Caption the comptroller and the public advocate

Leadfoot comptroller breaks promise to slow down

 NY Post

He coulda, woulda, shoulda — but didn’t.

City Comptroller Brad Lander, who championed a law to crack down on reckless driving and once admitted “I should slow down,” was caught speeding in a school zone again.

Lander was hit with a $50 summons from a speed camera on Shore Parkway last May after he promised to improve his dismal driving record — which included eight prior tickets for speeding in school zones, city records reviewed by The Post reveal.

The former Brooklyn councilman also racked up five parking tickets since taking office as comptroller in 2022, according to records.

During his campaign for the seat in 2021, The Post revealed that Lander was hit with eight school-zone speeding tickets since 2016, even though he had publicly promoted speed cameras outside city schools and pushed legislation to crack down on unsafe driving.

Critics accused Lander of being a hypocrite and he admitted then, “I should slow down.”

He also added to his collection four tickets for parking in “No Parking Zones” during street cleaning since taking office — along 13th Street in Park Slope near his home on Oct. 29 and Oc. 31 in 2022, and July 17 and Oct. 2 of last year, records show.

The fine for the second parking violation in 2022 was for $75 and the three others were $65.

The comptroller also got socked with a $35 fine for failing to display a metered receipt while parking on Sept. 25 of last year, also on 13th Street.

Politicos who know the self-described progressive Lander said they weren’t surprised.

“It’s ‘Do as I Say,’ not ‘Do as I Do,'” said state Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar, who lives in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. “And he’s one of the top three elected citywide officials.

 

NYC Projects Dashboard Confessional

CityLand 

On November 1, 2023, Mayor Eric Adams and Comptroller Brad Lander released a new capital projects tracker that provides New Yorkers a new way to track capital spending. The tracker was mandated by Local Law 37 of 2020, which was sponsored by then-Council Member Lander. 

The tracker provides information about city construction projects including parks, bridges, and sewer infrastructure. The information provided includes data from agency project management systems and budget information including the total cost, the project’s current phase and expected timeline, and other details about the construction. 

The Capital Process Reform Task Force, created through Local Law 37, helped support the creation of the tracker. The task force consisted of city agencies, the Comptroller’s Office, and leaders in the labor and construction industry and minority- and women-owned business enterprises. The tracker was part of the task force’s 39 recommendations announced earlier this year. 

The tracker can be viewed here. Future improvements to the tracker will include refining the website design and adding an interactive map. 

Mayor Adams stated, “I’m a strong believer that if you don’t inspect what you expect, it’s all suspect. With the launch of the capital projects tracker, we’re allowing New Yorkers to inspect what they expect from public infrastructure projects. This tool is more than just data — it’s a testament to our dedication to serving the public with integrity, clarity, and innovation. As we continue to invest in our city’s infrastructure, it’s paramount that our residents have full visibility and trust in our processes.”

 

Caption these fauxgressive elected officials

 

AOC could have been a queen bee in politics, but instead is an establishment drone.

Bad Pander's costume is apt, being how he's controlled by non-profit group and real estate donors.

Donnie Richards looks more like a 7/11 breakfast burrito wrapper than an astronaut.

And Shekar Khrisnan wins the costume contest by correctly going as a trash politician.

Caption the Comptroller of New York City

 

Brad Hander. 

Poverty pimping sister act

  

NY Post

Providing shelter is a family affair at the city Department of Homeless Services.

The firm of Homeless Service Administrator Joslyn Carter’s sister has been awarded 17 contracts with the agency valued at a staggering $1.7 billion, according to data compiled by city Comptroller Brad Lander’s office.

Carter’s sister, Valerie Smith, is vice president of New York City Housing programs for Yonkers-based Westhab Inc., which runs homeless shelters in the city.

She has been a top administrator there since 2017.

Seventeen of the social services contracts were awarded by DHS, many in recent years with Smith working at the agency as the city grapples with a record homeless population fueled by a massive influx of migrants from the southern border.

Three others were awarded by the Department of Youth and Community Development and two by the Department of Education, totaling $4.7 million.

Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) demanded an investigation by the Department of Investigation and Conflicts of Interest Board after hearing of the unusual sibling relationship involving the city homeless services honcho and a top contractor awarded business with the agency.

Holden griped numerous times about problems at a shelter for 180 single men run by Westhab on Cooper Avenue in Glendale in his district — including complaints of drug use, violence, masturbating in public and menacing neighbors — some of which were exposed in a CBS report last September.

He suspected something was amiss when he said he failed to get an adequate response from Westhab or the city homeless officials.

“The whole thing stinks to high heaven. Why is Westhab getting all this money?,” Holden said Sunday. “It looks like they have someone on the inside. They’re protected.”

“They’re not doing a good job at the shelter on Cooper Avenue. It’s a mess over there.”

In a Feb. 8 letter to DOI and COIB, Holden said, “I recently learned from a credible source that the Department of Homeless Services Administrator Joslyn Carter is the sister of Westhab’s Vice President of New York City Shelter Programs, Valerie Smith. I am concerned that immediate family members can work on the same contract despite a potential conflict of interest.”

He told the investigative and ethics agencies that there have been 1,500 calls to 911 for the shelter and 156 resident arrests.

“As you know, corruption and criminal acts often occur in the social service industry.

Holden demands homeless services conflict of interest investigation of Comptroller Lander and Wife

 

 

NY Daily News

A New York City Councilman is demanding the Department of Investigation probe possible conflicts of interest between Comptroller Brad Lander and his wife’s role as a consultant for nonprofits his office is supposed to oversee.

Councilman Bob Holden (D-Queens) made the request last month to DOI Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber and Carolyn Miller, executive director of the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, in a letter the Daily News obtained Friday.

As The News first reported in July, Lander’s office, which serves as the city’s fiscal watchdog, approved about $550 million in contracts with nonprofits that are members of an umbrella group that his wife, Meg Barnette, oversees.

Lander has noted repeatedly that he received a seal of approval from the Conflicts of Interest Board for his office’s review of contracts with nonprofits tied to Nonprofit New York, where Barnette serves as CEO and president.

But Holden does not view that as sufficient.

In his letter dated Nov. 29, the councilman notes that as president and CEO of Nonprofit New York, Barnette “has an interest in the success of over 4,000 nonprofit organizations.”

Some of those have contracts with the city that Lander’s office signs off on.

“There must be transparency so that New Yorkers know that there is no conflict of interest between what is best for New York City taxpayers and the financial interests of Brad Lander and his family,” Holden wrote.

“Media reports routinely feature nonprofit social-service providers that are not fulfilling their contractual obligations and in many cases committing criminal acts,” he continued. “Unfortunately, the Comptroller’s office never publicly audits these providers. The public should know if the Comptroller’s wife is consulting for the same nonprofits the Comptroller is supposed to oversee to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse.”

Naomi Dann, a spokeswoman for Lander, accused Holden and The News of a “willful misunderstanding of basic facts.”

“The Conflicts of Interest Board has repeatedly affirmed present no conflict,” she said

The Comptroller of enabled corruption

 

NY Daily News 

A city contractor that agreed to cough up nearly $13 million to settle a federal false claims lawsuit in January has registered five contracts with the city comptroller’s office, public records show.

The Door, a non-profit that offers reproductive health care and other services to adolescents, had contracts worth more than $3.8 million registered with Comptroller Brad Lander’s office since Jan. 27, when it admitted to submitting inaccurate records to the state Health Department — raising questions about why Lander and Mayor Adams’ administration would approve of deals with an entity implicated in a “civil fraud action.”

“The vetting process is to weed out possible illegality and fraud,” said Michael Lambert, a former deputy comptroller for the city. “This just strikes me as unusual. It seems uncharacteristic of the way the process is supposed to work.”

Lambert said that The Door’s inaccurate reporting amounted to a “serious violation of the public trust,” which at the very least merits additional scrutiny from the comptroller and the Adams administration.

Instead, in its submissions to the state from August 2009 to November 2016, The Door counted the number of services rendered, rather than the number of visits — which is the appropriate measure under state guidelines, according to the settlement. The non-profit did that even after its then-chief financial officer told a Door data analyst in 2014 that the appropriate measure to submit was the number of visits to the facility, not the number of services provided.

In its complaint, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York’s Southern District alleged that The Door “knowingly” violated the federal False Claims Act by submitting false reports to the state.

In the settlement agreement, The Door acknowledged that its actions caused the indigent care pool “to pay funds to The Door to which it was not entitled.”

“The Door’s extraordinary cooperation is expressly acknowledged in the settlement agreements we signed with both the New York Attorney General’s Office and the United States Attorney’s Office,” said Door spokeswoman Mika De Roo. “Once the stipulations were issued, we immediately made full restitution in February 2022, without cutting or ending any of the critical services we provide to at-risk youth in New York City, and likewise made prompt, full, and appropriate disclosure of the matters settled to the city agencies that fund these services.”

The Door ultimately agreed to pay the federal government $2.7 million and the state government $10.2 million as part of the settlement.

THE CITY 

A top tree-trimming firm whose owners were charged last year with insurance fraud has been placed under the city Department of Investigation’s monitorship — a legal limbo so it can resume work pruning trees in the city’s two biggest boroughs as the case proceeds, officials said.

Brooklyn-based Dragonetti Brothers Landscaping is one of just a handful of private firms who work on trees maintained by the Parks Department, along with performing other city work. But last September, brothers Nicholas and Vito Dragonetti were indicted on accusations of evading more than $1 million in insurance premiums while repairing city roads and sidewalks, according to the Manhattan district attorney’s office. 

Since their arrests, however, public tree trimming in Brooklyn and Queens has been nonexistent, Brooklyn Paper reported last week, even as branch work in other boroughs is just being reinstated after COVID cuts.

“Routine block pruning in Manhattan, Bronx and Staten Island is ongoing,” Crystal Howard, a spokeswoman for the Parks Department, told THE CITY in a statement this week. “We expect pruning in Queens and Brooklyn to resume this fall and to reach the annual goal of 65,000 street trees pruned in Fiscal 2023.”

The Parks Department only recognizes a few landscaping companies as qualified to do the work, so officials went back to the scandal-tarred Dragonetti Brothers — awarding them an $8.39 million contract in August for “emergency tree services in The Bronx and Manhattan,” according to the city comptroller. 

A more than $7 million contract for Queens tree pruning will kick in soon, while a more than $5 million contract for Brooklyn tree pruning is in the final review stages, the Parks Department told THE CITY.

Caption honorary African American Brad Lander

 

You're gonna need bigger borough tower jails

When asked about how to address the increasing jail population (which is too large to meet the requirements of the borough based jail plan), the @NYCMayor said today “we need a plan b.” He then suggested sending some detainees to state facilities. pic.twitter.com/r65ZrV1U7Y

— Courtney Gross (@courtneycgross) August 29, 2022

 

NY1

 In about five years, smaller jails in four boroughs are supposed to replace Rikers Island after it shuts down.

But on Monday, Mayor Eric Adams questioned whether the city would need more space thanks to an increasing jail population.

“We have to have a plan B, because those that have created a plan A that I have inherited obviously did not think about a plan B,” the mayor said at an unrelated press conference.

The mayor’s remarks came after the city comptroller, the public advocate and the chair of the City Council’s criminal justice committee made an unannounced visit to Rikers Island on Monday morning.

And surprisingly, after months of chaos, a staffing crisis and violence, these officials said the jail’s conditions appeared to be improving.

“I do want to say that it is demonstrably better than a year ago,” said Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.

“Immediately upon arrival we did notice improvements,” said Councilwoman Carlina Rivera.

That said, they reported some detainees were not receiving medication, and many officers were still working double shifts to make up for staffing shortages.

On top of that, the officials saw at least seven individuals in what the department is calling involuntary protective custody — where the city says some of the most violent inmates have been isolated.

Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, questioned whether this unit violated a state law requiring several hours of out of cell time.

Adding on, it was the city comptroller who after their visit questioned whether the city would be able to meet its deadline to close the troubled jail complex.

“Staying on the path to close Rikers is critical, and I’m not confident that we’re on it,” Lander said. “Numbers were coming down and down over many years. They got as low as 4,000 during the pandemic. They’re back up to 5,700.”

The mayor did not offer many details about how he thinks the population could drop.

“What was the plan B that stated if we don’t drop down the prison population the way they thought we were, what do we do?” the mayor asked. “We have to look at everything from state facilities. We have to see if we can get help from the governor. We have to sit down with the chair of crime and correction. We have to see what’s available.”

After screwing homeowners out of financial aid from Hurricane Ida damage, Comptroller Lander wants to make a law to make renting basements legal

 

 City Limits

 Brad Lander’s Basement Resident Protection Law would create a “basement board” to oversee the conversions and ensure residents of these apartments—called accessory dwelling units or ADUs—have access to tenants’ rights and basic safety protections. It comes a year after rains from Hurricane Ida killed 11 New Yorkers in basement units.

As the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Ida approaches, tens of thousands of basements and cellars—units often converted into illegal apartments—are still at immediate risk of flooding, and that number will triple in the next 30 years, according to a report by New York City Comptroller Brad Lander shared with City Limits Monday.

The report proposes legalizing and registering rental units via a legislative roadmap modeled after a law New York State enacted in the 1980s to convert commercial and manufacturing units into legal residences.

Lander’s policy plan, the Basement Resident Protection Law, would create a “basement board” to oversee the conversions and ensure residents of these apartments—called accessory dwelling units or ADUs—have access to tenant’s rights, such as eviction protection. It would also help homeowners put in place basic safety features to protect tenants from floods and fires.

“The idea of this legislation is that it would create a kind of interim set of rights, responsibilities and protections that would go really well with a pathway to legalization,” Lander told City Limits.

The plan would need to be implemented on the state level, and so he hopes to see a legislator in Albany take it up. It comes as the city marks one year since heavy rainfall brought by the remnants of Hurricane Ida caused deadly floods, killing 11 people residing in basement units.

The comptroller’s analysis found that 10 percent, or 43,000, of the city’s basements and cellars are at risk of flooding from rainfall or storm surges. The number of occupied basement and cellar units across the city is still unknown due to their secrecy, but estimates suggest they house at least 100,000 city residents—and that number could be much higher.

Such apartments tend to attract low-income renters, including immigrants, who are priced out of other forms of housing. As of now, tenants living in these units have no protections or rights if they demand safety features to protect them from floods, fires and other risks, and many are not incentivized to ask the city to intervene for fear of losing access to their homes.

“The only tool the city has is a vacate order,” Lander said. “That’s not what residents want, even if they’re in an unsafe unit.”

Lander’s proposal would require owners of occupied basement or cellars to register them, and would give temporary legal status to such units for up to five years—a change from current policy, in which most of the units would be deemed uninhabitable.

NYC Comptroller to Hurricane Ida flood victim homeowners: drop dead

PIX 11 News 

 New York City’s comptroller’s office shot down the thousands of people who filed financial claims against the city in the wake of Hurricane Ida.

Historic flooding from the drenching downpours destroyed the homes of many in 2021. In the aftermath, 4,703 people filed complaints with the city because of the flooding, as first reported by THE CITY. Each complaint was denied, a spokesperson for Comptroller Brad Lander’s office said. Letters went out to New Yorkers explaining that New York is not legally responsible.

“For over a century, courts have held that municipalities across the state of New York, including the City of New York, are not liable for damage from ‘extraordinary and excessive rainfalls,'” Lander wrote to New Yorkers in the denial letter. “Where damage is caused by negligent action or omission on the part of the City of New York, the City may be liable; however, that was not the case here.”

Ida dumped as many as 9 inches of rain in parts of New York City on the night of Sept. 1, 2021, according to the Department of Environmental Protection. In just one hour, 3.15 inches of rain fell in Central Park, breaking a record.

“As a result, the City of New York is not responsible for losses arising from Hurricane Ida, and your claim must be denied,” Lander wrote.

New Yorkers whose claims were denied can sue the city at any point within 1 year and 90 days of Ida, according to his office. That gives people until late November of 2022.

THE CITY 

Nearly a year after the remnants of Hurricane Ida flooded the Forest Hills one-bedroom apartment where Heidi Pashkow and her husband live, the couple is finally beginning to settle back into their first-floor home of over four decades. That’s after living with their son’s family for about nine months and spending almost $30,000 on repairs, Pashkow said.

She received a couple thousand dollars from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and filed a negligence claim against the city for damage caused by sewer overflows in the storm, in the hopes of receiving some money.

Pashkow said she was “shocked” when she received a letter on Monday from City Comptroller Brad Lander completely denying her claim.

She wasn’t the only one: 4,703 New Yorkers filed claims against the city after their homes flooded during Ida. All 4,703 were denied, according to the comptroller’s office.

The crux of the claims is that the city’s negligence in sewer maintenance led to flooding damage.  

The storm killed at least 13 people in New York City on Sept. 1, 2021, as it dumped over three inches of rain in a single hour on Central Park, shattering previous rainfall records — and overwhelming the city’s sewer systems, which were built to handle rainfalls of under two inches an hour.

The comptroller’s office says it investigates each claim to determine whether city negligence led to the flooding. But the decisions rely on precedent set by a case from 1907 that ruled municipal governments are not liable for damage from “extraordinary and excessive rainfalls” — even if the city’s sewer system was under capacity.

“As a result, the City of New York is not responsible for losses arising from Hurricane Ida, and your claim must be denied,” read letters sent by the comptroller and obtained by THE CITY.

Pashkow said she thinks the city is “absolutely” at fault because it oversees the infrastructure.

“I could challenge it and say, ‘Well, if you had your sewer fixed, it wouldn’t be a problem,” Pashkow said. ​​

“No one is moving back on the first floor, only me and the super,” she said in a separate text message Tuesday. “All are paranoid and so am I when it rains.”

Economic morbidity takes Manhattan

 

THE CITY

 Simply put, the rents are too damn high,” said Jason Hairston, explaining on Thursday why he’d closed his popular 14th St. eatery, The Nugget Spot, in September of 2020. 

“I was on the way,” Hairston recalled. “I had spent money on a logo and redesigning my store. I was getting ready to open another location in Columbus Circle [in the new Turnstyle Underground Market] and to be in Citifield for the 2020 season. I’d been open for seven years and I was getting ready, getting my sauce made, my flour made — things were lining up and falling into place and then we had to shut our doors.”

In a business with thin margins to begin with — and uncertainty about how long the pandemic, and the city’s shutdown, would last — “there was no way I was going to make money,” said Hairston, a lifelong New Yorker who’s now living in New Jersey while consulting for a Korean hot dog franchise.

“The only reason I would be there would be to support my landlord,” he added.

 The Nugget Spot was one of the 4,040 private establishments the city lost between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the fourth quarter of 2021, according to a new report from New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, as huge losses in Manhattan wiped out gains in Brooklyn. Over the same two-year pandemic stretch, “jobs in New York City fell by approximately 295,000, or 7 percent,” as THE CITY previously reported.

 he rare citywide drop in the number of private establishments since 2019 — including a loss of 2,023 retail locations along with 2,482 private household employers, as families let go of on-the-books nannies and maids during the pandemic — was easily the biggest recorded at least since the feds implemented their current counting system in 1990. 

Since then, the number had steadily gone up except during the recession in the early 1990s and the years just after the 9/11 attacks. 

Manhattan’s share of the city’s private establishments dropped below 50% for the first time, according to Lander’s report, as Brooklyn gained 1,267 over the same period — continuing a 30-year growth trend in which the borough has surged from 17.8% of the city’s total in 1990 to 24.4% in 2021. (The Bronx gained 109 private establishments and Staten Island eight between 2019 and 2021, while Queens lost 158.)

The Blaz's expensive lies

 

THE CITY 

Last fall the city Department of Investigation released a damning report declaring that then-Mayor Bill de Blasio needed to reimburse the taxpayers $320,000 for the cost of bringing his NYPD detail along during his quixotic and ultimately failed quest for the White House.

At the time, the mayor questioned DOI’s findings, claimed there were “inaccuracies” in the report, and insisted he was simply following the advice of the NYPD. He also maintained he had “never received any contradictory guidance” on the use of the detail.

But a day before he announced his bid for the White House, he did receive explicit advice from the Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB) informing him in no uncertain terms that he must pay back the city for the use of the detail on the campaign trail.

The clarity of this instruction is revealed in a May 15, 2019 letter obtained by THE CITY via the Freedom of Information Law, signed by then-COIB Chairperson Richard Briffault to de Blasio’s City Hall counsel, Kapil Longani.

Briffault’s advice on how to avoid violating city conflict rules is unambiguous:

“The City may pay for only the salary and/or overtime of the NYPD personnel on such a campaign trip,” Briffault wrote. “All other costs associated with such personal campaign travel — including but not limited to airfare, rental cars, overnight accommodations, meals and other reasonable incidental expenses — must not be borne by the City. Rather these costs must be paid for or reimbursed by the Mayor’s campaign committee.”

In explaining his decision to de Blasio, Briffault noted federal campaign finance rules would require a federal candidate to repay a government for the use of governmental resources as part of a campaign. De Blasio is currently one of more than a dozen candidates running for Congress in the 10th Congressional District.

Three years after receiving COIB’s letter, the former mayor has yet to pay a dime.

De Blasio did not respond to a voice message left by THE CITY early Thursday asking about the straightforward declaration from COIB and his decision to disregard it. Neal Kwatra, a spokesperson for his congressional campaign, followed up later in an email to say he’d need more time to research the issue before answering.

THE CITY

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s signature NYC Ferry took taxpayers for a pricey ride when city economic development officials underreported its costs by nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, City Comptroller Brad Lander said Wednesday.

Lander accused the city of “playing hide the ball” on ferry finances and criticized the economics and oversight of the watery transportation network, which launched under de Blasio in 2017 and promised heavily subsidized $2.75-per-ride trips from piers in all five boroughs.

The comptroller’s report says the Economic Development Corporation rang up $758 million in ferry-related costs from July 2015 through the end of last year — but only reported $534 million in expenses in its audited financial statements and other records.

“This is a very substantial financial underreporting and mismanagement,” Lander said while standing near Pier 11 in Lower Manhattan. “$250 million of underreporting raises a lot of questions and those questions should be asked.”

Auditors found that the city’s actual subsidy on each ferry trip rose to nearly double the $6.60-per-trip subsidy that the de Blasio administration originally projected. The city subsidy amounted to $12.88 for Fiscal Year 2021, according to the report, not the $8.59 that was originally reported.

“It is a premium service, like express buses and it is also a tourist commodity,” Andrew Rein, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, told THE CITY. “We should be pricing the ferries accordingly and that should be able to reduce that subsidy.”

The comptroller’s report follows a series of stories in THE CITY about NYC Ferry, including one in January that revealed how de Blasio’s budget office supplied a $23.2 million infusion for the service before he left City Hall at the end of 2021 — after the service had previously been funded by the EDC.

“The ferry system was eating the EDC budget,” said Rein, whose nonprofit organization detailed in a 2019 report how subsidies for NYC Ferry are among the highest in the country for comparable ferry networks.

Lander’s report calls into question the purchase of new boats — something THE CITY flagged in April 2019 — as well as the $2.75 fare that de Blasio insisted on for the privately operated ferry trips. The price of an NYC Ferry trip is considerably lower than one on similar services in San Francisco and Boston.

On the San Francisco Bay Ferry, for example, fares are determined by three different zones, with the priciest zoned trip set at $11.25 for a paper ticket or $9.00 for rides paid for through mobile devices or the Clipper fare-payment system. 

De Blasio, in a statement through a spokesperson for his campaign for Congress, said he could not comment on Lander’s report because he had yet to fully review it.

Brad Lander steered a half a billion dollars towards his lobbyist wife's clientele of NPGs

 

NY Daily News

Since Brad Lander took over as the city’s fiscal watchdog in January, his comptroller’s office has approved nearly $550 million in contracts with nonprofit organizations that are members of an umbrella organization his wife oversees, a Daily News analysis of city contracts shows.

Lander’s wife, Meg Barnette, is the president and CEO of Nonprofit New York, which serves as a lobbyist and as an advocate for about 900 member nonprofits across the city.

Nonprofit New York is one of the key entities behind a push to ensure nonprofits that do business with the city are paid in a timely manner. Barnette serves on a joint task force focused on the issue that was formed by Lander and Mayor Adams.

More than 35 organizations that count themselves as members of Nonprofit New York have contracts that Lander’s office has reviewed and signed off on since he became comptroller in January, records show.

According to a News analysis of those records cross-checked against the group’s online list of members, those contracts add up to at least $544 million in city business.

The relationships between the umbrella group Barnette oversees, the nonprofits it represents and her husband, the comptroller, raise the question of whether the web of connections represents a conflict of interest or could be construed as one.

Nonprofit New York’s primary stated goal is “member-building,” and one of its main revenue sources is membership dues, according to the group’s website.

Richard Briffault, the former chairman of the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, said that to avoid the appearance of a conflict, Lander should disclose the connections between his wife’s nonprofit and its members publicly and institute an internal policy laying out how he would recuse himself in matters related to Nonprofit New York’s clients.

“It would be wise policy to say, in effect, I’m going to recuse from anything involving these entities,” said Briffault, now a professor at Columbia University Law School. “It would certainly be good of him to make clear he is going to recuse from anything having to do with them.”

A former comptroller’s office official agreed based on the “optics alone.”

“It plants a seed of doubt,” the source said. “It doesn’t exactly instill public trust.”

Caption Brad Pander annoying a commuter on the day of the mass shooting

This guy is an asshole

City Council cronies form civic concern for "transportation equity" and are coming to your town

For Immediate Release: Friday, March 11, 2022

Contact: Vanessa Caesar | vcaesar@council.nyc.gov | (646) 941-3331

 

 

Majority Whip Selvena N. Brooks-Powers Continues

Citywide Transportation Tours in Partnership with

Council Members Alexis Avilés and Lincoln Restler

 

(Queens, NY) - New York City Council Majority Whip Selvena N. Brooks-Powers, Chair of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, will tour New York City Council Districts 33 and 38. Majority Whip Brooks-Powers will embark on the fifth stop on a citywide transportation listening tour as a part of her First 100 Day Tour, meeting with elected officials and citywide stakeholders to better understand both infrastructure and transportation needs in communities across the city.

 

Majority Whip Brooks-Powers will first join Council Member Alexa Aviles will tour the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway intersection, plaguing trucking routes, and pedestrian crosswalks, ending at a last-mile facility in Red Hook, Brooklyn. During the tour in Council Member Lincoln Restler’s district, the Majority Whip will tour the district viewing dangerous pedestrian sites, local subway stations and will conduct tour partially via Citi Bike. 

 

Following tours in all 50 City Council districts, Majority Whip Brooks-Powers will conclude with listening sessions with each Borough Delegation. Listening sessions will be open to the public and take place virtually to discuss borough-wide issues regarding accessible transportation options, bus routes, train and commuter line rail issues, for-hire-vehicle rights and availability, as well as a myriad of issues affecting residents of the five boroughs.

 

WHO:           NYC Majority Whip Selvena N. Brooks-Powers and

NYC City Council Members Alexis Avilés and Lincoln Restler

 

WHEN & LOCATIONS:     Friday, March 11, 2022

·         Stop #1 @ 8:15am: 4417 4th Avenue (Ground Floor), Brooklyn, NY 11220

·         Stop #2 @ 10:00am: Intersection of York Street and Jay Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201

 

Press is invited to attend

###

 

 

Vanessa Caesar | Director, Scheduling/Events

Office of NYC Council Majority Whip Selvena N. Brooks-Powers

31st District, Queens

City Hall: (212) 788-7216

Far Rockaway: (718) 471-7014

Laurelton: (718) 527-4356

Website: https://council.nyc.gov/district-31/

Follow Us At:

Facebook/Instagram: @CMSelvenaBrooksPowers

Facebook: @CMBrooksPowers

Do I have to remind everyone that one of these council cronies, the notorious Linky Restler is wholly influenced and agency captured by the Transportation Alternatives non-profit lobby organization that are trying to usurp the streets from commuting by car? This guy is such a pawn for them that he's reduced himself to making ludicrous videos feigning to be scared of crossing a street.

 

 

Linky Restler is a parody of a city council official.

If only there was a Boy Scout around to help this dork cross the street https://t.co/kajldOFqLJ

— JQ LLC: The Impunity City (@ImpunityCity) March 9, 2022

Well except if you happen to work for app-hail car corporation that happens to be one of Transportation Alternatives biggest contributors. Because Council Member Brooks Powers is holding a massive job fair event "powered by Lyft" in Rockaway Beach to recruit new gig livery drivers, which will also be attended by other elected officials including the meddling shitlib self-promoting comptroller Brad Lander. '''

 

 

 

Oh, don't forget your fucking vax pass.

 

 

 

 

Caption Comptroller Brad Pander

Brooklyn pols holding rigged webinar about city streets

Since @ericadamsfornyc is pandering to @TransAlt and those totalitarians are acting like they're in his cabinet already,they really should see what an "open street" is doing to traffic on Atlantic and Washington Aves in Brooklyn. @StreetsblogNYC

Open streets do not calm traffic pic.twitter.com/TtyORqdAza

— This is JQ LLC (@ImpunityCity) November 19, 2021

Senator Chuck Schumer and Comptroller-elect Brad Lander are hosting an obviously rigged webinar tonight on the future of our city streets with transportation totalitarian lobbies

What the Infrastructure Bill Means for NYC: A Zoom Townhall with Senator Schumer and Comptroller-elect Brad Lander

Description

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has the potential to reshape NYC for the better, with investments in the transportation, resiliency, and internet infrastructure our neighborhoods will need for years to come. But how that new federal funding gets spent, which projects are prioritized, what kinds of jobs are created, and how quickly they move forward will really matter. Join Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and NYC Comptroller-elect Brad Lander for a conversation on what the infrastructure money means for NYC and how federal and local officials can collaborate on implementation to ensure that infrastructure dollars deliver what our communities need for the future.

Co-Sponsors (list in formation):
Bike New York
Center for an Urban Future
Citizens Budget Commission
Jobs to Move America
New York Building Congress
New York City Central Labor Council
New York League of Conservation Voters
Regional Plan Alliance
Riders Alliance
Transportation Alternatives

 

Time

Dec 9, 2021 06:30 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada) 

 Expect this zoom astroturfed by bike zealots and Urbanish Yimby transplants, so if you own a car and you got zoom you better use it

 Canada? 

NYC Council approves Gowanus luxury public housing rezoning after leveraging NYCHA repairs and also the blood bank tower upzoning

 

The Real Deal

The City Council both bucked and abided tradition Tuesday with the approval of a life sciences expansion on the Upper East Side and a sweeping rezoning in Brooklyn.

Lawmakers voted to rezone Gowanus to allow mixed-use buildings in an 82-block area largely restricted to manufacturing use. City officials estimate that the change will enable the construction of more than 8,500 apartments, 3,000 of which would be set aside for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.

As part of the proposal, City Hall has agreed to pay an estimated $200 million for repairs at two New York City Housing Authority complexes, Gowanus Houses and Wyckoff Gardens. Local Council members Brad Lander and Stephen Levin had said they would not support the rezoning unless the city committed to at least $132 million.

The city is also pledging $174 million in sewer upgrades and will require new development to meet new stormwater rules aimed at stemming sewage overflows into the infamously polluted Gowanus Canal, where a cleanup that was fiercely debated during the Bloomberg administration is underway.

The City Council also greenlit plans for a larger headquarters for the New York Blood Center at 310 East 67th Street. The proposal was approved despite objections from Council member Ben Kallos, who represents the area, and marked the first time since 2009 that the City Council has flouted member deference, or the tradition of voting with the local member on land use decisions.

The vote came after Council leaders reached a deal to reduce the height of the blood center building from 334 feet to 218 feet (233 with mechanical equipment). The project, which is being developed by Longfellow Real Estate Partners, would serve as an expanded headquarters for the New York Blood Center as well as office and lab space for other life science companies.

Kallos objected to the scale of the project and has called on the developer to reduce the height even further. The de Blasio administration, City Council leaders and Manhattan officials negotiated a deal without Kallos because they did not trust that he would reach an agreement that met their goals for the site.

On the Council floor ahead of the vote, Kallos said approval would send the message that “local council members don’t matter anymore” and would serve as a “blueprint for deep-pocketed developers to get whatever they want.”