EDC let Mets pay mob with taxpayer money

From the NY Post:

The Mets shelled out $51.6 million in taxpayer money to contractors shunned by the city for their ties to the Mafia, labor corruption or bribery, The Post has learned.

At least seven contractors the city avoids were hired by the team to build Citi Field between 2006 and 2009, according to government records.

The tainted companies were paid from a $91 million pot the city Economic Development Corp. gave to the Mets.

As part of its agreement with the EDC, the Mets had to submit records detailing how it spent the $91 million and to whom it was paid. Those records show at least six other Citi Field contractors on the caution list.

Queens-based S.N. Tannor Inc. was paid $3.5 million for electrical work despite owner Evan Tannor's 2007 felony conviction for giving $350,000 in kickbacks to disgraced labor boss and ex-state Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, according to court records.

Another Queens firm, Eagle One Roofing, was paid $7 million. Its principal, Damian Sabatino, was convicted of fraud in 2001 for bribing a labor official, money laundering, falsifying business records and prevailing-wage violations. Sabatino also pleaded guilty to income-tax evasion in 1996.

And now EDC is giving money to a different kind of mafia that operates in the area - Claire Shulman and the board members of her phony LDC, who want to take over Willets Point and turn it into their cash cow.

In fact, one of the blight justifications was past crime at Willets Point, including a mafia-related auto theft ring that was busted 15 years ago.

Yet the government agency that wants to condemn WP has no problem using mafia contractors across 126th street. Why ask for details on how money is spent if you aren't going to look at what they put down?

This is a good example of why we need Public Authorities reform.

Hell, why not just BRING IN THE FEDS already?