had been submitted over a fixed time period and of those, how many had been acted on. The results of the inquiry can be see here. From this data,
*filing a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court (CECPP v. Tierney)seeking to compel LPC to act on the many RFE's that were never acted on.
*filing suit to compel the Mayor to make appointments to vacation LPC Commissioner seats
*leading an effort to to attract additional public funding for LPC, resulting in $300,000 of additional funds allocated in 2007/2008.

In the long term, M2C Consulting will be representing CECPP in a collabortive advocacy effort to reform LPC during the 2009 local elections and to attract additional funding to this chronically-underfunded but critical public agency.