The city named a boulevard after Floyd Flake

 

QNS

  The name of Merrick Boulevard in Queens was taken from the word “Meroke” mean oyster bed. So a portion of it in St. Albans was appropriately renamed Saturday for what admirers say is the “pearl of the community,” in honor of the Rev. Dr. Floyd H. Flake. (Blech, what a write up)

Nearly a thousand residents and city elected officials jammed the streets near his beloved church, the Greater Allen African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Cathedral, on Oct. 3 for the dedication.

Elected officials and the community fully supported the renaming of the street “Floyd H. Flake Boulevard,” passed by the City Council and signed by Mayor Bill de Blasio to honor the former Congressman and civil rights activist. Saturday’s huge ceremony was full of speeches by top leaders and filled with the pomp of powerful gospel music and dancing that is the hallmark of his 23,000-member church.

 A marching band led a long white limousine with his family to the open field where he was accompanied by his wife Margaret Elaine McCollins and his four children — his two sons Robert Rasheed, Harold Hasan and his two daughters Aliya and Nailah Flake-Brown — who held his arm right up to his seat.

The city is broke and taxpayer money was set aside for a ostentatious and undeserved parade for and lionization of a crooked politician. Also a ceremony of collective democrat establishment cognitive dissonance. 

 

And don't forget that this city approved gathering was arranged and happened as schools and restaurants are closing in districts where covid cases rose and there's the arrogant defiant Floyd walking around with his mask under his nose and then off in close proximity with his adoring allies and fans.

Disgusting. 

Update:

A commentator of a recent post brought up a story that makes this street renaming in the honor of Floyd more unjustified and reprehensible. Two men were involved in teenage sex trafficking, holding two girls hostage and pimping them out in a senior citizen residential building tied to the Allen Church where this dedication took place that was attended by the current mayor of New York City and New York State attorney general and the minority leader of the U.S. Senate.

Queens Chronicle

Two Queens men have been arrested in separate cases in which they are accused of kidnapping teenage girls and forcing them to work as prostitutes.

According to the office of Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, Joseph Gilbert, 24, of St. Albans was indicted on an 87-count complaint charging him with holding a 15-year-old girl at a senior housing complex, which has been identified by the Daily News as the Greater Allen Cathedral Senior Residence.

Gilbert was charged with first- and second-degree kidnapping, compelling prostitution, sex trafficking, second-degree promoting prostitution, second- and third-degree assault, third-degree rape, third-degree criminal sexual act and endangering the welfare of a child.

Brown added that Gilbert is accused of threatening and beating the girl, and allegedly forcing her to take drugs to stay awake in order to bring in more money.

Church officials did not respond to a request for comment prior to the Chronicle’s deadline.

In a separate case, Reagan Conception, 28, of Jamaica, was arraigned on June 2 on a 76-count indictment accusing him of kidnapping and raping a 14-year-old girl and forcing her to work as a prostitute between September and November of last year.

Conception was charged with first- and second-degree kidnapping, first- and second-degree rape, first- and second-degree criminal sexual act, sex trafficking, compelling prostitution, first-, second- and third-degree promoting prostitution, second- and third-degree assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

“I want to stress that prostitution is not a victimless crime and that sex trafficking is an incessant act of brutality and degradation,” Brown said in a statement issued last Friday. “This teenage girl was finally freed but she will have to live with this horrible experience for the rest of her life.”

 I repeat, disgusting. 

Greater Allen AME Church operating for 20 years without a C of O?

Well here's an interesting tidbit for ya...

The Greater Allen AME Cathedral and Conference Center (the church is also a major developer) in Jamaica has, according to online DOB records, been operating without a certificate of occupancy. They had a temporary one back in 1998 but it quickly expired.

The above list shows why they have yet to obtain a permanent C of O. (Yikes!)

This shows what they still need to file to become legit.

Filed in 1995, approved in 2017? At this rate they'll have their certificate sometime in 2050.

For those of you who aren't familiar with this church, it's run by former Congress Member Floyd Fake...er, Flake.

Cuomo appoints Flake to Public Service Commission

From Capital New York:

For the third consecutive day, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced appointments within his administration and also said he would nominate Floyd Flake, an influential black pastor, to the state's Public Service Commission.

Flake, a former congressman and pastor of the Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral in southeast Queens, has long been politically friendly to Cuomo, encouraging him to run for governor ahead of David Paterson in 2010 and welcoming him to a Sunday service last fall.

The Public Service Commission regulates utilities, including electrical and cable companies. It's unclear what experience Flake has in these areas.

His appointment requires Senate confirmation.

Is Flake hiding his income?

From the NY Post:

Did the Rev. Floyd Flake take a vow of poverty, or is he hiding his income?

The head of the Greater Allen Cathedral, one of the nation’s largest churches, reported earning nothing from the Queens house of worship on a recent tax filing.

It was the second year that tax filings from Flake’s nonprofit Empowerment Ministries disclosed no salary for him from the Jamaica church, where he is senior pastor.

His wife, Elaine, co-pastor of the church and vice president of the nonprofit, also showed no church income on the 2012 and 2011 filings.

But in 2010, the church paid Flake $252,719 in salary and benefits and his wife’s compensation came to $250,455, according to Empowerment Ministries’ tax filings for that year.

Flake, a former congressman, is president of Empowerment Ministries.

He signed the 2012 tax return for the group. Elaine did so for 2011.

He and Elaine were each paid $5,000 for their work at the charity in 2012.

Even though it is linked to a church, Empowerment Ministries is obligated to report the Flakes’ salaries, tax experts say.

Michael Chitwood, the group’s accountant, said he was waiting to see the church’s delayed 2012 financial statements and would amend the group’s return if necessary.

Flake endorses Katz

From the Daily News:

Influential Queens pastor Floyd Flake has thrown his support behind Democratic borough president hopeful Melinda Katz, the Daily News has learned.

The move could be a seen as a snub to City Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-St. Albans), whose southeast Queens district is adjacent to Flake’s power base.

“Our borough is at a pivotal juncture right now and Melinda is the kind of steady, experienced hand that we need,” Flake, a former congressman, said in a statement Monday.

“I have known her for many years, and worked with her when she worked for Borough President Claire Shulman and helped bring the federal building to Southeast Queens,” Flake added. “Melinda was ready, willing and able then, and I know she is even more so now.”

I really like the headline I posted here... But wait a minute!  Leroy Comrie says Flake DIDN'T endorse Katz!  Flake can't be reached for comment!  And Ed Koch supposedly endorsed Melinda after he died!

Feds probing Meeks' money

From the NY Post:

Federal investigators are scrutinizing millions in taxpayer dollars that Rep. Gregory Meeks steered to a Queens nonprofit.

The US Attorney’s Office recently issued a subpoena to the Greater Jamaica Development Corp. seeking information on federal funding secured by Meeks, a government source told The Post.

Fred Winters, a spokesman for Greater Jamaica, confirmed that the organization had received a subpoena and said it was not the target of the federal investigation. He refused to say who was.

Greater Jamaica has been a funding favorite of Meeks. His political mentor, the Rev. Floyd Flake, sits on the board.

Carlisle Towery, the president of Greater Jamaica, kicked in $1,000 in June to Meeks’ re-election campaign.

The Queens Democrat has arranged for numerous grants to the organization, including $9.2 million from the Federal Transit Administration to fix up a decrepit underpass below the Long Island Rail Road tracks and create a shopping arcade there.

Another $8.2 million in federal money is to go toward an extension of Atlantic Avenue.

The long-delayed underpass project was finally completed this spring, and Meeks appeared at a “lighting ceremony” with other officials to symbolically open the dark underpass. But the row of four newly built storefronts — a total of 5,500 square feet of space — sits empty.

Did Flake tweed a college?

From the NY Post:

New York political kingmaker and religious leader Floyd Flake rakes in the cash -- and leaves wreckage behind, critics say.

For five years, the former congressman headed one of the largest churches in the country in Queens while simultaneously running a small college in Ohio -- pocketing hundreds of thousands in salary and benefits from both places.

Now Wilberforce University faculty members say he bled them dry, setting the storied black Protestant college on the road to financial ruin.

“He came in and looted the place,” said Robert Fitrakis, a lawyer for the faculty who filed a complaint last month with the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.

The faculty is seeking to oust the current board and Flake’s handpicked successor, charging that they have breached their legal and financial duties.

The faculty members claim that after Flake became president in 2002, his compensation and perks skyrocketed, he hired cronies as high-priced administrators, he failed to raise enough money and he insisted on a pricey contract with the Princeton Review, where he sat on an advisory board.

In his last year at the college, 2008, Flake pulled down a total compensation package of $340,100, which included his salary of $145,833 and a retirement benefit of $149,267. He also had a $45,000 expense account.

Almost all of Wilberforce’s revenue, about 90 percent, comes from taxpayer dollars, including federal financial aid and government grants.

Flake's group building affordable senior housing

From the Daily News:

A CONTROVERSIAL developer has been awarded almost $12million to build affordable senior housing in the Rockaways.

The Allen A.M.E. Neighborhood Preservation and Development Corp. expects to break ground on the 66-unit Allen by the Bay this fall. The five-story project, which includes an arts-and-crafts room and a library, is slated to open 12 to 14 months after construction begins, corporation officials said.

"There's just not enough affordable housing available for senior citizens," said the Rev. Floyd Flake, the group's chief executive officer. "What we provide is the ability to live with dignity in the latter years of their lives."

Flake and his development group have come under fire recently.

The former congressman was investigated in a possible ethics flap regarding Aqueduct Entertainment Group's winning bid to run a racino at the Queens race track.

But Flake was cleared - for the most part - in the inspector general's report.

His development group, an arm of the powerful Greater Allen A.M.E. Cathedral of New York, wanted to build the housing in response to the overwhelming need in the borough, he said.

More than 1,000 people are on waiting lists for two of the church's three Queens affordable-housing residences for the elderly, Flake said.

The Far Rockaway facility, at 22-14 and 22-22 Loretta Road, is being funded through a $11.5million New York State Homes and Community Renewal loan.

That money will be paid back through a $10million U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant and various tax credits, said the organization's chief financial officer, Charles Foster.

Post points fingers at Queens pols

From the NY Post:

What's in the water in Queens?

Rep. Joseph Crowley -- chairman of the borough's Democratic Party -- finds himself the target of an ethics probe.

The Office of Congressional Ethics -- an outside, independent body of former members of Congress -- recommended this week that the House Ethics Committee investigate three members, including Crowley, who raised significant sums of Wall Street money before key votes on the financial-services-overhaul bill.

Crowley pulled in $23,500 from one fund-raising event alone last December, just days prior to a vote.

Yes, even members of Congress are innocent until proven guilty. But the OCE is akin to an ethics grand jury, so its referral is quite serious.

Meanwhile, an actual empaneled federal grand jury is probing four other high-profile Queens Democrats -- Borough President Helen Marshall, Rep. Gregory Meeks, state Sen. Malcolm Smith and ex-Rep. Floyd Flake -- over their ties to contractor and contributor Robert Gaskin, who's worked on housing and construction projects for all four.

That probe is also exploring questions -- first raised in The Post -- about Meeks' role in a charity he created to assist Hurricane Katrina victims: New Yorkers Organized to Assist Hurricane Families only paid out $1,392 of the $31,000 raised after the Gulf disaster.

Furthermore, the watchdogs at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wants OCE to investigate a $40,000 loan Meeks accepted from a Queens businessman, yet failed to report on his financial-disclosure forms.

Innocent until proven guilty?

Yes, indeed.

Stinks like a dead fish?

That, too.

Queens needs a fumigator, ASAP.

Vets unhappy with St. Albans VA plan

From the Daily News:

A developer selected to build a high-tech veterans center in Queens revealed plans on Friday to place new medical facilities next to housing and green space, riling veterans groups whose demands they say were disregarded.

The Daily News learned the plans of developer St. Albans Village LLC - run by a prominent local pastor - after five years of rumors about the fate of the site at 179th St. and Linden Blvd.

Veterans groups had called for a hospice and a women's shelter. They also wanted the entire plot to remain veterans property, instead of allowing a private group develop 25 of 55 acres.

The Rev. Edwin Reed, pastor of Morris Brown AME Church in South Ozone Park, said he will listen to the veterans' concerns. But he said his group will stick with the federal government's original call for a 221-bed facility.

"I'm really ticked off," said Pat Toro, president of the Queens chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America. "They didn't pay attention to any of the things we wanted."

Reed previously served as a minister at Greater Allen AME Cathedral. Its pastor, the Rev. Floyd Flake, was embroiled in controversy this year over ethical problems relating to his group's winning bid to run an Aqueduct racino.

Reed insisted Flake is not involved in the St. Albans plans.

Smith shoving state cash into ex-cons' pockets

From the Daily News:

State Senate President Malcolm Smith is pushing to give $500,000 in taxpayer cash to a barely existent Queens nonprofit run by two convicted drug dealers.

Smith, a Queens Democrat, selected the King of Kings Foundation - run by ex-cons Lance and Todd Feurtado - to receive one of a handful of grants under his $4 million anti-gang program called Operation SNUG.

The funding is on top of a $25,000 grant Smith sought for the duo in 2008 and the $290,000 in federal funds Queens Rep. Gregory Meeks is steering to them - proposed payouts first revealed by the Daily News in February.

All of the grants are pending.

Meeks and Smith are protégés of Queens pastor the Rev. Floyd Flake, who has previously praised the King of Kings' anti-violence and community work in a video.

Smith's move to provide the money comes as the state is grappling with a $9.2 billion budget gap and considering drastic cuts to education and health care spending.

Flake's developments shady

From the NY Post:

A nonprofit housing-development group run by politically hooked-in Queens pastor Floyd Flake operates like a slumlord, furious tenants charge.

Flake, who lost a bid to develop a video-slots operation at Aqueduct Racetrack, is facing a firestorm of criticism from angry residents of decrepit buildings owned by a firm tied to his Greater Allen AME Church and overseen by his son, Harold Flake.

In 2006, the Allen Affordable Housing Funding Development Corp. took over three city-owned rental buildings in Jamaica with the promise of sprucing them up.

The city Department of Housing Preservation and Development gave Allen Affordable title to the buildings for $1 and provided construction loans to renovate them.

One of them, a two-story building at 163-19 109th Ave., was so structurally unsound that the Buildings Department shut it on Feb. 26, 2009. No work has been done on the building, and Allen's company said it is seeking additional financing.

In the other two buildings, the remaining tenants complain that conditions have gotten worse.

A Post inspection of the buildings found:

* The three-story, 12-unit building at 107-05 Sutphin Blvd. is a shambles. A leaky roof has caused damage, and interior walls are worn away.

"The conditions are deplorable," fumed Frederick Jones, the last remaining tenant.

* A leaky roof at 89-06 138th St. is causing severe water damage.

Blacks claim Aqueduct media coverage is racist

From City Hall News:

Hundreds of people gathered in a Southeast Queens high school auditorium Thursday night for a “rally against racist journalism” that they say was behind the collapse of the troubled AEG bid for the Aqueduct racino contract, engulfing Gov. David Paterson, Senate President Pro Tem Malcolm Smith, Rep. Greg Meeks and other Queens politicians.

With former Council Member Archie Spigner and other Queens powerbrokers in the audience, community leaders railed against media—specifically the New York Post, Daily News and New York Times—for its coverage of the Aqueduct deal, which they say led to the denial of thousands of construction jobs and other economic opportunities.

“We were robbed,” thundered the Rev. Charles Norris, to a chorus of “mmm hmms” and “amens.”

“If there are no jobs,” Norris added, “it’s because they have been stolen.”

Other speakers conjured up images of lynch mobs and racism from the early part of the century to emphasize who was behind the failed racino contract.
Donald Vernon, director of the United Black Men of Queens, said the infamous Greenwood race riot of 1921, when over 3,000 black residents of Tulsa, Oklahoma, were murdered by an angry mob, spurred by newspaper stories that promoted lynchings.

The Aqueduct deal is not so different, Vernon said.

“That race riot was caused by the same yellow journalism we witnessed in the New York Post, the Daily News and the New York Times," Vernon said.
He also called stories in those papers “lies, innuendo and rumors,” spurred by racism.

“They are twisting the public view as to who we are,” he said.

But not everyone in the audience was convinced by the fiery rhetoric. After the rally ended, one person quietly grumbled about the lack of any local elected official at the event.

“It’s all insiders,” the person said. “And they’re talking about 1921?”

Photo from the NY Times

U.S. Attorney investigating Queens pols

From the Daily News:

A federal grand jury is zeroing in on some of Queens' most powerful political figures - including Senate President Malcolm Smith - the Daily News has learned.

Sources said the feds are investigating whether the Queens pols used a web of nonprofit groups to benefit themselves, their families and their friends.

The raft of documents the Manhattan-based panel wants involve:

- The Merrick Academy charter school - a source of campaign funds and patronage for Smith.

- A lavish home built for Rep. Gregory Meeks in Jamaica.

- A four-family house owned by Queens Borough President Helen Marshall.

One subpoena revealed for the first time that prosecutors are looking at the housing and social service empire built by the Rev. Floyd Flake - Meeks' predecessor in Congress and political mentor to Smith and Meeks.

The grand jury also wants records related to a Springfield Gardens commercial building owned by Joan Flowers, a politically active lawyer who has been campaign treasurer for Smith, Meeks and Gov. Paterson.

Flowers was "terminated" Wednesday from her $145,000-a-year Senate job as Smith's counsel. Although Senate officials said Flowers left of her own volition, sources told The News that Senate Democratic Leader John Sampson made it clear to Smith that it was time for Flowers to go.

The investigation is being conducted by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara's public corruption office, sources say.

Among the documents being sought are work papers of Robert Gaskin, a Jamaica, Queens-based architect who has done work for several of the pols and many of the nonprofits they have funded.

Gaskin declined to comment.

Might I suggest adding Gary Ackerman and Claire Shulman to the investigations list? This Smith business is small potatoes compared to what those 2 are doing.

Developer connected to Smith's charter school

From the Daily News:

The phalanx of drab trailers ringed by a chain-link fence in a desolate corner of Queens looks more like a prison than a charter school.

The cramped Peninsula Preparatory Academy Charter School has no science lab, no gymnasium, no playground and no on-site kitchen. Hot meals are trucked in from 3 miles away, and the school's 300 students dodge cars just to reach the front door.

Only two years ago, the charter school founded by Senate President Malcolm Smith was housed inside a spacious public school 3 miles away in Far Rockaway.

The official reason for the relocation was "increased enrollment" - but the Daily News has learned Peninsula Preparatory Academy was moved to land owned and under development by one of Smith's top campaign donors.

Queens developer Benjamin Companies is in a partnership building homes near the school - and started using Peninsula as a selling point to hawk the seaside residences.

While the move may benefit the developer, it certainly didn't help students wedged inside the too-small trailers - with no end in sight.

Peninsula officials did not answer a long list of written questions from the Daily News. But The News found there may be another reason for the move.

Benjamin Companies' employees and several affiliates have contributed $144,500 to Smith's campaign and political action committee, Build New York PAC, since 2002, records show.

The Benjamin Companies is a major builder of affordable housing projects operated by Smith's former boss and political mentor, the Rev. Floyd Flake.

And the relationship doesn't end there. A member of Peninsula's board in 2004 and 2005 is a real estate broker whose clients include the Benjamin Companies' partnership developing the Far Rockaway site.

Aqueduct deal would open door to more gambling

From the NY Times:

With Albany’s dysfunction searing their fortunes and reputations, why is the same small group of companies insistent on trying to build and run a slot machine casino at a rundown racetrack in southern Queens?

There is the obvious and immediate allure of revenue from the 4,500 video lottery terminals, or V.L.T.’s at Aqueduct racetrack, which could gross several hundred million dollars in their first year. Those are enticing numbers on their own. But the greater attraction may be the potential down the road: the gold-plated possibility that the state is on a path toward further legalization of gambling.

Privately, several bidders have made clear that legalization is where they see things headed. And having a licensed casino, albeit a limited one, in the state’s greatest population center would provide a leg up should that day come.

State Senator Frank Padavan of Queens, who has long opposed gambling, said he believed that the state was indeed heading toward further legalization.

“Sure, they’d like to have a full-fledged casino ultimately,” he said. “The people who are in this business are in the business to milk it for all it’s worth.”

Mr. Padavan called it “a big mistake” to place a casino in a neighborhood “where the majority of the people who would be going in to lose money are frankly people who can least afford it.”

Another motivation that bidders have only hinted at is the potential for future real estate development on the vast Aqueduct site.

The Rev. Floyd H. Flake, who had been a partner in the Aqueduct Entertainment Group until he withdrew earlier last week, spoke about that motivation during a recent interview on the cable station NY1. As a partner, Mr. Flake said, he would be involved not in the gambling aspect of the project but rather in possible future real estate development, including affordable housing.

Aqueduct deal dead again

From NY1:

Governor David Paterson announced today that the state has officially withdrawn its support for the deal to install video slot machines at the Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens.

The news comes after the Division of Lottery rejected the Aqueduct Entertainment Groups’ request for a gaming license.

The decision also comes after two of the project’s well-known backers, Reverend Floyd Flake and rapper Jay-Z, said they were backing out amid an investigation of why the group was selected.

Paterson says he wants to expedite the process to find a new operator of the proposed racino.

Flake and rappers to be questioned in Aqueduct probe

From NY1:

Former congressman, the Reverend Floyd Flake, along with rap moguls Jay Z and Russell Simmons reportedly will be subpoenaed today, as part of the investigation into the controversial contract to operate a casino at Aqueduct Racetrack.

Flake is an investor in a group that won a contract earlier this year to bring more than 4,000 video slot machines to the financially-troubled racetrack.

Critics, including losing bidders for the project, said Flake’s group won because of his political connections to Governor David Paterson.

The New York Post says Flake, Jay Z, and Simmons are the first of dozens expected to be questioned about the deal.

The paper says the subpoenas were issued by the State Inspector General's Office, which is working with the United States Attorney.

Serves you right for backing the turd last year.

Inspector General joins Aqueduct probe

From the NY Post:

Federal investigators have asked the state's anti-corruption watchdog to help with their probe into Gov. Paterson's selection of a politically wired consortium to run the Aqueduct slots "racino," The Post has learned.

Investigators from US Attorney Preet Bharara's office in Manhattan met secretly with state Inspector General Joseph Fisch on Monday about probing the state's preliminary award to Aqueduct Entertainment Group -- whose partners include powerhouse Queens minister and ex-Rep. Floyd Flake.

"They [feds] met with Fisch Monday to discuss the investigation and to talk about his office's helping out, about dividing up the responsibilities for the investigation," said a source close to the federal probe.

That strategy session came three days before Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) urged the state inspector general to investigate the Paterson administration's role in pushing AEG to operate 4,500 video lottery terminals at Aqueduct.

Word of the mushrooming AEG investigation clashes with Paterson's assertion that a federal subpoena issued to the Lottery Division earlier this week targeted a Queens nonprofit group -- New Direction Local Development Corp. -- and not the AEG selection. New Direction has ties to Flake, Rep. Greg Meeks and state Senate President Malcolm Smith -- all from southeast Queens, where the Aqueduct track is.

Feds looking into Aqueduct deal

From WPIX:

PIX News has learned that federal prosecutors are investigating Governor David Paterson's awarding of a lucrative contract to a politically connected group to run a gaming center at Aqueduct Raceway.

The embattled Governor who appears to have dodged the bullet of rumors and innuendo that had been circulating over a purported "bombshell" story being prepared by the New York Times, is now part of a probe by the Eastern District U.S. Attorney's office in Brooklyn.

Two reliable sources confirm the investigation is "very fresh," but could not say precisely what it is prosecutors are looking at other than questions about public integrity.

Paterson has been under fire by members of his own staff and legislative leaders for awarding the contract to Aqueduct Entertainment Group, a group that includes former Congressman Rev Floyd Flake, whose political support the Governor had been aggressively seeking.