From the NY Post:Nonprofit park "conservancies" have raised $90 million to spruce up the city's natural spaces -- and in the process have sown a cottage industry of murky relationships, potential conflicts of interest and fat, six-figure salaries for its executives.
A Post investigation found:
* Madison Square Park Conservancy co-founder Debbie Landau pulls down $185,000 annually running the 6.2-acre Flatiron District park. Her sister Maggie is on the payroll, too, as the $114,962 director of events.
* Danny Meyer, a co-founder of the Madison Square Park conservancy and board member, got an inside track to land the $5 million food concession there. And his outside eateries raked in more than $60,000 last year hosting conservancy events.
New York has handed control of most of the city's parks to private conservancies, which have cleaned up the spaces - and provided lucrative paydays to those who run them.
New York has handed control of most of the city's parks to private conservancies, which have cleaned up the spaces - and provided lucrative paydays to those who run them.
* Bryant Park Corp.'s Daniel Biederman, whose group tends the 6-acre Midtown park, earns $229,000 while holding down at least two other plum full-time jobs.
* Randall's Island Sports Foundation head Aimee Boden collects two paychecks for the same job, overseeing the upkeep of the 480-acre East River park. She is paid $55,196 by the city Parks Department as an administrator and $94,469 by the conservancy -- an arrangement two comptroller audits have cited as a conflict of interest.
* Central Park Conservancy President Douglas Blonsky is the biggest earner, raking in almost $400,000 in 2008 in pay and benefits. His group raised $70 million the previous year for the upkeep of the 843-acre park.
4 comments:
This is a good one. AS I always said, they want to preserve their communities, the wealthy should be taxed to sustain the rest of the city.
They have the money. They want to keep it (along with information and support) in their communities (to say nothing of public subsidies from the rest of us as in landmark designation)
These programs should be investigated and shut down.
Let Central Park rot like Flushing Meadows until they can figure out how to make Central Park AND Flushing Meadows look good.
Why should an area look like hell because its full of immigrants and working class people and another area have money to burn because they know how to play the system?
Because the preservation community does not want to share the wealth and they give us bullshit advice knowing that we will simply spin our wheels until we go home frustrated.
They eat their food, then eat ours too!
How much did a "Parkie" used to cost?
O, please, please CALL IN THE FEDS!!
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