State Sen. Kevin Parker’s mother got a $32,150 taxpayer-funded grant to fix up the Flatbush home he owns with her — money that was funneled to her by a nonprofit group pervy pol Vito Lopez founded and controlled.
Georgie Parker got the money in 2012 to fix the roof and replace the windows and gutters in the four-bedroom home she co-owned with her son, who also lived there.
Records show the grant came from the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, which in turn got the money from the state Division of Housing and Community Renewal’s Main Street Program.
Ridgewood was founded by Lopez, the longtime state assemblyman and Brooklyn Democratic party boss who was accused of sexually harassing legislative employees. Lopez died in 2015. The nonprofit is now called RiseBoro Community Partnership.
Georgie Parker signed the paperwork for the $32,150 grant on Aug. 28, 2012, just a few days after the state Assembly voted to censure Lopez and strip him of his powerful housing committee chairmanship over the harassment allegations.
Lopez ultimately resigned in 2013 after reports surfaced that the state had paid confidential settlements to two of his accusers.
Lopez and Kevin Parker supported one another during their rocky political careers.
Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams wants to revive the affordable housing development on a 30-acre piece of land known as the Broadway Triangle. Sandwiched between Bed Stuy, Williamsburg and Bushwick along Broadway near Flushing, the controversial development was halted by a judge’s injunction following a lawsuit by community groups arguing the plans and a rezoning of the area favored Hasidic families and discriminated against blacks and Latinos. In a written review of an unrelated project at 695 Grand Street in Williamsburg, Adams called on the de Blasio administration to resolve the legal dispute so housing can be built, Crain’s reported.
One thing that has changed: Former State Assemblyman Vito Lopez, the king of affordable housing in the area, was heavily involved in the Triangle project, but is no longer in office. The nonprofit group he created to deliver services to constituents, the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizen’s Council, which still exists and continues to be a big landlord and developer in Latino-heavy Bushwick, was one of two developers in the Triangle project, along with nonprofit partner United Jewish Organizations.
After Bill de Blasio's mayoral campaign attacked an opponent for funding a troubled nonprofit connected to a tainted former assemblyman, de Blasio's administration is now giving millions of dollars in city business to that same organization.
Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, which was founded by embattled ex-assemblyman Vito Lopez, received a $3.6 million, three-year contract beginning July 1 for providing an "innovative senior center," according to a notice published last week in the City Record and additional information provided to Capital by a city official.
As public advocate and a contender for mayor last year, de Blasio admonished City Council Speaker Christine Quinn for allowing taxpayer-backed money controlled by the council to fund Ridgewood Bushwick. He lobbed his criticisms in light of ethical charges Lopez was facing for sexually harassing several of his female staffers, as well as previous investigations by law-enforcement agencies for allegations of corruption and fraud at the nonprofit.
"It's ridiculous after all we've learned about Vito Lopez and the way he manipulated the system. I have no doubt in the world that Chris Quinn could have stopped it if she wanted to," de Blasio told the Daily News last year, after it was revealed that Ridgewood Bushwick received $421,964 in so-called member items.
At the time, Quinn, who lost her mayoral bid to de Blasio in September, had said she did not support the allocation but deferred to two local Brooklyn councilmen who requested the funding.
"People should be outraged," de Blasio said last year.
He even said New Yorkers "should demand this money not go to this organization."
Ridgewood Bushwick, a sprawling social-services empire that Lopez started in 1973, responded to a solicitation issued on Oct. 16, 2013, before de Blasio became mayor, to provide expanded services for senior citizens. City Hall sent notification to providers who won the awards on Jan. 14, two weeks after de Blasio took office.
An administration official noted that Ridgewood Bushwick, which won its current contract through a competitive bid, entered into a "corrective action plan" on Jan. 17, 2012 to address "business integrity issues" so it could continue offering services to the city.
A new fight is erupting over a plan to develop private land at Williamsburg's Broadway Triangle, with critics citing two new buildings allegedly filled with Hasidic families.
Last year, a federal judge blocked the city's controversial plan to build housing on the 31-acre spot, finding it illegally favored Hasidim over blacks and Latinos.
But the injunction halting work at the site only appeared to apply to the 20% of city owned land in the area.
Meanwhile, private developers are building apartment buildings at the politically-charged site.
Two of those projects--70 Union Ave. and 246 Lynch St.--have been filled with Hasidim, critics charge.
"There were those who said that we were only speculating about what would happen with the city's rezoning but this is just proof that unless further action is taken this is going to happen over and over again," said Marty Needelman, a lawyer for the Broadway Triangle Community Coalition.
The group sent Hispanic and African American volunteers to apply for apartments at the two locations - and they were turned away, told there were no applications.
The group charges the Bloomberg administration’s controversial zoning plan has allowed the building owners to cater to the dramatically-expanding Hasidic community.
"We want a rezoning that serves the entire community and does not continue patterns of racial segregation that the city has promoted and allowed," Needelman said.
In 2009, the Bloomberg administration tapped Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council and the United Jewish Organization of Williamsburg to build about 1,800 apartments on the mostly desolate stretch near the Bedford Stuyvesant border.
Those two nonprofits have close ties to scandal-scarred Assemblyman Vito Lopez, who made the Broadway Triangle a pet project.
Lopez has long maintained close ties to a large branch of the Williamsburg’s Hasidic community, a group that has staunchly supported him.
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