Marriott Hotel Board Meeting

Yesterday morning I attended the November meeting of the Lafayette Yard Community Development Corporation (LYCDC), the non-profit entity that oversees the city-owned Marriott Hotel.  I received an invitation to attend from Michael McGrath, newly appointed to the Board by Mayor Mack. I didn’t stay for the entire public portion of the meeting (there was also going to be an Executive session later in the morning) but what I did stay for was very interesting. Even though this board meeting was open to the public – the meeting opened with the standard announcement that the proceedings were covered by the state Open Public Meetings Act (one of the “Sunshine Laws”) –  it wasn’t easy to get there.

You may remember that years ago, the Trenton Times  filed suit to ensure that meetings and records of the LYCDC were open and available to the public. This suit went all the way to the NJ Supreme Court, which affirmed in 2005 the public’s right to know by covering the LYCDC under the Sunshine Laws.

It’s still difficult to get information, though. The meeting was scheduled for 9AM on a weekday, not a very convenient time for members of the public to attend. When I arrived at the hotel, there was no information posted in the lobby posted about any meetings scheduled for that day. When I asked at the front desk for the meeting of the Lafayette Yard Corporation, neither person knew what I was talking about. They asked, “Is that Jeff’s meeting?” I told them I didn’t know any Jeff (turns out they were referring to Jeff Zeiger, the hotel’s General Manager). I suggested “It’s your Board of Directors.” At that, they realized what I was asking, and they directed me to the 2nd floor meeting room where the meeting was to take place. A sign outside that room said “Manager’s Meeting,” no indication this was a session open to the public.

There were several people there; nearly all of them were either board members or affiliated with Waterford (the management company hired by the Board to run the hotel), or Acquest (the property management company for the site).  There was one other person there from another company. More about him below.  I received a couple of business cards from a few people, who thought I was also there for a business reason. Not too many members of the public seem to show up for these things, apparently. In any case, I was the only one.

When the meeting was called to order, after the preliminaries (roll call, the Sunshine announcement, introducing the agenda, etc.) the proceedings were interrupted by Mr. Shelley Zeiger (father to the aforementioned Jeff), a contract consultant to Acquest according to Mike McGrath. He introduced the other gentleman in the room as a representative of Princeton Power Systems. He announced he wanted to make a brief presentation to the Board on behalf of Princeton Power and Unami Solar, a corporation owned by the Native American Delaware Nation, which Mr. Zeiger also represents. The presentation was to make a proposal for a 100 Kilowatt Solar installation to be provided to the Marriott, at no charge to the hotel, to partially offset its annual energy costs and save it some money.

Dan Dodson, another newly-appointed Board member, objected to the presentation, as an item not on the agenda, nor previously announced in any way. He then polled a few other members of the Board to ask if they were aware of the proposal; a few were familiar with the idea of the proposal, but were unaware of any presentation that morning. Mr. Dodson asked Mr. Zeiger if he intended to make a presentation only, or was expecting some action as well. Mr. Zeiger replied that he was hoping just to make a presentation, but then said something vague about perhaps there might be some action taken then as well.

In any case, there was a brief presentation made, to the effect that Princeton Power, along with Unami Solar, was proposing a 100kW for the roof of the hotel that would save the hotel a guaranteed 15% of its energy costs, and perhaps as much as 20%. When asked how much that might be, GM Jeff Zeiger estimated $40-$50,000 annually. The presentation was brief, and no action taken. The attitude of the Board seemed to me that they heard the presentation as a courtesy to Shelley Zeiger.

This struck me as odd, and as highly improper. Mr. Zeiger – not a member of the Board – interrupted the proceedings to introduce an unscheduled, unannounced agenda item, a matter that concerned another business venture he was involved in: A proposal unsolicited by the LYCDC, and a proposal that any competitor or potential competitor to Princeton Power/Unami Solar would have absolutely no knowledge of. Even though no action was taken yesterday, I can’t help feeling that Mr. Zeiger took undue advantage of his position at the Hotel to bring a matter before a public board in a public meeting in an improper fashion. Is this how this hotel board has done business in the past?

In my mind, Mr. Dodson was correct in objecting to the manner in which this item was handled. I hope it doesn’t happen again. I don’t know if this matter will come up again before this board. But it feels like Princeton Power’s and Unami Solar’s interest in Trenton projects warrants some attention in the future.

The rest of the meeting that I was present for revolved around a discussion of financial statements distributed to the Board (I didn’t see a copy), showing operating results for the first ten months of the calendar year 2010, and projections through to the end of December; and the overall competitive position of this hotel.

The headlines: our hotel loses money, and continues to lose money on an operating basis, in the midst of a local and national economy that has seen the hotel’s gross revenue decline over 30% over the last few years. I hope  Dan can go into more detail on his excellent blog. For now, suffice it to say that the hotel loses money on its general operations, even before accounting for outstanding long-term debt on bonds issued for the construction of the hotel.

There is no capital money to allow for replacement of items like carpeting in public areas starting to look a little shabby. Cost-cutting leads to, among other things, reduction in guest services that shows up in a customer satisfaction lower than other comparable Marriotts also managed by Waterford. And, in about 2 1/2 years, the franchise agreement with Marriott is due to expire, and will not be renewed. That means that hotel management will seek affiliation with another well-known brand such as Hilton’s or Starwood’s, or operation as an independent institution.  Not knowing much about the hotel business, I would guess this latter situation would be not a good one for the hotel, making it very difficult to market and attract business from out-of-town, such as that is.

Throughout the meeting, both Dan Dodson and Mike McGrath asked very pointed and detailed questions, intended to suss out from hotel management details about current operations as well as strategic planning for the future. The hotel is in a tough place now and for years to come. I intend to pay closer attention to it, as far as I can, and I hope other Trentonians do the same.

The Lafayette Yard Hotel is in a very precarious state, but I feel more comfortable that those two are on the Board. I thank Mayor Mack for appointing them to the Board.