Meeks' spending history under scrutiny

From the NY Post:

A nonprofit founded by Rep. Gregory Meeks took in more than $1.2 million in taxpayer money over the past 15 years with little to no oversight as to how it was spent, The Post has found.

Meeks funneled pork-barrel money to the Rockaway Peninsula Civic Association as a state assemblyman in the 1990s. He incorporated the charity, which was once based at his parents' house in Far Rockaway, in 1983. It is the second suspicious nonprofit linked to the Queens Democrat.

The organization had grand plans for a comprehensive after-school program for "at risk" students, similar to the successful Jackie Robinson program in Brooklyn. But its David N. Dinkins Center for Physical Culture fizzled by 2005, leaving only a skeleton program for seniors.

That program continued to receive city money until 2008, although it is not clear how it spent the cash since the association has no offices or staff. It supposedly organizes activities at a city-run community center, but purchases no materials.

City Councilman James Sanders, who routinely sent money for the senior program, stopped the cash last year because the nonprofit's paperwork was in disarray, according to his office.

Payments to Rockaway Peninsula were criticized by the good-government group Change-NY in the 1990s as an example of a waste of taxpayer dollars, but the group escaped scrutiny by routinely refusing to file nonprofit reports.