New chapter in Brooklyn waterfront dispute

New chapter in Brooklyn waterfront dispute    American Stevedoring Inc. (ASI) has filed a new complaint against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey at the Federal Maritime Commission, a little more than a year after the FMC approved a settlement agreement in two previous complaints filed against the port authority by an ASI affiliate.
   ASI said it has operated terminals in the port since 1987. It operates the Red Hook Container Terminal in Brooklyn and a terminal in Newark, N.J., linking them with a service using two port authority-owned barges.
   In a complaint filed last month, ASI said it has been harmed by a port authority's decision in 2006 to stop funding the operation or maintenance of the barges, which ASI said costs $450,000 per month to fund.
   ASI said the port authority is refusing to deal and negotiate the barge funding issue, and that 'without the barge operation American Stevedoring cannot practically move the cargo and containers that arrive in Brooklyn to any inland destination west of the Hudson River, which requires transfer to Port Newark.'
   ASI is asking the FMC to order the port authority to negotiate a resolution of the disputes between the parties and pay it $16 million in reparations.
   A port authority spokesman said the agency was declining comment because the issue was under litigation.
   This is not the first time the company and the port have clashed. Last April the FMC issued an order approving a settlement agreement between the port authority and American Warehousing.
   That came after an administrative law judge at the FMC found on April 24, 2006 that the port authority's decision not to enter into a long-term lease renewal with American Warehousing was neither an unreasonable refusal to deal or negotiate nor an undue or unreasonable preference or prejudice.
   The ALJ found the port authority's refusal to enter into a long-term lease was based upon valid transportation factors. The ALJ also found the treatment American Warehousing received in leasing Pier 7 in Brooklyn was reasonable because of the port authority's need to balance differences between the large container terminals operating within the port jurisdiction and those of tenants like American Warehousing, which require barge service to use its facilities.
   In its latest complaint, American Stevedoring complains that on April 24, 2008 its chief executive officer signed a new lease, 'under extreme duress purposely exerted by the port authority' while 'vociferously protesting the terms thereof including the reduction in space and other conditions imposed by the port authority without negotiation.' It said it was put into a 'lease limbo' when the port authority 'inexplicably' did not execute the leases for 10 months, which it claimed were 'forced upon American Stevedoring.'
   But those agreements came on the same day that the port authority approved a new 10-year lease for the Red Hook Container Terminal and Piers 7 and 8 in Brooklyn and 30 acres in Port Newark, as part of deal in which the port authority dropped two pending landlord/tenant proceedings against American Warehousing, and American Warehousing dropped its complaints against the port authority before the FMC.
   At the time, the port authority said ASI and American Warehousing had not paid rent for several months and had a combined arrearage of $2.6 million.
   The 2008 lease agreement came several months after a group of 21 New York politicians wrote a letter urging the port authority to retain its ownership of Red Hook Container Terminals and Piers 7-11 in Brooklyn and keep container activity in the borough.
   The FMC has assigned Glay Guthridge, chief administrative law judge, to hear the latest dispute. Discovery in the case ends Sept. 28, and the due date for the initial decision is due May 31, 2011. ' Chris Dupin