As SUNY Poly was investigated, DASNY tightened screws

SUNY Poly officials claimed at the time the state Dormitory Authority had held up payments for the project seemingly without reason — incurring the wrath of GE, which threatened to cancel the project, part of a larger $500 million research and manufacturing program to develop power electronics chips made of silicon carbide.

A review of more than 2,000 documents, including email correspondence, obtained by the Times Union through the state Freedom of Information Law, shows SUNY Poly officials desperately scrambled in the days after Pike walked off the job to figure out what paperwork the Dormitory Authority needed to get Pike $1.4 million.

On July 29, three days after Pike stopped work, Walsh emailed Michael Cusack, the Dormitory Authority's general counsel, to set up a phone call about the silicon carbide project, which the agency was funding through a grant.

The scramble by SUNY Poly to honor the document requests also coincided with an investigation Guidepost Solutions, the New York City private investigation firm hired by the Cuomo administration to look into SUNY Poly's procurement and contracting operations.

Despite what the emails appear to show, the authority claims it did not make any drastic change to what it was asking from SUNY Poly, whose projects are now overseen by Empire State Development, Cuomo's economic development agency.