NYC Ferry has a sinking feeling

 

 

 THE CITY

New York City is again looking for a company to run its ferry service — and wants the winner of the next contract to contribute more revenue rather than receive millions of dollars in subsidies to keep the service afloat. 

The city’s Economic Development Corporation, which oversees NYC Ferry, posted a request for proposals on Wednesday looking for a potential replacement for current operator Hornblower Group, whose contract is up next September.

Applicants will have to include a “revenue generation plan” focused on offsetting costs and EDC is inviting “creative thinking from private sector respondents” on how to make it sustainable, according to the request posted in the City Record.

EDC will favor the proposals with revenue plans that funnel the most money back to the city, the agency wrote. 

The expiring contract includes revenue sharing on the boat’s concessions and interior media ads, as well as the fares based on total ridership and revenue numbers, noted a spokesperson for Hornblower, which plans to put in a new bid. 

“Today, no other operator is better prepared to build upon the system’s early success and implement the vision to create a more equitable and accessible NYC Ferry,” Kevin Rabbitt, the CEO of Hornblower Group, said in a statement to THE CITY on Wednesday.

 

Governor Cuomo got screwed by a sex toy company he contracted to make ventilators

NY Post

 Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration got swindled trying to buy millions of dollars of Chinese medical gear amid the coronavirus crisis — and has been forced to hire a law firm in Hong Kong in a bid to recoup the taxpayer money it lost, The Post has learned.

The state Department of Health signed a $125,000 contract with the overseas lawyers, Gall Solicitors late last year, according to records posted online by the state Comptroller’s Office.

The one-year pact was exempted from a “pre-audit” by Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli under pandemic-related emergency powers Cuomo granted himself on March 7 — and which some lawmakers now want to revoke due to the spiraling controversy over New York’s nursing home deaths.

Earlier this month, The Post exclusively revealed that a top aide privately admitted Cuomo’s administration hid the number of resident deaths in hospitals from lawmakers and the public due to fear that federal prosecutors would use it “against us.” That has sparked calls for Cuomo to be impeached and also a reported federal Justice Department probe.

Officials declined to provide The Post with a copy of the legal retainer contract or details of the underlying dispute.

But a Cuomo spokesman acknowledged that the DOH hired Gall on Dec. 24 “to help us pursue recovery of state funds there, related to procurement.”

“The contract was just approved and papers will be filed soon, and we’ll reserve further comment until then,” spokesman Rich Azzopardi said.

The DOH previously hired the white-shoe law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom to vet its purchases of coronavirus-related medical equipment and supplies.

That agreement was struck on March 1 and could cost taxpayers as much as $1.25 million, according to the comptroller’s website.

“Skadden was retained to provide much-needed expertise to ensure that the lifesaving equipment the State procured met ‎FDA requirements before the equipment was distributed to hospitals,” DOH spokesman Gary Holmes said.

The state rushed into more than $1 billion worth of deals for medical supplies and equipment last year — only to later seek partial refunds amounting to about one-third of the total, the New York Times reported in mid-December, shortly before the DOH hired Gall.

The money at issue included a $12.5 million deposit for 1,000 ventilators from Please Me LLC, a company that had never before sold the high-tech devices but whose product line included sex toys, children’s books and other items, The Times said.

de Blasio's Citywide Administration Services allowed contractors to swindle the city during the start of the pandemic by sending the wrong face masks

 THE CITY 

 Last spring, frontline medical workers scrambled in vain to find proper surgical masks as the coronavirus swept through hospitals across the city.

Doctors, nurses and medical technicians were forced to reuse the same mask over and over — a dangerously ineffective method to stem infection from a virus that’s now taken the lives of more than 24,000 New Yorkers.

City officials jumped into action, signing more than $1 billion in emergency no-bid contracts with seemingly anybody who claimed they could produce high-quality masks and other crucial COVID gear — including ventilators.

Among them: Genuine Parts Company, an Atlanta-based firm that specializes in auto parts. The Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), which handles most of City Hall’s purchases, had bought parts for city vehicles from Genuine in the past.

An auto parts company from Atlanta?? Why? 

Go on...

According to internal records obtained by THE CITY, DCAS paid $348,000 for what was described by Genuine as 300,000 “non-Latex surgical masks” that were marked as “received” by the city on April 7. That was at the peak of the virus’ spread in New York City, when the seven-day average for daily hospitalizations hit 1,642, compared to this week’s 52.

 But records show that when DCAS’ Bureau of Quality Assurance inspected the delivered goods, workers discovered not surgical masks but “disposable single-use non-surgical mask/dust mask/Not FDA approved.”

The items were nevertheless deemed “accepted due to public necessity.” DCAS paid full price and placed subsequent orders for more masks from the car parts dealer, records show. DCAS then “redirected” the masks — useless in emergency rooms — elsewhere for non-medical use.

The Genuine mask purchase is part of a disturbing pattern uncovered during an investigation by THE CITY of DCAS’ pandemic-spurred emergency buying spree.

During some of the most dire weeks of the crisis, THE CITY found, the agency lost track of key equipment from masks to ventilators — driving an exasperated DCAS official to declare in one early May meeting: “Stop this s—t! Stop this s—t! Fix the problem!”

 And guess who also was involved in this honest incompetence graft? The Blaz's art dealer buddy Contractor Gadget

A similar scenario unfolded with another vendor, Digital Gadgets, an electronics firm whose CEO, Charlie Tebele, along with family members, has been a frequent donor to de Blasio’s various political campaigns.

In late March, DCAS awarded $19 million in no-bid contracts to Digital for high quality N95 masks and lower quality KN95 masks. That included an $8 million contract for what the firm promised would be two million “surgical grade N95s,” according to internal DCAS documents. 

 The company also won a $91 million contract to provide DCAS with ventilators that was later cancelled because, Benson told THE CITY, the agency “decided to order a different ventilator model.”

Digital Gadgets — which previously supplied hoverboards to QVC — did deliver masks. But DCAS records reveal that the agency’s Bureau of Quality Assurance discovered the masks Digital delivered were not “surgical grade N95s” as promised and had not been approved by either the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.