Fwd: IMPORTANT: Letters to Congressman Garbarino
FHCA Board
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From: Goldhirsch, Suzy <suzy.go...@mssm.edu>
Date: Sun, Apr 12, 2026 at 10:37 AM
Subject: IMPORTANT: Letters to Congressman Garbarino
To: Goldhirsch, Suzy <suzy.go...@mssm.edu>
Dear All,
As you may have read in a recent Newsday article ( see below), the current Administration in Washington wants to move the Army Corps New York District office from Lower Manhattan to New Jersey. This move, ostensibly to cut costs, has raised serious concerns about potential staff losses, disruption to ongoing projects, and reduced coordination with New York–based agencies and partners.
Our Congressman Andrew Garbarino is asking Fire Island communities to send a short letter to him in support of his bipartisan effort to keep the USACE New York District headquarters in Manhattan.
Given the Corps’ central role in the FIMP Project and other South Shore shoreline protection efforts, this is an important moment for Fire Islanders to respond with our support.
Attached is the letter that we will send from FIA. I have attached is a short template for a letter that you can adapt and send from your community. To increase the impact of your letter, it would be helpful if you modify the letter a bit and add some additional information about your community and your concerns about the relocation.
The Congressman has requested that letters be sent this coming week. You can forward by email to his Community Affairs Liaison, Lindsay Ekizian, at lindsay...@mail.house.gov.
Thank you !
sg
PS. Letters from FI residents are also very welcome. If you can respond personally with a message to the Congressman, he appreciates all communications from his constituents on this important issue !
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NEWSDAY
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers move to New Jersey will delay New York projects, lawmakers say
Work on Fire Island being done under a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers contract in 2016. Credit: Newsday / J. Conrad Williams Jr.
By Tracy Tullis tracy....@newsday.comU April 3, 2026 2:39 pm
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to vacate its office in lower Manhattan, which a bipartisan group of lawmakers said would delay pollution cleanups, storm protection projects and other infrastructure on Long Island and throughout the region. The agency said there would be no impact.
The office at 26 Federal Plaza is the headquarters for roughly 385 employees who work on the Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point mitigation projects, the Sylvania-Corning cleanup in Hicksville and construction at the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, as well as programs in Staten Island, the Hudson Valley and the Connecticut side of Long Island Sound.
The Army Corps has maintained an office in Manhattan for more than 100 years, according to Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents many corps employees. Staff members working there today include engineers, procurement specialists and administrative workers.
The corps posted a notice on the website SAM.gov on March 18, seeking 70,000 square feet of office space in Hoboken, Jersey City or Newark, starting no later than Aug. 1. Staff members are angry about the sudden decision, Biggs told Newsday. As many as 60% of those surveyed by the union declared they would seriously consider quitting rather than commuting to New Jersey.
"This is a huge disruption in their work lives and their careers," Biggs said.
The Army Corps said the relocation from the office would not affect its ability to manage its projects across the region. "There will be no impact on mission execution," Kenneth Wells, a spokesman for the Corps New York district, wrote to Newsday. He said the Manhattan location is one of 50 "large office spaces within the Corps" but makes up 9% of its leasing budget.
"We deeply value our dedicated civilian workforce," Wells added, "and we are developing a robust set of mitigation strategies to support them through this transition and maximize retention."
Five members of New York’s congressional delegation — Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer and Reps. Dan Goldman (D-Brooklyn/Manhattan), Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island), and Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) — signed a letter to administrators opposing the move out of Manhattan.
The members’ letter to the corps and the General Services Administration, from whom the corps leases the space, said losing large numbers of experienced staff "will inevitably degrade the Corps ability to continue its critical activities in the region."
"Moving out of the New York office will be a wasteful distraction," Suozzi said in a statement to Newsday. "I hope the Administration will pay attention to our bipartisan concerns.”
Briggs noted that many of the affected employees have developed years of specialized expertise. "If you lose this kind of talent, really skilled talent," Biggs noted, "they’re not easily replaced."
In addition, he pointed out, the Department of Defense, which oversees the Army Corps of Engineers, has instituted a hiring freeze. So those workers would not, in fact, be replaced any time soon.
The corps' Long Island projects include cleaning up the site where Sylvania Corning manufactured materials for nuclear power plants in the 1950s and 1960s, now contaminated with radioactive uranium and thorium, and the Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point coastal resilience program.
The Manhattan Army Corps, along with the city and state environment agencies, also oversees the South Shore Staten Island projects, which include building levees, stormwater drains and sewers. The program is intended "as a blueprint for coastal projects nationwide," Biggs said, "to prevent billions of dollars of storm damage."
"This is just one example of a project that will face huge disruptions if this goes through," with consequences for coastal regions like Long Island and across the country, he warned.
The letter from lawmakers, dated March 27, said the Manhattan location allows staff to collaborate with other federal agencies as well as state and local officials whose offices are in the same building or nearby. And they argued that relocating was not likely to save money and could instead cost taxpayers more over the long run.
The corps’ request for lease notice posted last month was targeted to the private sector, Biggs pointed out, so rather than paying rent to the GSA, another federal agency, the corps would be paying a private landlord.
By Tracy Tullis
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