Monday, August 3, 2015

Barry Grodenchik: By the numbers

Barry Grodenchik CFB-07292015


Other information on donors of note:

Grodenchik, a multi-decade employee at Borough Hall with a single term in the New York State Assembly more than a decade ago as his only electoral experience, has raised more funds from other elected and former elected official campaign chests ($8,500) than all of his in-district contributions from the 23rd Council District ($8,297) combined.

Grodenchik's contributors are an example of how the Queens County Democratic Machine tries to bulldoze their way to a victory in what should be a competitive race for elected office. More than 40% of his significant contributions come from direct political connections, including elected officials, former elected officials, judges, political staffers, community board chairs and district managers (including some from Boards 8, 11 and 13 which is partially in the 23rd Council District), and, also importantly, those people whose organizations have benefitted from the purse strings of Borough Hall, where he has been a staffer for decades. And this doesn't even include developers or other businesses looking to get favors and approvals from Borough Hall.

Some examples:

The campaign chests of Liz Crowley and Mark Weprin each gave him $2,750, while Dan Garodnick, a Councilmember from Manhattan gave him $2,000 from his war chest. District Leader Martha Taylor, the co-leader with David Weprin for that area, gave him $250 from her abortive run for City Council in 2013, while Andrew Hevesi gave him $500 and former Assemblymember Jonathan Bing gave him $250 from his old campaign chest (still active) and $175, the maximum public match for an individual donation; Liz Crowley also gave him another $175.

The NYC Property Tax Fairness PAC gave Grodenchik $500. This Political Action Committee, which operates out of Albany, is run by David Weinraub, a partner of Brown & Weinraub, PLLC, listed as the 7th in a list of New York State's Top 10 Lobbyists in 2014 on the City and State NY website. In 2013, they also hired the former top aide and chief legal counsel to Sheldon Silver, Michael Boxley, who was convicted of sexually abusing a legislative staffer, as a principal in the firm.

Rosemary Vietor, VP of the Bowne House Historical Society, donated $1,000; the Bowne House received significant funding from the Borough President's office for its recent restoration.

Daniel Zausner, COO of the United States Tennis Association, donated $250; the USTA was given public parkland to expand their footprint in 2013, bullishly supported by the Borough President's office during the ULURP land use process.

The owner, Simon Pelman, family members and some employees, of the Union Plaza Nursing Home in Flushing - where Community Board 7 holds its meetings - gave Grodenchik $3,575 more than *all* of the developers and real estate contributions combined. Pelman owns and operates multiple nursing homes throughout Queens. He wrote a letter of support to Attorney General Eric Schneiderman during the trial of William Rapfogel, the former President of the Metropolitan New York Council on Jewish Poverty who embezzled $9 million and used much of the money to make campaign contributions, through straw donors, to win the favor of political candidates.

The largest real estate contributions were $1,000 from Christian Lee, the Principal of F+T Group, developers of the under-construction Flushing Commons on the site of the former Municipal Parking Lot, who received their approvals from Borough Hall; and Thomas D. Wong, a "retired" real estate broker from Maspeth, who contributed $1,175. Carl Mattone, President of the Mattone Group, made sure to drop him a small $250 contribution to remind him that they are still in the local development game.

The President, Wu-Hsing Liao, his family/employees, and the C.E.O. of Asia Bank, N.A., based in downtown Flushing, contributed $1,200 to Grodenchik.

Finally, the owners and family of Plaza College in Forest Hills, the Callahans of Douglas Manor and Whitestone, gave four contributions of $175 each totaling $700. Plaza College is interesting for several reasons: not only is it a small private college celebrating a century in operation next year, it has been run by the same family since its founding. More interesting are some of the people sitting on its Board of Directors:

  • Leo Fakler, Tommy Huang's architect in the 1980s and a favorite of Borough Hall
  • Marilyn McAndrews, a staffer for Community Board 7
  • Helen Sears, the former Councilmember for Jackson Heights and Elmhurst and now Deputy City Clerk, working in the basement of Borough Hall handing out marriage licenses
  • Al Pennisi - The President of the Queens Chamber of Commerce

Draw your own conclusions, folks!

23 comments:

georgetheatheist said...

Who is the real Barry Grodenchik?

Anonymous said...

outside doners, special interests, developers, crooked bureaucrats, and party machine hacks. Joe Crowleys beautiful equilibrium. Barry is a crap candidate backed by the same old boys

Anonymous said...

How they all stick together to protect their own political turf.
It really does not matter who the voters think they're picking,
it's who the county organization has picked for them.

Jerry Rotondi said...

Bowne House Historical Society...huh?
There you go. What I've been saying about historical societies,
and how they must kiss political butt , is obviously true.
If you want to be funded, you'd better play ball.

Anonymous said...

Fair enough that Barry is the most notorious in the D23 special eelection, but Is there anyone in the race who isn't a past politician, employee to one, and/or taking money from PACs or developers?

Anonymous said...

In the interest of fairness, shouldn't the contributors to the other candidates be listed for comparison?

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...

Fair enough that Barry is the most notorious in the D23 special eelection, but Is there anyone in the race who isn't a past politician, employee to one, and/or taking money from PACs or developers?

Bob Friedrich has raised all of his funds from small donors, the vast majority of whom are in district. I hear hes one of the favorites as well.

Anonymous said...

District Leader Uma Sengupta's granddaughter Celia is by far the prettiest in the race.

Anonymous said...

Now add more candidates and post their notes as well to be fair.

Queens Crapper said...

What makes you think I'm not planning to? Haven't been reading this blog long, have you?

Anonymous said...

Looking forward to you digging into the other candidates.

Anonymous said...

Refresh me on Uma.
Isn't that Weiner's wife and Hillary's lover?

Anonymous said...

I'll take the dumber of the Weprin boys over lackluster Grodenchik.

Anonymous said...

Hang around borough hall enough and suck the right political asses and the Democratic clubhouse will give you money to run.

Anonymous said...

They are all cast from the same mold.

Anonymous said...

How do you justify Bob Friedrich using taxpayer's fund while raising barely next to nothing to get matching points? Well he is very unpopular in the district. No one likes him.

Anonymous said...

How do I justify it? Matching funds are supposed to even out the playing field so that a candidate like Bob has a chance against a machine entrenched individual like Grodenchik, a hack supported by organized labor like Lynch and a guy who panders to the ethnic demographic like Najmi. Since Grodenchik won't make matching, Bob will end up having more money than the county pick. Bwa ha ha ha!!!

Anonymous said...

Rebecca Lynch is no better. If you want more crime and more government waste then she is your candidate. a carpet bagger who moved back home to Mother's after living in manhattan for the sole purpose of Weprin vacate part time 123k city council seat. She was endorsed by working family party that will continue to drain monies from the working class to fund the self entitled class. She supports a fake union of carriage horse abusing owners that misclassified drivers as independent consultants to avoid labor laws ant taxes. Several of those drivers are in "disability" or "government programs. Just as they live off the horses, working class and Rebecca Lynch lives off the middle class and the struggling working class people. She even sends pedophiles to your door. LOL.

Anonymous said...

Or you can vote for Ali Najmi, a young attorney who has a record of defending small businesses against harsh regulations; an observant Muslim who also marches in the Queens Pride Parade, visited synagogues and is not beholden to the powers-that-be.

I recognize that his name may not be so easy to pronounce for some of your readers, but give him a try.

Anonymous said...

Or you can vote for Ali Najmi, a young attorney who has a record of defending small businesses against harsh regulations; an observant Muslim who also marches in the Queens Pride Parade, visited synagogues and is not beholden to the powers-that-be.

I recognize that his name may not be so easy to pronounce for some of your readers, but give him a try.


I was thinking about voting for Ali, but the article from last week in the Chronicle about the fake parkland advocates that he held a press conference with showed that he was just another political operator like Barry Grodenchik and Rebecca Lynch.

Here's the article: http://www.qchron.com/editions/queenswide/oops-did-i-do-that-on-campaign-trail/article_985f33b5-6584-5728-a477-ce23843b0290.html

No question at this point - I'm definitely going to vote for Bob Friedrich.

Anonymous said...

A simple fact is that, Bob Friedrich has been out there at each march, protest or hearing fighting for the betterment of our neighborhood, for many years. He is the only candidate without former ties to a politician. Someone with a better plan and the motivation to see it to fruition is sorely needed in City Hall. My family will be voting for Bob on Sept. 10th.

Anonymous said...

Don't support Barry Grodenchik who is a registered lobbyist and worked on behalf of Planned Parenthood. Who wants representation from someone who supports gutting humans for the use of their body parts? Who will Barry Grodenchik represent, you or the interest of greed?

Anonymous said...

And yet, the idiotic and ignorant voters voted for him. He's nothing more than Mark Weprin 2.0
And he will fulfill the rest of Weprin's term - 2 years, plus get re-elected twice, for a total of 10 years of another do nothing policitican. Plus, just last week he and his other council cronies voted himself a big fat raise c/o our tax dollars.

Beyond disgusting!!!!!!!!!!!