Rats Jumping Ship
Two more top aides quit de Blasio administration (NYP) More top aides to Mayor de Blasio headed for the exit doors Thursday — soon after his counsel disclosed that she was quitting and his social media director fled after just eight weeks on the job. Environmental Protection Commissioner Emily Lloyd announced she was retiring, while Nilda Mesa, who heads the mayor’s Office of Sustainability, said she wanted to “spend time with her family and explore new opportunities,” according to a statement from the mayor’s office. The departures were the third and fourth over the past two days.
cruise missile
de Blasio's Top Media Guy Quits Too Many Political Hacks
More de Blasio Rats Jumping Ship
Mayor de Blasio’s Counsel to Leave Next Month to Lead Police Review Board (MYT) Maya Wiley, chief legal adviser to Mayor Bill de Blasio, will resign to become chairwoman of New York City’s independent oversight agency for the Police Department.
Why Does de Blasio Campaign Manger Lobby for Airbnb Which is Destroying Illegal Rentals in NYC?
Airbnb blasted for illegal rentals in NYC (NYP) More than half the Airbnb rentals in New York City last year were illegal, according to a report released Monday by two housing-advocacy groups. The report, commissioned by MFY Legal Service and Housing Conservation Coordinators, found that 28,765 of the short-term rental site’s 51,397 city listings for 2015 — or 56 percent — illegally offered to book an entire apartment or home for fewer than 30 days. The report singled out 8,058 units as “impact listings” where homes are rented out for brief periods for more than a third of a year, making them virtual hotels. The advocates argued that if the apartments were on the market instead, the city’s vacant rental stock would increase by 10 percent. State law prohibits renting apartments for less than 30 days if the lease holder isn’t present. The state Legislature this month passed a bill imposing fines for those who advertise their entire apartments on Airbnb and similar sites for less than 30 days. Governor Andrew Cuomo has yet to sign the bill.Lobbyists for Airbnb Former de Blasio campaign manager Bill Hyers joins Airbnbpayroll (NYDN)
Cuomo's Pigeon Operative Faces
Charges for
Bribing A Judge and More . . .
After Black Harlem
Latest Sign of Change in Harlem: Its Congressional Candidate (NYT) Upper Manhattan’s congressional seat has long been identified with Harlem and black political power. That has changed with the apparent victory of Adriano D. Espaillat in the Democratic primary.
FBI Visits Mateo's Illegal Straw
FBI questions woman involved in de Blasio fundraising scandal (NYP) A Brooklyn woman was questioned by a city corruption-busting FBI agent on Tuesday — just hours after high-profile cabby advocate Fernando Mateo admitted to The Post that he had used her as a front to funnel campaign contributions to Mayor de Blasio. At about 8:45 a.m., Ahlam Jaoui, 31, got a surprise visit from two federal agents at the Bay Ridge house she shares with her parents. One was FBI Special Agent Blaire Toleman, who’s currently working with Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara’s public-corruption unit and recently swore out criminal complaints against two high-ranking NYPD officers and the since-ousted head of the correction-officers union, Norman Seabrook.
Mateo Admits He Did Illegal Straw Bundling for de Blasio
De Blasio fundraiser admits to pay-for-play bundling scheme (NYP) A high-profile cabby advocate whose wife needs the city’s OK for a women-only livery service admitted to The Post on Monday that he raised campaign cash for Mayor de Blasio and funneled it through an unemployed Brooklyn woman. Fernando Mateo, founder of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, came clean about the blatant violation of election law after The Post learned he had personally solicited a donation for Hizzoner and then had Ahlam Jaoui take credit for it. The 31-year-old Bay Ridge woman, who has no political or fund-raising experience, claims in campaign-finance records to have collected 15 donations totaling $18,800 that were given to the de Blasio campaign in January. One of those contributions came from Oscar Herasme, a Florida lawyer, who confirmed he gave $2,500 to the mayor’s 2017 re-election bid — but when asked about Jaoui said, “It wasn’t through her.” “I find it odd that the bundler for any donations is someone I never met,” said Herasme, who declined to say who solicited his contribution. Another $2,500 donor, Damian Rodriguez of First Class Car & Limo, noted he has no particular loyalty to de Blasio. “Fernando Mateo called me and asked me to give some money to that woman,” he said. “I’ve known him for a long time, since 1997, so I help him when I can.” The revelations come as de Blasio’s fund-raising operations are being probed by both New York US Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. Mateo, a well-known Republican supporter, told The Post that he “called my people” to give money to Democrat de Blasio’s campaign and had Jaoui take credit for the donations. Mateo’s name does not appear on Jaoui’s January campaign-finance report. He claims that his motive was to help Jaoui land a city job. “That’s the way politics works,” Mateo said. “If Ahlam worked hard for his candidacy, you’d think [the mayor] would say, ‘I employ thousands of people, why not at least bring her in for an interview?’ * Fernando Mateo, founder of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, admitted that he raised campaign cash for Mayor Bill de Blasio and funneled it through an unemployed Brooklyn woman, the Post writes.
A Cover-Up of What City Hall Knew About the Rivington Nursing Home Sale Continues
HRA asked about Rivington House well before controverial sale, email shows (CapitalNY) The city's Human Resources Administration made inquiries about a Lower East Side nursing home more than a year before it was sold to a luxury condo developer, according to emails and interviews with sources. The HRA, which has become increasingly powerful under Mayor Bill de Blasio, asked in January 2015 what was to become of the Rivington House facility. At that time it was being run as an AIDS residence by the nonprofit VillageCare and was sold the following month to Allure, a for-profit nursing home operator, for $28 million. De Blasio has said he did not learn of the building's fate until this past March. Daniel Tietz, chief special services officer in the office of the HRA commissioner, wrote an email to Emma Devito of VillageCare, which was operating the AIDS residence at the site, on Jan. 15, 2015. The email read: "Emma: I hope all is well and happy New Year! I was wondering where things stood with Rivington House. I know that the nursing facility has closed, but do you have a plan for the building? If you wouldn't mind giving me a bit of an update that would be great. Thanks! Dan." It is unclear if Devito responded. HRA declined to comment and VillageCare did not return a call for comment. HRA also sat in on meetings about Rivington House as early as May of 2014, according to sources. One meeting involved the agency's "desire to take property for other uses without allowing for sale," according to one source with knowledge of the matter. HRA is responsible for social services, including care for AIDS patients. Under de Blasio, the agency, run by Steve Banks, has expanded its portfolio to take over homelessness. Several sources who would only speak on background said Tietz wanted to find out what the site could be used for and that Banks was interested in whether some type of low-income housing could be built there. One person with knowledge of the matter said DCAS raised the possibility with City Hall of using the site for affordable housing in 2014.The email from Tietz included an attached memo from VillageCare to HRA in November of 2013, during the administration of Michael Bloomberg. That memo makes clear that VillageCare was interested in selling the property and laid out prospects for the building, such as expanding services for chronic health problems and reconfiguring two adult day health centers to allow for more exam rooms and mental health treatment capacity.This email is the latest in a series of revelations about how City Hall officials seemed to be more informed about Rivington House than de Blasio was. As POLITICO New York has previously reported, top and mid-level officials were kept in the loop at certain points along the way about the prospect that the site would be sold. The New York Times recently reported on a memo sent to first deputy mayor Tony Shorris about the site.* City official asked about controversial nursing home well before sale (NYP_ A de Blasio administration official inquired about the fate of a Lower East Side nursing home more than a year before the mayor said he learned of a controversial deal to convert it to high-end housing.
Dream On, Shelly and Dean, Supreme Court Won't Save You From JAIL
Berlin Rosen's Levitan de Blasio Flack Declined to Say If Other Straw Shady Cash Will Be Returned
De Blasio’s team in no rush to return shady cash (NYP) Three weeks after saying it was reviewing suspicious donations tied to one of its biggest supporters, Mayor de Blasio’s campaign said Monday it still hasn’t decided whether to return the money. The Post reported on June 8 that some contributors tied to production company Broadway Stages dodged questions when asked why they wrote checks to de Blasio’s 2013 campaign. After The Post’s story appeared, de Blasio campaign spokesman Dan Levitan said the campaign was “reviewing” donations. A week later, the mayor said the same thing. “We’re certainly looking at those donations,” he said. “I think we do a thorough job of identifying anything that, on its face, does not belong.” On Monday, Levitan declined to say whether any of the checks would be returned.
de Blasio Cuomo Bharara is Coming?
LOVETT: Hillary Clinton won’t commit to reappointing U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara (NYDN)
Crown Heights Gentrifiers White Guilt on Changing A Black Neighborhood?
Illegal Airbnb listings are hogging NYC's available apartments, report says
de Blasio Dumps on Charters to Protect His 2017 Reelection Machine the UFT
The Post writes that de Blasio, who has said that he supports charter schools, could show that support by allowing them to use unoccupied space in public schools and questions whether he needs to keep adding an expense to the city budget out of ideological spite.
Daily News Shocking No Endorsement of Congressman Nadler
No to Nadler: Rep. Jerrold Nadler undermined global security by supporting President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, shouldn't be reelected (NYDN Ed)
The NYT Reports About Dark Money PAC In Other States But Not NYC Where There Guy de Blasio PACs are Under Federal Investigation
Why is the NY Times Covering Up de Blasio's Corruption Investigation
NY Times Ignores That NY's Falling Voting Rates is Caused by Loss of Faith in NY's Political Process
The ultimate cost of elections overrun by hidden interests may be the loss of voters’ faith in the political process and governing institutions.
Get A Dog If You Are In the Middle of A Scandal CHECKERS BRATTON
Checkers speech
Get the NYPD stats right, Mayor de Blasio (NYDN Ed)
No Real Ethics Reforms Despite Ethics Investigation Pay to Play Albany Lives On
The culture of New York politics is as ugly as ever (NYP) For some bills, Cuomo had to issue a “message of necessity” to skirt the state’s three-day “aging” requirement meant to give lawmakers a chance to read, digest and (ha!) debate legislation before voting on it. The “necessity”: Lawmakers wanted to go home for the summer. And some of what they passed just reeks. Like one bill that seems a direct giveaway to Reliant Bus Co., reportedly letting it reopen its low-bid contract with the city — at a much higher cost to taxpayers. Reliant’s owner, Alexis Lodde, is the focus of a Preet Bharara subpoena in the probe of Mayor de Blasio’s funny-money scandal, thanks to a $100,000 “per the mayor” donation to help Senate Democrats in the 2014 elections. Yet the bill’s Senate sponsor was Marty Golden — a Brooklyn Republican. Another outrage: $420 million a year for handouts to Hollywood moguls who make films and TV shows here. Lawmakers even expanded the giveaway — letting companies collect even larger checks in 12 counties. They also set aside $50 million for payments to music and “digital gaming” honchos. “The rest of the state’s taxpayers are left with a heavier load in a state that already has the highest taxes in the nation,” notes Assemblyman Kieran Lalor (R-Dutchess County). Then again, lawmakers (and the gov) love these deals because the fat cats turn around and donate handsomely. Maybe this was one bill they did read before passing. * Cuomo has signed fewer bills than any governor in century (NYP) * The frenzied manner in which the state Legislature rushes to pass bills at the end of the legislative session each year, during which many laws are passed without lawmakers having an opportunity to thoroughly read them, creates an environment that is ripe for corruption, The Buffalo News writes.
The Key Thing You Need to Know Nothing Happens in Govt in 30 Days Unless You Bribe the Mayor
A Pay to Play Rat Bag Caught Our Rat Mayor LOL de Blasio Federal Investigation
Bratton Comments On Broken Windows and Defends Giving Pensions But No Comment On NYPD Corruption
Bill Bratton still believes in ‘broken windows’ policing (NYP)* Cop, repeatedly accused of forcing minority cops to arrest more blacks and Hispanics, gets promotion (NYDN) *NYPD's Bill Bratton calls Department of Investigation’s ‘broken windows’ policing report ‘not necessary’ (NYDN)* De Blasio said he disagreed with a report that challenges “broken windows” policing, highlighting the fine line he has tried to walk between his popular police commissioner and a political base that elected him to reform the NYPD, The Wall Street Journal writes. * De Blasio said he “absolutely” supports a federal monitor to oversee the “broken” New York City Board of Elections in the upcoming congressional primaries and wishes he could “tear down” the board and start over, the Daily News writes. * After a series of corruption arrests and scandals, New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton defended the practice of giving out pensions to scandal-scarred NYPD officers and insisted it would be unfair to their families to take them away, the Post reports.* The NYPD inspector general’s report that claims the “broken windows” style of policing does not work only serves de Blasio’s political agenda, as decreases in crime in New York City since the 1990s prove the controversial policing style works, the Post writes. * Businessman demanded kosher meals after mile-high hooker romp (NYP) * 'I HAD NO OTHER WAY TO PAY MY RENT': Former call girl 'embarrassed' about mile-high tryst with 2 NYPD cops on private jet * NYPD hooker: The cops I serviced should be fired (NYP) * Beyond NYPD corruption charges lie some troubling notions (crainsNY) The allegations suggest the police want businesses to pay for service* Gov. Cuomo asked to intervene in police union fight with Mayor de Blasio over disability benefits (NYDN)* Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch sent a letter to Cuomo asking that he intervene in a fight with de Blasio over a union push to provide newer cops the same disability benefits as older ones, the Daily News’ Lovett writes.
Bratton's Weak Answer to NYPD GiftGate Corruption is To Give Corrupt Cops Pensions?So much for Bratton’s ‘zero tolerance’ approach to NYPD corruption (NYP Ed)So much for the idea that Police Commissioner Bill Bratton would take a “zero tolerance” approach to the NYPD corruption scandals. As The Post’s Shawn Cohen and Bruce Golding reported Wednesday, Bratton has opted to let two high-ranking cops ensnared in the scandal retire with full benefits. That makes sense if you accept that it was the only way to get tainted brass who’d been stripped of their guns and badges off the force with a minimum of public attention. The deal lets both Deputy Chief John Sprague and Inspector Peter DeBlasio keep their pensions and receive so-called “Good Guy” letters that enable them to easily obtain a full-carry pistol permit. And these two aren’t the only implicated top cops who have been allowed to leave quietly. This may help rid the NYPD of its bad apples, but it’s a weak answer to corruption. Especially corruption involving so many high-ranking officials — many of whom had been promoted by Bratton himself. Including Chief of Department Philip Banks, who was about to be named Bratton’s No. 2 until he abruptly quit the force. Remember, this investigation has been under way since shortly before Bratton took office. But according to the federal indictment unveiled this week, much of the cash-for-favors corruption occurred on his watch. Indeed, the indictment alleges that one of the two businessmen — and Bill de Blasio pals — who plied top cops with cash, free trips and prostitutes even was able to arrange for one of his buddies to be promoted to a top assignment. The commissioner has taken pains to claim that this scandal isn’t systemic. But no previous corruption scandals involved so many high-ranking brass. All New Yorkers want the NYPD cleaned up as quickly as possible. But quiet sweetheart deals aren’t the answer.
The IG de Blasio's Mini Me: Finds No Link Between Quality of Life and Enforcement But Cannot Find GiftGate Cops Taking
Inspector general’s dubious ‘study’ serves de Blasio’s agenda (NYP) Mayor de Blasio might want to give NYPD Inspector General Philip Eure a raise. After all, the IG could hardly do a better job of shilling for him. Eure this week produced a “study” that claims to refute what experts have known for years: Broken Windows policing works. By targeting low-level offenses, cops can head off more serious crimes. Police Commissioner Bill Bratton himself helped usher in the ’90s crackdown on quality-of-life offenses, from peeing in the streets to turnstile-jumping. He calls Eure’s report “useless” and “deeply flawed.” After all, under Broken Windows, murders dropped from 2,245 in 1990 to 333 in 2014. * NYPD’s wild and wacky IG Philip Eure (NYDN Ed) As the City Council’s holier-than-holies no doubt hoped in creating his post, NYPD Inspector General Philip Eure purported Wednesday to prove that quality-of-life enforcement is irrelevant to fighting crime. Eure didn’t come close to establishing the claim, despite a jabberwocky’s mouthful of statistical mumbo-jumbo. First, Eure’s report stated — and proved — the obvious: that the crime rate fell over the past few years even as cops made fewer so-called broken windows arrests and issued a declining number of summonses.*NYPD IG: No Link Between Quality of Life Enforcement and Lower Crime (NYO) * A watchdog agency tasked with monitoring the NYPD found cracking down on public urination, disorderly conduct and other low-level offenses doesn’t lead to a decline in more serious crimes, which runs counter to the “broken windows” approach, the Journal writes. * The outside monitor overseeing changes in the NYPD after the “stop-and-frisk” lawsuit has won court approval for several reforms, but a disciplinary system must be created and the public must have access to all videos from a body camera pilot project, the Times writes.
de Blasio's Contributor Said He Had to Power to Make An NYPD Commissioner
I have the power to make you police commissioner, businessman told NYPD pal: (DNAINFO) The two Brooklyn businessmen accused of bribing police officials for favors believed they wielded enough power at the NYPD and in City Hall to make one of their pals the next police commissioner, DNAinfo New York has learned. Jeremy Reichberg and Jona Rechnitz, who were also campaign fundraisers for Mayor Bill de Blasio, claimed they had the political muscle to not only help get their friends promotions and cozy assignments inside the NYPD, but to install them atop the nation’s largest police force, according to sources familiar with their secretly recorded conversations.
In Progressive NY A Serious Voting Right Issues Has Almost Disappeared
Velazquez Wants Justice Department to Step In After Thousands of NY Voters Were Denied Access to Polls (NY1) * Bungling NYC Board of Elections hopes to avoid another disaster with Tuesday’s federal primaries involving races in seven districts (NYDN)
Groundhog Day Cuomo Fights de Blasio and the AG
War of Words Erupts Again This Week Between Cuomo and de Blasio (NY1) * Gov. Cuomo, Mayor de Blasio continue to clash because ‘they don’t trust the other one’ (NYDN)* * Some eyebrows were raised that Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has made cracking down on so-called zombie properties a top priority in recent years, was not invited to Cuomo events touting new legislation to combat the problem,the Daily News’ Lovett reports.
de Blasio Calls for Federal Monitor of the BOE And Nobody, Media and Pols, Notices the Threat to Our Democracy
de Blasio Dumps on Cuomo for Albany Disrespecting the City
A year after launching a blistering attack on Cuomo that brought their feud to new heights, de Blasio said he stands by every word - and doubled down on accusing Cuomo of disrespecting the city in this year’s legislative session, the Daily News reports.Fear Not No Real Ethics Reforms, Albany Got It Member Item Pork
According to the Empire Center for Public Policy, in the final hours of their annual session, the Assembly and Senate last week quietly passed a handful of spending measures that steered $56 million to 1,675 pet projects across the state, the Daily News reports. * * Wayne Barrett in the Daily News explores the state Senate Republicans’ repeated failure to close the LLC loophole and describes lobbyist Richard Rune’s role in blocking the bill while working behind-the-scenes to maintain the current power structure in Albany.
de Blasio's Nightmare Corruption That Runs Thru A Boro Park NYPD Precinct, A Fed Rat to His Big Time Donors and OneNY PAC
The Making History That NYP Goodwin Left Out Was de Blasio Would Be NYC's First Mayor Indicted!
NYC could be on verge of making the worst kind of history (NYP) The man who says he was the bag man, businessman Jona Rechnitz, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and is cooperating–and the feds say they found the Ferragamo bag in Seabrook’s house. If the case goes to trial, Reichnitz’s testimony and the actual bag would be powerful evidence for any jury.All those things are easily documented, and with wiretapped conversations included, a jury likely would lean toward prosecutors. Who can forget elves hats and hookers? And what juror wouldn’t find something wrong with a cop getting a private jet ride and giving a rich businessman his own traffic lane? The mayor hasn’t been charged, but as one lawyer said to me yesterday, “he has to feel the noose tightening.” While Rechnitz was a big donor to the mayor, it’s not clear what, if anything, he got in return. However, other big donors got clear favors, and with many millions raised from people with matters before City Hall, prosecutors have tons of potential evidence. They’re gathering documents through subpoenas and interviewing individual donors.
The FBI Investigations Makes de Blasio More Like Jimmy Walker That Laguardia He Like to Compare Himself too
The Spin de Blasio Laguardia "In 1934, “thegreatest mayor we ever had, Fiorello LaGuardia,” created the New York City Housing Authority, de Blasio said. LaGuardia “believed that something bold and ambitious and transcendent had to happen to protect the interests of working New Yorkers,” said the mayor, and his administration is, “humbly, humbly presenting Next Generation NYCHA in that same spirit.”
The Real de Blasio is Jimmy Walker Increasing corruption within his administration, forced Walker to testify before the investigative committee of Judge Samuel Seabury, the Seabury Commission (also known as the Hofstadter Committee). Walker caused his own downfall by accepting large sums of money from businessmen looking for municipal contracts. Facing pressure from Governor Roosevelt, Walker eluded questions about his personal bank accounts, stating instead that the money he received were “beneficences” and not bribes. He delayed any personal appearances until after Roosevelt’s nomination for President of the U.S. was secured. It was at that time that the embattled mayor could fight no longer. Months from his national election, Roosevelt decided that he must remove Walker from office. Walker agreed and resigned on September 1, 1932, and went on a grand tour of Europe with Betty Compton, his Ziegfeld girl. * Cuomo screws w/ de Blasio because he can't screw w/ Bharara-
True News Flash Back
Where is the Criminal Investigations of the de Blasio PACs?
CM Leffler. Liu Treasurer Liu, District Leader Baldeo and Silver Pal Rapfogel, All Found Guilty of Campaign Fraud Scheme With the CFB
NYPD Two NYPD Chiefs Fined For Dining On Former Queens Library Boss Galante
EATING AWAY AT ETHICS: Two NYPD chiefs face huge fines for dining on credit card tab of disgraced former Queens library boss Thomas Galante (NYP)
As Feds Investigate Buffalo Billion So Does Cuomo? To Find Out What the Feds Know?
Cuomo gives investigator Moreland Act powers (TU) But other questions remain about Bart Schwartz's probe into upstate deals
Corrupt Albany Rearranging Chairs On the Titanic
Not worth the wait: A pathetic end to Albany's legislative session (NYDN) Prudence demanded patience in evaluating the blowout of behind-the-scenes deal-making that closed the annual session of the New York Legislature. Having sorted through the detritus, we can only hope for far better performances by Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Republican Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, who took over for Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos. They produced half-measures, foolish measures and measures that only lobbyists could love, while significantly repudiating the public interest. Gov. Cuomo went along for the ride. Despite convictions of Silver and Skelos, Flanagan refused to close the LLC loophole, which allows unlimited money in New York politics. But the leaders did agree on a Cuomo proposal to crack down on evasions of the campaign finance laws. All too conveniently, Flanagan and Heastie failed to agree on terms for stripping the pensions of convicted public officials. On education, Flanagan continued to make a plaything out of mayoral control of the city schools, out of anger at Bill de Blasio’s attempt to dethrone him — but both houses conspired with the mayor and well-connected union lobbyists to boost the cost of city school bus services. In January, Cuomo proposed a $2 billion investment to finance affordable and supportive housing. The governor, Flanagan and Heastie put the money in the budget, but couldn’t agree on how to spend the cash. So only $150 million was freed up, potentially slowing necessary construction. Meanwhile, the Legislature showed downright hostility toward the tech economy, enacting a law that would essentially kill the Airbnb home sharing service and blocking expansion of call-a-car services like Uber. To restore popular fantasy sports betting — after the attorney general shut it down as illegal gambling — the Legislature fatuously relabled the games as something else while placing them under the gambling commission, all but ensuring a legal challenge. And, notoriously, Cuomo, Heastie and Flanagan turned their backs on childhood victims of sexual abuse at the unfortunate behest of the Catholic Church.* De Blasio’s recently departed press secretary Karen Hinton in the Daily Newsoffers advice to the mayor about how to survive his love-hate relationship with the news media and emerge stronger by adjusting to new media without forgetting lessons from the old.
Brooklyn BP Lobbyists Capalino and Another Slush Fund PAC
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| Capalino Buying Silence |
As Airbnb Warehouse Apts Driving Up
Prices Media and Pols Support them
A bill that would make advertising short-term rentals illegal is the latest example of New York officials trying to strangle the “sharing economy” when it should be embraced, since these companies satisfy a demand, the Cato Institute’s Matthew Feeney writes in the Post.* Airbnb and the Battle of Suitcase Alley (NYT) In New York and other cities with steep housing costs, a longstanding objection to home-sharing sites is that some listings remove units from the residential market.
Bratton's Weak Answer to NYPD GiftGate Corruption Give Them Pensions
So much for Bratton’s ‘zero tolerance’ approach to NYPD corruption (NYP Ed)So much for the idea that Police Commissioner Bill Bratton would take a “zero tolerance” approach to the NYPD corruption scandals. As The Post’s Shawn Cohen and Bruce Golding reported Wednesday, Bratton has opted to let two high-ranking cops ensnared in the scandal retire with full benefits. That makes sense if you accept that it was the only way to get tainted brass who’d been stripped of their guns and badges off the force with a minimum of public attention. The deal lets both Deputy Chief John Sprague and Inspector Peter DeBlasio keep their pensions and receive so-called “Good Guy” letters that enable them to easily obtain a full-carry pistol permit. And these two aren’t the only implicated top cops who have been allowed to leave quietly. This may help rid the NYPD of its bad apples, but it’s a weak answer to corruption. Especially corruption involving so many high-ranking officials — many of whom had been promoted by Bratton himself. Including Chief of Department Philip Banks, who was about to be named Bratton’s No. 2 until he abruptly quit the force. Remember, this investigation has been under way since shortly before Bratton took office. But according to the federal indictment unveiled this week, much of the cash-for-favors corruption occurred on his watch. Indeed, the indictment alleges that one of the two businessmen — and Bill de Blasio pals — who plied top cops with cash, free trips and prostitutes even was able to arrange for one of his buddies to be promoted to a top assignment. The commissioner has taken pains to claim that this scandal isn’t systemic. But no previous corruption scandals involved so many high-ranking brass. All New Yorkers want the NYPD cleaned up as quickly as possible. But quiet sweetheart deals aren’t the answer.
Pay to Play Private Police Department
Bratton reinstates cops tied to corruption probe so they can retire (NYP) Police Commissioner Bill Bratton quietly reinstated two NYPD bosses who had been stripped of their guns and badges over corruption allegations — in a secret deal to get them to retire, The Post has learned. The move — which ensures the high-ranking cops will get highly coveted, official references from the NYPD — came as Bratton is trying to oust all scandal-tainted brass by the end of the month, sources said Tuesday. Deputy Chief John Sprague, whom Bratton tapped last year to head a newly created, internal-investigations unit, was placed on “modified duty” June 1 for refusing to answer questions in front of a federal grand jury.
NYT Lawmakers Failed to Act On Ethics Refroms
The Old Albany Hustle (NYTED) After a lackluster legislative season, Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared on Sunday that he and state lawmakers had managed to finish “probably the most successful session in modern history.” That is not only wrong, but ridiculous. The most urgent and important item on the Legislature’s to-do list this year should have been reforming a debased political culture that most recently resulted in the convictions of New York’s top two legislative leaders — the former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the former Senate leader Dean Skelos. Mr. Silver was sentenced to 12 years in prison for receiving kickbacks, honest services fraud and extortion. Mr. Skelos earned five years in prison for bribery, extortion and conspiracy. Instead of seizing the moment to enact reforms, New York’s politicians left intact one of the state’s great campaign financing scams — the so-called L.L.C. loophole. Limited liability companies can allow donors, hidden behind several shell companies, to contribute almost unlimited amounts to campaigns. Mr. Cuomo gave lip service to eliminating this loophole, but little of his political muscle. Worse, he seemed willing to excuse the refusal of lawmakers to act, telling The Times that closing the loophole would be “tantamount to political suicide for the Republican Party in this state because they believe it ends corporate money.” Left unsaid was that Democrats, including Mr. Cuomo, have feasted on L.L.C. money as well.
BREAKING NEWS - .@jonathan4ny reporting several high ranking NYPD members just arrested as part of ongoing federal corruption probe. #NBC4NY
Someone Needs to Ask de Blasio Why His Fundraisers Are Getting Arrested
Brooklyn BP Has A Slush Fund Like the Mayor Funded By Developers Shady Donors
Eric Adams’ nonprofit has links to shady donors (NYP) Mayor de Blasio isn’t the only elected official who launched a nonprofit that has raised funds from questionable donors. Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has his own group — the One Brooklyn Fund — which has raised as much as $964,000 over the past two years, according to records obtained by The Post. And, like de Blasio’s nonprofit, it has taken money from entities whose activities are under review by law enforcement or that have business interests before the government. One donor, Park Developers & Builders, was subpoenaed by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office in recent weeks for its bid to raze a Bedford-Stuyvesant nursing home and replace it with a 241-unit residential building, according to a source. The group has given as much as $20,000 to Adams’ nonprofit since October. Its partner, the Allure Group, was also subpoenaed in that case — as well as in a Lower East Side real-estate deal involving the loss of a nursing home that was OK’d by the de Blasio administration. Another group that gave up to $20,000 to Adams’ group is Broadway Stages, a Brooklyn-based firm that is being questioned as part of the wide-ranging probe of de Blasio’s fund-raising. Other donors to Adams’ nonprofit include Airbnb, which gave as much as $60,000. Adams has been a vocal supporter of Airbnb. Other donors to Adams’ nonprofit include Airbnb, which gave as much as $60,000. Adams has been a vocal supporter of Airbnb. Dick Dadey, director of the watchdog group Citizens Union, said nonprofits run by elected officials are ripe for abuses. “It’s become a vehicle for self-promotion, as well as a vehicle for augmenting the services of the borough president’s office,” Dadey said.
“Entities within the borough may feel a certain responsibility to contribute.” While the mayor’s nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York, only touted his agenda, the One Brooklyn Fund is a city-affiliated group and sponsors events for the public.* Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams’ nonprofit One Brooklyn Fund has raised as much as $964,000 over the past two years and has taken money from entities whose activities are under review by law enforcement or that have business interests before the government, the Post reports.
New Bid Rigging in DHCR Contracts
A new angle on New York’s corruption scandals (NYP) How about that: The Albany corruption probes may expose abuse of state affordable-housing funds. Two years ago, an audit by State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli found that the state Division of Homes and Community Renewal had granted $10 million to six projects its own staff had deemed “infeasible” — meaning seriously impractical to pull off. Oops: DHCR’s rules banned the funding of “infeasible” applications. The audit also noted that, by failing to properly document why they opted to fund those projects anyway, agency managers put “the integrity of the program” at risk. Well, the managers found a creative way around this problem: They rewrote the evaluation criteria, dropping the system with too-accurate terms like “infeasible” for less-descriptive numerical rankings. Meanwhile, the Albany Times Union reports that three of the developers behind the six suspiciously favored “infeasible” grants have been hit with federal subpoenas. All three are major donors to Gov. Cuomo and one was a client of Todd Howe — the lobbyist at the center of the Buffalo Billion probe. Naturally, Cuomo’s office insists donations have no impact on its official decisions. But the whole thing is a reminder that “apple pie” spending on items like affordable housing needs examining at least as closely as any other state outlays. And US Attorney Preet Bharara will have the last word on just how “infeasible” the awarding of state contracts has become.* De Blasio-Cuomo feud ignites mayor to KO bill to fix safety issues at day cares (NYDN) * The fact that state offices rewrote criteria for awarding affordable housing contracts after the Cuomo administration was criticized for not sticking to its own guidelines by state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli shows the need for reform to those systems,the Post writes.
The Dying Media Has Stop Covering the Mayor's Corruption Story and Has Refused to Expose NYC's Corrupt Elections System
Putnam Money Laundry
No Albany Ethics Income Restrictions But A Shot At Team de Blasio's Lobbyists and PACs
Cuomo Goes After de Blasio's Lobbyists PAC Run Shadow Govt
With Legislature's ethics crisis, disappointing @nysenategop's ethics bill equivalent to an aspirin for a broken arm
de Blasio's Won the Mayor's Office and Governs By Going Around the Election Law With Lobbyists and PACs
Here Comes the FBI NYCASS Investigation By the FBI That True News Has Been Investigating for Two Years
Coordinated federal and state investigations into Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fundraising operations are examining efforts by a politically connected group to ban horse carriages in New York City , sources tell The Wall Street Journal: * De Blasio fundraising probe increases scrutiny of campaignfinance tactic
NYC’s campaign cops hand down champ-change fines (NYP) Stop the presses: The City Campaign Finance Board slapped a consultant with a $15,000 fine for breaking the rules. Finally, the world is safe for democracy. Or so you might think from Thursday’s big-noise announcement. If only. In fact, the fine — plus a $10,800 one from state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman — merely highlights the lunacy of the city’s campaign-finance scheme. In 2013, the consultants at The Advance Group repped four Democratic candidates while also working with two “independent” groups: the teachers union and the anti-horse-carriage folks, NYCLASS. The two special interests shelled out tens of thousands to promote TAG’s candidates, but failed to build a “firewall” between themselves and the campaigns. The board says TAG’s dual roles amounted to “coordination” — a no-no under the rules. “Today’s agreement sends a clear message that campaign coordination is unacceptable in New York ,” huffed the AG.* Mayor de Blasio said he behaved 'legally' in dealings with animal rights group NYCLASS and will 'cooperate with any investigation' (NYDN)
Gary Tilzer (@unitedNYblogs) warned that BdB circle of friends, lobbyists & PACs were up to no good. Like #Cassandra, he was ignored.
Albany's Big Ugly: 1 Year Extension Mayor Control of Schools
* Unnamed lawmakers, lobbyists and journalists tell the Post’s Fred Dicker that state Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie have displayed weak leadership in their first full terms as legislative leaders.* The “little ugly” legislative package that passed at the end of this year’s legislative session did little to address the many issues that New York faces, but also avoided doing further damage and gave de Blasio little of what he wanted, the Post writes.
Tentative deal would renew mayoral control for one year(PoliticoNY)
Lawmakers agree to give de Blasio 1-year school control extension (NYP)
Albany "ethics deal" targets good gvt groups which receive support from c3s to their c4 accounts
In last-minute move, Albany whacks @Airbnb
New bill could crush Airbnb’s New York business (NYP) A bill that imposes hefty fines that start at $1,000 for apartment rentals of less than 30 days — which are illegal and which are a big part of the apartment-sharing site’s business.
Legislature Reaches Deal to Extend Mayoral Control of New York’s Schools for a Year (NYT) Agreements also emerged in Albany on a set of modest ethics reforms, required lead testing in schools and money for supportive housing for the homeless. Consensus on the ethics reform seemed to come quickly on Friday, the day after the last official day of the legislative session. The deal would, among other things, strip state pensions from public officials convicted of corruption and strengthen prohibitions on political campaigns’ ability to coordinate with independent expenditure committees.The state will also provide an additional $50 million in capital funding for SUNY and the City University of New York. But the governor’s announcement that the state would release $570 million in state resources to build and operate 1,200 units of supportive housing for the homeless was immediately dissected and dismissed by advocates for the program, who said it fell far short of Mr. Cuomo’s initial commitment to pay for 20,000 units. Blair Horner, the executive director for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said the deal was a “smorgasbord of elections, ethics and lobbying reforms” that nonetheless was “not focused at the heart of what’s wrong with Albany,” including the nearly unchecked flow of money through multiple limited liability companies. That said, Mr. Horner said the move to define coordination between independent expenditure committees and candidates was an improvement. “No one has defined what that means,” he said. “And this does.* Consensus says Heastie and Flanagan are weak leaders (NYP) * State lawmaker’s ‘little ugly’ is mostly a slap at de Blasio (NYP) * Some Call Legislative Session a Letdown. Cuomo Sees It Far Differently (NYT) Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said “it was probably the most successful session in modern history,” despite falling short on proposals involving ethics and housing reform.*Cuomo: De Blasio Lucky to Get Even One-Year Extension of Mayoral Control of City Schools (NY1) * Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he understands Mayor Bill de Blasio’s frustration at a one-year extension of mayoral control of schools, but added he was lucky to get anything since many Assembly Democrats joined Senate Republicans in opposing an extension, the Daily News writes. * * Cuomo doesn't believe that holding a special legislative session later this year to close a notorious campaign finance loophole or restrict lawmakers' outside income would be productive, the Times Union reports.* * One of the bills passed in the last hours of the legislative session allows SUNY to waive current requirements that limit the number of uncertified teachers that charter schools can employ and gives charter schools teachers three years to get certified, the Times writes.
Daily News Says Albany Turned Their Backs On Child Abuse
Still the Albany Secret Sausage Factory
State budget process plagued by‘secrecy and dysfunction’: critics (NYP) Democrats hailed this year’s state budget as a dream come true, but critics said it marked a historic low for lack of transparency. “Nothing that happened this week can be remotely classified as democracy,” said Steve McLaughlin, an upstate Republican. Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, a Democrat, complained about the process. Some budget bills were delivered to lawmakers in the wee hours on Friday, still warm from the copiers. “The details of the budget came together late in the process and outside the public’s view, so more analysis is needed to examine the long-term impact of these spending decisions,” he said. Assembly Minority Leader Brian Kolb blasted the three Albany leaders — Gov. Cuomo, Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie — for hashing out the $156 billion spending plan at unknown times and locations, “establishing a new level of secrecy and dysfunction.” “New Yorkers didn’t get ethics reform in the final 2016-2017 state budget but they got the most secretive negotiation in history and a job-crushing minimum- wage hike,” he said. “Lawmakers were asked to vote on spending bills that omitted spending details, a new low for the budget process.” Cuomo aides said Kolb and other members were hypocritical because they voted for former Gov. George Pataki’s late budgets without knowing what was in them. Tales from the Sausage Factory - SUNY Press
Airbnb is Being Stopped by the Hotel Lobby Not the Bigger Problem of Fueling Gentrification Pushing Blacks Out of Their Neighborhoods
Airbnb’s burden to end any racial bias in its rentals (NYDN Ed) The online lodging service Airbnb has a race problem that the tech giant has a moral, if not legal, duty to expunge from its self-described “trusted community marketplace.” But, in a striking commentary on the true level of hidden racism in America, there is substantial evidence that the Airbnb “community” is less inclusive to African-Americans than to others. The Twitter hashtag #airbnbwhileblack, posted alongside screenshots of curt rejections by prospective hosts, sums up the experiences of users who suspect that their race played a role in denying them accommodations. They’re not paranoid. Harvard Business School researchers ran tests in Baltimore, Dallas, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Washington, D.C. They found that potential renters with black-sounding first names were 16% more likely to be rejected than those with white-sounding names, for that reason alone * Airbnb fights bill to ban advertising of illegal units (NYP) * * A political organization funded by a top hotel-trades union has helped develop the Share Better campaign – a multifaceted lobbying effort to persuade New York City politicians to curtail Airbnb, according to emails and records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.* Airbnb moved in, and there went my neighborhood * Let Airbnb be, governor: Permitting short-term rentals is good for all New Yorkers (NYDN Ed)
Manhattan landlord Steve Croman surrenders to face charges he threatened, sued rent-protected tenants to force them out for high-rent units (NYDN)
Ted Hamm @HammerDaily NYC landlord Steve Croman arrested for threatening rent-stabilized tenants--"secret weapon" is former NYPD cop
Airbnb Bad Neighbors, Warehouses Apartments -- Rising Rents and Increasing Gen
Months Ago True News Said the Campaign for One NY PAC Sending Should Count to His 2017 Spending Limits
How Bill de Blasio tore the heart out of NYC’s campaign laws (NYP) Should nakedly political spending by Mayor de Blasio’s pocket nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York, count against the legal limits on his re-election spending? The decision’s up to the city Campaign Finance Board — which is now dominated by appointees of the mayor and his hand-picked City Council speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, so don’t expect a crackdown. After all, in off years, the campaign spending cap is $328,000. Yet CONY has spent more than $4 million since 2013 to tout de Blasio’s political agenda. Because Team de Blasio raised that cash from a host of developers and unions with business before the city, it faces multiple probes. But Tusk is right that the whole arrangement is also a challenge to the city’s system of public campaign finance. If a mayor can use his power to freely raise and spend millions to boost his public profile, no challenger can hope for anything remotely close to a level playing field. Under the campaign-finance laws, the mayor is limited to spending $7 million through the 2017 primary election; if CONY outlays count, he’s already run through half of it. But if they don’t, then he’s made a mockery of the limit. De Blasio admits he created CONY — and actively raised cash for it — to advance his agenda. So it certainly doesn’t qualify as “independent expenditures,” which aren’t subject to CFB limits. And the CONY scheme defeated another goal of the laws, namely to limit the time politicians spend grubbing for cash. Just last month, Common Cause New York complained that the mayor’s use of the nonprofit has led to nonstop political fund-raising. Maybe it was technically legal. De Blasio helped write the campaign-finance laws, so he’s got the expertise to end-run them. We’ve never liked these laws, not least because they’re slanted to boost the power of unions and stifle political spending by the business community. But if the loopholes are truly this big, then the taxpayer-funded campaign-finance program is even more rigged than we ever imagined.
Albany Legislature Avoids Important Issues, Pass Feel Good Bills, As They Leave Town
Feds Interviewing de Blasio Donors
Groundhog Day NYCHA Spins Another Clean Up Lead Paint As Feds Investigate
The Daily News writes that child lead poisoning is a “serious issue” in public housing and that it fully merits federal investigators’ probe into how the New York City Housing Authority responded to the toxin’s presence in apartments. Failing to lead on lead: The trouble with NYCHA's lead remediation strategy (NYDN) Since 2010, city Department of Health tests have found dangerously high lead levels in 202 children living in 133 apartments. Still, Olatoye assured the City Council in March that just 18 of the apartments contained elevated levels of lead in paint, which becomes hazardous to children when it flakes or peels.What she failed to say, and what Greg Smith found in a Daily News special report, was that, using reliable X-ray technology that can detect lead through layers of paint, the Health Department had identified lead in 63 of the kids’ apartments. Rather than send in repair and repainting crews, NYCHA elected to challenge the Health Department’s results in all but a small number of cases. Running its own test, using paint chips pried from surfaces flagged as containing lead, NYCHA persuaded health inspectors that lead levels were safe in all but 17 (not 18) of the units. Because the lead typically lurks beneath more recently applied layers of paint, NYCHA insists it usually isn’t harmful. But chronically leaky housing projects, where sudden water damage frequently cracks walls and ceilings, demand far greater precaution. In all, NYCHA estimates that as many as 10,000 apartments home to tots contain untreated lead paint. Yet except in rare instances , the authority conducts remediation only after occupants move out, in order, the authority says, to work more safely in vacant apartments. Bubble Mayor No Town Hall de Blasio Spins and the NYC Press Defining Journalism Down
Is Spin Doctor de Blasio Telling Us He is Open to the Press? What Crap
De Blasio commends himself for giving the Post press credentials (NYP)
THE MAYOR WHO WANTS TO TELL REPORTERS WHAT QUESTIONS HE’LL PERMIT THEM TO ASK By Gabe Pressman
de Blasio Bad Story About His Administration - ATTACK THE PRESS
Media "Nattering Nabobs of Negativism"
De Blasio thinks homeless crisis is a case of ‘fear-mongering’ (NYP) Mayor de Blasio on Monday ripped The Post’s coverage of the homelessness crisis — and touted an estimated drop in the vagrant population based on a single-day census conducted in sub-freezing temperatures. * The Agnew de Blame the Press "Fear-Mongering" Edition * De Blasio 12/3/14: I had 2 “train” son "how 2 takespecial care w police." Today: “media...likes 2 look backwards” (Capital)
Council $655,000 Member Items Slush Fund Went to Federal Rat Rechunitz
De Blasio donor funneled $655K from City Council to fund law-enforcement seminar (NYP) A Mayor de Blasio donor under federal investigation for lavishing cops with gifts also helped pry taxpayer money from the City Council for a police training program he supported, The Post has learned. Real-estate investor Jona Rechnitz used his connections to siphon $655,000 over the past two years from the City Council to fund a law-enforcement sensitivity seminar at the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Museum of Tolerance, a source familiar with Rechnitz said. “Rechnitz was able to secure funding from the council for a program he had an affinity for, based on his status as a heavy political contributor,” the source said.The spokesman said Rechnitz has been a benefactor and volunteer at the Midtown museum since 2012. The Upper West Side macher gave the museum thousands of dollars in 2014 after winning $25,000 on a $500 Super Bowl prop bet. But Rechnitz’s primary role was recruiting scores of high-ranking cops and corrections officers to attend the center’s sensitivity-training program, called “Perspectives in Profiling.” “Jona helped introduce us to people at Corrections and the Police Department,” the museum source said. “He helped bring people to events and helped raise money for [the museum].” Two attendees included correction-union president Norman Seabrook and then-NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks, sources said. The top cops are under federal investigation for receiving gifts and travel fees from Rechnitz, sources have told The Post. Rechnitz allegedly funded several other jaunts for top brass to the Super Bowl, China, London, Brazil and Rome and golfing trips to the Dominican Republic, sources told The Post. He also bundled $41,650 for de Blasio’s 2013 campaign and wrote $50,000 in checks to the Campaign for One New York, a nonprofit promoting the mayor’s agenda, state campaign-finance records show. But Rechnitz needed help getting the City Council to fund his pet project, so he turned to the museum’s director, Rabbi Steven Burg, and its politically connected lobbyist then, Michael Cohen, a source said. “Cohen arranged for tours of the Wiesenthal Center for different lawmakers and arranged for funding as well,” the source said. “He introduced Rechnitz to other elected officials.” Burg declined comment. Cohen, hired as the museum’s director in October, did not return a call seeking comment. * Judge doubts hedge fund tied to kickback probe can pay debt (NYDN) A New York judge cast doubt Wednesday on whether Platinum Partners, the hedge fund holding $20 million in NYC corrections officers’ retirement funds, has enough money to pay back a measly $30 million debt. “Are they financially sound and capable of paying this debt?” Judge Salinann Scarpulla asked at a Manhattan state court hearing on Wednesday. “I haven’t seen evidence that the fund is worth a billion dollars. For all I know the fund is worth five cents,” an exacerbated Scarpulla said after failing to get satisfactory answers to her questions about the hedge fund’s financial status.Platinum claims to have $1.3 billion in assets on its web site. But it was in court Wednesday over $30 million owed to private equity firm New Mountain Finance, which claims the hedge fund has defaulted on its loan.
Last week, Platinum hedge fund manager Murray Huberfeld was arrested and accused of paying $60,000 in bribes to Norman Seabrook, president of the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association, in return for a $20 million investment in Platinum in 2014.
Daily News Supports Gentrification Caused by Airbnb
Let Airbnb be: Keep alive an in-demand lodging service (NYDN)Attention Airbnb users: The New York Legislature is poised to drive the hugely popular internet-based home-share service out of business in New York. Under pressure from the hotel industry and presenting exaggerated claims that Airbnb is killing affordable housing, lawmakers are moving to bar most advertising on the site and others like it. Airbnb connects would-be short-term renters (say, tourists from Omaha) with house and apartment dwellers seeking to make a few extra bucks by leasing out their premises. Technically, this is unlawful in most cases in New York City because the housing laws prohibit sublets of apartments for less that 30 days unless the tenant remains on site. Otherwise, an apartment becomes an illegal hotel. Regardless, tens of thousands of mini-landlords (for example, someone is going on vacation for a week) are connecting with people looking places to stay. Amid a tourist boom, it’s obvious why the politically powerful hotel industry and even more potent hotel union oppose Airbnb and similar services. Last year, they persuaded Upper West Side Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal to call for hitting apartment dwellers with fines of up to $50,000 for short-term rentals. The bill died. Now, the same forces are attacking from another angle in Albany. Upper West Side Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal (no relation to the councilmember) and Staten Island Sen. Andy Lanza are pushing a bill that would impose a $7,500 fine for advertising an apartment’s availability. Occasional short-term rentals help New Yorkers afford the city’s otherwise unaffordable cost of living. They should be left alone to commit victimless offenses that also make tourism more economical and thus more popular. True enough, some Airbnb users have made a business of taking control of numerous apartments and renting them out constantly, making tidy sums while in fact running illegal hotels. Airbnb insists that it drops such business from its site. Because the claim is not altogether credible — thanks to the company’s excessive, self-destructive secrecy — New Yorkers are on the verge of losing a business that is providing wanted services to potentially hundreds of thousands of people annually. Mayor de Blasio set up a unit designed to ferret out de facto illegal hotels. That’s a far better approach than taken by Rosenthal and Lanza. Punish the true violators, not the little folks.
Groundhog Day NY Peeing In the Street, Buffalo Billion Corruption Probe, School Control
De Blasio approves bills making it easier to pee and drink in the street (NYP)
Investors are pulling out of the Buffalo Billion project amid corruption probe (NYP)
Getting de Blasio school control isn’t on Cuomo’s to-do list (NYP)
Mark-Viverito Member Item Slush Fund Goes to Her Lobbyists Clients
Groups tied to Mark-Viverito to get nice chunk of city’s discretionary funds (NYP) ity Council spending on pet causes will spike to nearly $60 million in the coming fiscal year – about $3 million more than this year’s outlay, records show. The five percent increase is part of an $82.1 billion budget deal hammered out by Mayor de Blasio and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito last week. Some of the biggest winners in the discretionary cash dole-out include the Hispanic Federation, Communilife Inc. and the Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation, all of which are represented by lobbying firms tied to the Mark-Viverito, who controls much of that spending. Hispanic Federation and Communilife are both represented by the MirRam Group, which consulted on Mark-Viverito’s 2013 campaign. Communilife will take in $308,500 to provide “academic support and creative arts therapy” to at-risk Latina teens. The Hispanic Federation got $600,000 to “continue strengthening New York City’s growing Latino community.” Brooklyn Legal Services, which retains the lobbying firm Pitta Bishop Del Giorno & Giblin, raked in $300,000 to provide legal support for tenant organizers. Mark-Viverito paid Pitta Bishop $61,000 in consulting fees to help her become Council Speaker. The Bronx non-profit Regional Aid for Interim Needs also made out well, getting an earmark of $171,000, despite Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s finding last year that the group’s management used taxpayer dollars as a personal “piggy bank.” His office found the group diverted $800,000 in taxpayer funds for elderly services to pay off a mortgage on a vacant building and that its former director charged thousands of dollars of personal expenses to a company credit card.
Senate Dems Keep Fed Rat Rechnitz $$$ They Say They Do Not Have the Money Lobbyist Parkside Who Got Paid Over $6 Million By DSCC Should Folk Over the Hundred Thousand Rechnitz Donated
N.Y. Senate Dems won’t give back donation money from bigwig linked to NYPD scandal (NYDN)State Senate Democrats, who received a massive donation from a businessman at the center of a federal probe into the NYPD, won't refund the cash — even as others have said they'll give back similar contributions. Developer Jona Rechnitz, through a limited liability company he created, had donated the maximum $102,300 to the state Senate Democratic Campaign Committee in October 2014 at a time when Mayor de Blasio was helping the Dems raise money in their unsuccessful quest to win control of the chamber. "It's from the previous election cycle," a Senate Democratic official said. "It's been spent. We can't return the money because we don't have it." But De Blasio has said he is returning the $9,000 he received for his mayoral run in 2013 from Rechnitz and his wife. And Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who received $15,000 from Rechnitz's company in 2013, reportedly decided to make a donation from his campaign account in that amount to charity after it became public last week that the developer had pleaded guilty and is a cooperating witness in a case against Norman Seabrook, the now former head of the New York City corrections officers union. State Sen. Adriano Espaillat, who is running in a congressional primary this month, has already returned the $13,000 he received for his Senate reelection campaign from Rechnitz and his wife in 2014, a spokesman said. A spokesman for Assemblyman Walter Mosley, who received $4,100 from Rechnitz's company in 2014, could not be reached for comment Sunday.
Cuomo Who Used the Committee to Save NY PAC and Other PACs to Win Elections Is Now During A Federal Investigation of de Blasio Campaign for One NY PAC is Cracking Down on Citizen United PACs
NYPD More Arrests Coming
NYPD official: More arrests coming in corruption scandal (NYP) More people will be arrested as a result of the wide-ranging federal probe into police corruption, an NYPD official said Friday — two days after the city correction-union boss was busted as part of the investigation. “There will be charges in the future, but we’re not going to get into the time frame today,” Lawrence Byrne, the Police Department’s deputy commissioner for legal matters, said during a press conference at 1 Police Plaza. The feds and the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau are “aggressively pursuing a number of leads,” he said.
Up to Feds to Go After de Blasio's Straw Donors CFB Whick Low Fined the Speaker and Advance is a Puppet Joke
Will de Blasio pay for his straw-donor scandals? (NYP) The city Campaign Finance Board this week finished its audit of Joe Lhota’s 2013 campaign for mayor, imposing a small $2,800 fine for various minor irregularities. Here’s betting the fine for the de Blasio campaign winds up a lot larger.
Of course, the CFB may have to wait for the various federal and state criminal probes of de Blasio’s fund-raising to wind up first. But Post reporting has already tracked down some major areas of concern — including at least two straw-donor scandals. Straw donations are a classic (and illegal) way to end-run donation limits: Once you’ve maxed out under your own name, you pay third parties to “donate” under theirs. This week, The Post uncovered signs that this explains 2013 giving from some two dozen donors employed or affiliated with the Brooklyn-based Broadway Stages. Gina Argento, president of Broadway Stages, bundled $111,805 for de Blasio’s campaign and transition team in 2013. But many of the donors of record didn’t seem to recall making the contribution. One referred a reporter to his lawyer. Last month, The Post pointed to similar issues with gifts to de Blasio from drivers in the beauty-supply business, several of whom were seemingly so appreciative of his politics (and so well compensated) that they forked over thousands of dollars. All but one of the donations occurred on the same date in October 2013. Sm-Ali Amanollahi, owner of Queens-based Primary One, gave $5,000, as did two of his drivers and three of his associates. Days later, another Primary One worker added $2,500 more. All this, of course, is separate from the larger scandal: Too many of the mayor’s top donors do business with the city, and too many have received favorable treatment for their clients or their projects. What of the Campaign Finance Board? Because members’ terms are staggered, the mayor and his close ally, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, haven’t yet chosen the entire board, just a majority. We can hope that the holdovers from the Bloomberg-Quinn era will ensure an honest audit of de Blasio’s fund-raising — but it’s nice to have Preet Bharara and Cy Vance on the case, too.
Team de Blasio Knew About the Rivington Nursing Home from the Begining Shorris Lied
Memos Suggest City Hall Knew of Nursing Home’s Sale Early (NYT) In a pair of memos obtained by The New York Times, a top official in the de Blasio administration was apprised on the progress in removing the restrictions at Rivington House twice in the middle of 2015 — suggesting involvement and coordination by close advisers to Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, months earlier than the administration has acknowledged. In the memos the Department of Citywide Administrative Services informed the first deputy mayor, Anthony Shorris, that it was working to remove the restrictions after Allure Group, a for-profit nursing-home company, had agreed to pay the city $16.15 million to do so. The transactions that resulted in the lifting of the restrictions and the sale of the nursing home to condominium developers are the subject of parallel investigations by the state attorney general, the city comptroller and the city’s Investigation Department. “Landau seeks to remove the restrictions but intends to use the property as a for-profit nursing home,” the department’s then-commissioner, Stacey Cumberbatch, wrote to Mr. Shorris in a memo dated May 6, 2015, referring to an owner of the company, Joel Landau. “The next step is a public hearing,” she added, “prior to requesting a mayoral authorization document.” After the city removed the restrictions on the property, which barred any use other than as a nonprofit health care center, Allure Group sold the home to the developers in February for $116 million. Officials at City Hall have said that Mr. Shorris did not know until after the sale that the city had lifted all deed restrictions on the property. The first deputy mayor “learned of the transaction and the lifting of the full deed restriction in late February,” according to background on the deal provided by City Hall in April, after the transactions became public. “He did not know D.C.A.S. had lifted the deed restriction for Allure.” But in the May memo — and in another on July 8, 2015 — Ms. Cumberbatch updated Mr. Shorris as part of a weekly report on “items of interest.” “D.C.A.S. is proceeding to remove two use restrictions that were imposed when the Rivington House property was sold by the city in 1992,” the July memo explained, one limiting use to nonprofits, the other to health care providers. The department “expects to have a formalized deed modification approved by the Law Department in July,” according to the memo, copied to two members of Mr. Shorris’s staff.Mr. de Blasio has said he did not find out about the questionable deals surrounding Rivington House until he heard about it from the media. City Hall officials have said that Mr. Shorris and others, who were scrambling to address the issue in early March, did not bring it to the mayor’s attention because they were still gathering facts. The subject also did not come up, City Hall officials have said, during a meeting between Mr. de Blasio and Mark G. Peters, the commissioner of the Investigation Department, at City Hall on March 1, the same day that officials have said the agency began its inquiry. The city also halted all new deed changes that day. “It looks like there is movement on the Rivington House issue,” wrote Ms. Cumberbatch’s chief of staff, Sally Renfro, in an email on Sept. 2, 2014, to the general counsel for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services. She added that a staff member “from DM Shorris’s office called to ask if there are any other steps required to remove the deed restriction on Rivington House, assuming Village Care pays the appraisal amount,” referring to the original nonprofit owner of the home. de Blasio Build Baby Build Bigger DeBlasio trying hard to pass real estate friendly legislation in Albany * Brooklyn is officially the most unaffordable housing market in America (Business Insider)
Nobody Knew What Seabrook Was Doing With City Money Not Even His Own Union?
Seabrook made $20M investment behind union’s back, ex-official says (NYP) * Top correction officers union members so feared the wrath of their former boss, Norman Seabrook, who was arrested last week on corruption charges, that they dared not challenge his investment of $20 million in a risky hedge fund, the New York Post writes.* Ex-correction officer boss Norman Seabrook will hire high-priced lawyer in corruption probe (NYDN) The boss of the correction officers union, Norman Seabrook, is getting a high-priced lawyer in his corruption case, courtesy of the union he's charged with ripping off. The Correction Officers Benevolent Association is footing the bill for Paul Shechtman, who sources say typically charges at least $1,000 an hour.
Union boss drunkenly claimed it was time he ‘got paid’: feds (NYP) The longtime head of the city correction officers union steered $20 million in funds into a risky hedge fund in exchange for a $60,000 cash kickback that was stuffed into a brand-new Salvatore Ferragamo bag, the feds charged on Wednesday. Norman Seabrook — who drunkenly declared it was time he “got paid” for investing his union’s funds — and Platinum Partners founder Murray Huberfeld were charged with conspiracy and honest-services fraud for what Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara called “a very simple and straightforward quid pro quo.” Both men face a maximum 40 years if convicted on both counts.The feds say the scam was cooked up in late 2013 during a trip to the Dominican Republic paid for by a cooperating witness — identified by sources as real-estate investor and Mayor de Blasio donor Jona c During a night of heavy drinking, Seabrook — who’s run the Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association for the past 21 years — complained to Rechnitz that he worked hard to invest his union’s money. He said it was time that “Norman Seabrook got paid,” according to the court papers. Rechnitz then allegedly worked out an arrangement in which Seabrook would hand over a huge chunk of COBA’s cash funds to Platinum for 10 percent of its profit share, or an estimated $100,000 to $150,000 a year. Seabrook and Huberfeld later sealed the deal and COBA made an initial investment of $10 million worth of pension funds in March 2014 — the same month that Rechnitz paid for Seabrook to join him on a trip to Israel, according to the feds. Also on that trip was then-NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks — who had introduced Seabrook to Rechnitz — and Rechnitz pal Jeremy Reichberg, who sources said is identified in court papers as an uncharged co-conspirator in the case. * Union boss accused of spending members’ money on Jay Z tickets (NYP) * Disgraced union boss yanked from local radio spots (NYP) * Norman Seabrook’s Ouster as Union Chief May Complicate Overhaul at Rikers (NYT) The absence of the longtime president of New York City’s correction officers’ union, who is facing corruption charges, may pose headaches to advocates of jail reform.* Norman Seabrook ousted as correction officers union president following corruption charges (NYDN)Feds Real Target de Blasio Gets A Road Map
Cooperating Witness in Corruption Case May Assist in de Blasio Inquiries (NYR) An individual, referred to in a criminal complaint as “CW-1,” for Cooperating Witness 1, has agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.Of all the charges and the allegations in a 17-page criminal complaint accusing a powerful New York City union leader of corruption, perhaps the most far-reaching development was woven into the legal boilerplate, essentially hiding in plain sight. A person, referred to as “CW-1,” for Cooperating Witness 1, had agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.Mr. Rechnitz, who has generously supported several of Mr. de Blasio’s interests and served on the mayor’s inaugural committee, has pleaded guilty to fraud conspiracy charges in connection with the corruption case against Norman Seabrook, the influential leader of the union that represents the city’s correction officers, and another defendant, according to the complaint. But the significance of his decision to join the roster of government witnesses could go far beyond the case against the union leader, and have wide-ranging consequences for Mr. de Blasio. The complaint in the corruption case, along with statements by Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York (whose office brought it), and interviews with people with knowledge of the fund-raising inquiries, strongly suggest that Mr. Rechnitz could serve as an important witness in at least one of the fund-raising matters.At a news conference on Wednesday announcing the charges against Mr. Seabrook, Mr. Bharara declined to answer questions about the identity of CW-1 and the degree to which the witness could be helpful in other cases. But he noted that “the complaint does say that he is assisting other investigations as well; that’s all I’ll say.”
The Feds Have A Rat Rechnitz Spilling the Beans on the Putnam Senate Laundry
Cuomo Sticks It To de Blasio With New Campaign Finance Rules That Go After Campaign for OneNY
Cuomo unveils strict campaign finance rules amid de Blasio probe (NYP) Cuomo issued stricter guidelines Wednesday for campaign spending by independent committees — which would include those used by Mayor de Blasio.
In a speech at Fordham Law School, Cuomo unveiled the rules state agencies will follow to determine if committees like de Blasio’s the Campaign for One New York are truly independent. They’re not, he said, if “they share an office space, the candidate is appearing at their events.”Cuomo also proposed spending limits on such groups.* With the state legislative session wrapping up without movement on state ethics laws, Cuomo is attempting, via a legal memo and new legislation, to tighten restrictions on money given to candidates through independent expenditure committees, the Times reports. * * Cuomo’s multibillion-dollar upstate economic-development plans, including the massive Buffalo Billion project, may be derailed by growing nervousness from IBM and other companies over the continuing corruption probes, the Post’s Fred Dicker writes.
The Post Uncovers More 2013 de Blasio Straw Donors and Berlin Rosen Flack Levitan Flacks for Mayor Capalino Lobbyies
Questions surround film company’s massive de Blasio donations (NYP) Donors affiliated with a major TV and film production company who never gave more than $250 to any city office donated thousands to Mayor de Blasio in 2013 — and are now dodging questions about the big-money contributions. Of some two dozen donors employed or affiliated with Brooklyn-based Broadway Stages who were contacted by The Post, only the husband of company President Gina Argento said the $4,000 he gave came from his own pocket. Argento rounded up $111,805 for Mayor de Blasio’s campaign and transition committee in 2013, making her one of his biggest financial backers. Most of the generous donors didn’t respond to calls, but four told The Post they either couldn’t recall giving, had no knowledge of the donations or referred questions to their lawyers. “I don’t know anything about it,” said Bianca Netto, listed as giving $9,450 to de Blasio’s campaign and transition committee in October and December 2013. Two other donors listed as part of Argento’s bundling efforts weren’t able to confirm the accuracy of donation records. Monica Holowacz gave $4,000 through Argento while working as an office assistant at Lights on Brooklyn, records show. But when asked about the donation, she said: “I don’t know what you’re talking about” before hanging up. Joshua Huffman, a production coordinator for Woodridge Productions who gave $3,050 according to records, said he couldn’t remember the donation. “I don’t recall, but I’d have to talk to my lawyer about it,” he said. Last month, de Blasio’s campaign returned $32,200 to seven donors tied to a Queens beauty-supply company when questions were raised if the money they gave was their own. It is illegal to make a donation with someone else’s money. Dan Levitan, a spokesman for the mayor’s campaign, said it is “reviewing these donations and will take any appropriate action.” * Film company behind de Blasio donations also spent over $230K on lobbyists (NYP) Gina Argento, president of the film and TV production company that rounded up $111,805 for the mayor’s 2013 campaign and transition, has also spent $233,214 on lobbyists over the last two years. Argento, president of Brooklyn-based Broadway Stages, paid lobbyist James Capalino $53,214 in 2014 alone for an “introduction” to the mayor’s office, records show. Capalino, the city’s highest-earning lobbyist, has separately raised nearly $30,000 for de Blasio’s re-election.
SeaBrook Arrested: NYPD's GiftGate Rechinitz Interconnected
Bill to Force de Blasio to Release Agent of the City Emails
Proposed bill would force Mayor de Blasio to release correspondences with his designated ‘agents of the city’ (NYT) Mayor de Blasio would be forced to publicly release correspondences with his designated "agents of the city" under a bill quietly introduced by Senate Republicans. The bill by Sen. Terrence Murphy (R-Westchester) would clarify who would be exempted from the state Freedom of Information Law. The bill is the latest shot from the Senate GOP at de Blasio. De Blasio recently created the term “agents of the city” to keep correspondence between five outside political advisers and City Hall exempt from being made publicly available.
Howe Law Firm Directed Payment to Him
People familiar with matter said federal investigators are examining whether Todd Howe, a longtime associate of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, defrauded his former employer, Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, by diverting client payments to himself, The Wall Street Journal reports.
JCOPE Told Percoco Not to File Financial Disclosure Statement
Talk About Lessons Unlearned: Uber Lobbyists Tusk Wants to Pick de Blasio's Challenger
Ex-Bloomberg campaign aide on hunt for de Blasio challenger (NYP) Mike Bloomberg’s former campaign manager is so hellbent on dumping Mayor de Blasio that he launched a site Monday to recruit a challenger. “It’s an embarrassment that we have a mayor under massive federal investigation,” said Bradley Tusk, who helped orchestrate former Mayor Bloomberg’s 2009 third-term victory. “I’m going to put together an effort to find the best possible opponent. I’ll do whatever I can to help them,” he said.
NYP Pours On the Mayor Troubles While the Daily News Attacks GOP Senate
Scandals hurt de Blasio’s bid for extended school control(NYP) *
Our kids, mayor and control: State senate Republicans use kids for payback against de BlasioNYDN
De Blasio Shifts Away From His Re-election Message of ‘One City’ (NYT)
As investigations have swamped City Hall, the notion that Mayor Bill de Blasio has brought about a unified New York appears to have all but vanished as an argument for his winning a second term.
After the Corruption is Exposed the Comptroller Looks into Buffalo Billions
New York State comptroller looking into tax breaks given for Buffalo Billion program (Buffalo News) Part of larger N.Y. audit of economic programs* GOP state lawmakers urge more economic development oversight (TU) Republicans call for Buffalo Billion scrutiny
City Hall The Sound of Ordered Silence
City Hall Orders Staffers To Keep Their Mouths Shut Or Else (Gothamist) On April 27th, a few hours before news broke that several of his top aides had been subpoenaed in joint federal and state investigations into his fundraising practices, Mayor Bill de Blasio summoned City Hall employees into the bullpen for what one staffer described as “the most depressing pep talk.” “He said some of his closest aides have been unfairly targeted, and that it’s all political with no grounding in truth,” the source said, adding that de Blasio compared the investigations dogging his own administration to “how the Clinton administration was treated.” “He told us that no one is going to thank him for ‘not being dead’ because the homicide rate is down and Vision Zero is working,” the source recounted. “He said we should put our heads down and focus on our good work. He told us that the media will never be on our side.” To reinforce that final point, scores of City Hall staffers—some of whom have worked for Mayor de Blasio since he came into office—were recently asked to sign a confidentiality agreement. Another source who received the document from their superiors last Thursday said that they were told that all City Hall staff were expected to sign it immediately. All of the sources Gothamist spoke to requested anonymity and asked that we not name the agencies they work for, for fear of being fired for speaking to reporters, something they say has happened recently after the administration began cracking down on leaks. The form itself references two subsections of the city charter that prohibit public servants from disclosing city business unless it involves “conduct which the public servant knows or reasonably believes to involve waste, inefficiency, corruption, criminal activity, or conflict of interest.” City employees sign a similar document when they are hired, but one former city official who has worked under multiple administrations told us that “there’s no precedent I’ve ever heard of for a second signing like this.”No Lobbyists Firewall Inside Team Cuomo
Probed lobbyist was a member of Cuomo’s ‘inner circle’ (NYP) Cuomo’s renewed effort to distance himself from lobbyist and longtime associate Todd Howe flies in the face of Howe’s continuous role as a member of Cuomo’s “inner circle,” a source close to US Attorney Preet Bharara’s corruption probe told The Post. “From the start, when Cuomo took office, Todd was part of the inner circle of decision makers. He was basically part of the Cuomo administration,” said the source, who has first-hand knowledge of Bharara’s investigation. “Todd was a coequal to Joe Percoco and Howard Glaser and absolutely seen as the governor’s guy, even though he wasn’t on the state payroll and officially part of the government. “For Cuomo to suggest otherwise is ridiculous.” Percoco, Cuomo’s once-powerful deputy secretary and one of his closest friends, is being investigated by Bharara over money he received from state contractors while running the governor’s re-election campaign in 2014. Glaser is Cuomo’s former state operations director.* The Post’s Fred Dicker writes that Cuomo’s renewed effort to distance himself from lobbyist and longtime associate Todd Howe flies in the face of Howe’s continuous role as a member of Cuomo’s “inner circle.” * Trying to divert attention from probes into his administration, Cuomo’s state agencies have been asked to put together lists of successes that can be touted publicly and a top official convened staff to urge them to stay focused on their work, the Daily News’ Ken Lovett reports.
The de Blasio Years When Developers Ran the City
The people have spoken on Mayor de Blasio’s creative political fund-raising, now under the microscope of federal and state investigations. More than half of voters in a recent Quinnipiac poll say yes to the proposition “Do you think Mayor de Blasio does favors for developers who make political contributions to campaigns in which he is involved or don’t you think so?” Of those, all but a handful deem that conduct either unethical or outright illegal. Between the probes and the frequency with which his generous political donors also end up with blessings from the city for real estate projects, it’s no wonder New Yorkers turn a withering gaze on what sure looks like dirty business. Where de Blasio’s theory of civic transformation fell apart was on his own administration’s competence to swim with the real estate sharks who own New York . One donor gobbled the Lower East Side nursing home where apparently clueless city administrators lifted a deed restriction based on the buyer’s pinky promise to keep it a health facility — then flipped it for condominiums. Another blotted out the Upper East Side sky with a luxury tower many stories taller than zoning allows because the Department of Buildings got outfoxed by a wily developer who bent the rules. Another clue that de Blasio’s real estate bureaucracy is no match for the sharks: The stunning cancellation last week of Flushing West, one of seven much-heralded new housing development zones. And developers privately say that in outer-borough neighborhoods, de Blasio’s updated version of the 421-a tax break, which went belly-up in Albany, would have padded their profits far more than under the expired program — while counting as affordable apartments units renting for at or close to market rate. We can call all of these bargains with the sharks win-wins — and de Blasio does. We can call them giveaways to wealthy developers. Perhaps the corruption label will ultimately stick — but far likelier we’ll remember the de Blasio years as the era when real estate ran the city.
What About the Super Talls Building That Are killing New York City's Neighborhoods?A de Blasio-backed bill aimed at boosting the city’s affordable-housing stock by lifting a state cap on the size of residential projects has suddenly gained steam in Albany and could be approved later this month, the Post writes.
Both Came to Light Because of A Federal Investigation Not Pols Who Look the Other Way
Both of those fails came to light only because community boards and City Council members Margaret Chin and Ben Kallos sprang into action at the behest of constituents who had gotten the cold shoulder from the mayor’s side of City Hall.
Cuomo Moves State Police Into NYC
Cuomo has chosen the location for his costly new State Police headquarters in Manhattan just steps from City Hall, where about 150 state troopers will take over about four floors of office space, yet another clear jab at de Blasio, the Post writes.
Control of City Schools Up In the Air
State Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan has continued to torment Mayor Bill de Blasio as the mayor lobbies to have mayoral control of schools extended, introducing a one-year extension with new oversight that drew swift criticism, the Times writes. * The fate of mayoral control over New York City schools could come down to a political game of chicken, with the Assembly Democrats in the position to force the Senate GOP into a take it-or-leave it three-year extension of the expiring law, the Daily News’ Ken Lovett reports.
The multimilliondollar payoff: How New York’s most powerful politicians use the LLC loophole to rake in money hand over fist from many of the state’s most powerful business interests
Nick Reisman @NickReisman Republican state lawmakers Rob Ortt and
Ray Walter are calling for Comptroller Tom DiNapoli to investigate Buffalo Billion contracting.
New York's Latest Pork Push Is Shady, Even by Albany Standards (Manhatten Institute)
LeBrun: Taxpayers pay for Buffalo Billion project | Albany Times-Union
How Did the JCOPE and the Press Miss the Corruption?
New Concerns at JCOPE
One moment someone is working for a state agency, the next he’s lobbying that agency on behalf of a client. One day his name is on public records as a lobbyist, the next it’s gone. One day another person is working for the governor, the next he’s working for the governor’s campaign, and for people doing business with the state. A few months later he’s back in state service, where that private work is banned. These are some of the odd scenarios that are emerging amid a federal investigation that’s raised questions about possible corruption in the Cuomo administration, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, and the Buffalo Billion project. What may be just as disturbing is that all this is being looked into by the U.S. Justice Department, not by the state entity that is supposed to be on top of these sorts of things, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics. JCOPE says that it’s constrained from discussing matters that reflect its own shortcomings, lapses, and failures. Of course.THE OBSERVATION DECK New concerns at JCOPE. It’s a short trip deep into the weeds of these scandals, in which two longtime aides to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Joseph Percoco and Todd Howe, are central figures. But to put it simply: Mr. Percoco, the governor’s former executive deputy secretary, collected tens of thousands of dollars in consulting fees from firms doing business with the state while he was briefly on leave from state service to head up the governor’s campaign. Mr. Howe, who worked for Mr. Cuomo when he was U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary, worked for SUNY Poly, and had an office on the campus, even while he was representing clients doing business with SUNY Poly. These apparent conflicts, blurred ethical lines, and revolving doors so active it’s a wonder the Capitol needs air conditioning, have been there for JCOPE to see in black and white in its own records.Or, at least, they were. Recently, Mr. Howe’s name was scrubbed from JCOPE’s website as if his lobbying work never happened. Now we learn lobbying firms can alter their own state records. JCOPE’s explanation? No comment. Not commenting seems to be what JCOPE – an agency that is supposed to bring more transparency to state government – does best. We understand that an investigative body like JCOPE needs a certain degree of confidentiality to protect the integrity of investigations. But JCOPE has all too often used secrecy as an excuse to avoid being transparent and accountable about its own operations and performance. And so the questions mount: How did JCOPE miss possible corruption that the U.S. Attorney is now looking into? How was potential evidence scrubbed from its site? This isn’t just about blame, but about whether JCOPE is up to its watchdog mission, or whether the Legislature needs to revisit this watchdog’s structure and funding. The whole point of JCOPE is to help keep government open, honest and accountable. That’s got to start with JCOPE embodying what the rest of state government needs to be.
De Blasio says investigations are just part of the job (NYP) He’s the only city elected official known to be under investigation — but Mayor de Blasio insists probes of those in public office are a dime a dozen. “I think investigations are unfortunately, in modern American public life, they are part of the woodwork now,” the mayor (left) said Friday on NY1.
US Attorney Bharara @PreetBharar8h
"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth." -- Muhammad Ali #RIP
With Not Real Follow Up Questions WNYC's Lehrer Allow de Blasio to Groundhog Day Answer "I Know Nothing"
Feds have trove of evidence from restaurant owner popular with NYPD bosses (NYP) The feds have collected months of wiretaps and as many as 30,000 e-mails in the case against a restaurant owner who was pals with high-ranking NYPD officers facing a corruption probe. “The discovery is fairly voluminous,” Manhattan Assistant US Attorney Russell Capone said Friday at Hamlet Peralta’s arraignment in an alleged Ponzi scheme. Peralta, who owned the now-shuttered Hudson River Café, was arrested in April over the alleged $12 million Ponzi scheme. On Friday, he pleaded not guilty to soliciting other people’s money for a fictitious liquor-wholesale business. The Hudson River Café served as “a clubhouse for the bosses,” including former Chief of Department Philip Banks III and Deputy Chief David Colon, both of whom have been ensnared in an FBI probe into gifts in exchange for official favors. Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara’s office declined to comment on whether any of the evidence collected in Peralta’s Ponzi case could implicate his NYPD pals in the gifts-for-favors probe. But prosecutors have said the failed restaurateur was so close with the cops he traveled to the Dominican Republic with “a very, very high-ranking officer for the NYPD” whom The Post has identified as Banks.
de Blasio's Blaming Reporters Again
A deBlasio Administration That Governs By Incompetence and Obstruction
Destroying HHC
No Leadership of NYPD
de Blasio's Lawyers Say the State Senate $$ Laundry Was OK With Lobbyists
De Blasio’s 2014 memo laid out rules for Senate fundraising
(TU) In an Oct. 8, 2014 confidential memo, the campaign finance attorney for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio laid out his interpretation of what was allowed and not allowed under state election law in the mayor’s efforts that year to swing the state Senate to Democratic control. The memo, obtained by the Times Union, could well be an important piece of evidence in the unfolding investigation of Southern District U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance into whether de Blasio’s team crossed the line and illegally circumvented campaign fundraising limits in the 2014 elections. Late in that campaign season, fundraisers for de Blasio raised copious dollars that were then transferred into several largely dormant upstate Democratic county committees that could accept six-figure checks from each donor.The committees then quickly transferred funds into the accounts of four Democratic state Senate candidates, which could take unlimited sums from the Democratic county committees. If the donors had given directly to the candidates, they would have been limited to gifts of about $10,000. Then, de Blasio’s own campaign consultants were often on the receiving end of the spending by the Senate committees. The Oct. 8 memo was written by Laurence Laufer, a top campaign finance lawyer in New York who once wrote the New York City Campaign Finance Board’s regulations. It went to Emma Wolfe, a top de Blasio political aide, and Josh Gold, then the head of the Hotel Trades Council, who were both involve in Team De Blasio’s 2014 efforts. The election law issue at hand is “Earmarking,” the memo’s title: Whether a donation has been passed through one campaign committee to another with the intent to circumvent campaign contribution limits. If so, that would be a violation of state election law resulting in up to a Class E felony charge. In essence, Laufer’s argument in 2014 was that earmarking cannot occur without the contributor itself making such an arrangement, and that under certain restrictions, political consultants can be involved in various steps along the way as the funds are passed.This January, the state Board of Elections enforcement counsel, Risa Sugarman, issued a confidential report finding reasonable cause exists to believe “a violation warranting criminal prosecution has taken place” up to a Class E felony in the course of de Blasio’s 2014 campaign efforts. As was revealed this week, the report was then leaked by a Republican state Board of Elections spokesman. Perhaps the most damning evidence in Sugarman’s report was an Oct. 16 email from Democratic state Sen. Cecilia Tkaczyk’s campaign manager to the treasurer of one of the upstate Democratic committees, the Ulster County Democratic Committee, asking if a $60,000 check from the committee to the candidate had cleared. According to Sugarman’s report, the email indicated that the Tzaczyk campaign was aware of a $60,000 donation that the Ulster Democrats had received from a de Blasio-friendly union, the New York State Nurses Association, which would then be passed along from the committee to the candidate. According to Laufer’s memo eight days before that email, however, that would not necessarily be earmarking. According to Laufer’s 2014 memo, “Earmarking occurs only when the contributor gives some kind of direction to an intermediate recipient regarding the ultimate use of the contributor’s contribution. For example, if the contributor, either directly or through his agent, places restrictions on how the intermediate recipient may use his contribution that may be seen as earmarking.” In other words, according to Laufer, NYSNA or its agent would have to have directed the Ulster Democrats to steer the contribution to Tzaczyk.Sugarman’s memo also cited the fact that Team de Blasio, which consisted of a number of political operatives, had coordinated its activities with county committees and candidates, while also raising the funds. Laufer added in the 2014 memo to Wolfe and Gold, however, that “There is no provision of the Election Law that would preclude a campaign consultant or volunteer from both raising funds and providing advice to the funds-recipient regarding the optimal campaign use of the funds raised. I daresay this happens in every political campaign.” Laufer added, “The only caveats are (i) the fundraiser/consultant/volunteer should not convey any direction from the contributor to the county committee regarding the use of that contributor’s contribution, and (ii) the person providing advice to the county committee should not be an agent of the contributor.” Here is Laufer’s 2014 memo, with Sugarman’s 2016 report critiquing de Blasio’s fundraising efforts below that. * @BilldeBlasio attorney memo offered narrow definition of 'earmarking'(PoliticoNY)
Lawyers for John Sampson say the ex-state senator deserves a sentencing break — because he’s not as bad as Dean Skelos. In papers filed Thursday in Brooklyn federal court
Firm's filing removed Howe's name from lobbying records (TU) Todd Howe is no longer listed in JCOPE online records New York's lobbying firms can somehow retroactively wipe the names of their employees from state records — an erasure that happened recently in the case of Todd Howe, a central figure in an ongoing federal investigation. On May 5 — days after Howe's name surfaced in the federal probe — the Albany law firm Whiteman, Osterman & Hannasubmitted an online "additional lobbyist termination" that appears to have resulted in the deletion of Howe's name from the firm's online filings for several clients, records show. The online process can be performed unilaterally by firms without JCOPE approval, according to two sources with knowledge of the watchdog entity's protocols. Howe's name disappeared from Whiteman Osterman's roster of lobbyists representing Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, COR Development in the Syracuse area, LPCiminelli in Buffalo, and SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Albany, according to JCOPE records. The latter three are of interest in the federal investigation currently being conducted by U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara. But Howe's name was not just deleted going forward, but also for records already posted online, taking from public view the limited record of Howe's past lobbying in New York.
Only Question Left is de Blasio A Cynical Liar or A Delusional Liar?
Big bad bully boy Bill: De Blasio's deadwrong Board of Elections conspiracy theory (NYDN)On Apl 22, the Daily News reported that the state Board of Elections enforcement counsel had referred Mayor de Blasio’s aides for potential criminal prosecution based on “willful and flagrant” violations of campaign finance laws. In the ensuing conflagration, de Blasio first suggested, then as much as accused Gov. Cuomo of orchestrating an illfounded hit job, his conclusion being that enforcement counsel Risa Sugarman, a Cuomo appointee, had leaked her findings to News Albany Bureau Chief Ken Lovett. Dead wrong. Additionally, claiming to be the victim of a similarly Cuomoinspired witchhunt, the mayor has refused to reply to subpoenas issued by state ethics commission executive director Seth Agata. Well, the state inspector general reported Tuesday that Board of Elections Director of Public Information John Conklin, a Republican appointee, had given the material to Lovett, as well as to a PR aide to state Senate Republicans. While the inspector general did not say so directly, Conklin had access to Sugarman’s documents as a member of a small group of Board of Elections officials who participate in the panel’s confidential executive sessions. At one such meeting, the board voted on Sugarman’s plan to send her findings to Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr.So, quite fairly, Sugarman issued a statement: “Allegations were made primarily by the New York City mayor that I leaked the report due to political motivations. Now that we know the facts, I hope the mayor will apologize for maligning my integrity and professionalism.” Continuing de Blasio’s disproven insinuations, spokeswoman Karen Hinton tweeted of Sugarman: “Looks like she ‘lost’ a copy to someone at her own agency.” Cuomo on Wednesday more than fairly criticized de Blasio for “punching down” to groundlessly impugn the integrity of public servants. The mayor’s small-man gracelessness speaks for itself.
Even the Conviction of the Two Albany Leaders Does Not Stop Pots of Memeber Item Pork in Albany Budget
Editor's Note: True News Will Soon Be Up to Full Speed Showing How the Media is Covering Up New York's Corrupt Election System
Even the Conviction of the Two Albany Leaders Does Not Stop Pots of Memeber Item Pork in Albany Budget
New York’s latest pork push is shady, even by Albany standards(NYP) Call it pig in a blanket. Gov. Cuomo and state legislative leaders have brought pork back bigtime, wrapped in a dense layer of bureaucracy and with a side of alphabetsoup misdirection. Last week, the state Public Authorities Control Board approved nearly $500 million in taxpayerbacked borrowing for a solarpanel factory that’s at the heart of a federal probe into Gov. Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion initiative. It wasn’t the only dubious item rubberstamped by the board’s three members, who are standins for Cuomo, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan. At the same meeting, the board cleared $210 million in new state bonding for the State and Municipal Facilities Program, also known as SAM. The bonds will be issued by the state Dormitory Authority (an allpurpose, offbudget borrowing machine for which the financing of actual college dorms is now a minor sideline). SAM first appeared in the fiscal 2014 budget as a $385 million program to support local government and school capital needs, with no clear criteria for project selection. Since then, its lumpsum appropriation has been steadily increased to $1.5 billion — and the description of eligible purposes has been expanded to cover “economic development” projects that “create or retain jobs.” In Albany terms, just about anything.
Editor's Note: True News Will Soon Be Up to Full Speed Showing How the Media is Covering Up New York's Corrupt Election System
Heastie Cool With Federal Prob
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie is ‘comfortable’ with federal probe, says it comes with the territory (NYDN) Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie Thursday downplayed a federal probe into him, saying it comes with the territory of holding a powerful position. "For me when I took on this job as speaker, I knew that anything that I've done or will do into the future will be scrutinized," Heastie told reporters. "I'm comfortable with it. I accept it." Heastie was responding to a Daily News story that Michael Benedetto, the treasurer of the Bronx Democratic Committee, was recently subpoenaed and interviewed by federal investigators looking into reimbursements paid to Heastie when he headed the organization before becoming speaker. "I am not concerned about any transaction that ever happened while I was county chair," Heastie said. Records show Heastie spent tens of thousands of dollars in campaign cash on repairs to his personal car while at the same time billing taxpayers $72,512 for mileage reimbursements, records show. He also rang up vehicle costs as Bronx Democratic leader. “Remember the per diem reimbursements only reimburses you for your travel from Albany back home,” he said. “You don't get per diems for travel in the city, while you’re doing your job or campaign purposes. So you are perfectly able to use campaign funds if you use your car for campaign purposes — and that's what I did.”
At Least Two de Blasio Spreadsheet Appointments Have Integrity Issues
Donors got political positions from Mayor de Blasio despite red flags indicating integrity issues (NYDN) When Mayor de Blasio was doling out political appointments to big campaign donors, sometimes it was best to look the other way. Companies owned by two big contributors de Blasio appointed to VIP slots had serious integrity issues before the mayor rewarded them for their money-raising, a Daily News review has found. One coowned a company the city had declared lacked “good character, honesty and integrity,” while the other owed the city $1.2 million in lease payments and fees. Not a problem. The mayor appointed both to several advisory boards. Businesswoman Gina Argento made the list after raising $97,780 for the mayor through bundled checks from friends and employees of her firm, Broadway Stage. And in January 2014, she was first in line to write checks totaling $50,000 for the Campaign for One New York, the fund de Blasio set up to support his causes. Most of Argento’s checks to de Blasio started arriving Oct. 1, 2013 — a month before he was elected and not long after the city Business Integrity Commission found a firm she coowned, Luna Lighting Inc., “lacks good character, honesty and integrity.” In May 2013, the commission rejected Luna’s request for a waste hauling license on two grounds: Luna had paid an $18,000 fine after admitting it repeatedly illegally hauled construction debris and ignored city demands to pay off a $620,000 IRS tax lien. A little over a year later, de Blasio put Argento on his Fund for the Advancement of New York City, a nonprofit run by his wife, Chirlane McCray, that raises private funds for city programs.And he put her on his committee to try to lure the Democratic National Convention to Brooklyn, and the city’s Workforce Investment Board, which advises the city on workforce issues and oversaw a $65.5 million budget in 2014. It’s unclear whether Argento paid the back taxes. She did not return repeat calls seeking comment. Then there’s donor Harendra Singh, a restaurateur who raised $21,425 for de Blasio’s 2013 campaign from friends and family. Singh made the spreadsheet in early 2014 as a candidate for appointment to the Mayor’s Fund advisory board and the DNC committee. But the spreadsheet noted an unspecified “vetting issue” with the phrase “r/flags.” Perhaps the “issue” was this: A May 30, 2014, city audit found one of Singh’s restaurants, Water’s Edge on cityowned land in Queens, owed the city $1.2 million in back rent and late fees. A month later in June 2014, Singh was appointed to the Mayor’s Fund and the DNC committee. He stayed on the fund’s board even after the city sued him in February 2015. Then in September, Singh was indicted by the feds on a number of charges, including $1 million in Hurricane Sandy fraud related to Water’s Edge. Days later, he was removed from the board of the Mayor’s Fund. The mayor declined to discuss his appointment, and Singh’s lawyer, Anthony La Pinta, also declined comment. Singh did not return calls for comment. Singh is a restaurateur who’d bundled $10,425 for de Blasio and raised another $11,000 from his family for the mayor’s 2013 campaign.*
DNAINFO: Mayor Returns $ 56,700 Possible Straw Donor $$$$
Anthony Bonomo, a big BdB bundler on this list to get city appointment, played starring role in Skelos & son trial
Who Leaked the BOE Report to the Mayor and Common Cause?
But it sure seems like it had a pay-to-play system in place — whether technically in violation of the Conflict Board’s directive or not. And, by the way, it’d be pretty hard for City Hall to anger the five-member board; the mayor, after all, picked its chairman and another member, Fernando Bohorquez Jr. — a de Blasio donor and fund-raiser. On Hot 97 radio this week, de Blasio tried to justify his shady practices. He really, really wants “private money, in general, out of politics,” you see. But “until we get there,” he shouldn’t be attacked for playing by the same rules as others. (And just ignore the fact that “others” never stooped to selling City Hall.) The mayor has no qualms, in short, about operating in ways he himself finds sleazy. No wonder he’s facing five separate probes by federal, state and local authorities.* Mayor de Blasioinsists campaign lawyers serve him well throughout fund-raising probe (NYDN) The mayor said he doesn’t want to “conjecture” why City Hall has been on the receiving end of a federal subpoena — along with his top aide and a fund-raiser — but again stated he was unfairly singled out as a target by the state Board of Elections. De Blasio also defended his now-disbanded Campaign for One New York after NY1 reported that the Conflicts of Interest Board warned him to avoid soliciting “anyone with a matter pending or about to be pending.” He insisted he hadn’t, despite the fact that many union, real estate and lobbyist donors had business before the city.* De Blasio Asked Mefor $20K And it Was Hard to Say No, Developer Says )DNAINFO) — A real estate developer said Bill de Blasio personally called him him to donate $20,000 to a nonprofit to promote universal pre-K while he had business before the city — and that it was hard "to tell the mayor no." Don Peebles, whose real estate company owned a building they later got city approval to turn into condos, told DNAinfo New York that in March 2014 he received a call from the mayor asking him to contribute the money to the nonprofit, now called the Campaign for One New York. Federal and state investigators are probing whether the nonprofit illegally raised funds and if contributors got favors from the city in exchange for their donation
de Blasio Has A Payoff Spreadsheet of Big Donors Just Like Tammany Hall Did
All told 28 candidates wound up on the board of the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City, the nonprofit run by his wife, Chirlane McCray. Some also got slots on the mayor’s committee that unsuccessfully sought to bring the Democratic National Convention to Brooklyn. Others won appointments to the city’s Economic Development Corp. board, the Civilian Complaint Review Board, a mayoral Workforce Development Board and the boards of Lincoln Center, the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp., the Fund for Public Schools and the Queens Library.
Sometimes City Hall consulted with de Blasio’s campaign on candidates. With one of de Blasio’s biggest bundlers, businessman Anthony Bonomo, the list states City Hall was to “ask Elana Leopold before we go any further.” Leopold is a longtime de Blasio campaign worker. Bonomo — who bundled $44,550 for de Blasio — was put on the Mayor’s Fund and got a personal sitdown with the mayor at City Hall on April 23, 2015. He could not be reached for comment. The list also reveals coordination between the mayor's lobbying fund, Campaign for One New York, and his administration. The mayor, who formed the group to support his causes, has been criticized for using it to evade the $4,950 donation limit. Campaign for One New York donors gave unlimited amounts as high as $350,000. The list obtained by The News shows that Campaign for One New York Director Ross Offinger recommended several candidates for appointments, including philanthropist Lorna Brett Howard, who’d just given the organization a $10,000 check. De Blasio then put her on the Mayor’s Fund board. Offinger has received a subpoena from investigators looking into de Blasio’s fundraising. Nearly all the candidates appeared to need approval from Emma Wolfe, a top de Blasio deputy who deals with lobbyists. Wolfe has also received a subpoena in the ongoing fundraising probes. Twice Wolfe gave her approval — “EW approves” — for the mayor to appoint lobbyists who records show were actively lobbying her on behalf of their clients. Lobbyist James Capalino and another lobbyist in his firm, George Fontas, got an “EW approves” while both were seeking her support for a client’s proposed condo tower at the former Long Island College Hospital site in Brooklyn. Neither got appointments, but Capalino and Fontas’ lobbying of Wolfe apparently paid off. The Campaign for One New York sent out a mailer in support of the apartment tower Capalino’s client was pushing for the hospital site. Veteran lobbyist Sid Davidoff made it on the list with the caveat “look up client list.” The mayor gave him a position on the Wildlife Conservation Commission. The list also notes public relations rep Steve Aiello was recommended for a slot on the Jazz at Lincoln Center board “per Sid Davidoff.” Aiello, a big jazz fan, got it.*
What Scandal? Cuomo Job Performance Unchanged
New @SienaResearch poll out this AM. @NYGovCuomo: 54-40 favorable. @HillaryClinton: 46-51 unfavorable. @realDonaldTrump: 2768 unfavorable. 42% of "excellent" or "good", 58% rate it "fair" or "poor". 42% of respondents to @SienaResearch poll rate @NYGovCuomo's job performance as "excellent" or "good", 58% rate it "fair" or "poor".* Siena Poll: Most Voters Believe Cuomo Is Ethical* Cuomo says fed investigation limited to Percoco/Howe, but given subpoenas, that seems unlikely * A source tells Newsday federal investigators have sought communications from high ranking Cuomo officials, including Bill Mulrow, the governor’s secretary and top adviser; Jim Malatras, the director of state operations; and Gil Quinones, head of the New York Power Authority.
Sheinkopf and Other Lobbyists Blocking Child Sex Law Reforms
Catholic Church spent $2M on major N.Y. lobbying firms to block childsex law reform (NYDN) The Catholic Conference, headed by Timothy Cardinal Dolan, has used Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, Patricia Lynch & Associates, Hank Sheinkopf, and Mark Behan Communications to lobby against the Child Victims Act as well as for or against other measures. All told, the conference spent more than $2.1 million on lobbying from 2007 through the end of 2015, state records show. That does not include the conference’s own internal lobbying team. Wilson Elser has long been Albany’s biggest lobbying firm. The firm represented the Catholic Conference from at least 2007 through the end of 2015 and was paid more than $1 million during that time, according to online filings with the state Joint Commission on Public Ethics. In its place, state records show, the Catholic Conference hired another prominent firm, Greenberg Traurig, which it is paying $6,000-amonth. The lobbyist from the firm representing the Church is Michael Murphy, who used to be an assistant counsel for the Senate Republicans. Another top firm, Patricia Lynch & Associates, whose namesake had close ties to now disgraced Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, was hired by the Catholic Conference in 2009. Lynch’s firm for many years was ranked in the top 3 of wellpaid lobbyists. Lynch’s hiring by the Catholic Conference came after the Assembly passed different versions of the Child Victims Act four times from 2006 to 2008. The measure never came up again for a vote after Lynch was hired. State lobbying records show the firm’s contract with the Catholic Conference was terminated earlier this year, not long after Lynch was outed in court papers as having had an affair with Silver. Hank Sheinkopf runs a firm hired by the church to lobby in Albany. Sheinkopf has close ties to Albany pols, including Gov. Cuomo.
Park Commissioner de Blasio Did Not Tell Him About the Rat Bags NYP Reporter Never Asked Silver Who Did? Can We See Park Commissioner and Team de Blasio's Emails on the Bags?
Bharara to Cuomo Investigator: Stay Away from Buffalo Billions
Is Cuomo's Investigator Bart Schwartz Trying to Mess Up Bharara's Investigation?
Brennan Retires From Assembly After 32 Years Brooklyn Boss Trying to Picking Slate in Once Liberal Park Slope
Does the Daily News Think Getting Rid of LLCs is Going to Clean Up Albany? The Same Real Estate LLCs Created the Jobs for NY PAC to Buy he City Council
While Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie have supported bills to close the so-called LLC loophole, state Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan has not and is likely not to support any of the bills the governor has introduced, the Daily News writes. Champion of corruption: John Flanagan won’t say yes to closing a gaping campaign finance loophole (NYDN) The truth and dare game thrown into the Legislature by Gov. Cuomo is clarifying who will support and who will fight a major anti-corruption reform. Cuomo filed bills to close the so-called LLC loophole that allows wealthy interests to donate unlimited amounts to politicians. He submitted eight measures, ranging from eliminating the loophole for all state political seats to targeting specific elected offices. Democratic Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie backs wiping the loophole off the books. So he is in sync there with Cuomo. That leaves the Senate, led by Republican John Flanagan. The dare has been put to him: Go for just one of the governor’s choices, even for gubernatorial races alone, and throw the challenge back at Cuomo and the Assembly. We’re not holding our breath. The truth is Flanagan is ready to keep the corruption font flowing.
Bratton Spins Low Crime On A Night of Gunfire Across 5 Boroughs
Teen killed, dozens wounded in a spate of #MemorialDay2016 gunfire across 5 boroughs (NYDN) *
Bratton Spins Low Crime On A Night of Gunfire Across 5 Boroughs
My husband had to duck in a shooting two weeks ago, & yet I can still manage to trust statistics, not anecdote.
Michael Benjamin @SquarePegDem Teen killed, 13 hurt in spree of holiday weekend gunfire in NYC Memorial Day Weekend Shootings Leave One Dead, 16 Injured in New York * MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND MAYHEM: Teen killed, 13 hurt during spree of gunfire throughout New York City's five boroughs * A teenager was killed and 16 others were injured in a dozen shooting incidents spanning all five New York City boroughs during the Memorial Day weekend. * Massive corruption probe is sparking an exodus at the NYPD
More de Blasio Shady Changing Deed Restriction Deals Rivington Nursing Home Not the Only One
Daily News Agrees With Beth Israel Hospitals Plan to Kill People By Becoming Smaller
Another Hospital to Close for Condos In deBlassioVille
Mt. Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in Manhattan Will Close to Rebuild Smaller (NYT) The hospital, which has served the downtown area for more than 125 years, is now on a growing list of city hospitals to either close or change its services significantly since 2000.*
Hospital After Hospital Close in de Blasio's NYC
Indictments Coming for Hynes and His Walking Dead Team
Manhattan Subpoenas DA Team de Blasio Monrow Campaign for 1 NY Senate $$ Laundry
Friday Spin: de Blasio Special Agents Demoted to Just Advisors Still Keeping Their Emails Secret
Probe into Mayor deBlasio’s fund-raising operation expands, with subpoena delivered to MonroeCounty (NYDN) Vance’s office has been investigating whether de Blasio’s 2014 effort to elect a Democratic majority in the state Senate violated campaign finance laws by funneling money to the candidates via local party committees. The probe was sparked by a referral from state Board of Elections Chief Enforcement Officer Risa Sugarman, who found evidence of “willful and flagrant” violations of the law. The latest subpoena comes after Monroe County GOP Chairman Bill Reilich complained in an April letter to Sugarman that the same de Blasio-pattern of funneling big-dollar contributions to local party committees was evident in the 2014 re-election campaign of then Sen. Ted O’Brien, a Monroe County Democrat and one of the candidates backed by the mayor. Reilich cited three contributions from city-based unions: a $100,000 donation from CWA District 1's political action committee, a $100,000 donation from the United Federation of Teachers' PAC, and $25,000 from building workers union 32BJ's PAC. The US Attorney’s Office and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office have launched overlapping probes into his fund-raising and other law enforcement agencies — including the state Attorney General — are looking at a city-approved land deal that netted a developer a $72 million profit to build luxury housing. The mayor has repeatedly said that his fund-raising was above board, and that the land deal — which was pushed by a lobbyist who has donated heavily to his campaigns —was handled poorly. Last week, the de Blasio administration revealed it had appointed five private citizens who are close with the mayor as “agents of the city” — and exempted them from transparency laws when they were giving advice to the mayor. Usually, correspondence between the mayor and members of the public are released if someone requests under Freedom of Information laws. Some of the agents, most of whom are private sector political consultants with long ties to de Blasio, have clients with city business. De Blasio said they don’t talk business, but if they did that correspondence would be available. He appears to be rethinking the term “agent of the city,” a widely derided designation coined by his top lawyer. “I call them advisors,” he said. “I think that’s the right phrase.”
Are New Yorkers Dumb Enough to Elect A Convicted Pol You Bet
Howe' Law Firm Cuomo's Pay to Play Partner A Mortgage Firm in the Middle Percoco Get A Free House
U.S. attorney sheds light on relationship between a lobbyist at the center of an investigation and Albany law firm
@Credico2016 Classic ivestigative journalism at its finest in Albany..kudos to @ChrisBragg1
de Blasio Distracted by the Investigation Ruling From the Bunker, Hanging By His City Agents Lawyers
According to documents and people familiar with the matter, large gaps in Mayor Bill de Blasio’s schedule are now filled with private meetings and calls away from City Hall since multiple investigations into his fundraising and administration began
AG Raids Cuomo's Lobbyist Howe
de Blasio's Kitchen Cabinet Includes Lobbyists With Clients Who Do Business With the City
Groundhog Bagdad Bob Wilhelm Blaming the Media On Ass Kisser WNYC's Lehrer
Mayor de Blasio emerges from hiding — only to dodge again (NYP) New York’s duck-and-cover-up mayor finally braved reporters Thursday — but then … ducked key questions. After largely avoiding the press for more than a week, Mayor de Blasio held an open Q&A after a press conference on his anti-slumlord campaign. But when reporters started to focus on probes of City Hall corruption, he went to DefCon Evade. Asked, for example, to justify his decision to classify certain lobbyists as “agents of the city” as an excuse to keep his communications with them secret, he bobbed and weaved: “Their role as advisers was appropriate,” he said. “I think we’re handling it appropriately.” Asked, for example, to justify his decision to classify certain lobbyists as “agents of the city” as an excuse to keep his communications with them secret, he bobbed and weaved: “Their role as advisers was appropriate,” he said. “I think we’re handling it appropriately.” The public disagrees: This week’s Quinnipiac poll shows that voters disapprove by more than 2-1 of how he’s handling corruption. They also believe, by a similarly lopsided margin, that he “does favors for developers who make political contributions.” The poll also shows the mayor with his worst job-approval rating ever, with 52 percent of voters flashing a thumbs-down. And as the number of probes mushrooms (it’s at seven, and counting), confidence in de Blasio is headed further south. Thursday, Politico reported that the mayor “took an unusually personal role in raising money for a nonprofit group backing his political agenda, according to several people” hit up for donations. It also noted that “more than two-thirds” of donors who gave to the group — the Campaign for One New York — “were actively seeking approval for a project” when they made their donations. But de Blasio’s not explaining anything. He claims he got “legal guidance” and followed all the rules in his dealings. But he’s offered nothing concrete to back up those hopelessly vague assurances. Again: He’s refusing to release not just the names of folks he’s asked for donations, but also his communications with the slush-fund money men. He won’t even spell out the rules he says he followed. On Thursday, he again promised to release “information of various kinds” within “the coming weeks” — with no specifics on what or when. The kind way to put it is to say the mayor is flailing, but the truth is: He’s drowning.*
de Blasio Hiding From the Weak City Hall Press
De Blasio playing hide-and-seek from press amid probes (NYP) Mayor de Blasio has been ducking for cover while getting battered by probes and negative polls. Hizzoner hasn’t answered questions from the City Hall press corps in more than a week and he wasn’t even in town over a three-day weekend while visiting his brother in Seattle. Even when he’s in the city, de Blasio’s schedule has been made up largely of radio appearances and three events that were closed to the media, including a reception on the USS Bataan Wednesday to launch Fleet Week. After one of his few recent speeches downtown Tuesday, the mayor scurried out using a service elevator to avoid reporters. “When you go out and you’re trying to do anything and all the members of the media want to talk about is the investigation, it’s a little hard getting things done publicly while that happens,” said Sid Davidoff, a lobbyist and lawyer at Davidoff Hutcher and Citron who is close with de Blasio.
de Blasio's Tammany Hall
de Blasio's Tammany Hall
Bill de Blasio's badold days: The return of City Hall for sale (NYDN Ed) Then came de Blasio and a return to the bad old days. As public advocate he backed a suit to halt green taxi medallions, and then in his mayoral run collected at least $300,000 from investors in rival yellow medallions. Meanwhile, though de Blasio abided by campaign finance limits, donors to supposedly independent committees — including a union that had been run by his cousin and the animal rights group NYCLASS — hit rival Christine Quinn with costly attack ads. A sudden convert to the NYCLASS dream of eliminating horse carriages, de Blasio vowed to ban carriages “on day one,” swore he knew nothing of the funding scheme that torpedoed Quinn, and then fought like hell to make the ban happen. After Election Day, de Blasio’s campaign manager established the Campaign for One New York to promote the mayor’s causes, and the city’s pliant ethics board permitted the new mayor to raise funds — except from those with matters that were pending before the city or about to be pending. An early check, for $175,000, came from the hotel workers union (affiliated with de Blasio’s cousin), whose political director served as the Campaign for One New York’s lobbyist. Jona Rechnitz, now a hub of an FBI investigation into possible NYPD bribery, sent his $50,000 contribution the same day. Followed by $350,000 from the teachers union, poised to cash in on a contract deal and the universal pre-K program sought by the Campaign for One New York. Followed by $125,000 combined from Wendy Neu and Stephen Nislick of NYCLASS, coinciding with de Blasio’s relentless, failed anti-carriage horse drive. Followed by $500,000 from a health care union on whose behalf de Blasio and the Campaign for One New York lobbied to salvage a failed hospital. Followed by $100,000 from a peddler of rodent-repellent garbage bags, who secured a mayoral meeting and then a piece of a $6 million city contract. All along, de Blasio pitched for donations from individuals whose real estate and other interests rely on City Hall decisions. Come the fall of 2014, de Blasio urged contributions to his effort to gain Democratic control of the Senate. In came more checks: From a Houston school bus magnate, who contributed $100,000 to the Senate effort after de Blasio granted an unusual $42 million wage supplement to drivers for private firms. From former Republican mayoral candidate John Catsimatidis, a $50,000 donor who could make a windfall from the city’s push for biofuels — for which he runs the city’s largest refining facility. From developers competing for projects, unions with stakes in development and health care, and many more. While saying he did everything legally, de Blasio refuses to make public emails to and from consultants who drew paydays from that money. He has called them “agents of the city.” The mayor has also said he will release the names of donors who gave and did not get, meaningless in proving innocence but evidence that people believe that you have to pay to have a shot at playing in de Blasio’s New York.*
Pols Want New Restrictions On Deed Changes Where Were These Pols When de Blasio Changed the Deed on the Rivington Nursing Home?
Officials press de Blasio to release records on pending deed restrictions (NYP) Elected officials are demanding Mayor de Blasio cough up records on pending deed restrictions, such as one that resulted in four investigations into the sale of a Lower East Side nursing home. “We’re all frustrated,” Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer said at a press conference on Wednesday. Citywide Administrative Services Commissioner Lisette Camilo testified at a City Council hearing two weeks ago that she would share records on more than a dozen properties with pending restriction changes, but according to Brewer and Councilman Ben Kallos, she still hasn’t. The requests come several months after the city lifted deed restrictions on the Rivington House nursing home, paving the way for the property to be sold to a developer that plans to convert it to luxury housing — a deal now being investigated by the US Attorney’s Office.
Scandal de Blasio Poll Numbers Drop 19 Point in 3 Months
Brewer and Chin Who Allowed Rivington Nursing Home Deed Change, Blame de Blasio and Want More Govt Cross-Checks
Lawmakers want to cross-check de Blasio after bungled land deal (NYP) The bungled Lower East Side land deal that has led to at least four investigations has prompted legislators to look for ways to cross-check the de Blasio administration. Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and City Councilwoman Margaret Chin (D-Manhattan) plan to propose a bill Wednesday that would change the City Charter and require the city to maintain a public database when deed restrictions on properties are lifted.
de Blasio Sinking Hoisted on His Own Petard
De Blasio should blame himself for the sorry mess he’s in (NYP Ed) Facing seven (yep, seven) pay-to-play probes, Mayor de Blasio can’t find a whole lot of love these days. Not from his erstwhile allies on the City Council — and especially not from everyday New Yorkers. A devastating Quinnipiac poll Tuesday showed city voters give his performance a big thumbs-down, 52-41 percent. That’s a stunning 20-point flip since January, when they approved of it 50-42 percent, and the worst ratings since he took office. Plus, a majority say he doesn’t deserve reelection. Council members, too, are resisting a behind-the-scenes push from Team de Blasio begging them to publicly support the beleaguered mayor — even supplying them with helpful talking points. Lawmakers, for the most part, are in “a holding pattern,” as one puts it, watching as the shoes drop. Here’s the latest shoe: As The Post reported, US Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan DA Cy Vance are now looking into a $52 million deal to redevelop the Brooklyn Heights public library as a luxury condo tower. The bid was awarded to a de Blasio donor and fund-raiser, even though two other developers made higher offers. The deal also requires the Department of Education to lease the basement and build a huge science lab — even though DOE never asked for the space.
de Blasio Sinking Hoisted on His Own Petard
De Blasio should blame himself for the sorry mess he’s in (NYP Ed) Facing seven (yep, seven) pay-to-play probes, Mayor de Blasio can’t find a whole lot of love these days. Not from his erstwhile allies on the City Council — and especially not from everyday New Yorkers. A devastating Quinnipiac poll Tuesday showed city voters give his performance a big thumbs-down, 52-41 percent. That’s a stunning 20-point flip since January, when they approved of it 50-42 percent, and the worst ratings since he took office. Plus, a majority say he doesn’t deserve reelection. Council members, too, are resisting a behind-the-scenes push from Team de Blasio begging them to publicly support the beleaguered mayor — even supplying them with helpful talking points. Lawmakers, for the most part, are in “a holding pattern,” as one puts it, watching as the shoes drop. Here’s the latest shoe: As The Post reported, US Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan DA Cy Vance are now looking into a $52 million deal to redevelop the Brooklyn Heights public library as a luxury condo tower. The bid was awarded to a de Blasio donor and fund-raiser, even though two other developers made higher offers. The deal also requires the Department of Education to lease the basement and build a huge science lab — even though DOE never asked for the space.
NYT It Is Time to Stand Up for New Yorkers
Transparency Bill
De Blasio Pushed for More Transparency in GovernmentBefore He Became Mayor, but is Now Changing His Tune (NY1)
State Corruption Investigation
Amid high-stakes court battles, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics has hired two attorneys. *
* Cuomo says he had no input into his top CNY contributorgetting state contracts * AG Investigators Searches SUNY Poly Office (YNN) * Cuomo: Closing Loopholes In Election Law ‘Top’ Issue (YNN) * CLOSE THE ALBANY BROTHEL: Heastie and Flanagan must join Cuomo to shut the LLC loophole (NYDN Ed)
* Cuomo says he had no input into his top CNY contributorgetting state contracts * AG Investigators Searches SUNY Poly Office (YNN) * Cuomo: Closing Loopholes In Election Law ‘Top’ Issue (YNN) * CLOSE THE ALBANY BROTHEL: Heastie and Flanagan must join Cuomo to shut the LLC loophole (NYDN Ed)
The Post Copies Political NY Story On de Blasio Asking For His Council Friends to Support the Mayor
Scandal-plagued de Blasio begs City Council for public support (NYP) With its back to the wall, the de Blasio administration is soliciting City Council members to issue public statements of support for the mayor. “I’ve heard from a couple of council members that [mayoral aides] reached out and asked them to amplify positive policy successes,” said a City Hall source. “The language is, ‘In moments like this we rely on. Another source said de Blasio staffers are “obsessively following everyone’s Twitter feed” and are “suggesting helpful topics for social media.” “Every time someone retweets something positive they retweet it or favorite it,” the insider said. The initiative — which comes with the hashtag #ProtectProgress — started last week amid a slew of stories highlighting de Blasio’s alleged pay-to-play culture with donors. The push, which was first reported by Politico New York, also comes after The Post reported that Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Queens) launched a blistering attack on the mayor, urging that he “man up” and accept responsibility for actions that led to the investigations, instead of blaming others.
Both Governing By Corruption Investigations or By Pay to Play Cuts Out New Yorkers
Our very costlyseason of scandal: De Blasio, Cuomo and missed opportunities to govern (NYDN) It’s early in this season of scandal, but we’re already paying the price of folly, greed and secrecy. Every hour that leaders spend huddling with lawyers and publicists to concoct explanations, double-check alibis and gather records for investigators is time not doing the work for which we pay them. The mayor, governor and their staffs should be spending every waking minute investing our tax dollars wisely to stimulate the economy, protect the environment, educate the kids and keep our citizens safe. But they’re not. “If someone violated the rules and the policies, then they have to pay the price,” Cuomo told reporters this month, promising no special mercy for his longtime friends. But during the months it will take to sort things out, projects in Buffalo, Rochester, Albany and other economically struggling regions will be stalled and perhaps die on the vine. That’s the cost of slippery ethical dealing. Here in the city, Mayor de Blasio’s frenetic fund-raising for several failed state Senate campaigns and for the now-defunct Campaign for One New York has triggered multiple investigations of whether election laws were broken and whether some of the corporations, unions and wealthy donors who funded the mayor’s political projects did so in exchange for favorable government decisions. Unlike Cuomo, who has adopted a go-where-the-facts-take-us attitude, de Blasio has unwisely chosen to stall and stonewall. Hizzoner is refusing to cooperate with state ethics investigators and has concocted a fictional legal status of “agent of the city” that supposedly exempts him from Freedom of Information laws that require an explanation of how, when and why some of his outside consultants communicated with the mayor about city business. NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio has deemed several of his unpaid, outside consultants – Jonathan Rosen, Nicholas Baldick, Bill Hyers, John Del Cecato and Patrick Gaspard – “agents of the city,” defending his decision not to release his email exchanges with them in response to a FOIL request. New York City Mayor Averts Disclosure by Naming Special Advisers (WSJ) Bill de Blasio gives title ‘agent of the city’ to five longtime allies
Even de Blasio's NYCHA is Lawyering Up
The Interlocking-Directoriates of the NYPD GiftGate Scandal
The federal investigation into alleged corruption in the NYPD and possible improper fundraising practices in City Hall has led to 11 police officers being stripped of their guns and badges and placed on modified duty. Mayoral aides have also been hit with subpoenas.In the interactive below, we've mapped out the major names in the probe and shown how they are linked. City Hall officials are represented by blue circles, NYPD officials are red circles, and other individuals are yellow. Click on any circle to read details about the individuals and see their direct connections.
Even de Blasio's NYCHA is Lawyering Up
The New York City Housing Authority plans to seek proposals from law firms to represent the authority in an ongoing federal Justice Department probe into whether NYCHA lied about its claims regarding toxic mold and lead paint, the Daily News reports.
The Press By Using Lobbyists Inside Mayor Office As Lobbyists Has Enabled de Blasio's Corruption
True News Reported Months Ago That de Blasio's Brooklyn Library Deal With Corrupt Not the Feds Start An Investigation
Flashback True News: The Interlocking-Directorates of CM Levin, LobbyistsBerlin Rosen and the Sale of a library That the Community Did Not Want Sold
The Fed Investigation
Feds, DA probe de Blasio’s $52M deal to turn library into condo (NYP) The $52 million deal to redevelop the Brooklyn Heights library into a luxury condo tower, which City Hall awarded to a de Blasio pal who offered less money for the city-owned land than two other bidders, has attracted the attention of federal and city prosecutors, The Post has learned. Mayor de Blasio’s latest imbroglio has investigators questioning why the city chose Hudson Cos. to buy the Brooklyn Public Library branch on Clinton Street and build a 36-story condo on top of it despite submitting a bid that was $6 million less than a competitor’s. The offices of US Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance sent subpoenas to several of the 14 developers that bid on the project, sources familiar with the investigation said.
The NYP Left Out the Role the Mayor's Protected Special City Agent Lobbyists Berlin Rosen Played in the Corrupt Library Deal True News
The Federal Case Against Cuomo
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, Buffalo Billion independent investigator Bart Schwartz insists he’ll be independent, but others remain skeptical.
Feds, others looking at public-private partnerships (TU) Investigations examine complex interactions across New York The lobbyist who did work for the state university while representing the companies vying for tens of millions of dollars in business with its development arm. The manager of the governor's re-election campaign who took consulting fees from two of the same companies. Those are just a few of the connections in the tangled skein of personal and business relationships now under the gaze of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara. In late April, Bharara served Gov. Andrew Cuomo's administration with a wide-ranging subpoena seeking information about actions taken by six administration officials for the potential benefit of almost two dozen companies. The list ranges from large developers to a previously invisible consulting firm, stretching across the map from Buffalo to Washington, D.C.*
The Percoco-Howe Investigation The office of U.S. Attorney for the Southern District Preet Bharara has spent much of the past year investigating Upstate New York economic development projects, including those that fall under the umbrella of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's "Buffalo Billion" initiative. A federal subpoena given to New York's Executive Chamber in late April made it clear that federal investigators are now seeking information about companies and transactions connected to lobbyist Todd Howe and former Cuomo aide Joe Percoco. In response, the governor has ordered a separate investigation of these issues, to be conducted by outside investigator Bart Schwartz, who worked for the same U.S. Attorney's office under Rudy Giuliani.
TODD HOWE The lobbyist was fired in early May by the large Capital Region law firm Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, where he ran a Washington, D.C.-based subsidiary called WOH Government Solutions. Howe also ran the consulting firm called Potomac Strategies — one of the companies of interest in the federal subpoena given to the Cuomo administration — out of his suburban Washington home, though its clients remain unknown. An advance man for the late Gov. Mario Cuomo, Howe went on to work with Andrew Cuomo at the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development during the 1990s. More recently, Howe did much work for SUNY Poly as well as several companies that have secured work on its projects. Politico New York reported that Howe served as a prodigious fundraiser for the governor's 2014 re-election effort. The New York Times has reported that Howe's personal finances have been in disarray for years.
COR DEVELOPMENT This development company based outside of Syracuse secured contracts for several large projects, including SUNY Poly's Central New York Hub for Emerging Nano Industries in DeWitt. The company also develops affordable housing. Joe Percoco's 2014 financial disclosure form shows consulting fees of between $50,000 and $75,000 from COR, though the company insists it never paid him. The firm, its leaders and their family members have donated at least $250,000 to Cuomo's campaign since the beginning of 2010. COR is currently listed as a lobbying client of Whiteman Osterman & Hanna. COR and several of its project-specific subsidiaries are mentioned in the federal subpoena received by the administration.
CHA An Albany-based engineering firm, formerly known as Clough Harbour & Associates, that has secured work on upstate development projects. Joe Percoco's 2014 financial disclosure form shows between $20,000 and $50,000 in income from CHA Consulting, a subsidiary. The company donated at least $200,000 to Cuomo's campaign between 2013 and 2015. It has offices in the former Union Station in downtown Albany, a SUNY Poly facility, as well as at the school's main campus. Mentioned in the subpoena.
LPCIMINELLI A Buffalo-based construction firm that has also done considerable state development business, including work on the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and the RiverBend solar panel manufacturing facility. A 2015 federal subpoena reportedly sought information about a 2013 request for proposals issued for the RiverBend project by Fort Schuyler Management, a development arm of SUNY Poly, that seemed to be tailored to LPCiminelli's specifications — including the requirement that the winning firm have "over 50 years of proven experience." Fort Schuyler later said that detail was a typo, and changed the requirement to 15 years. The company is currently listed as a lobbying client of Whiteman Osterman & Hanna. Mentioned in the subpoena.
COLUMBIA DEVELOPMENT Albany-based company that has handled projects for SUNY Poly. The company's initially winning 2015 bid to build a dorm adjacent to the Albany campus is now the subject of a probe by state attorney general's office. Columbia's various entities have given the governor's campaign at least $200,000 since the beginning of 2012. The wife of founder and CEO Joe Nicolla used her maiden name and a Muncie, Ind., address to donate $50,000 to Cuomo in June 2014. Mentioned in the subpoena.
STV GROUP A Manhattan-based engineering and architectural consulting and design firm, and a Howe client. In July 2013, Milo Riverso, an official from the company, met with Gil Quiniones, the president and CEO of the New York Power Authority — one of the six Cuomo administration officials on whose actions the Bharara subpoena sought information. Howe was also present at the meeting, though he did not register STV as his lobbying client. A spokesman for NYPA would not discuss the topic of the meeting. The company has given Cuomo's campaign at least $32,000 since the beginning of 2010. Mentioned in the subpoena.
COMPETITIVE POWER VENTURES The Maryland-based power generation and asset management firm is constructing a controversial natural gas-fired plant in Orange County through a subsidiary, CPV Valley. In early May, the Cuomo administration ordered a host of state agencies to cease communications with both entities and temporarily halt all regulatory proceedings involving them.
CPV, which has donated at least $80,000 to Cuomo's campaign, has been linked to Chris Pitts LLC, a Connecticut business that according to disclosure forms paid salary to Joe Percoco's wife, Lisa Toscano-Percoco, in 2012 and 2014. CPV, another Howe client, is mentioned in the subpoena sent to the Cuomo administration. Whiteman Osterman & Hanna currently lists CPV as a lobbying client.
3GI TERMINALS Syracuse intermodal infrastructure company that sought to create an "inland port" in the area. 3Gi principal Eckhard Beck said Howe pulled a "bait-and-switch" in his work for 3GI after last year's budget negotiations, when a rival project offered by the Port of Oswego Authority ended up receiving $40 million in state funding. Mentioned in the subpoena.
CENTER ARMORY Another Syracuse-based Howe client, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Howe was hired at least in part to lobby the Empire State Development Corp., the state economic development office, concerning the end of the Empire Zone tax credit program, a change that hurt Center Armory's finances, according to the person with knowledge of the matter. The result of the lobbying is not clear. Mentioned in the subpoena.
PEMCO GROUP and CARNEGIE MANAGEMENT Howe represented both of these companies as they battled for control of the long-vacant, 10-story Nynex office building in Syracuse. Howe initially represented Pemco, which landed $2.5 million from Empire State Development during the 2013 Regional Economic Development Council competition round. But when it became clear that the company had lost the battle to acquire the building, Howe began representing a Brooklyn investor who runs Carnegie, which has now secured access to the $2.5 million grant and owns the building. Both firms are mentioned in the subpoena.
NORSTAR A Canadian-based development company with extensive U.S. operations, including a significant presence in Buffalo. Norstar and its related entities have given Cuomo's campaign at least $157,000 since January 2010 — the bulk of it donated by companies based in Texas. Norstar has also worked on affordable housing projects that have received tax credits and other benefits from executive agencies. Norstar was the developer of an Albany affordable housing development tied to Swan Street Lofts LP. Both are mentioned in the subpoena.
ALSO MENTIONED The federal subpoena also seeks information on actions taken for the possible benefit of Conifer Realty, a Rochester-based developer of affordable housing; Pyramid Network Services, a Syracuse company that builds cell towers; and Hueber-Breuer Construction of Syracuse. It remains unclear what connection these firms have to other individuals or companies of interest in the probe.
1. Councilman Steven Levin paid Berlin Rosen over $100,000 to run his re-elected campaign in 2013. Levin ties to the unregistered lobbyist Berlin Rosen go back to his 2009 campaign when he spent $8,000 on WFP's Data and Field, that former county leader the late Vito Lopez ran. 2. Berlin Rosen also represents the Brooklyn Public Library that is selling the library with almost no community support to developers, Hudson Companies, in partnership with Marvel Architects. 3. Berlin Rosen also represents Hudson and has many connections to Marvel Architects. It is impossible to tell who are the Berlin Clients are since the firm does not registered as a lobbyist. 4. Hudson Companies and Marvel Architects are putting up the strongly opposed Pierhouse at Brooklyn Bridge Park , the hotel and condominium complex that the same Brooklyn Heights
de Blasio and Berlin Rosen Joined At the Hip Their Interlocking-Directorates of Unregistered Lobbyists and PACs Are A Cancer to Our Democracy
5. That is not the end of Berlin Rosen Interlocking-Directorates with the sell of the library. Citizens Defending Libraries White pointed out that Forest City Ratner owned zoning rights connected to the library, Noticing New York Berlin Rosen is also work for Ratner. White called Forest City Ratner, as it's a gatekeeper to the transaction. Mayor To Back Library Sale Because of Ties to Condo Developer, Critics Say (DNAINFO) "Mayor de Blasio has been taking money from the developer and his team while their application to acquire and shrink the library was pending," White's group said in a press release issued early Tuesday. David Kramer, a principal of Hudson , donated $4,725 to the mayor in 2011. Berlin Rosen work for the de Blasio's 2013 campaign for mayor and now work for his slush fund PAC Campaign for One NY 6. (All Blue) In the space of 6 years Berlin Rosen has taken the lead in electing puppets to mostly the city council that follow the needs of their clients over the needs of the voters who elected them. 7. (All Black) Besides working for de Blasio campaign Berlin Rosen the councilman Steve Levin who had the power in the council to stop the deal. True News has reported that lobbyists have taken over most of the old Tammany Hall to run a shadow govt that cuts out the public. Citizens Defending Libraries in their press release after the sale of the library said it has been clear that with this library sale we have been witness to the exercise of an enormous amount of power. What we did not see today was the exercise by the City Council of the power that it has to protect the public.
The New Tammany Hall Bosses are The City Real Estate Robber Barons and Their Mini Me Lobbyists
Brooklyn Heights Library Redevelopment Gains Pivotal Ally [Curbed] * City Planning Greenlights Controversial Brooklyn Library Project [Curbed] * Controversial Brooklyn Library Plan Gets City Council Approval via @CurbedNY * Brooklyn Heights Library deal overwhelmingly approved by fullCity Council (Brooklyn Eagle)
More on Dark Pool Corrupt Consultant Who Will Have to Register As Lobbyists
@RaviBatra Silly Frivolous. Imagine City Agents Who Seek Favors. Worse Than Nepotism. This is Criminally Deranged
Loophole Bill and His Gang of Lobbyists Top Guy Capalino
Lobbyists takeadvantage of loopholes in donating to Mayor de Blasio’s fund-raising efforts,skirting conflict of interest laws (NYDN) Mayor de Blasio's Campaign for One New York fund hit a trifecta on May 27, 2015 — courtesy of lobbyist extraordinaire James Capalino. The group first received a $10,000 check from Capalino. That same day, identical checks arrived from two of the lobbyist’s deep-pocketed clients, RAL Development and Cipriani USA, for a total of $30,000. And the very next day, Capalino was on the phone with the man himself — Mayor de Blasio. Not bad for a guy who, as a lobbyist doing business with the city, is barred from giving more than $400 to a candidate per election. The mayor’s website and Capalino insist the phone chat concerned a proposed (and ultimately failed) helicopter ban, and Capalino says donations to the mayor’s cause never came up. Whether anything else came up remains a mystery as City Hall refuses to say whether notes of these lobbying chats exist. The well-connected Capalino, a Koch administration official and longtime City Hall insider, declined to identify the Campaign for One New York contact who was seeking the donations. Capalino makes a point of showing appreciation in every possible way. While a proposal by his client, RAL, for towers in Brooklyn Bridge Park was under consideration by the city, he first made a $5,000 donation to the mayor’s Fund To Advance New York, another nonprofit that supports City Hall initiatives. Then in May 2015, he and RAL made the $10,000 donations to Campaign for One New York — the mayor’s controversial political nonprofit, which raised millions for his pet projects. A month later, the city selected RAL for the Brooklyn job. Last week, the project was frozen by the Cuomo administration over conflict of interest concerns related to Capalino and the donations. Like any insider, Capalino drives through two basic loopholes to get around the restriction on individual donations to $4,950 per candidate per election. Donations to Campaign for One New York, a so-called “independent spender” formed by de Blasio to support his causes, are unrestricted. Although most donors give in the $10,000 to $25,000 range, the United Federation of Teachers forked over a whopping $350,000. Many of these donors need City Hall to sign off on their projects. Besides RAL’s pursuit of the Brooklyn Bridge Park towers, there’s Cipriani, for whom Capalino has lobbied City Hall about a proposed event space on the far West Side. The other key loophole Capalino has tapped into is bundling. Though individuals can’t give more than $4,950, they can collect piles of checks from others and present them to a candidate in a bundle. Between October and December, Capalino bundled $44,940 for the mayor’s 2017 reelection bid. Donors included some of his clients. An executive of Bauhouse Group, which needs City Hall support for a huge Upper East Side tower the neighborhood opposes, gave $4,950. Michael Stern, CEO of JDS Development, wrote five checks in one day totaling $4,950. Capalino has lobbied for city approval of a JDS residential tower that would be the tallest in Brooklyn at 1,066 feet. Evidence of his influence at City Hall abounds. Records show Capalino’s calendar is filled with sit-downs or phone calls with virtually all of the mayor’s top deputies. In those meetings, he seeks and often gets zoning changes, tax breaks and various approvals for big developments that reap big profits for his clients. In several cases, his clients’ projects are at odds with taxpaying citizens opposed to huge towers springing up in traditional neighborhoods. Capalino client Fortis Property Group, for instance, has a highly contested plan to erect massive towers on the site of the former Long Island City Hospital in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. The neighborhood loudly protested the hospital’s closing and reacted with fury at FPG’s “compromise” to put up hundreds of apartments along with a tiny “stand-alone” emergency room at the site. Enter Capalino. In May 2014, FPG hired him and he began lobbying top de Blasio aides: Emma Wolfe, director of intergovernmental affairs, Dom Williams, chief of staff to Shorris, and then-Deputy Mayor Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, records show. The plan required state approval, but de Blasio was intervening, at first pushing to keep LICH open. As a candidate for mayor, he was even arrested at a protest, during which he vowed LICH would never close. Ultimately, it appears, de Blasio embraced a compromise plan that benefited Capalino’s client, FPG. A month after Capalino showed up, a letter was sent out by the mayor’s fund, Campaign for One New York, in which the local Community Board Chairman Gary Reilly wrote, “I was asked by Mayor de Blasio to share my views on what this (project) means for families of” the surrounding neighborhoods. Reilly went on to champion Fortis’ plan, without actually mentioning Fortis. Jerry Armer, a community board member, recalls, “It was a surprise where the letter came from. It didn’t seem to be from an individual. It seemed to be part of a larger operation.” Capalino said he didn’t draft the letter and didn’t have contact with Campaign for One New York, although he did have contact with the mayor’s aides.* Probes of de Blasio, Cuomo could shake up New Yorkpolitics (CrainsNY) Four scenarios possible as federal investigations put mayor, governor at risk * A Brief (Recent) History of Mayoral Email Secrecy (DNAINFO) Bill de Blasio wants to keep some of his email private. Michael Bloomberg did that, too.
Was Berlin Rosen Dirty Money Mailing Designed to Help Capalino and Team de Blasio?
Closing LICH Hospital
Was Berlin Rosen Dirty Money Mailing Designed to Help Capalino and Team de Blasio?
Berlin Rosen who worked for 52AD candidate Sikora and the PAC One NY, use to the PAC to send out to the voters of the district a misleading letter that a developers ER would be a good substitute for the closed LICH. Rosen's assembly candidate was arrested during the 2013 mayor's race along with de Blasio protesting the closing of the LICH Hospital. The Brooklyn Eagle called Berlin Rosen PAC mailing the dark money mailing, claiming the closed LICH hospital developer would build an emergency room that would meet the community’s health care needs. Doctors and community leader have called that claim an outright lie. Carroll Gardens Association - Cover-Up of Members' Dark Money LICH Mailing *
* Alarm raised about 'dark money' in de Blasio's LICH - Fortis letter ..(Brooklyn Eagle).
* Alarm raised about 'dark money' in de Blasio's LICH - Fortis letter ..(Brooklyn Eagle).
Hilltop Lobbyists Hyers and LICH
de Blasio Campaign Manager Bill Hires' Hilltop Now Works for Developer on the Hospital Site - Hyers is a Special Agent Whose Emails are Protected
1. Hires: de Blasio Campaign Manager Who Uses Candidate Fake Arrest to Protest A Closing Hospital As A Prop
2. Once the Hospital is Closed Hires Who Works for the Mayor Slush Fund PAC One NY Uses It to Tell the Community That the Band Aid ER the Developer Agreed to Build is As Good As the Closed Hospital
3. Hires: Sell A Large Development to Replace te Closed to A Community Who Opposes It*
Airbnb Accuses NYC Lawmakers Of "An Attack On TheMiddle Class": At a contentious City Council hearing earlier… * Airbnb is not happy with the NYC Council, which today will hear legislation that would further penalize hosts for renting out their homes illegally. In advance of the hearing, the apartment-rental platform delivered a letter to Council members signed by Airbnb hosts imploring them to back off. * Airbnb agrees to discuss sharing data with officials to crack down on illegal operators (NYDN) * City Council Members Clash with Airbnb Officials at Hearing (NY1) * Councilman threatens $100K fines onAirbnb’s ‘illegal hotels’ (NYP)
Team de Blasio No More Email New Communication System Cone of Silence
de Blasio's Shadow Govt Lobbyists Secret Agent Men
De Blasio defies his own call to make City Hall more transparent (NYP) Mayor de Blasio has turned his back on his own call for open public records — defying recommendations he made as public advocate, when he harshly graded agencies in the Bloomberg administration for their slow responses to disclosure requests. “The city is inviting waste and corruption by blocking information that belongs to the public,” concluded a report released in April 2013 by then-Public Advocate de Blasio. “We have to start holding government accountable when it refuses to turn over public records to citizens and taxpayers.” But that was then.
King Wilhelm de Blasio: I am the Law Because I Rule by Divine Right
He also called for the mayor’s annual report on city services to reveal how many FOIL requests each city agency has answered. De Blasio’s public schedule shows he got a considerable amount of unpaid input. Del Cecato took part in 95 meetings or calls with the mayor through March 2016; Rosen in 48; and Baldick in 26. While officials say the advisers’ firms weren’t paid by the city, they have been paid for work on de Blasio’s campaigns, his political fund-raising and his nonprofit Campaign for One New York. Those efforts are now the subject of state and federal probes. Hilltop was getting paid tens of thousands of dollars by de Blasio’s 2013 campaign well into 2015.* Chill, People: De Blasio Just Needs To Have Secret TalksWith Lobbyists (Gothamist) We’ve all been there: you’re the mayor of the biggest city in America and you need to have secret conversations with lobbyists and public relations specialists who you also really trust. Basic mayor stuff! But there’s this dumb law that says you’re supposed to disclose these emails and whatever. Do you release the communications? Or do you brandish the hundreds of lawyers and near-limitless resources at your disposal to show everyone who’s boss? For Mayor de Blasio, the choice is simple.
The Weakness of the de Blasio Cover-Up
King Wilhelm de Blasio: I am the Law Because I Rule by Divine Right
The Weakness of the de Blasio Cover-Up
Stonewall deBlasio shields big-money secrets (NYDN Ed) Never in memory has a mayor engaged in a coverup as blatant as the legal stonewall Bill de Blasio has built to keep secret the details of his money-in and money-and-favors-out deal-making. Hoping to prevent release of his communications with five political advisers, de Blasio deems each of them to be an “agent of the city,” a made-up status that, he claims, puts emails to and from them beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Law. First crack in the stonewall: A mayor can disseminate almost any document . Second crack in the stonewall: FOIL allows — but does not require — officials to keep confidential some communications with staff and with some hired consultants. De Blasio’s five advisers were never hired. So he concocted a term that does not appear in the law and has never been used by any court to claim he can hide public records. Third crack in the stonewall: Four of the five were enmeshed in de Blasio’s big-money Campaign for One New York or his big-money, failed attempt to pour money into upstate campaigns in hope of tipping the state Senate Democratic. Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance are conducting criminal investigations, with Bharara reportedly looking for quid-pro-quos and Vance studying possible election law violations. Fourth crack in the stonewall: The firms of four of de Blasio’s so-called city agents reaped sizeable fees out of the money raised for the Campaign for One New York and the Senate races. Fifth crack in the stonewall: City Hall took actions that aided donors to the Campaign for One New York, and the state Board of Election’s enforcement counsel concluded de Blasio’s team criminally broke the law in the upstate races. Sixth stone in the wall: A judge and de Blasio himself once deemed his position absurd. When Michael Bloomberg claimed similar protection for Cathie Black’s emails as he tried to make her schools chancellor, Justice Alice Schlesinger called Bloomberg’s argument “particularly specious.” The judge noted that then-Public Advocate de Blasio was probing Bloomberg’s failure to comply with FOIL. The city ethics board greenlighted the fundraising, preposterously finding that it would advance the city’s interests, rather than de Blasio’s political standing. The board forbid him from fundraising from anyone with pending city business. Contributions poured in from donors seeking benefits — including real estate developers with looming projects, animal rights advocates and a vendor peddling supposedly rodent-repellent trash bags. Some scored. De Blasio tried to ban carriage horses. The teachers union got a generous contract. The trash bag vendor got a meeting with the mayor and ultimately a piece of a city contract. In the Senate drive, de Blasio’s cadre secured outsized contributions and poured roughly $1 million into upstate Democratic county committees — giving potentially illegal instructions on spending the money, with large sums going to de Blasio’s agents. After Hyers went to work for Hilltop , the firm billed the Campaign for One New York $150,000 for their services. Rosen’s firm billed more than $200,000 between the Campaign for One New York and de Blasio’s Senate push. Del Cecato, creator of de Blasio’s “Dante” campaign ad, reaped for his firm upwards of $300,000 from the Senate races, pre-K and more. Only Gaspard merely advises de Blasio as a friend. With de Blasio at the top — at least once stepping out of a room so someone else could put the arm on donors — the mayor’s team was engaged in soliciting money from interests that coveted, and got, the mayor’s favor. No wonder he’s stonewalling their emails.
For Months True News Has Said de Blasio is WaterGate Nixon Today Our Official Stenographer Agrees
de Blasio Claims Lobbyists are Part of His Government - Admits to A Shadow Govt
They also worked on the mayor’s fund-raising efforts on behalf of state Senate Democrats in late 2014. That, too, is being probed. “Their communications to the Mayor’s Office, along with those of their support staff working at the principal’s direction on those particular matters, are exempt from disclosure when related solely to city business and not on behalf of any client,” said de Blasio counsel Maya Wiley. Hilltop and BerlinRosen communications with the mayor on behalf of their clients are subject to public disclosure, officials added. None of the five advisers has been paid by the city. The list of exemptions was announced after the administration rejected Freedom of Information requests for the mayor’s e-mail exchanges with Rosen on the grounds that he was an “agent of the city.” Elected officials and advocates condemned the mayor’s move. “[If the mayor] really has nothing to hide as he says, just lay it all out for everyone to see,” said City Councilmember Mark Treyger (D-Brooklyn). Robert Freeman, director of the state Committee on Open Government, questioned the city’s legal analysis, given that e-mails between the government and private citizens are almost always subject to disclosure.
“Anyone whose advice is sought could be characterized as an agent or a consultant, and the communication could be withheld,” he said. “I believe that it is an unjustifiable stretch that is inconsistent with the law.” *
de Blasio Says Lobbyists Are Part of His Govt and Their Emails are Protected
City Hall Releases Names of Outside Advisers BeingTreated Like City Employees When it Comes to Email Exchanges with Mayor (NY1) Mayor Bill de Blasio's inner circle at City Hall is bigger than you might expect. In addition to his top government aides, he relies on the help of five outside advisers. They aren't paid by your tax dollars, they are said to have no formal relationship with the city, yet the mayor wants them treated like city employees when it comes to his email exchanges with them. Emails between government officials and people outside government are supposed to be accessible under open-records law. But in the case of his outside advisers, de Blasio is saying no way. The advisers on the mayor's protected list are former campaign aides Jonathan Rosen of the communications firm BerlinRosen, Nicholas Baldick and Bill Hyers of the firm Hilltop Public Solutions, and John Del Cecato of AKPD Message and Media. Patrick Gaspard, a longtime de Blasio friend, is also included in the group. He is the U.S. ambassador to South Africa. In a statement, the counsel to the mayor, Maya Wiley, said,
From Two Years Ago
"As personal advisors to the Mayor, their communications to the Mayor’s Office, along with those of their support staff working at the principal’s direction on those particular matters, are exempt from disclosure when related solely to City business and not on behalf of any client.” Some elected officials and government insiders are privately saying they are shocked by the arrangement and by the legal argument the city is making. Most of the mayor's outside advisers also work for clients who have business before the city, companies like AirBNB and real estate developers like Forest City Ratner. The email issue was first reported by NY1 earlier this week after the city refused to turn over emails from Chill,People: De Blasio Just Needs To Have Secret Talks With Lobbyists (Gothamist)
Michael Benjamin @SquarePegDem Not surprisingly @unitedNYblogs NYT omits it was Bloomberg's money, not developers & others w/ pending city business
de Blasio Says Lobbyists Are Part of His Govt and Their Emails are Protected
From Two Years Ago
Thursday
True News Asked the Howard Backer WaterGate Questions About de Blasio Two Months Before the NYP
When Did de Blasio Know About the Riverington Nursing Home Deal and When Did He Know?
de Blasio Defense: "I Did Not Steal From Everyone" HE IS NUTS
Team de Blasio Putnam Spending Records Disappeared From Nassau 4 Days Before BOE Issued Criminal Referral
What is Good de Blasio is Good for the Public Interests
Bridge over theriver deny: Mayor de Blasio just can't justify his money deals (NYDN Ed) Delivering an infomercial for a product that no one is buying, Mayor de Blasio held himself aghast that anyone might question his habit of raising big money from firms with business before the city. “There will be in a democratic process people who give donations. The question is . . . were decisions made in the public interest?” he declared Wednesday in an hour-long attempt to dispel the notion that he has put City Hall up for rent.
de Blasio: My Berlin Rosen Emails Are Shadow Govt Protected
Mayor Keeps Emails with Outside Consultants Secret,Fueling Accusations of a 'Shadow Government' (NY1) Critics accuse Mayor de Blasio of setting up a shadow government — comprised of consultants who are not paid by City Hall, but pocket cash from clients, many of whom have business before the city. The arrangement has long drawn complaints but it is generating a new wave of condemnation, because City Hall is refusing to release emails the consultants exchanged with the mayor and his top aides. "It's disappointing to see the mayor, whose whole persona in government is about doing it for the people and being transparent about it, and to be relying on a legal analysis from some lawyer about whether this consultant's communications are protected is ridiculous," said Dick Dadey with good government group, Citizens Union. "Just disclose." In a letter to NY1, a city lawyer referred to Rosen as a consultant to the Mayoralty. He argued the emails were protected by the same exemption that keeps us from seeing many of the e-mails the mayor sends to his City Hall staff only. A spokesman for de Blasio says: "The Mayor has worked with a number of people over the years who he continues to seek advice on a variety of political and communications issues. When these advisors consult with the Mayor in the interest of the Mayor’s Office and not on behalf of clients, those communications are not subject to disclosure." Rosen declined to comment. The open-records denial comes as federal and state investigators are examining the mayor's fundraising and political activities. The investigations have put a spotlight on the mayor and his consultants. However, when it comes to their emails, de Blasio seems determined to keep New Yorkers in the dark.
de Blasio: My Berlin Rosen Emails Are Shadow Govt Protected
Mayor Keeps Emails with Outside Consultants Secret,Fueling Accusations of a 'Shadow Government' (NY1) Critics accuse Mayor de Blasio of setting up a shadow government — comprised of consultants who are not paid by City Hall, but pocket cash from clients, many of whom have business before the city. The arrangement has long drawn complaints but it is generating a new wave of condemnation, because City Hall is refusing to release emails the consultants exchanged with the mayor and his top aides. "It's disappointing to see the mayor, whose whole persona in government is about doing it for the people and being transparent about it, and to be relying on a legal analysis from some lawyer about whether this consultant's communications are protected is ridiculous," said Dick Dadey with good government group, Citizens Union. "Just disclose." In a letter to NY1, a city lawyer referred to Rosen as a consultant to the Mayoralty. He argued the emails were protected by the same exemption that keeps us from seeing many of the e-mails the mayor sends to his City Hall staff only. A spokesman for de Blasio says: "The Mayor has worked with a number of people over the years who he continues to seek advice on a variety of political and communications issues. When these advisors consult with the Mayor in the interest of the Mayor’s Office and not on behalf of clients, those communications are not subject to disclosure." Rosen declined to comment. The open-records denial comes as federal and state investigators are examining the mayor's fundraising and political activities. The investigations have put a spotlight on the mayor and his consultants. However, when it comes to their emails, de Blasio seems determined to keep New Yorkers in the dark.
In the NYT Effort To Save Their Guy de Blasio the Former Paper of Record Says Bloomberg Laundered $$$ Too
Times Story Left Off that Lobbyist Campaign Worked for Both Riverington and Dance Housing Deals
De Blasio’s Elections Strategy, Under Scrutiny, Recalls Predecessor’s (NYT) Mayor Bill de Blasio’s efforts to channel donations to Democrats in 2014 State Senate races is similar to events that played out in a 2007 race, when Michael R. Bloomberg played a crucial role.*NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fundraising strategy to assist the Senate Democrats in their 2014 attempt to retake the majority, which has drawn scrutiny from investigators, is similar to a method employed by his predecessor, former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, to help the Senate Republicans in a key 2007 special election on Long Island. *De Blasio,Facing New Questions, Promises Public Input on Deed Changes (NYT) de Blasio, faced with new questions about deed restrictions lifted by the city with little public input, said on Wednesday that he would personally sign off on all such decisions going forward. In an unusual scene at City Hall, Mr. de Blasio addressed the subject while seated with top city lawyers — the corporation counsel, Zachary W. Carter, and the mayor’s counsel, Maya Wiley — as well as top officials from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which handles changes to deed restrictions.According to a memo, BRP Companies had been in talks for “the last few years” about creating a 30-unit residential building on the lot with space for the nonprofit. According to documents, the nonprofit approached the city about lifting the restriction in April 2014. It was not clear if that plan would go forward. Months before BRP Companies entered into contract to buy the lot in May 2015, a company controlled by the developer donated $10,000 to the Putnam County Democratic Committee, coinciding with a fund-raising effort by Mr. de Blasio to help Senate Democrats in the 2014 campaign. Mr. de Blasio said decisions surrounding the Harlem lot were made to help the Dance Theater of Harlem pay off debt. “Clearly, in this case, public benefit was achieved,” he said. He contrasted it with the removal of a protective deed on Rivington House, a nursing home on the Lower East Side that was sold for $116 million after a deed change. The city received $16 million — far less than a quarter of the sale price. Those transactions remain the subject of investigations. *The Rivington and St. Nicholas negotiations have significant parallels. Lobbyist James Capalino, who works for 45 Rivington purchaser Slate Group, has bundled $50,000 in donations to Mayor de Blasio (a spokeswoman for Capalino has since stated that he did not represent Slate Group in the deal); BRP Companies in 2014 contributed $10,000 to the Putnam County Democratic Committee—coinciding with the Mayor's push to support Democratic Senate candidates through New York county committees. The Mayor's campaign donation habits are currently under federal scrutiny. * City taps BRP to build 166 affordable units in Flatbush * BRP moves forward with plans for 580 units in Jamaica
De Blasio’s Elections Strategy, Under Scrutiny, Recalls Predecessor’s (NYT) Mayor Bill de Blasio’s efforts to channel donations to Democrats in 2014 State Senate races is similar to events that played out in a 2007 race, when Michael R. Bloomberg played a crucial role.*NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fundraising strategy to assist the Senate Democrats in their 2014 attempt to retake the majority, which has drawn scrutiny from investigators, is similar to a method employed by his predecessor, former Mayor Mike Bloomberg, to help the Senate Republicans in a key 2007 special election on Long Island. *De Blasio,Facing New Questions, Promises Public Input on Deed Changes (NYT) de Blasio, faced with new questions about deed restrictions lifted by the city with little public input, said on Wednesday that he would personally sign off on all such decisions going forward. In an unusual scene at City Hall, Mr. de Blasio addressed the subject while seated with top city lawyers — the corporation counsel, Zachary W. Carter, and the mayor’s counsel, Maya Wiley — as well as top officials from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which handles changes to deed restrictions.According to a memo, BRP Companies had been in talks for “the last few years” about creating a 30-unit residential building on the lot with space for the nonprofit. According to documents, the nonprofit approached the city about lifting the restriction in April 2014. It was not clear if that plan would go forward. Months before BRP Companies entered into contract to buy the lot in May 2015, a company controlled by the developer donated $10,000 to the Putnam County Democratic Committee, coinciding with a fund-raising effort by Mr. de Blasio to help Senate Democrats in the 2014 campaign. Mr. de Blasio said decisions surrounding the Harlem lot were made to help the Dance Theater of Harlem pay off debt. “Clearly, in this case, public benefit was achieved,” he said. He contrasted it with the removal of a protective deed on Rivington House, a nursing home on the Lower East Side that was sold for $116 million after a deed change. The city received $16 million — far less than a quarter of the sale price. Those transactions remain the subject of investigations. *The Rivington and St. Nicholas negotiations have significant parallels. Lobbyist James Capalino, who works for 45 Rivington purchaser Slate Group, has bundled $50,000 in donations to Mayor de Blasio (a spokeswoman for Capalino has since stated that he did not represent Slate Group in the deal); BRP Companies in 2014 contributed $10,000 to the Putnam County Democratic Committee—coinciding with the Mayor's push to support Democratic Senate candidates through New York county committees. The Mayor's campaign donation habits are currently under federal scrutiny. * City taps BRP to build 166 affordable units in Flatbush * BRP moves forward with plans for 580 units in Jamaica
FBI Investigating Secret Recording Showed How Leaders of NYCLASS Bought de Blasio and Others
fight,” Nislick said on the recording. At an earlier meeting, NYCLASS members also talked about the advantages of getting the 211 horse carriage operators to vacate their West Side stables “They occupy thousands and thousands of square feet of space,” Nislick says on the recording. “We need 68 cars. We need far less space. They free up a lot of real estate.” Hansen said she couldn’t believe what she heard. nsen said she couldn’t believe what she heard. “The fact that anyone would go around talking blatantly about that, pretty much, in so many words, buy the next mayor,” Hansen told Kramer. “I didn’t think that politics worked that way. It’s not supposed to work that way.” At an earlier meeting, NYCLASS members also talked about the advantages of getting the 211 horse carriage operators to vacate their West Side stables “They occupy thousands and thousands of square feet of space,” Nislick says on the recording. “We need 68 cars. We need far less space. They free up a lot of real estate.” The Mayor’s office said de Blasio has never changed his position on horse carriages “The mayor’s position on the issue has been consistent and clear,” said Peter Kadushin, a spokesman for de Blasio. “Carriage horses don’t belong on busy city streets Kadushin pointed out that de Blasio called for a horse carriage ban while still public advocate.
Probes Kill Housing Deal in the Park de Blasio Say He Go It Alone
Cuomo insisted he had no role in the probe. Connection to Riverington Nursing Home Deal Lobbyist Capalino and Developer China Vanke
SHOCKING NYT Focuses On de Blasio Moving Ahead With Park Buildings
Despite the state’s sudden reversal, the de Blasio administration is pushing ahead with the Brooklyn project, which would include market-rate and subsidized apartments as well as a school.
de Blasio Bad Homeless Budget Math Spend to Keep the Homeless Off the Headlines
Another budget from de Blasio, another massive underestimate of the gargantuan cost of sheltering the 58,000 homeless people, with the IBO projecting the administration will have to spend $106 million more than the administration claims, the Daily News writes. * Billion-dollar Bill spends and spends on homeless shelters (NYDN Ed) A nother budget from Mayor de Blasio, another massive underestimate of the gargantuan cost of sheltering New York’s city within a city of 58,000 homeless people. The Independent Budget Office projects that the administration will have to spend a mind-blowing $1 billion on shelters in 2018 — including $106 million more in city tax dollars than the mayor’s budget experts claim. Lowballing shelter spending comes as addictive habit for a mayor intoxicated by confidence that his own white-knight policy prescriptions will reduce the swollen ranks of the homeless. Last year, the Department of Homeless Services had to add $120 million in city funds to the 2016 budget just to keep up. Lesson learned? You kidding? While awaiting results from a soup-to-nuts review of homeless programs, for 2017 the mayor astoundingly at first proposed spending less than in 2016 — only to add $169 million in city funds after a scolding from the IBO and state controller. “We’re owning this issue 110%,” de Blasio trumpeted at the turn of the year, in committing to a turnaround in fortunes for the homeless. Actually he’s lowballing even there.* New York City is investigating allegations that Covenant House, the largest local provider of shelter to homeless teenagers and young adults, has been inflating the number of people it serves and has not been complying with the terms of its contracts with the city.
Lawyer Mastro Fought Against WFP' Data and Field, Son of NYCLASS. Data is Where Team de Blasio Learned to Go Around Election Laws
Mastro Journey From Data and Field to NYCLASS
Errol Louis discussed the investigation into Mayor de Blasio, and his dealings with the horse carriage industry, with former Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro, who is counsel to the controversial anti-horse carriage industry group NYCLASS.
The WFP and Berlin Rosen Has Played Fast and Lose With the Election Law, Data and Field Arrests
Horse Carriage Politics and the Central Park Stables
How the Advance Group Conspired to Steal the 2009 and 2013 Election
CrainsNY on the Advance Groups Double Dipping
Who Watchers the Watchman, Lobbyists, Grand Jury, AG - DAsConflict of Interests With NYPD and Elected Officials
How the Advance Group Conspired to Steal the 2009 and 2013 Election
CrainsNY on the Advance Groups Double Dipping
Who Watchers the Watchman, Lobbyists, Grand Jury, AG - DAsConflict of Interests With NYPD and Elected Officials
de Blasio Funded Another Slush Fund From Campaign For One NY Slush Fund Under Investigation
AKPD Message and Media is an American political and media consulting firm catering to Democratic candidates and related causes. Formerly Axelrod and Associates, it is named after its four original partners: David Axelrod, John Kupper, David Plouffe, and John Del Cecato. All four were members of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, with Plouffe serving as campaign manager, Axelrod as senior strategist, and Del Cecato as media advisor. Axelrod, who is personally close to Obama, left AKPD to serve as Senior Advisor to the President in the Obama Administration and sold the firm to Kupper, Del Cecato and Larry Grisolano. AKPD's advertising and strategy have been widely credited for significantly altering elections in their clients favor.TIME has praised one of their most talked about ads, "Dante," as "The Ad that Won the New York Mayor's Race.". AKPD's offices are located in Chicago, Washington DC, and New York where it has recently expanded its presence by partnering with Bully Pulpit Interactive and Analytics Media Group.
de Blasio Set Up A Campaign for 1NY PAC Toll Booth to Do Business With City Hall
Dr Ben Carson Calls on Young Journalists to Reject How the Media Bosses are Teaching Them to Be Dishonest And Tell the Truth
Straw Fundraiser by Businessman Whose Staff Made Unusual Donations
De Blasio Fundraiser Tied to Businessman Whose Staff Made Unusual Donations (DNAINFO) The owner of a beauty supply business whose employees made suspicious donations to Bill de Blasio’s 2013 mayoral campaign dates a top de Blasio fundraiser who is a fixture in the Upper Manhattan nightlife scene. The owner, Sm-Ali (Alex) Amanollahi, and workers at his company, Primary One LLC, donated to de Blasio’s 2013 campaign at the encouragement of his girlfriend, Rud Morales, a bar maven who served on de Blasio’s inaugural committee and as a board member of a city nonprofit, sources said. Amanollahi was also a victim of an alleged Ponzi scheme connected to the federal probe of NYPD brass and the mayor’s fundraising practices, DNAinfo New York has learned.Morales and Amanollahi's relationship connects several aspects of the ongoing federal investigation into de Blasio's campaign, corruption in the NYPD and the Ponzi scheme allegedly orchestrated by West Harlem restaurateur Hamlet Peralta. DNAinfo reported last week that federal investigators were scrutinizing de Blasio’s campaign for straw donations. And a DNAinfo review of de Blasio donations showed unusual contributions made by two drivers for Amanollahi’s business. Amanollahi, his family, his employees and his associates contributed more than $55,000 combined to de Blasio between October and December 2013, Campaign Finance Board records show. The Primary One drivers, who live in modest Queens apartments, each gave nearly $10,000 during that time. And one of them flip-flopped about making the donations. Driver Rafael Zepeda initially told DNAinfo that he contributed $9,450 to de Blasio’s campaign, but hours later said that he didn’t. Records show Zepeda gave two donations to de Blasio, including a $5,000 contribution he made via an Oct. 27, 2013, fundraiser at the Inwood nightclub Negro Claro Lounge. The hour-and-a-half event — which was attended by well-heeled businessmen — raised more than $213,000, according to records that the de Blasio campaign submitted to the Campaign Finance Board. Morales told DNAinfo New York that she believes the reported fundraising amount is inaccurate and said that her event only took in roughly $65,000. Morales is a go-to fundraiser in Upper Manhattan who has also hosted events at Negro Claro for state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and state Sen. Adriano Espaillat.And More Albany Probes + Cuomo + de Blasio
Sheldon Silver, Dean Skelos head to prison, but state corruption probes aren’t over (Daily Freedman)
Now de Blasio Slams Silver As A Bad Apple in 2015 "Man of Integrity"
De Blasio slams ‘bad apples’ Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos (NYP) * NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio trashed crooked ex-pols Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos as “bad apples” who got what they deserved in a WABC radio interview, while downplaying the multiple probes facing him and predicting he’ll be re-elected next year.* Dean Skelos Sports Complex removes references to disgraced politician's name (NYDN) A Long Island sports complex named after Skelos has quietly removed the signs bearing his name. Though the park is still named after Skelos, who last week was sentenced to five years in prison on federal corruption charges, the village of Rockville Centre removed any signs referencing the Dean Skelos Sports Complex.* Sheldon Silver's Surrender Date Pushed Back to August 31 (NY1)
In 16 Months and One Trial Silver When From "Man of Integrity" To "Bad Apple"
Senate Democratic Aide Who Ask if Team de Blasio Check Cleared Subpoenaed
A state Senate Democratic aide who was a campaign manager referenced in a state Board of Elections criminal referral involving Team de Blasio’s 2014 fundraising operation on behalf of the Senate Democrats has been subpoenaed by investigators, a source said. In her referral, Board of Elections Chief Enforcement Counsel Risa Sugarman cited a 2014 email from Matthew Lerch, then Sen. Cecilia Tkaczyk’s campaign manager, to Ulster County Democratic Committee Treasurer Hayes Clement asking if a $60,000 check from the state Nurse’s Association had cleared and if it could be transferred to Tkaczyk’s campaign committee “ASAP.” Sugarman called the email proof of improper coordination and earmarking. Mayor de Blasio and his camp have insisted everything was done legally.Albany Ethics Pension Rerorm Still Going Nowhere
Negotiations over a proposal to strip pensions from corrupt lawmakers continue in Albany — though broader ethics reforms appear to be going nowhere despite two recent scandals involving their leaders.* Gridlock Creeps Up On Ethics Bills(YNN)
Silver and Skelos Will Not Go to Jail Until After Supreme Court Rules On Corruption Case
Manhattan federal prosecutors told the judge who sentenced Dean and Adam Skelos last week that the government won’t push for them to go to prison until at least three-plus months after the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a pending case on anti-corruption laws.
Another Hospital Closing Staff Beth Israel
What Happens After Golden Pick Rudiano is Accused of Wiping Out 120,000 Brooklyn Voters ? Her Court Testimony May Help Him Take Over the Brooklyn GOP
The Bottom Feeders Running the NYC GOP Still Fighting Each Other
Stringer de Blasio Goes About Deed Restrictions For Friends With Campaign Contribution Benefits
Contributions to Campaign for One NY PAC and de Blasio's Putnam Laundry
City Controller Scott Stringer blasted the de Blasio administration over the secretive lifting of deed restrictions on lucrative properties. “This is an outrage,” Stringer said at City Hall. “It’s just mind boggling. The public should be outraged. Government has failed every which way.” Stringer is probing the case of Rivington House on the Lower East Side, where the city took $16 million to remove a restriction requiring the property to be used as a nonprofit health care facility — shortly before a luxury condo developer bought the land for $116 million. The state attorney general and city Department of Investigation are also investigating the deal. “It’s wrong that the people of Harlem and the people of the Lower East Side wake up to ... find their community is being sold right out from under them,” Stringer said. “The public deserves better than deed restrictions that are lifted in the middle of the night with no oversight.”“It’s wrong that the people of Harlem and the people of the Lower East Side wake up to ... find their community is being sold right out from under them,” Stringer said. “The public deserves better than deed restrictions that are lifted in the middle of the night with no oversight.”* As Officials Investigate Lifting of Deed Restriction on Lower East Side, Similar Case Makes Headlines in Harlem (NY1) * Developer Snags Harlem Lot After Paying City $875K to Lift Deed: Report (DNAINFO) A plot of land in Harlem had its deed restrictions lifted by a city agency.
Team Cuomo Blasts de Blasio Blame Game Smokescreen
Democratic leader slams de Blasio for ‘political smokescreen’(NYP) The executive director of the state Democratic Party slammed Mayor de Blasio in an interview Friday for creating a “political smokescreen” to distract from probes of his fund-raising. Basil Smikle disputed efforts by the mayor and his allies to pin the leaks about the investigations on political rivals including Gov. Cuomo, The New York Times reported. “To the extent that the mayor is asserting that the current investigation is politically motivated, that would imply that actions of the Manhattan DA and the US attorney are politically motivated,” Smikle Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. and Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara are looking into whether de Blasio’s aides played fast and loose with campaign finance rules.
De Blasio’s Accusations Over Inquiry Draw Retort From Cuomo’s Side (NYT)The State Democratic Party swatted back after Mayor Bill de Blasio said he believed details of a fund-raising investigation were leaked in an effort to undercut him. In the first statements from the New York State Democratic Party since Mr. de Blasio began describing the episode as politically motivated, the state party’s head, Basil A. Smikle Jr., suggested that Mr. de Blasio’s allegations were “nothing more than a political smoke screen created by the mayor,” arguing that there was good reason for various agencies to investigate the mayor’s fund-raising without an extra prod from state officials. “To the extent that the mayor is asserting that the current investigation is politically motivated, that would imply that actions of the Manhattan D.A. and the U.S. attorney are politically motivated,” said Mr. Smikle, the executive director of the state party, which was involved in the 2014 election effort and which Mr. Cuomo controls. “It would also imply that the newspapers, editorial boards and good government groups that raised these very issues prior to any investigations are all politically motivated.”Mr. Vance opened his investigation after receiving a report from the State Board of Elections that questioned Mr. de Blasio’s activities. The board had made its own inquiries and voted to refer the matter to Mr. Vance. The official who wrote the report, Risa S. Sugarman, the board’s chief enforcement counsel, was appointed by Mr. Cuomo. In addition to questioning the leak of the board’s inquiry, Mr. de Blasio has also suggested that the inquiry itself, as well as another investigation by the State Joint Commission on Public Ethics, are politically motivated. * New York energy project faces scrutiny in federal probe involving former Cuomo aide (Percoco) via @WSJ
de Blasio's Lawyer Interconnected With the State Dem Party Lawyers
De Blasio lawyer did event for group with ties to state Dem party (NYDN) At the same time allies to Gov. Cuomo hammer Mayor de Blasio and his campaign lawyer Laurence Laufer for branding probes by state entities into the mayor and his associates as politically motivated, Laufer last week helped lead an event by a group aligned with the state party designed to teach lawyers about state and city campaign finance laws. “The (state party) seems happy to rely on Mr. Laufer's expertise when it suits them but questions it when politically expedient,” said one Democratic aide. Laufer, a former counsel to the city Campaign Finance Board, and Doug Kellner, co-chairman of the state Board of Elections, led the May 12 event sponsored by the New York Democratic Lawyers Council, which is a joint voting rights project of the state and national Democratic committees Laufer last week released a scathing letter saying that the Committee For One New York, a non-profit created to push de Blasio’s agenda, would no longer cooperate with a probe by the state ethics commission. Laufer claimed called the probe a political witch hunt undertaken by allies of the governor. He also recently released a letter trashing as political criminal referral made by Board of Elections Chief Enforcement Officer Risa Sugarman, a Cuomo appointee, regarding the de Blasio fundraising operation's help for Senate Democrats in 2014. In that letter, he said the legal points Sugarman made in her referral letter were not accurate and also raised the issue of possible political hijinks. Former state Sen. Martin Connor, a lawyer who does campaign work, attended the May 12 event as part of a requirement in New York that attorneys every two years get a certain amount of continuing legal education. He said Laufer focused on the rules pertaining to the city Campaign Finance Board and did not bring up any of the investigations or hostilities between the governor and mayor.
de Blasio May Not Understand But He Just Called DOI, CFB and Conflict of Interest Board That Picks Is Under His Thumb
de Blasio's Lawyer Interconnected With the State Dem Party Lawyers
De Blasio lawyer did event for group with ties to state Dem party (NYDN) At the same time allies to Gov. Cuomo hammer Mayor de Blasio and his campaign lawyer Laurence Laufer for branding probes by state entities into the mayor and his associates as politically motivated, Laufer last week helped lead an event by a group aligned with the state party designed to teach lawyers about state and city campaign finance laws. “The (state party) seems happy to rely on Mr. Laufer's expertise when it suits them but questions it when politically expedient,” said one Democratic aide. Laufer, a former counsel to the city Campaign Finance Board, and Doug Kellner, co-chairman of the state Board of Elections, led the May 12 event sponsored by the New York Democratic Lawyers Council, which is a joint voting rights project of the state and national Democratic committees Laufer last week released a scathing letter saying that the Committee For One New York, a non-profit created to push de Blasio’s agenda, would no longer cooperate with a probe by the state ethics commission. Laufer claimed called the probe a political witch hunt undertaken by allies of the governor. He also recently released a letter trashing as political criminal referral made by Board of Elections Chief Enforcement Officer Risa Sugarman, a Cuomo appointee, regarding the de Blasio fundraising operation's help for Senate Democrats in 2014. In that letter, he said the legal points Sugarman made in her referral letter were not accurate and also raised the issue of possible political hijinks. Former state Sen. Martin Connor, a lawyer who does campaign work, attended the May 12 event as part of a requirement in New York that attorneys every two years get a certain amount of continuing legal education. He said Laufer focused on the rules pertaining to the city Campaign Finance Board and did not bring up any of the investigations or hostilities between the governor and mayor.
de Blasio May Not Understand But He Just Called DOI, CFB and Conflict of Interest Board That Picks Is Under His Thumb
Asked for comment, a spokesman for Mr. de Blasio referred a reporter to the mayor’s interview on WNYC on Friday morning, in which he was asked why a political nonprofit tied to his administration had refused to comply with a subpoena from the state ethics panel, which Mr. de Blasio has argued is under Mr. Cuomo’s thumb. “It’s one thing to participate with an investigation that’s appropriate and within appropriate boundaries, but when an investigation may be motivated by politics, when an investigation may be going beyond its legal mandate — and obviously be, in a sense, a partisan act — that’s a whole different matter,” the mayor said.
NYT Putnam de Blasio's Protect Cuomo Lundered Senate $$$ Also Gray Lady Says Percoco Was Involved
NYT in the Tank for the Mayor
Albany Plays the Schoolyard Bully (NYT) State lawmakers need to stop playing games and let Mayor Bill de Blasio keep control over city schools.
Next: Bharara's Premature Closing of the Moreland Commission Warning
Where Will de Blasio Next Birthday Party Be Held?
Daily News Pushes Hard On Albany to End Child Abuse
'I HAVE NO COMMENT': New York State’s big three politicians don’t have time to discuss reforms to child abuse law(NYDN)
'SHAME ON YOU': Former DA Jeanine Pirro 'disappointed' in pols for protecting pervs rather than seeking justice for victims
‘AN ABSOLUTE MONSTER’: ‘SNL’ star Pete Davidson — a Staten Island native — slams school priest accused of sexist, racist rants
Always behind closed doors: Albany won't speak up on sex abuse(NYDN Ed)
Cuomo has dodged repeated entreaties from advocates against child sexual abuse to support legislation that would enable many victims of this crime to seek justice from their abusers. A spokesman said the governor supports changes to current law, but wouldn’t say what those changes are.* N.Y. bizman wants to spend $100G against senators to help child sex-abuse victims: 'kids are still getting abused every day' (NYDN) * Kathryn Robb, a sex abuse survivor-turned-attorney and advocate for victims, has a meeting in Albany today Senate Deputy Majority Leader John DeFrancisco to discuss a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations for pursuing criminal charges or filing lawsuits in child sex abuse cases.Top Democrats in Albany still won’t tell survivors where they can stand on the decade-old effort to reform the state’s statute of limitations law on child sex abuse claims. * A coalition of nearly three dozen organizations is looking to jumpstart the push for Lavern’s Law before the legislative session ends in June. * GIVING PREDATORS A PASS: The case of Father James Williams underscores the urgency of statute-of-limitations reforms (NYDN) After being called out by victims, Cuomo said – through a spokesman – that he wanted to pass a bill in the next few weeks that would make it easier for adults who were sexually abused as kids to seek justice.
Yesterday True News
If You Want to Know What's In the NYP The Next Day Read True News Today
Sorry, Mayor de Blasio: Your problem’s not Andrew Cuomo, it’s Preet Bharara(NYP Ed)
The mayor is desperately trying to deflect attention any way he can from the myriad criminal probes now under way of his administration on five different fronts. That’s why he’s now blasting the Joint Commission on Public Ethics, refusing to cooperate with its probe of his slush fund, the Campaign for One New York. It’s a political hit job clearly directed by the governor, de Blasio suggests.
Not that he’s mentioning Cuomo by name. He just urges reporters to “look into these fascinating interconnections and potential motivations and the cast of characters” involved in JCOPE’s operation. Yes, JCOPE was a Cuomo creation. But all that guilt-by-association insinuation cuts both ways: Similar “interconnections and potential motivations” — and an odd cast of characters — have de Blasio squirming on the investigative hot seat. Like possible quid pro quos: favors given to donors to his slush funds and campaigns. But JCOPE is trying to subpoena CONY, not de Blasio. By aggressively declaring non-cooperation, the mayor only underscores just how tightly connected he and his slush fund actually are. Besides, the mayor’s public bluster ignores the fact that US Attorney Preet Bharara has had criminal probes of City Hall shenanigans under way for some time. The investigations even predate the state Board of Elections criminal referral to Manhattan DA Cy Vance — a move that de Blasio also tried to write off as the work of a Cuomo ally. Fact is, the two prosecutors remain much bigger potential threats than anything the relatively toothless JCOPE might do. De Blasio brought this whole mess on himself. And all the tough talk in the world won’t change that.
Yesterday True News Wrote:
Does the Press Understand How Unconstitutional It is When the Mayor Says He Does Not Want His Lobbyists to Follow the State Law? And How Dumb
AS Feds and Manhattan DA Zero In ON Same Crimes as JCOPE?
de Blasio campaign 2017
FBI Had Their Own Investigation Into the Mayor's Fund Raising During the 2014 Election Before Before JCOPE Made It Criminal Referral
JCOPE Asks Judge to Order Team de Blasio to Heed Subpoena on CONY Investigation Preferential Treatment Being Looked At
The Speaker Found Guility of Using An Illegal NYCLASS Lobbyists Says de Blasio Follow "Letter of the Law"
Kramer: “They claim that they have seven Democrats and seven Republicans and it’s bipartisan. I wonder if you believe what they’re saying.” De Blasio: “No, I don’t. I think it’s quite clear a double standard is being held. I think it’s quite clear there are other motivations, and if they want to go to court, they can go to court. We think it’s quite clear that they are beyond their purview.”
Subpoenas Fly At City Hall
Knight of the Long Knives As Cuomo Homeless Shelter Attacked
NYC homeless shelters founded by Cuomo are hellholes filled with violence, child abuse (NYDN) *
Not good news - HUD slashes funding for some New York City homeless shelters via@politicony
Not good news - HUD slashes funding for some New York City homeless shelters via
Team de Blasio Creating A NYS Constitutional Crisis As They Defy Subpoenas By the JCOPE Which Regulates Election and Lobbyists
When Lawyer Ravi Batra A JCOPE Commissioner Tried to Expose the Illegality of the None Profit CSNY Campaign-Lobbying Coordinating in 2012 He Had No Idea That He Would Also Be On Point for A Tax Exempt None Proft de Blasio Would Form A Year Latter the Campaign for One NY
RaviBatra@RaviBatra C41NY, as CSNY, is tax-exempt issue-advocacy. No tax-exempt body can Candidate-Coordinate OR lobby & remain such. JCOPE is Lobbyists'Cop * I protested in7/12 as JCOPE Commissioner when #JCOPE, w/o Pwr, alteredDisclosure Date to cloak #CSNY & Cuomo-admitted 2Coordinating-CSNY * AsJCOPE Commish I notified Feds in 8/12 & resigned 9/7/12 from JCOPE. Now, C41NY has BdB-Coordination, lobbying, QuidProQuo Donor-BdB?
-Thx to Cuomo feeling bitten by @PreetBharara, he cut de Blasio to distract; but Preet & Cy can take both out
Both Nixon and Now de Blasio Refused to Answer Subpoenas From Investigates
Acorn's Bertha Lewis sold out Atlantic Yards to developers. She'll do it w/Scott Stringer
Bertha Lewis, a black activist with deep ties to de Blasio, is giving a civic award to NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer, raising eyebrows in political circles because Stringer is being mentioned as a possible challenger to the mayor’s 2017 re-election.
This is What JCOPE Said Team de Blasio, CONY and the Consultants Did
Who Is Watching the Lobbyists? The City’s Top Law Enforcement Officials Must Recuse Themselves Because They Depend on the Same Consultants Under Investigation for Their Own Re-Elections
Federal Authorities Interview John Catsimatidis as Partof De Blasio Probe (WSJ) Supermarket mogul donated $50,000 to upstate Senate campaign*
Who Watchers the Watchman, Lobbyists, Grand Jury, AG - DAs Conflict of Interests With NYPD and Elected Officials
Horse-Carriage Fight Politics
Media Cover-Up of NYCLASS, Other Citizens United PACs, Mayor One NY PAC
Horse-Carriage Fight Politics
Media Cover-Up of NYCLASS, Other Citizens United PACs, Mayor One NY PAC
How the Advance Group Conspired to Steal the 2009 and 2013 Election
CrainsNY on the Advance Groups Double Dipping
CrainsNY on the Advance Groups Double Dipping
Team de Blasio Wanted Its Money to Pay Its Consultants
Team de Blasio is accused of campaigncrimes far beyond ordinary politics (NYP) One huge difference is the state Board of Elections charge that Team de Blasio’s involvement stretched all the way to telling campaigns how to spend the money — namely, to hire the mayor’s favored consultants, such as BerlinRosen and AKPD Message and Media. If that holds up, then Team de Blasio wasn’t just using upstate Democratic committees as cutouts to fund its favored candidates’ campaigns. It was also using the campaigns as cutouts to pay its own cronies. Such micro-management is light years beyond what state law envisions in letting party committees help fund local campaigns. Of course, the allegations also run to crossing the line in dumping funds on those party committees. The Board of Elex memo notes, “Team de Blasio held discussions with the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee concerning who would be paying for what aspect of the campaign” and how to identify the de Blasio-raised money. Having the cash from “independent” donors flagged as really coming from you isn’t “usual,” either. Beyond all that is the question of what if any favors were promised to the city-based donors for their upstate donations. *
Team de Blasio is accused of campaigncrimes far beyond ordinary politics (NYP) One huge difference is the state Board of Elections charge that Team de Blasio’s involvement stretched all the way to telling campaigns how to spend the money — namely, to hire the mayor’s favored consultants, such as BerlinRosen and AKPD Message and Media. If that holds up, then Team de Blasio wasn’t just using upstate Democratic committees as cutouts to fund its favored candidates’ campaigns. It was also using the campaigns as cutouts to pay its own cronies. Such micro-management is light years beyond what state law envisions in letting party committees help fund local campaigns. Of course, the allegations also run to crossing the line in dumping funds on those party committees. The Board of Elex memo notes, “Team de Blasio held discussions with the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee concerning who would be paying for what aspect of the campaign” and how to identify the de Blasio-raised money. Having the cash from “independent” donors flagged as really coming from you isn’t “usual,” either. Beyond all that is the question of what if any favors were promised to the city-based donors for their upstate donations. *
In An Era When Super Talls Are Destroying NYC's Neighbors the Daily News Honors Jane Jacobs for Saving the City
Voter's Protest: New York's Decreasing Voter Turnout
Daily News Stenographers True News Two Year Investigation of the Lobbyists Take Over of NY Govt and Politics and Call it EXCLUSIVE Media A Bunch Of Low Life Press Bullies Thugs
How True News For the Last Two Years Exposed How Shadow Govt Lobbyists Took Over NY's Govt and Election System
Lobbyists Berlin Rosen Takes Over NYC Government
The Privatization of the Tammany Hall Machine
A Tale of Two CFBs: Albanese vs Campaign PAC NYCLASS,UFT's United for the Future
Red Horse Campaign Consultants
de Blasio One NY PAC Interlocking-directorates Slush Fund, Berlin Rosen, Bill Hyers, Red Horse
Red Horse Campaign Consultants
de Blasio One NY PAC Interlocking-directorates Slush Fund, Berlin Rosen, Bill Hyers, Red Horse
More on Dark Pool Corrupt Consultant Who Will Have to Register As Lobbyists
@CharmianNeary A modern Diogenes, Gary Tilzer @unitedNYblogs has been sounding the alarm on this seemingly forever
AKPD Message and Media, which was founded by President Obama’s former adviser David Axelrod and whose New York clients include Gov. Cuomo, de Blasio and the state Democratic Party, was paid the most of any firm since 2011 — $37.9 million. Red Horse Strategies was next with $20.1 million, followed by the Parkside Group ($15.8 million), SKDKnickerbocker ($15.3 million), Mark Guma Communications ($11.6 million), BerlinRosen ($9.6 million) and The Advance Group ($5.2 million).
The Advance Group, meanwhile, was fined by the city and state more than $25,000 in October for illegally helping New Yorkers for Clean, Livable & Safe Streets — an anti-horse carriage group that gave to City Council candidates in 2013 — evade contribution limits. The Advance Group has represented a range of elected officials ranging from former Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes to a number of state legislators and Council members. SKDKnickerbocker is the only top firm that has not been tied to any of the recent scandals involving de Blasio's fund-raising operation. In 2013, when de Blasio was elected, the firm worked for his primary opponent then-City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. It has also represented city Controller Scott Stringer, who is considered a potential de Blasio challenger.
NYP Copies True News On How de Blasio Learned to Go Around the Election Law Limits and Just About Everything Else
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| True News Posted in 2015 |
The Great NYP Robbery of True News Part 1 On How de Blasio Learned to Go Around the Election Law
The WFP and BerlinRosen Has Played Fast and Lose With the Election Law, Data and Field Arrests(True News)
NYP Rips Off True News's Story On de Blasio on Data and Field And Leaves Out Two Players Being Investigated By the FBI DUMB
Emma Wolfe Refused to Speak to A Special Prosecutor About Data and Fields
Two Charged in Campaign Finance Case(WSJ) De Blasio Aide Backs Out of Speaking With Special Prosecutor. Emma Wolfe, director of intergovernmental affairs in the de Blasio administration, was tentatively scheduled to speak with the special prosecutor on the case, Robert Bennet Adler, next week, the person said. Emma Wolfe, director of intergovernmental affairs in the de Blasio administration, was tentatively scheduled to speak with the special prosecutor on the case, Robert Bennet Adler, next week, the person said. But in recent days, Ms. Wolfe’s attorney informed Mr. Adler’s office that she wouldn’t voluntarily speak with the prosecutor, the person said. The session was to be part of an agreement in which Ms. Wolfe would speak to the special prosecutor with the assurance that the information couldn’t be used against her, the person said.
Berlin
NYP Rips Off True News's Story On de Blasio on Data and Field And Leaves Out Two Players Being Investigated By the FBI DUMB
Emma Wolfe Refused to Speak to A Special Prosecutor About Data and Fields
Mayor de Blasio's 2009 campaign for public advocate campaign paid WFP's Data and Field $225,000 and Berlin Rosen $6,000. Councilman Lander's campaign paid Data and Field $55,000 and paid Berlin Rosen $85,000. Speaker Mark-Viverito's campaign paid Data and Field $1000 and Berlin Rosen $75,000. Councilman Dromm's campaign paid Data and Field $55,000 and Berlin Rosen $20,000. Councilman Van Bramer's campaign paid Data and Field $35,000 and Berlin Rosen $80,000. Councilman Williams' campaign paid Data and Field $55,000 and Berlin Rosen $125,000. Securing the WFP nomination comes with important perks. The candidates that Berlin Rosen worked for in 2009 received $466,000 from Data and Field. Perhaps chief among them is a formidable ground game, courtesy of the party’s political-consulting arm, Data and Field Services (DFS), created in 2007. DFS works only for candidates whom the WFP endorses. The two entities are supposed to be legally separate to comply with election and campaign-finance laws, but they share office space on the third floor of the building at 2-4 Nevins Street in Brooklyn . In 2013 Berlin Rosen work with the Advance Group for two council candidates Mark Levine and Laurie Cumbo fined for receiving mailings controlled by the NYCLASS PAC under investigation controlled by the Advance Group. Berlin Rosen's candidate Corey Johnson also received funding from another PAC the Advance Group was working for the UFT's United for the Future PAC. The Advance PAC funded Johnson despite the fact that Advance Was working for his opponent Yetta Krukland.
How the NYT Tried to Stop the Investigation of Data and Fields For One Staten IslandCampaign, a Special Prosecutor Instead of an Auditor (Dwyer NYT)
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How the NYT Tried to Stop the Investigation of Data and Fields For One Staten IslandCampaign, a Special Prosecutor Instead of an Auditor (Dwyer NYT)
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de Blasio Spin Of Innocent and His Mini Me Media Friends Backing Him Up Mean Nothing: Its Up the the Jury "The People Who Are Getting Screw By Govt to Decide If the Mayor Broke"
Almost 40,000 a-Ballots in Brooklyn 121,056 City Widewide
Friday UpdateManhattan lawyer Mark Warren Moody, in a class action suit, wants the current voter eligibility regulations for primaries tossed out after he lost a chance to pull the lever in New York 's April 19 presidential primary, the Daily News writes:
BOE boss finally apologizes for 126,000vanished voters (NYP) The head of the city’s Board of Elections issued an apology Tuesday for the mysterious purge of 126,000 voters from the rolls that wreaked havoc on last week’s presidential primaries. “I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the public for any actions that might have been taken by our staff that may have caused any amount of the public trust in New York City to erode,” executive director Michael Ryan told a crowd of nearly 100 who packed the board’s weekly meeting. That was a reversal from his position last week, when he told Fox 5’s “Good Day New York” he was “proud” of his staff. Ryan claimed his remarks were taken out of context and that he was specifically praising workers for tallying the results in an “unprecedented” short time. There were 121,056 affidavit tallies citywide, 37,214 of which were in Brooklyn. Board commissioners later ratified Ryan’s recent suspension without pay of Republican Diane Haslett-Rudiano as chief clerk of theBrooklyn office. When asked why the Brooklyn office’s deputy clerk, Democrat Betty Ann Canizio-Aqil, wasn’t disciplined, considering most of the purged voters were Democrats, Ryan said, “Perhaps when more information becomes available to the commissioners, they’ll take appropriate action.”
Kellner Who Supported Sending de Blasio's Campaign Contributions to the Prosecutors Turns Against Ms. Sugarman to Protect the Mayor
Friday Update
BOE boss finally apologizes for 126,000vanished voters (NYP) The head of the city’s Board of Elections issued an apology Tuesday for the mysterious purge of 126,000 voters from the rolls that wreaked havoc on last week’s presidential primaries. “I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the public for any actions that might have been taken by our staff that may have caused any amount of the public trust in New York City to erode,” executive director Michael Ryan told a crowd of nearly 100 who packed the board’s weekly meeting. That was a reversal from his position last week, when he told Fox 5’s “Good Day New York” he was “proud” of his staff. Ryan claimed his remarks were taken out of context and that he was specifically praising workers for tallying the results in an “unprecedented” short time. There were 121,056 affidavit tallies citywide, 37,214 of which were in Brooklyn. Board commissioners later ratified Ryan’s recent suspension without pay of Republican Diane Haslett-Rudiano as chief clerk of the
Kellner Who Supported Sending de Blasio's Campaign Contributions to the Prosecutors Turns Against Ms. Sugarman to Protect the Mayor
Douglas Kellner, one of the board’s four commissioners, said on Sunday that he could not comment on or acknowledge investigations or criminal referrals. But he agreed with some of Mr. Laufer’s concerns about the impact of the leak and about “how prejudicial the public comments have been” in its wake. Mr. Kellner, a Democrat, added that he and other commissioners had consistently criticized Ms. Sugarman for “what appears to be arbitrary selection of those who she determines to investigate.” “We have repeatedly expressed concerns that the independent enforcement counsel has not explained how she chooses which investigations to pursue,” he said. Ms. Sugarman has denied any influence from Mr. Cuomo — who nominated her to the board post and had previously employed her during his time as attorney general — or any other entity.-NYT
If You Want to Know What is In the Daily News Days Before They Write It
While the CFB and Conflict of Interests Board Were Investigating the Advance Group for Illegal Campaign Work (NYCLASS) The Firms Lobbyists Client Got A Play to Play Deal From de Blasio and Nislick Almost Got His Westside Horse Barns
Firm lobbying for permits donated $68K tode Blasio (NYP) A top exec at an “incubator” office-space firm bundled the largest contribution to Mayor de Blasio’s re-election bid from her bosses and others — while the company was lobbying the city over a Financial District conversion project, The Post has learned. De Blasio took in $68,750 collected by Arana Hankin, senior vice president of WeWork, which is adding residences to a building at 110 Wall St. , where it rents communal and private offices, records show. The campaign cash that Hankin handed over to the mayor’s campaign Jan. 11 included the maximum $4,950 each from WeWork co-founders Adam Neumann and Miquel McKelvey, and both of their wives. Meanwhile, WeWork spent $150,000 lobbying the de Blasio administration between April 2015 and February 2016, records show. Scott Levenson of the Advance Group said he was paid $100,000 by WeWork to lobby officials over 110 Wall St. , where permits were issued in July to begin turning it into a mixed-use space. In addition to WeWork, Levenson’s clients have included the NYCLASS anti-carriage horse group, which last week was slapped with subpoenas by both the feds and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office as part of the ever-widening corruption scandal swirling around de Blasio. The 27-story building at 110 Wall St. is owned by Rudin Management, whose chief executive, Bill Rudin, is No. 5 on the list of de Blasio’s big-money bundlers, having collected $25,150 for the mayor’s planned 2017 re-election campaign.* A top executive at an office-space firm bundled the largest contribution to de Blasio’s re-election bid from her bosses and others while the company was lobbying the city over a Financial District conversion project
Before Bharara Move Daily News Covered Up de Blasio's CFB Conflict of Ethics Board Cover Up of His Illegal PAC Activity
The Daily News Which Investigated the Advance Group Ducks Comment the CFB AG Parking Ticket Fine
The Daily News Which Investigated the Advance Group Ducks Comment the CFB AG Parking Ticket Fine
In 2014 the Daily News repored that the FBI was investigating donations to NYCLASS from men closeto Mayor de Blasio that may have been used toward anti-Christine Quinncampaigners On May 21, lawyer Jay Eisenhofer gave $50,000 to NYCLASS, the animal rights group leading the crusade to ban carriage horses. Ten days later, on May 31, NYCLASS gave an equal amount — $50,000, to the anti-Quinn group. On June 1, NYCLASS received another large donation, this time for $175,000. It came from UNITE HERE! — a labor union headed by John Wilhelm. Two days after that, on June 3, NYCLASS sent the same amount, $175,000, to the anti-Quinn campaign. The issue? Both Wilhelm and Eisenhofer have long-standing ties to Bill de Blasio, one of Quinn’s Democratic rivals in the mayoral campaign. Wilhelm is de Blasio’s cousin — and a prolific fund-raiser for him. Wilhelm raised $6,950 for de Blasio’s 2009 race for public advocate and $80,000 for de Blasio’s successful campaign for mayor. * EXCLUSIVE: FBI investigating claim Christine Quinn was threatened for refusing to support carriage horse ban during the mayoral race (NYDN) *Consulting firm head hired by de Blasio for Central Parkcarriage industry review was early supporter of NYCLASS (NYDN)
The Daily News and Good Govt Groups Who Said UFT PAC Illegally Funding Advance Now are Silent
Getting Away With Fixing Elections
UFT under fire for apparently trying to hide identity of consulting firm(NYDN)The city’s powerful teachers union is under fire from good-government groups for apparently trying to hide the identity of a consulting firm it was using to boost union-backed candidates. "The listing of the phony firm, 'Strategic Consultants, Inc.,' in campaign filings, obscured that Advance Group was being paid both to promote candidates for the United Federation of Teachers' independent political action committee, and working as the main campaign consultant for several of those same candidates."
The Daily News is Ducking the Low Advance Fine and No Criminal Investigation Means Nobody is Watching the Watchmen
The Daily News Reported That People Close to de Basio Sent Cash to Advance Run NYCLASS
Bill at the trough (NYDN Ed) De Blasio's conversion on horse carriages coincided with a rush of campaign cash. This is the curious story of how a self-described skeptic of the ban in 2007 became, by March 2013, a man who pledged to “ban the horse carriages in Central Park within the first week on the job.” In 2007, then-City Councilman de Blasio declared himself “skeptical” of a bill seeking to ban the carriages. In January 2008, the checks began arriving — and, presumably, the reeducation of the politician got underway. Wendy Neu, a longtime animal rights advocate who would later become a NYCLASS board member, gave $1,000 to de Blasio’s campaign for public advocate.Before long, more checks from Neu, NYCLASS co-founder Stephen Nislick and others started rolling in.Conversion complete? Not quite.
The Daily News Broke the Story That Advance Illegally Worked On Mark-Viverito Speakers Race Says Nothing Today
EXCLUSIVE: City Council Speaker candidate Melissa Mark-Viverito may have violated city ethics rules(NYDN) Mark-Viverito, an East Harlem councilwoman, accepted unpaid assistance from the Advance Group, a prominent lobbying firm working to further her candidacy (Daily News 11/27/2013) * New York City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito’s ties to the consulting firm Advance Group may be hurting her candidacy for speaker
From the Daily News After Bharara Moves: "And never could the city’s top ethics watchdog and anti-corruption cop, Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters, say boo because Peters had served as de Blasio’s campaign treasurer." On Friday, Peters announced that he would play no role in the burgeoning probes, which is to say that Peters is disqualified from fulfilling the highest responsibility of the job. Letter of resignation to follow.
What About Red Horse?
Red Horse Consultant works for the mayor’s PAC Campaign for One NY and for 4 of the 5 Das Election Campaigns Including the Manhattan DA Now Investigating the Putnam slush fund that Red Horse that was interconnected with DSCC that Red Horse was paid from. Another consultant that got funds from DSCC and worked for both the Manhattan DAs campaign and Quinn's mayoral election Mark Guma also forgave a bill to the DA which then became other unenforced illegal inkind campaign contribution.
What About Berlin
Berlin Rosen Worked for all the recent campaigns of AG Eric Schneiderman
NYCLASS Hit With Subpoenas By Feds and Manhattan DA
NYCLASS, a key deBlasio donor, hit with subpoena in mayor fund-raising probe (NYDN) A key donor to Mayor de Blasio’s fund-raising was subpoenaed Thursday, as it became clear the growing investigation is zeroing in on whether his campaign broke rules pursuing checks from powerful interests seeking favors from City Hall, the Daily News has learned. The Manhattan U.S. Attorney and the Manhattan District Attorney both demanded documents from an anti-horse carriage group that has steered hundreds of thousands of dollars to de Blasio in its effort to ban carriages from Central Park , according to a source familiar with the probe. Supporters of that group, New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets, NYCLASS, have written checks totaling $125,000 to Campaign for One New York, a so-called “independent spending” organization de Blasio formed to support his pet causes. Late Thursday, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. demanded documents from the group, which steered $100,000 to Campaign for One New York in March 2015. By then, de Blasio’s promise to end the carriages “on day one” of his administration was a distant memory, and the effort has since been resolved to the satisfaction of no one. Sale , a rabidly anti-Quinn group. At the time, the anti-Quinn group had to disclose its contributions, but NYCLASS didn’t. The two donations weren’t revealed until days after de Blasio won the primary. Key tools in the de Blasio woodshed include raising unrestricted donations via so-called “independent spending” groups and relying on donors who bundle multiple individual checks. Records show de Blasio has been a consistent beneficiary of bundling — for example, pocketing $1.4 million this way in 2013 and $467,370 more for his reelection bid through mid-January.
How the Advance Group Conspired to Steal the 2009 and 2013 Election
CrainsNY on the Advance Groups Double Dipping
CrainsNY on the Advance Groups Double Dipping
Horse-Carriage Fight Politics
Media Cover-Up of NYCLASS, Other Citizens United PACs, Mayor One NY PAC
Media Cover-Up of NYCLASS, Other Citizens United PACs, Mayor One NY PAC
The Keys to the Intelocking Directorates of the Mayor’s Fund Raising Pay to Play Governing Campaigning Scam Bharara & FBI Investigating Chart
1. Reichberg raised money for the mayor in 2013, held a fund raiser for his Campaign for One NY PAC $9,900 to the in addition, Rechnitz was one of the biggest bundlers for de Blasio’s campaign, raking in more than $40,000 from contributors. *** 2. Reichberg donated $50,000 to de Blasio’s Campaign for One New York — Hizzoner made his first visit to Borough Park
6. The the CFB, AG and Conflict of Interest Board made the Council Speaker and Advance paid a small fine for the illegal work done by Advance Group 7,8.9,10 The mayor and Council Speaker pick all the members on the CFB and Conflict of Interest Board 11. Nislick & Neu had meeting w/ mayor 3 days after $100K donation to CONY #CarriageGate 12. Neu and Nislick donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to NYCLASS PAC that destroyed Quinns mayoral campaign Anti-horse-carriage lobbyists Steve Nislick and Wendy Neu have donated $125,000 combined to de Blasio’s nonprofit CONY — which doesn’t fall under campaign-finance law restrictions — and landed three meetings with Hizzoner through August. The huddles included a March 2 meeting that occurred three days after the lobbyists gave the nonprofit $50,000 each.
13. The Advance Group Scott Levinson ran the NYCLASS PAC. Levinson took a Job with Nislick company Edison Parking 6 days after de Blasio was elected as mayor 14. The leaders Berlin Rosen state off working for AG Schneiderman and have worked as political consultants for all of his recent campaigns These public affairs firms, such as BerlinRosen, are not obligated to register as lobbyists — even though critics say they could be perceived as doing lobbying work because they have clients with business before City Hall while also having easy access to deBlasio. BerlinRosen, for instance, has overseen communications strategies for One New York, while also counting real estate developers — Forest City Ratner Companies, SL Green Realty and Two Trees Management — among its clients. Two Trees Management, the developer behind the Domino Sugar redevelopment project, donated $100,000 to One New York
15. Red Horse works for the Campaign for One NY 16. Red Horse Works for the follow DAs Brooklyn, Bronx, Staten Island and Manhattan 17. John Wilhelm, labor leader and cousin of Mayor de Blasio, avoids questions about role in $175K donation to NYCLASS that funded anti-Christine Quinn campaigners 18. de Blasio Appointed His Campaign Treasure Mark Peters Commission of DOI 19. GiftGate’s Jona Rechnitz, was a bundler for the mayor’s 2013 election campaign, collecting checks from others that totaled $41,650 and, with his wife, personally contributing another $9,900 in October 2013. At the time, Peters was de Blasio’s treasurer.
20. Lobbyists James Capalino is a target of an federal investigation of the sale of Riverington Nursing Home that had its deed changes by City Hall. Capalino – who records show had at least two other private meetings with the mayor through May of last year – led all city lobbyists in 2014, collecting $8.2 million in client fees. City records for the first nine months of last year show he’s on pace to topple that number, amassing nearly $8.3 million in fees — or nearly double the $4.6 million his firm amassed all of 2013 during the last year of the Bloomberg administration. His dozens of new clients include Uber, which wants to avoid further city-imposed regulations as it competes with the yellow-cab industry. It paid Capalino $150,000 the past two years to push its agenda.
21. Capalino’s firm gave de Blasio’s nonprofit Campaign for One New York $10,000 in May — and the next day was granted face-time with the mayor at City Hall to discuss a City Council bill to eliminate chopper tours at the Downtown Manhattan heliport. Lobbyist who steered$50,000 to Mayor de Blasio turned Lower East Sidenursing home into luxury condos (NYDN) A powerful lobbyist steered $50,000 in donations to Mayor de Blasio after pressing the city for a deed change that allows one of his clients to turn a building restricted for use as a nursing home into luxury condos. Since October lobbyist James Capalino has collected $40,000 in checks for de Blasio's 2017 re-election bid and personally wrote a $10,000 check in May to Campaign for One New York, the non-profit de Blasio uses to promote his causes. 22. Allure's Landau Contributed $5000 to de Blasio's 2013 Campaign Allure Group official Joel Landau reportedly donated nearly $5,000 to de Blasio’s 2013 mayoral campaign; the Mayor says he’ll return the donation. [AMNY] Jona Reichberg donated $50,000 to de Blasio’s Campaign for One New York — and he and his wife shelled out the maximum of $9,900 to the mayor’s 2013 campaign, records show. Rechnitz handed $102,000 to the Dems, records show. The party’s effort ultimately failed.
23 Capalino has rounded up $29,260 for the mayor’s re-election in 2017 and donated $10,000 to the Campaign for One New York, the non-profit that’s raised more than $4.3 million to back de Blasio’s agenda.” 24 Capalino clients Two Trees, Toll Brothers, Asphalt Green, Brookfield Properties and Douglaston Development also contributed to the Campaign for One New York. 25. Jona Rechnitz, who sources said was “always bragging” about his political connections, attended the Gracie Gala Dinner, a fund-raiser, last October. He donated $50,000 to de Blasio’s Campaign for One New York — and he and his wife shelled out the maximum of $9,900 to the mayor’s 2013 campaign, records show. The duo served together on the mayor’s inauguration committee. Hizzoner made his first visit to Borough Park
26.. Bill Hyer HillTop de Blasio;s Campaign Consultant in 2013 Represents Fortis the Developer of the LICH Hospital Site that de Blasio got arrested for as a campaign prop promising to keep the hospital open during the 2013 campaign. Hyers also worked for Campaign for One NY 27 Red Horse work for the Campaign for One NY and 4 Out of 5 of the City’s Das 28. Berlin Rosen who worked for Campaign for One NY Stated Out Working for the AG and has run all of his recent campaigns 29. Sid Davidoff, another longtime de Blasio pal and fundraiser, got a face-to-face meeting with deBlasio in September 2014 to discuss his client, Hunts Point Terminal Market. Six months later, the mayor announced plans for a $150 million infrastructure upgrade there. Besides seeing his company’s City Hall work jump from $2.1 million during the last two years of the Bloomberg administration to $4.2 million 1 ¾ years into the de Blasio administration, Davidoff scored another private business session last May with de Blasio to discuss a “civil rights museum,” records show. He even convinced Hizzoner in April 2014 to perform his first City Hall wedding and marry him and his bride, Daily News columnist Linda Stasi \
30. On Jan.11, de Blasio’s longtime mentor, Ickes, helped client AEG Live score a controversial permit to host a Coachella-style major music festival on Randall’s Island — on the same day he bundled $13,000 in donations for the mayor’s re-election campaign. Besides AEG Live, which shelled out $150,000 in fees, Ickes’ other clients include Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181-1061, which spent $42,000 before Ickes delivered $42 million in taxpayer funds to boost private bus driver salaries. 31 Teachers union paid $370K to fake consultant The United Federation of Teachers' payments to an apparently fictitious consulting firm raises new questions about the Advance Group's actions in the 2013 elections. 32. The Advance Group was Fined by the CFB for working for Councilmembers Levine and Cumbo at the same time they were working for the UFT PAC United for the Future 33. All the council candidate that Red Horse worked for got mailing from the UFT’s United for the Future PAC that Red Horse Also Worked for 34 Berlin Rosen worked for the UFT the same time that they ran several candidates funding by the UFT’s PAC United for the Future. In 2009 Berlin Rosen worked for several candidates that got campaign help from Data and Field that the CFB ruled was a illegal campaign arm of the WFP not a private company. de Blasio also got funded by Data and Field.
35. de Blasio after he was elected mayor work to elect Mark-Viverito as speaker of the City Counci 36 Rechnitz and his wife each donated the maximum $4,950 to de Blasio’s campaign, which the mayor has said he would return. 37 De Blasio’S Astoria Cove Deal Looks ALot Like Bloomberg 38. de Blasio campaign treasurer Richard Offinger was also once treasurer of Campaign for One New York 39. Two Trees gave $100,000 to the Campaign for One New York
More on Dark Pool Corrupt Consultant Who Will Have to Register As Lobbyists
Berlin Rosen and de Blasio One NY PAC Slush Fund
NY1 Berlin Rosen and the Wiseguys Lobbyists
More About Pitta Bishop and the Other Shadow Government Lobbyists
More About Pitta Bishop and the Other Shadow Government Lobbyists
Meanwhile, de Blasio brought in attorney Barry Berke of Kramer Levin on Tuesday to offer legal representation for issues surrounding his 2013 mayoral campaign. Berke will be paid with funds from that campaign. De Blasio said Berke will provide assistance to Bharara’s office in its campaign finance inquiry. Kramer Levin is a law firm that’s currently lobbying the mayor’s office on behalf of several clients, records show.*
Last Thursday's True News
Time for the Mayor to Hire A Lawyer
The corruption probe by the FBI and U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara is looking into whether polices officers accepted lavish gifts and vacations in exchange for police escorts and security. But the investigation also involves businessmen Jeremy Reichberg and Jona Rechnitz, who both served on de Blasio’s inaugural committee in 2013 and contributed to his campaign. Now, sources told Kramer the feds are questioning people in the real estate industry about how the mayor raises money. Sources said the questions from the U.S. Attorney’s office have focused on how donations are solicited by team de Blasio – including former campaign treasurer Ross Offinger. Reichberg and Rechnitz’s phones were tapped as investigators looked at their ties to former NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks. Rechnitz and his wife gave $9,000 to de Blasio’s 2013 campaign. He also gave $50,000 to de Blasio’s controversial nonprofit Campaign for One New York, which was used to raise money for his initiatives, Kramer reported. Rechnitz further ponied up $102,000 when de Blasio asked for help to get Democrats to take control of the New York State Senate, Kramer reported. Reichberg hosted a Campaign for one New York fundraiser that netted $35,000, Kramer reported.
Daily News Says de Blasio Admits Campaign for 1NY PAC is Political
Which raises more of the questions that the mayor refuses to answer: Why did his people tell the conflicts board, in seeking clearance for de Blasio to fundraise for the Campaignfor One New York, that the organization would merely be “informing the public and policymakers about legislative and public policy options”? And how can de Blasio boast that he’s better than the wealthy conservative Koch brothers, when he follows their playbook in doing a do-gooder end run around campaign finance rules to boost his political fortunes? His silence speaks volumes. NY Times Ignores the Bharara Investigation Today As It Tries to Distract
The Times writes that de Blasio, who often talks about the gap between rich and poor in New York City and beyond, should take a hard look at a nonprofit’s proposal for a universal summer jobs program, which would help kids get a full-time job later: http://goo.gl/NEsqrr * The Daily News writes that de Blasio’s refusal to take continuing questions from journalists on several reported probes into his campaign finance dealings speaks volumes, especially for a politician who has criticized others on political money: * De Blasio Continues to FaceQuestions About Federal Probe, Controversial Joke (NY1)
What Do the Mayor's Friend Get by Joining (Contributing) to Campaign for 1NY?
Goo Goo de Blasio Must Step Down During Investigation
Common Cause NY-Susan Lerner : Mayor deBlasio Must Step DownWhile Investigations Are Going On - Sign... via @Change
Today's Question is Who's On the FBI Tapes?
"100s of hours of FBI wiretaps"
The FBI investigation, which includes hundreds of hours of wiretaps and several cooperating witnesses, has moved to broader political corruption issues involving mayoral fund raising, sources say.(DNAINFO)
The mayor's PACs “has created a perpetual campaign, confusing the role of government and politics, to the detriment of the public interest,” the letter said. It was sent to the Campaign Finance Board and the Conflicts of Interest Board. Both are stuffed with mayoral appointees, and neither responded. In fact the CFB and Conflict Board both gave small fines to the Council Speaker from getting illegal help form the Advance Group who ran the NYCLASS PAC that was so helpful to electing de Blasio by blasting Quinn. The lawyer for the Advance Group in the illegal help for the speaker investigation was Lawrence Mandelker. Mandelker is also the lawyer for the de Blasio's campaign fund and for the PAC Campaign for One NY
The Campaign for One NY is the Epicenter of the Mayor's Campaign Fund Raising
de Blasio Berlin Rosen Spokesperson About the FBI Investigation Is At the Center of the Mayor's Contributions From Real Estate
Politico reported that the group used “at least $727,937 to seed the newer nonprofit Progressive Agenda Committee” that de Blasio created. That group, formed last May, helped the mayor raise his national profile and reportedly funded his many trips out of town. So far, he has not disclosed any of its donors or how the money was spent. He formed the third group, United for AffordableNYC, early this year and focused it on getting his controversial rezoning measure through community boards and the City Council. Tenant organizations denounced the group, calling it an “unconscionable” front for developers who would benefit from the zoning changes. Like the Progressive Agenda group, United for AffordableNYC was seeded with money transferred from the Campaign for One New York, most of which came from developers and others with business before the city. It remains a mystery how much money the new group got and who its other donors are. Already the probes are forcing sunlight into the shadowy world de Blasio created and exposing his sham defense. Even as he condemned others for using nonprofits for political aims, he insisted his were different because he provided some disclosure and because he was using the money for noble purposes. Hypocrisy is now the least of his problems.
Why Was the Campaign for One NY Closed Before the CFB and Conflict Board Was Able to Vote? Will They Still Rule?
When he closed the Campaign for One New York, de Blasio claimed it had finished its work, citing the universal pre-K program he started. That seemed a fishy answer at the time for two reasons. First, the group’s existence had never been tied to a single issue, and second, the fact that it came so soon after the Common Cause complaint suggested de Blasio was concerned about an ethical or legal issue.
looking forward 2 court date challenging @NYCCFB fine 4 lending my mayoralty campaign $ despite receiving 0 public $ & O $ from lobbyists
How the Lobbyists Shadow Govt Runs NY
The high price ofinfluence: The lobbyists are taking New York'slax ethics rules to the bank (NYDN Ed) Oh to be a New York lobbyist in 2015, a record-busting year for the influence industry — raining down an eye-popping $243 million in fees. Whether their clients are hospitals or charter schools, casinos or environmentalists, lobbyists trade on the promise of special access from little burgs to the Big Apple to Albany . Leadership of the state Assembly and Senate very much included — which, shockingly, continues to operate under the same broken ethics regime that gave corrupt former leaders free rein to wring cash from those seeking funds and favors. At the start of that banner year, Speaker Sheldon Silver still held the Assembly and the keys to state grants he doled out in exchange for business leads. Majority Leader Dean Skelos used his Senate control to turn a real estate lobbyist into a jobs program for his son. Their subsequent arrests and convictions changed little but the nameplates on the doors the lobbyists knock — now bearing Carl Heastie in the Assembly and John Flanagan in the Senate. Among the throngs who come calling is Silver’s former counsel, who now counts among his clients a pro-pesticide group by the name of NY Alliance for Environmental Concerns. With the state budget now put to bed and two months ticking before the close of Albany’s legislative session, these two leaders must act swiftly and surely on substantial ethics reforms that wall off lawmakers from conflicts of interest embedded too often embedded in cozy relationships with lobbyists.
Senate to Remain GOP Democrat Felder
Democratic senator to vote Republican for Skelos’ replacement (NYP) Republicans appear set to remain in charge of the fractured state Senate no matter what happens in the April 19 special election to replace convicted crook Dean Skelos. Brooklyn Democratic state Sen. Simcha Felder said Thursday that he will continue to vote with the GOP even if a Democrat replaces Skelos, who was the Republican majority leader before his corruption conviction.* Brooklyn Democratic state Sen. Simcha Felder said that he will continue to vote with the GOP even if a Democrat replaces former state Sen. Dean Skelos, who was the Republican majority leader before his corruption conviction, the Post writes: * Renegade Brooklyn Democratic state Sen. Simcha Felder said that he will continue to vote with the GOP even if a Democrat replaces former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who was the Republican majority leader before his corruption conviction.
Bharara 3rd Anniversary of Smith's Arrest and Standing By for Silver and Skelos Sentences While Albany Ducks Ethics Bill
Another Mismanaged Real Estate Deal By the City
‘Drug dealing’ docs scored $1M real estate deal from city (NYP) The de Blasio administration approved a deal that netted an Upper West Side couple nearly $1 million for a vacant lot last summer — even as they were under investigation by city drug prosecutors, records show. Two months after the city waived restrictions on the property owned by Dr. Rogelio and Lydia Lucas and their family, the couple as busted for allegedly running a massive oxycodone “pill mill” out of their medical practice. Two weeks before the arrests were announced by the city’s special narcotics prosecutor, the NYPD and the US Drug Enforcement Agency last July 9, the family sold the land for $900,000. They had paid $75,000 for the property in 1985, and gave the city $100,000 on April 2, 2015, for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services to lift a restriction limiting the land’s use to nonprofit community services. City officials said they had no way of knowing the duo was under investigation at the time — the second instance uncovered in as many weeks of a case that benefited a property owner while robbing a community of guaranteed nonprofit services. The city Department of Investigation and Comptroller Scott Stringer are probing a separate deal that netted Brooklyn health- care operator Allure Group $72 million by turning a nursing home into luxury condos — with the city’s help.* Feds eye rabbi who tried to sell synagogue for $13 million (NYP) A Queens rabbi who is being sued by the congregants of a Lower East Side synagogue for trying to sell their $13 million building out from under them and allegedly make off with the profits, is now under investigation by federal as well as state officials, The Post has learned. Rabbi Samuel Aschkenazi, leader of the right-wing Hasidic sect, Ger, was served with papers by two FBI agents as soon as he stepped off the witness stand in Manhattan Supreme Court in the civil case Monday. Aschkenazi was set to sell the House of Sages of Israel at 25 Bialystoker Place to developer Todd Fine before the state attorney general stepped in last fall and put hold on the transaction. Aschkenazi’s attorney, Michael Bachner, confirmed to The Post that the rabbi is being probed by US Attorney Preet Bharara.
NY Potamkin Political Parties Only Serve the Political Class Disconnected From the Voters
Time to Look At NY's Undemocratic Party System
Political Parties Survive Despite Much of Its Power Being Eaten Away By NY Lobbyists Class Because of New York's Falling Political and Voting Participation
NY's Political Class in Both Parties Which Using the Election Law to Control Judgeship, Special Elections and Run An Incumbent Protection for Elected Officials and Party Leaders Not is Trying to Influence the Voters Who They Disconnected A Generation Ago
Political Parties Survive Despite Much of Its Power Being Eaten Away By NY Lobbyists Class Because of New York's Falling Political and Voting Participation
NY's Political Class in Both Parties Which Using the Election Law to Control Judgeship, Special Elections and Run An Incumbent Protection for Elected Officials and Party Leaders Not is Trying to Influence the Voters Who They Disconnected A Generation Ago
If Bernie Sanderswins the New YorkDemocratic primary, some superdelegates vow to back Hillary Clinton anyway(NYDN) Maybe the system really is rigged. At least a half-dozen Democratic superdelegates in New York State who have already decided to support Hillary Clinton said Tuesday they would maintain their allegiance to her — regardless of the results of the Empire State New York presidential contest, when a whopping 247 delegates are at stake, every single New York superdelegate reached by the Daily News said they would never support the Vermont senator. Among New York ’s superdelegates this year are Hillary’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer, and most of the state’s House members. n spite of Sanders winning 15 states — including some by an 80%-20% margin — over 94% of the 498 superdelegates have said they are backing Clinton. *
Albany Pigs Cannot Sing ETHICS After Silver and Skelos' Convictions
Same old Albany (NYP) Albany is being Albany New York
Albany
After Council Passes 32% Pay Increase and Become Full Time They Duck Hearings
Port Authority Yes $$$ Airport, Bus Terminal No Penn Station
Port Authority Pledges Billions for Airport Upgrades and New Bus Terminal (NYDN) * The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey voted to require a construction company overseeing La Guardia Airport’s redevelopment to pay for an outside “integrity monitor” after it admitted to overbilling at the World Trade Center site. Port Authority Board members also advanced several major projects—including renovations at two area airports – as the agency’s mounting tensions burst into the public spotlight at raucous meetings. * The Authority backed out of a lease in the James A. Farley Post Office, temporarily throwing a wrench into part of Cuomo’s plans to pay for the project. * The Port Authority voted to spend tens of billions of dollars revamping La Guardia Airport, improving Newark Liberty International Airport and building a new bus terminal in midtown Manhattan , The New York Times reports: * The Port Authority voted to require Tishman Construction Corp. to pay for an outside integrity monitor as the firm oversees the La Guardia Airport redevelopment because Tishman admitted to overbilling at the World Trade Center
Distraction: How Do You Stop Press Stories On the $4 Billion PATH Station and Leaky News Subway Stations Get On the Wifi Bus
As the Metropolitan Transportation Authority investigates what went wrong at the $2.4 billion station, a contractor’s lawsuit faults a type of concrete that lines the waterproofing system.
JCOPE Run By Cuomo Ex-Aide Again
JJOKE resignations coming in after Seth Agata's selection http://bit.ly/nvxQUf Heastie wants his lobbyist Patrick Jenkins to be on JJOKE
NYP Goo Goos Ignore Slush PAC NYCLASS and UFT's United for the Future That Elected the Mayor and Council
Good government, tenant and labor groups said the mayor was violating campaign finance laws.
NYP: Mahattan DA Or U.S. Attorney Bharara Should Investigate de Blasio Horse Deals
De Blasio’s suspicious obsession with killing the carriage trade (NYP Ed) Mayor de Blasio says the transit union’s demand for an investigation into his secretive deals to kill the city’s horse-carriage trade is “just foolish.”Sorry, Bill — the union has a good idea. Well, basically: Transport Workers Union President John Samuelson wants Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to head the probe. Likely better choices? Manhattan DA Cy Vance, who has no apparent political ambition at the moment, or US Attorney Preet Bharara, a proven corruption-fighter. But someone should be looking into the mayor’s obsession with ridding the city of horse carriages — and whether some special obligation to reward special-interest donors is behind it.Granted, the mayor and Samuelson have had their differences on other issues. * The Growing Call for An Investigation of de Blasio HorseGate Corruption All the Way Back to the 2013 NYCLASS Election
And the union has been cozying up to de Blasio’s rival, Gov. Cuomo. But the TWU’s charges have plain merit. After all, this was never about animal rights, for all the claims to the contrary. Those who sank money into de Blasio’s 2013 campaign — and worked to sink his chief rival, Christine Quinn — were real-estate developers with eyes on the West Side parcels that house the horse stables. Asked about that link Monday, the mayor insisted he doesn’t “think it’s an issue.”Sorry: Lots of New Yorkers don’t buy it. Why is he so reluctant to say he just can’t deliver on this promise? De Blasio also claims the press is making too much of his anti-horse-carriage crusade, telling reporters to “really think about what’s important.”But it was Bill de Blasio who called the issue so urgent that he vowed to ban the horse carriages on “Day One” of his mayoralty. And it’s de Blasio who won’t take no for an answer — coming back this year to a fight that humiliated him last year. And then, the moment his latest “deal” collapsed in flames, immediately setting out to find an alternative. Something strange is going on here — so strange the issue deserves a closer look.
More Winds of A Corrupt Bomb Going Off On LI Inside the GOP Base of Leader Flanagan
A high-ranked source in Rockland County
JACOPE power CORRUPTS;City's campaign finance rule favors entrenched pols & special interests = CORRUPTION.
Assembly Dems Try to Protect the Lobbyists
Assembly Dem bill requires more disclosure by groups wholobby in NY; exempts talks with edit brds as lobbying The bill, according to officials, would also specifically exempt from the definition of lobbying any communications with news outlets, including editorial boards. The bill, officials said, would require organizations registered to lobby in
Daily News and NYP Protect the Lobbyists As Usually
Oust the JCOPE bureaucrats for their speech-suppressing power grab (NYP) * N.Y.’s free-speech impediment (NYDN)* * A group of public relations firms filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to stop the state’s top ethics panel from implementing a rule that would require the firms to disclose their efforts to influence editorial boards, The New York Times reports: * * The Daily News writes that it looks forward to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics’ day in court because the body displayed ignorance while attempting to classify PR professionals’ communications with editorial boards as lobbying: * The Post writes that it hopes the courts “slap” the Joint Commission on Public Ethics “fast and hard” for trying to treat public relations firms as lobbyists and that the commission’s members lose their jobs:
The perks of donating to de Blasio’s nonprofit (NYP) Some $3.2 million of the $4.3 million donated to the Campaign for One New York came from just 30 people or entities, and 16 of them gave $50,000 or more, records show. In one case, Joseph Dussich, CEO of Manhattan-based janitor-supply company JAD Corporation, forked over $100,000 to the mayor’s pet charity, and was granted a one-hour sit-down with him in February 2015. A month later, the city bought $15,000 worth of rodent-repelling trash bags from him — a product Dussich had previously tried to peddle to the city without success for nearly a decade. De Blasio participated in at least 31 work meetings or phone calls through September with 16 of these 30 major CONY donors — or those directly linked to these donors, records show. He also attended 23 conferences and other gatherings with CONY contributors – plenty of whom shelled out six-figure donations and regularly do business with the city – and many times publicly showered them with compliments at events. De Blasio also featured these top CONY donors – which include developers, entrepreneurs and labor unions – in at least 17 of his office’s press releases, often praising them and providing them a free platform to gain positive media attention.
de Blasio One NY PAC Interlocking-directorates Slush Fund, Berlin Rosen, Bill Hyers, Red Horse
Meanwhile, father-and-son developers David and Jed Walentas of Two Trees Management also gave CONY $100,000. A mayoral press release cheered affordable housing in the developers’ $2 billion project at the former Domino Sugar Refinery in Williamsburg , and they are now potential benefactors of de Blasio’s streetcar plan connecting the Queens and Brooklyn waterfronts.
SEIU 1199, the powerful health-care-workers union, gave $500,000 to CONY, and in 2014, it received a nine-year contract with raises retroactive to 2009, records show. Leading the donor pack were 1199 SEIU, and left-leaning hedge fund tycoon George Soros’s nonprofit Fund for Policy Reform Inc., which gave $500,000 each. De Blasio met with Soros’ son, Alexander, for lunch in Southhampton in August 2015, even taking time to pose for photos the scion later posted on social media websites. He also met with Soros’ son, Jonathan, six months earlier, and the Soros family helped arrange for de Blasio to be keynote speaker at the April 2014 Democratic Alliance Conference in Chicago. George Gresham, president of 1199 SEIU, met privately with De Blasio at Gracie Mansion Gresham before a crowd of supporters, saying, “God bless you and thank you” for his leadership.
Why Does the Media Ignore That the de Blasio's Lobbyist Feeding Frenzy Fueled By An Controlled Cover-Up Conflict of Interested and CFB Boards
A lobbyist feeding frenzy thanks to Mayor de Blasio (NYP Ed) Pay-to-play is the order of the day at Bill de Blasio’s City Hall. And the mayor’s lobbyist buddies are cashing in — big time. The Wall Street Journal reports that overall lobbying receipts in New York have jumped 15 percent since de Blasio took office, to an all-time high of $71.9 million. Indeed, the ease with which lobbyists access the mayor is so notorious that the top 10 firms’ client list has grown by more than 40 percent since de Blasio took office. Let’s face it: Under the mayor who vowed to drive the special interests from power, lobbyists have not only taken up residence at City Hall, they’re running the place. That’s especially true for three of de Blasio’s closest lobbyist pals — James Capalino, Harold Ickes and Sid Davidoff — and his PR buddy, Jonathan Rosen. Ickes hadn’t even been a lobbyist here in the 12 years before de Blasio became mayor, save for one client. Since then, he’s collected almost $1 million in City Hall lobbying fees. Capalino, New York ’s top lobbyist, has boasted to clients of his frequent access to the mayor and City Hall, the Journal reported. And the access he and others enjoy also appear closely linked to donations to the mayor’s re-election campaign or his slush fund, the Campaign for One New York. Ickes, for example, won a major music festival contract deal for AEG Live on the same day he forked over $13,000 in bundled gifts to the mayor’s re-election campaign. They’re not alone — other fat cats with a special-interest agenda also make it a point to kick in to CONY or the campaign. Looks like there are still “two New Yorks ” under Bill de Blasio: a profitable one for those who pay and another for everyone else.
