de Blasio illicitly rewarded city hall and presidential campaign PAC donors to abused third party transfer program for city foreclosed buildings

 
NY Daily News

Groups selected by the city to take over foreclosed properties both employ and have close ties with dozens of donors who have given generously to politicians with a say over the fate of the valuable buildings.

A Daily News analysis of for-profit and non-profit entities approved by the city to take over the “distressed” buildings found workers and directors for most of those entities donated cash to local political campaigns. Of the 37 outfits approved for the city’s controversial “third-party transfer” program, at least 21 employ or have close connections with someone who donated, campaign finance records revealed.

Political observers and critics of the program say the donations, coupled with the city picking the companies to take over the properties, many of which are in quickly gentrifying neighborhoods, raise thorny issues.

“These are the kind of things that make me wince. There is something here that doesn’t smell right,” said Betsy Gotbaum, executive director of the Citizens Union good government group. “Who benefits? Why are these particular people benefiting?”

All told, from 2013 campaigns to the present, the donors gave at least $100,000 to local and national political causes, including Mayor de Blasio’s presidential run. Of all the politicians they’ve given to, de Blasio holds the most sway. He is chief of a bureaucracy that chooses who gets the valuable properties and who doesn’t.

Since his 2013 mayoral run, de Blasio has received $4,900 from Nancy Lepre, president of Avante Contracting; $10,950 from Frank Carone, a board member and audit committee chairman at RiseBoro Community Partnership; and approximately $14,000 from others affiliated with the city-selected, third-party-transfer companies.

Both Avante and RiseBoro are among entities approved by the city to take ownership over buildings the city forecloses on. Other companies whose board members, employees or relatives have given include Lemle & Wolff, the St. Nick’s Alliance and the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board.

But Carone stands out among this broad constellation of donors.

 But Carone stands out among this broad constellation of donors.

 Not only is he on the board of directors at RiseBoro, the non-profit once known as the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council and synonymous with the disgraced late Assemblyman Vito Lopez, Carone is the chief lawyer for the Brooklyn Democratic Party. In that role, he wields vast influence over the candidates the party chooses to sit as judges in Brooklyn’s courts.

The judges chosen by the party go on to hear cases involving foreclosures under the third-party transfer program. If a judge rules in the city’s favor, the city can then transfer the properties to entities such as RiseBoro, which can then begin collecting rent from tenants.

“It is very troubling,” said Serge Joseph, a lawyer for a Bronx co-op that was recently foreclosed on under third-party transfer. “If you put that on top of everything else, it becomes overwhelmingly troubling.”

 “Everything else,” according to Joseph and many other critics of TPT, is the lack of notice provided to owners by the city prior to transfers taking place, the way the city defines a “distressed” property, and the city’s failure to provide assistance to struggling buildings in its Housing Development Fund Corporation (HDFC) program.