$7M for CB office

From the NY Post:

The city is spending $7 million in taxpayer money on a state-of-the-art office building for a Brooklyn community board that has only two employees -- state Sen. Carl Kruger's girlfriend and sister, The Post has learned.

It's a costly "giveback" to Community Board 18 and the embattled Brooklyn Democrat for his backing nearly two decades ago of a $357 million city sewage-overflow storage plant, which is just now being built at Paerdegat Basin, officials said.

"It's a sweetheart deal for a community board run like a family-owned store," said Dick Dadey, executive director of the government-watchdog group Citizens Union.

Dadey said the recently completed 4,000-square-foot office and meeting space is "so out of context" with what other local boards get that it will just open the floodgates to others asking for the same.

It's rare for community boards to have dedicated city-owned office and meeting spaces. Most rent offices, are advised not to exceed 1,500 square feet of space, and host public meetings at larger spaces, city officials said.

But the city is paying the price now for a deal the Dinkins administration cut in the early 1990s, while Kruger chaired CB 18 and the Department of Environmental Protection project was up for approval by the board.

Kruger, however, said the city has only itself to blame for the high cost.

"It's a disgrace that this project is 10 years behind schedule, so, of course, costs escalated," said Kruger, the subject of an FBI probe into alleged influence peddling.