Mayor Adams and the Department of Social Services covered up violations at shelters housing migrant families arrivals and fires official who tried to warn them

  

NBC New York

Several sources tell News 4 that staff at the Department of Social Services, including the agency's legal team, were angry after being instructed to hold off on telling City Hall, and not promptly notify the Legal Aid Society, as has been past protocol.

City officials acknowledge there was a delay in disclosing the violations, but they say top officials at the Department of Social Services including the Commissioner were unaware that they are legally obligated not to house families overnight in their intake office. This, despite the fact that a report is sent out each morning at 4am to notify social services managers of any violations.

The chief spokesperson for New York City's Department of Homeless Services was fired Friday after pushing back against alleged lies and omissions by her boss regarding illegal conditions in the city's homeless shelter system, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Email and text messages provided to the News 4 I-Team suggest that the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Julia Savel had resisted efforts by Social Services Commissioner Gary Jenkins to conceal crowded conditions in the city's homeless shelter system from his superiors at City Hall, from the media and from the public.

In one text message dated July 20, Savel indicated to a City Hall spokeswoman that she was planning to inquire about moving to a different agency, saying "Just can't work for a commish who is ok with covering up something illegal."

Staff at the Department of Homeless Services say they learned on July 18 that families with children had been forced to stay overnight in the city's homeless intake office in the Bronx, known as PATH  — a practice that is prohibited under a 2008 court settlement between the City and the Legal Aid Society, which represents people living in shelter.

The text messages imply that Savel gave City Hall a heads up the next day, on July 19. That same day, Mayor Adams announced NYC needed federal funding to help with a surge of 2,800 asylum seekers who had entered the shelter system in recent weeks. But the mayor did not specifically mention any legal violations or families sleeping in the intake office.

Later that week Adams said he did not learn the city had violated its "right to shelter mandate" until July 20.

Several sources tell News 4 that staff at the Department of Social Services, including the agency's legal team, were angry after being instructed to hold off on telling City Hall, and not promptly notify the Legal Aid Society, as has been past protocol.

City officials acknowledge there was a delay in disclosing the violations, but they say top officials at the Department of Social Services including the Commissioner were unaware that they are legally obligated not to house families overnight in their intake office. This, despite the fact that a report is sent out each morning at 4am to notify social services managers of any violations. 

 Suddenly, Stephen Banks doesn't look that bad now.

Governor Cuomo covered up structural hazards on his daddy's bridge

 

 

Times Union 

 A high-strength bolt snapped at the threads as an ironworker, Jimmy Jordan, used a torque wrench to tighten it into a steel plate connecting two massive girders. A piece of the broken bolt bounced off an overhang and split his lip open as he looked up.

It was January 2016, and Jordan was part of the team constructing the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement at the project’s main assembly site along the Hudson River in the Port of Coeymans, about 100 miles north of the bridge. Construction of the $3.9 billion twin span, which would ultimately be named after Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, had been under way for a little more than two years when Jordan’s injury led to a series of revelations that would call into question the new bridge's structural safety.

 It would emerge that dozens of bolts had similarly broken at the port assembly site, an abnormally high number that indicated the potential for a very serious problem. Bolts also had been breaking on the assembled girders loaded onto barges, and even on some pieces already installed at the bridge — including some more than a year after they had been tightened into the plates that hold the girders together.

For structures like bridges and high-rises, experts say even a few broken bolts can weaken the immense splices and result in a catastrophic collapse.

Despite the state’s knowledge of the situation, none of that was on the agenda when the 3.1-mile bridge was dedicated three years ago as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ceremoniously drove across it in a 1932 Packard convertible during the formal opening. 

 

 Despite concerns from engineering experts that girders could separate and the bridge could collapse without notice, the state’s investigations moved slowly. Also, many workers at the site throughout the multiyear project — some with firsthand knowledge of the extent of the broken bolts — were never interviewed by investigators.

 

Carranza, de Blasio and wife are focus of Department of Education coverup

NY Post

Hands off.

An explosive whistleblower complaint sent to three city councilmen claims the agency charged with investigating wrongdoing in city schools has blocked probes of Mayor Bill de Blasio, Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza and their allies, The Post has learned.

The Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI) for city schools is sitting on nine cases of waste, fraud and corruption involving the upper echelons of City Hall and the Department of Education, according to a type-written, four-page letter that catalogues the wrongdoing in detail.

One of cases cited involves first lady Chirlane McCray’s embattled $850 million mental health program, Thrive, which has a large school component.

The insider document blames Special Commissioner Anastasia Coleman, who was appointed in 

February 2018, after prevailing in a power struggle with former Department of Investigations Commissioner Mark Peters, an aggressive prober of the mayor’s administration and city agencies.
“Under Coleman, SCI is continuing to hold or redirect investigations into City Hall, Chancellor Richard Carranza and de Blasio allies with business or that are connected to the DOE to protect de Blasio’s image while he runs for president,” says the anonymous Aug. 20 letter signed by “SCI Investigative Staff.”

De Blasio dropped out of the presidential campaign on Sept. 20.

Other mothballed cases included a probe of possible mayoral interference in an investigation of Orthodox Jewish yeshivas that get city funds but skimp on required secular education; contract spending on de Blasio’s aborted “Renewal” program for failing schools; and allegations about Carranza and his top aides.

“SCI investigators assigned to investigations involving executives at the DOE and City Hall, including the Mayor, have been directed to instead focus on matters not related to the mayoral administration, his allies, etc,” the letter says.

SCI agents, it adds, “have been denied support in conducting these investigations and their independence in pursuing leads . . . that point towards City Hall and top-level executives at the DOE.”

In response, SCI said that Coleman “is aware of the anonymous complaint as well as its recipients,” adding that the letter was forwarded “to the appropriate agency for review” — referring to the city Department of Investigation.

Mayor de Blasio administration obfuscating race and income data of affordable housing applicants

 

THE CITY

The de Blasio administration is fighting to keep under wraps studies of its own data used to analyze whether the city’s affordable housing lottery system reinforces segregation.

The latest result: a 31-page report filed in Manhattan Federal Court on Tuesday that contains the word “Redacted” 131 times over the spots where the findings would be — including eight times with the R-word screaming out in huge type.

The fight for secrecy stems from a suit filed by a civil rights group arguing that the city’s policy of giving so-called “community preference” for affordable housing to residents already living in a neighborhood keeps intact the racial and income status quo.

The Anti-Discrimination Center’s latest analysis of the issue isn’t public, thanks to objections by the city.

“

It’s extraordinary that information that can’t be personally identified is treated as a state secret,” said Craig Gurian, an attorney representing the Anti-Discrimination Center. “This is information the public could not be more interested in. It’s not personal information. It’s how the housing lottery process — which can have tens of thousands of New Yorkers apply for a few apartments — whether people get a level playing field or not, based on race.”

Gurian first asked a federal magistrate judge to put this data into the court record in June 2017 after a statistics expert hired by the Anti-Discrimination Center completed his first report.

At the time, however, Judge Katharine Parker blocked the release of the study’s results, agreeing with the de Blasio administration’s request to keep it private while city lawyers prepared their response.

Drastic undercounting of construction site fatalities during city's hyperdevelopment last year

THE CITY

A least a dozen construction workers died on the job in New York City last year — but building owners and contractors reported only a single fatality, THE CITY has learned.

A 2017 city law requires building owners or contractors to report all deaths and injuries on their construction sites to the Department of Buildings.

But they’ve fallen far short – without facing any penalty, so far.

The one reported death was that of Over Paredes in November, which was filed by the general contractor at 859 Myrtle Ave. in Brooklyn, according to DOB records.

Worker deaths that went unreported include some that made headlines: Ju Cong Wu, who fell nine stories down an elevator shaft during a hotel project in Manhattan, and Luis Almonte, who was crushed under a brick wall at a Sunset Park worksite.

The DOB has not yet cited any company for failing to report.

The department will begin issuing $2,500 initial violations to building owners who do not report deaths or injuries beginning June 1, agency spokesperson Joseph Soldevere said after THE CITY inquired about enforcement.

“Developers need to be aware that we will be holding them to their obligations under the law and taking all appropriate enforcement actions if they fail to meet those obligations,” he said in a statement.

Owners also could face fines of $1,000 for each day they fail to submit the reports, Soldevere said.

The law went into effect immediately after it was signed in May 2017. Soldevere attributed the delay in enforcement to a slew of new construction safety-related laws — 50 since January 2017 — that has stretched the agency thin.

“We’re implementing dozens of new laws and have had to allocate our resources among many major priorities,” Soldevere wrote.

Private construction is the most lethal industry in New York City, according to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, which counted 20 deaths in 2017. The bureau’s 2018 tally is not yet available.

The building in the picture is the site where Gregory Echeverra got killed when a crane collapsed and a counterweight fell on him three weeks ago. It's not known if the developer reported this to the DOB.

Mayor de Blasio, the man who gave us Vision Zero, was a passenger in a car crash that was caused by his NYPD security team and covered up by their commanding officer

 NY Daily News

On a Saturday morning in August 2015, Mayor de Blasio was in the back seat of a black NYPD Chevy Tahoe bound for an event in Harlem when a driver changing lanes slammed into his ride.

No one was hurt, but the commanding officer of the mayor’s executive protection unit, Howard Redmond, was furious. Text messages obtained by the Daily News show he immediately ordered the incident be covered up to protect de Blasio’s image.

“As per CO [the commanding officer] no one is to know about this,” Sgt. Jerry Ioveno texted members of the unit, referring to Redmond. “Not even the other teams.”

“No one is to know,” he repeated.

Text messages obtained by The News reveal that Redmond frantically covered up the Aug. 22, 2015, car crash due to concerns about “optics.” The previously unreported crash offers insight into the powerful commanding officer’s critical role covering up embarrassing episodes involving the mayor. It also hints at why Redmond remains in his post despite turmoil in the unit. The News has previously reported on allegations that Redmond covered up the case of an executive protection unit lieutenant accused of roughing up a sergeant at Gracie Mansion.

No report on the crash is publicly available in state Department of Motor Vehicles records. Redmond allegedly ordered that the cop behind the wheel, Detective Edgar Robles, be officially listed as the driver of a backup SUV, text messages show. That way, the unit could more plausibly claim the mayor wasn’t in the vehicle involved in the collision, a source close to the executive protection unit said.

The crash was covered up in part because of de Blasio’s Vision Zero initiative, which seeks to reduce pedestrian and traffic deaths through stricter enforcement, according to multiple sources close to the executive protection unit. The Vision Zero site proclaims: “The City of New York must no longer regard traffic crashes as mere ‘accidents,’ but rather as preventable incidents that can be systematically addressed.”

State law requires all occupants of vehicles involved in accidents to stay at the scene. But a retired member of the executive protection unit said it wasn’t unusual for a VIP under the unit’s protection to be taken away as long as there was no serious injury.

The mayor's atypical buck-passing response?

“Everything about how an accident is handled is the responsibility of the NYPD. I don’t know enough about their protocols. That’s something to ask them,” de Blasio said.

The aloof mayor was also uninterested in the apparent cover-up of the collision. Texts showed EPU members telling each other “no one is to know.”

“I don’t accept the notion that anything was done one way or another because I’m not familiar with what was done," de Blasio said, apparently ignorant of The News’s front page story and coverage it received from other news outlets.

 

The latest in the Gropez saga

From the Village Voice:

Much to the dismay of the National Organization of Women, women's rights attorney Gloria Allred, Assembly candidate Frank Commisso Jr., and thousands of New Yorkers, we're sure, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is off the hook for his tax-payer funded coverup of allegations of sexual misconduct by his old pal/current disgraced Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

The Joint Commission on Public Ethics has decided to not investigate Silver's role in sweeping sexual harassment allegations made against Lopez under the rug by paying two of his accusers more than $103,000 in taxpayer money to essentially keep their mouths shut about Lopez.

From the Daily News:

Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan is doing what state ethics investigators won’t – investigate Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

Donovan was granted permission by a state judge Friday to “investigate allegations that funds, both public and private” were used by the Assembly leadership to settle two sexual harassment complaints against Lopez earlier this year.

Deputy Chief Administrative Judge Fern A. Fisher, in issuing the order, said the disbursement of funds represented possible violations of, among other things, the state penal law and public officers law.

Fisher’s order comes after it was reported that the Joint Commission on Public Ethics had decided to limit its probe on the matter to Lopez’s actions and not Silver’s decision to settle the earlier case before it was sent to an Assembly ethics committee.

Court spokesman David Bookstaver, a court spokesman, said Fisher issued the new order in order to give “more specificity” to the scope of Donovan’s investigations.

Donovan was named by Fisher to head up the Lopez investigation last week after Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes - citing his longstanding political ties to Lopez – asked that a special prosecutor be named for the case.

From the NY Post:

It sounds delusional, but besieged Assemblyman Vito Lopez has told some people he might run for the City Council next year.

“He was saying this right after he was charged with sex harassment,” said one stunned source.

Whether Lopez means it or not is impossible to tell.

Assuming he isn’t slapped with criminal charges — and that remains far from certain — there’s nothing that would stop him from becoming a council candidate in 2013.

Lopez has been obsessed for years with grabbing the Bushwick seat now held by Diana Reyna, a former aide he’s never forgiven for breaking with him, acting independently and refusing to toe his dictatorial line.

It's not just a "Bushwick seat." Part of Ridgewood is gerrymandered into council district 34.