In this issue:
• From the Desk of President Joseph Aliotta, AIA: Advocacy Update
• Contract Documents Upgrades
• e-Calendar

Earlier this month, a group of Chapter leaders and NYC-based practitioners went to Albany to meet with state legislators as part of AIA New York State’s Lobby Day. Our delegation met with the staff of Senators Thomas Duane, Liz Krueger, Adriano Espaillat, and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Assembly Member Keith Wright. Assembly Member Deborah Glick, Chair of the Higher Education Committee, which oversees issues of vital importance to architects, made time to meet with our delegation. We received positive feedback on many of our issues, which is encouragement enough to redouble our efforts to move forward on these items.

We were pleased to have the chance to discuss our strong support for two bills that focus on the liability architects take on as part of their licensure and responsibility to public safety. The bills are:

The Good Samaritan Act (A.3884/Englebright/S.4508/Hannon), which would provide professional engineers, architects, landscape architects and land surveyors immunity from liability for providing volunteer services during times of crisis and catastrophe including natural (Hurricane Irene) and manmade (attacks of September 11th).

Design Liability Reform (A.2475/Canestrari/S.4782/Griffo), would strengthen the existing statute by enacting a 10-year Statute of Repose, plus a one-year limit for any suit brought against a licensed design professional. This legislation recognizes that the design professional has no control over the maintenance and operation of the structure long after construction is complete.

We made it clear that the passage of these bills is of tremendous importance to our members.

These bills are in various states of progress in the Senate and the Assembly, and it’s uncertain how far they will get before the session ends in June. We are moving to work more closely with colleagues from around the state to get traction on these priorities. If you have the opportunity to see your State Assembly Members or Senators, take a moment to let them know that their support for these bills is important to you.

For more details on the other bills AIANY supports and opposes, click here. If there are particular pieces of legislation either before the state legislature or the New York City Council that were not mentioned here, please feel free to bring them to the Chapter’s attention.

If you have questions or comments on our efforts in Albany or to find out how you can be involved, please be in touch with Jay Bond, Policy Director, jbond@aiany.org, at the AIA New York Chapter.

Contract Documents Upgrades
The AIA has made some important upgrades to its venerable contract documents. The three initiatives, announced at the AIA 2012 Convention, include a new training and education resources portal, six new documents added to the popular Documents-on-Demand™ service, and the introduction of new sustainable project construction documents.

eCALENDAR
eCalendar includes an interactive listing of architectural events around NYC. Click the link to go to to eCalendar on the Web.