In late January, NYAC received an invitation from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to participate in a virtual kick-off meeting for a Programmatic Agreement (PA). The PA would involve the FHWA, New York State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), and the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation (ACHP) as full signatories. The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) will be an invited signatory and will be delegated certain lead federal agency functions.
The kick-off was held on January 20, 2022 and the power point that was presented in this meeting is available for your review in our Google Drive folder named FHWA Prog Agreement Info. The link to that folder is
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1F_epbQHIvLsuCB5UeYdFBrn3XZQfv6x9?usp=sharing
The power point file presented at the kick-off meeting is in the Good Drive folder prefaced with Doc1. Laurie Miroff, Kristy Primeau, and Carol Weed attended the kick-off and developed a summary memorandum (Doc2) which they forwarded to me. During the kick-off meeting, the full and invited agencies asked that any party interested in participating in the PA review process to submit a letter of interest to FHWA for consideration. On February 15th, NYAC submitted the letter of interest (Doc3) and it is also included in the Google Drive folder for your review.
Between January and mid-February, FHWA invited the interested Indigenous Nations to review the developing PA document. The Nations responded and on February 28th, FHWA provided an annotated outline version of the PA for comment by parties who had attended the January 20th meeting and who had submitted letters of interest. In the email note that accompanied the annotated PA outline, FHWA’s Kaylie Kramer stated that a virtual Question and Answer session on the annotated document was planned for March 15th at 11am. Additional comments would be accepted from interested parties until March 28th.
Laurie, Kristy, Carol and I have reviewed the annotated document and comments are in the version of the PA. It is in the Google Drive folder prefaced by Doc4. I forwarded these comments to the other board members this past week. At our pre-Spring meeting board session this past Saturday, March 5th, we discussed the PA comments and decided to invite the
NYAC membership as a whole to review this PA version as well.
We understand that the request that follows is short-notice. However, we would appreciate your comments back on the draft document no later than close of day on Friday, March 11th. Please add your comments to the version of the annotated outline that is in the Google Drive folder. Highlight any comment or question that is asking for simple clarification. Carol will compile those ‘simple’ questions on Sunday, March 13th and send them to Kristy Primeau and also Kaylie Kramer on the 13th. Kristy will be attending the March 15th meeting for NYAC. If you have interest in also attending the March 15th session, please let me know directly.
Douglas Perrelli (Ph.D., RPA)
President, NYAC