What conflict of interest?

From Crains:

A growing number of lobbying firms in New York City double as political campaign consultants. That creates a dynamic — one frowned upon by good-government groups — whereby firms lobby the same candidates that they helped to elect.

In the case of Melissa Mark-Viverito's winning bid to be City Council speaker, Pitta Bishop Del Giorno & Giblin was lobbying her at the same time that it was guiding her campaign, according to the firm's disclosure forms.

Late last year, for instance, as the speaker race was heating up, the firm and labor leader Harry Nespoli met with Ms. Mark-Viverito to discuss "numerous city matters including recycling, contracts [and] outsourcing," the records show. Mr. Nespoli is president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association and head of the Municipal Labor Committee, the umbrella group for the city's public-sector unions.

A Pitta Bishop spokesman said the meeting was timed with the advent of winter, primarily to register Mr. Nespoli's request that private plowers hired by the city to clear tertiary and dead-end streets be replaced by his union's workers.