D-LMA’S 2023 Meeting of the Members

For the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association (D-LMA)’s annual meeting of the members, held on February 27, newly elected Lower Manhattan U.S. Representative Daniel Goldman gave remarks outlining his hopes for his first term as well as addressing a number of the pressing challenges that face New York as a whole and downtown in particular.

Goldman began his remarks with the observation that his district comprises both Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn in equal measures, but that his literal “home and where I have lived and worked is Downtown Manhattan.”

Goldman noted that while signs of revitalization and a new energy are palpable in the city, the COVID pandemic has left a wide and deep destructive wake in its path. He went on to note that a variety of issues that are front of mind for the public —public safety, homelessness and a crisis in mental health — were clear to him as significantly emanating from the pandemic’s aftermath. 

Goldman told the assembled that carrying the Michelle Alyssa Go Act forward in Congress was an immediate and important priority for him. Named after the victim of a tragic and infamous crime in our subways, the act will loosen unnecessary restrictions on Medicaid funding that serves the mentally ill. Michelle Go’s killer was someone who actually sought help for their illness but was turned away due to current formulas governing Medicaid reimbursement. The Go Act will remove limitations relating to Medicaid coverage of services provided in institutions for mental illnesses, thereby expanding capacity for those services and hopefully lowering the odds of such a painful crime occurring again.

Goldman went on to stress that he will be a representative who “delivers results, not performance” and pointed to a specific plan he hopes to find federal funding for that will revitalize and redevelop the areas under the Brooklyn Bridge on its Manhattan side, where millions of people land each year after walking across the famous landmark.

Goldman also emphasized that it is imperative that the nation move past the divisiveness and partisan rancor of the Trump era. He spoke about the challenges of working with a Republican party that was, at least in part, held in thrall to interests of unreason and personality before progress and compromise. He held out hope that a return “to a world where the positive direction of the country was the preeminent value both parties shared” was possible over time.

In addition to the Congressman’s presentation, the Board Members approved the minutes for last year’s annual meeting, elected new board members and added new members. Constantinople & Vallone Consulting, Highgate Hotels, Moody’s Corporation, Turner Construction Company and the VanBarton Group all joined the organization. The new board members elected were the following: Samantha Diliberti of JP Morgan Chase & Company, Eric Engelhardt of the Durst Organization, Joseph Lanzkron of Cleary Gottlieb, Alex Spektor of Highgate Hotels and Andrew Schwartz of the Howard Hughes Corporation.