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.

NYPD's fortunate son

 

NY Daily News

The son of a former NYPD police commissioner is being moved to a detective squad — just 18 months after stepping out of the Police Academy, the Daily News has learned.

An internal department memo shared with The News notes that Police Officer Richard Shea, the son of Police Commissioner Dermot Shea, will be transferred from patrol to the 23rd Precinct detective squad, effective Monday.

After some training, Officer Shea will be promoted to detective third grade in 18 months, the department said. The bump will come three years after he graduated the academy.

“This is what #Nepotism looks like,” tweeted John Macari, a trustee for the National Coalition of Front Line Workers. “No disrespect to this kid, but it’s a failure in ‘leadership.’”

Officer Shea, 23, has been walking the beat in the 23rd Precinct, which covers East Harlem, since graduating the academy on May 5, 2021.

The move didn’t sit well with rank-and-file NYPD officers who believe Shea’s father helped pave the way.

“He has done absolutely nothing to deserve that shield,” said one NYPD detective, who wished not to be named. “To go upstairs with zero experience is a smack in the face to everyone who wants to be a detective. There are far more cops with years of experience that should be upstairs.”

Hmm, nobody is going to mention how this promotion happened while NYPD commissioner (in name only) Sewell is in Puerto Rico for the SOMOS conference? Sounds like Shea thinks the streets are not safe for his son to patrol them.

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.”

I, Eric

 

Patch

 A frustrated Mayor Eric Adams offered a simple defense over accusations of nepotism and cronyism in a spate of high-profile hires: "I'm the mayor."

"I'm going to hire the best people for the job that I've known throughout my years in government and their talents," he said Friday. "And the reason I can do that is because I'm the mayor. I'm the mayor of the city of New York, and it's going to take a while before people realize that I am responsible for building a team to end the inequality in our city."

But a rising chorus of critics have argued that Adams' hires — which included his brother Bernard Adams in a $210,000-a-year position — are questionable at best.

Shortly before Adams — again — defended his hires Friday, the New York Times reported a jail investigator accused new Department of Correction chief Louis Molina of telling her to "get rid" of 2,000 discipline cases against officers. She was fired by Molina — a move she believed came at the behest of the correction officers' union, the Times reported.

Adams' officials' closeness with powerful unions aside, other hires face questions over their ethics and qualificiations.

Close Adams ally Philip Banks now serves as a deputy NYPD commissioner, despite the fact he resigned after being named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal police corruption case.

Adams on Friday cast the criticism as unfair elitism, rather than stemming from concerns of potential corruption and cronyism.

"When other mayors hired their lower partners, they hired their people they knew from school that they came up through the ranks — how there was nothing to say about it?" he said. "But I have the audacity to hire blue-collar people, everyday folks who are union members, retired members, it's like, 'Who do you think you are putting these blue collar workers, these everyday people who came here to this country eked up through a living, went to school at night... who do you think you are think you could do that?'"

Dante de Blasio and his college pal his dad hired are producing propaganda videos to legitimize 34th Avenue open streets program and to make his daddy and mommy look good

“The people will rise!”

Open Streets brought light and life back to our city after the darkest days of #COVID19 and they’re here to stay. Get out enjoy this beautiful day, New York City!

➡️ https://t.co/X5NrxFTZXq pic.twitter.com/tKYgWQuDi2

— Mayor Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) October 17, 2021

  

THE CITY

 Dante de Blasio was first introduced to most New Yorkers when he appeared in a campaign ad for his father’s 2013 mayoral campaign, at age 15.

Now he’s moved behind the camera, bringing along a friend from Yale to shoot short video spots highlighting some of Bill de Blasio’s accomplishments as the two-term mayor gets ready to leave office and potentially launch a run for governor.

The first video focused on the “Open Streets” section of 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens, and was shared on the mayor’s official social media channels without mention of Dante’s involvement.

A person close to the production told THE CITY Dante actively worked on the spot.

“A registered volunteer [Dante] promoted a beloved city program alongside a qualified freelancer — they created a great video,” Danielle Filson, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said in an email in response to questions about the circumstances of the younger de Blasio’s working for City Hall.

 Filson said the freelancer was hired and paid through a temp agency used by the city for freelance projects, which she described as standard practice. The administration has worked with 20 video and photography freelancers over the years, she said, but declined to say how much he was being paid.

The freelance filmmaker happens to be James Nydam, who attended fellow Yale University at the same time as Dante de Blasio and has worked on at least two personal film projects with the mayor’s son. Their most recent production shot in August, according to Dante de Blasio’s social media accounts.

 

So this officially makes NYC's "gold standard" open street a total farce and it's a sure bet Blaz jr. also directed this dry heave in bodily motion

We must ALL come together as one big global family to beat COVID-19. I am proud to lend my voice (and my dance moves!) to the #WeAreFamily campaign with Kim Sledge, @The_WorldWeWant @thewhof in benefit of @WHO.

To learn more or sing with us, visit https://t.co/N4e6VDIR9I. pic.twitter.com/PKDbp3rFvZ

— Chirlane McCray (@NYCFirstLady) December 1, 2020

Homeless services provider CEO that almost got the contract to run Trump's golf course makes a million a year profiting from the housing insecure

 

NY Times 

Some executives at nonprofit groups that operate New York City homeless shelters are benefiting from the plight of the people they serve.

Soon after Jack A. Brown III quit his job at a private prison company, his former employer accused him of fraud. A few years later, after Mr. Brown started a nonprofit to run halfway houses, a federal audit found that it had failed to deliver key services. The New York State comptroller concluded in another review that Mr. Brown had shown “a disturbing pattern of ethical violations.”

None of that history seemed to bother officials in New York City.

Since 2017, as homelessness has risen to record levels, the city has awarded more than $352 million to a nonprofit run by Mr. Brown to operate shelters. The money is meant to help homeless people regain their footing in life, but it has benefited Mr. Brown, too.

The nonprofit has channeled contracts worth at least $32 million into for-profit companies tied to Mr. Brown, allowing him to earn more than $1 million a year, The New York Times found. Millions more have gone to real estate companies in which he has an ownership interest. He has also hired his family members and given employees perks such as gym memberships and cars.

 When Mayor Bill de Blasio came into office, he criticized a small group of landlords for charging the city exorbitant rates to house people in squalid rooms while doing little to curb homelessness. In 2017, the mayor pledged to open dozens of new shelters that would be managed by nonprofit groups. Their mission, he said, would be altruistic rather than driven by financial gain.

But four years after that change and an extraordinary infusion of city spending, homeless people still crowd shelters and set up camps on the street, while a new group of operators has figured out how to make money off their plight.

An investigation by The Times, based on hundreds of pages of legal filings, business records and tax documents, as well as interviews with homeless people, city officials and shelter employees, found that under the cloak of charity, executives at nonprofits have collected large salaries, spent their budgets on companies that they or their families controlled and installed relatives in high-paying jobs.

One landlord started a nonprofit that handed out millions of dollars to real estate and maintenance companies that he and his family owned. A Bronx shelter operator was charged earlier this year with laundering kickbacks through a consulting company run by his family. A former board member of another homelessness organization is under criminal investigation after the city said the group paid millions of dollars to a web of for-profit entities he secretly oversaw.

For years, Mr. Brown has personally prospered by running an organization to help the homeless.

In addition to serving as the chief executive of the nonprofit he founded, CORE Services Group, Mr. Brown started a security guard company that polices his shelters, a maintenance company that makes repairs in them and a catering company that feeds the residents, records showed. Mr. Brown heads each of them, collecting total compensation that tops $1 million. He is the highest-paid shelter operator in New York, according to a review of available records.

(This guy is the Jeff Bezos of homeless shelters-JQ LLC)

In one year alone, the for-profit companies that Mr. Brown ran spent more than $460,000 on gym memberships for employees, records showed.

Mr. Brown, 53, has profited in other ways: Along with partners, he owns two companies that have rented buildings to CORE, and his mother, sister, aunt and niece have all worked at the nonprofit, in addition to his brother, who has collected a six-figure salary.

At the same time, residents at one of the largest shelters in Mr. Brown’s operation, Beach House in Queens, said they lived with vermin infestations, creeping mold and violent fights in the hallways.

“A lot of money is going into this place,” said Annabelle Alexander, who lived in the Beach House shelter for more than a year before moving out last week. “But it’s not going to us.”

State and federal laws prohibit nonprofit organizations from engaging in many types of self-dealing, the practice of executives benefiting personally from their organizations without proper disclosure. But the line between permissible transactions and illegal behavior can be hazy, and nonprofit executives are rarely prosecuted for financial abuses.

In fact, executives at the groups that run shelters in New York are permitted to run profitable side businesses — all fueled by city money — as long as they reveal the information to the city and follow contracting rules.

This year, the city has directed $2.6 billion to nonprofits to operate homeless shelters, and officials already know they have a problem with some of them. Nine of the 62 groups that run shelters are on an internal city watch list for issues that include conflicts of interest and financial problems, according to records reviewed by The Times. All of them continue to receive city funding.

THE CITY 

A leading homeless shelter operator has pulled out from a deal to take over a Bronx public golf course after the Trump Organization exits the links at Mayor Bill de Blasio’s demand.

“CORE Services Group, Inc. has decided to withdraw from consideration,” an attorney for the Brooklyn-based nonprofit wrote in an email to executives with the city Department of Parks and Recreation and the golf course operator Bobby Jones Links on Wednesday.

THE CITY exposed CORE’s unlikely involvement Monday, after public records revealed Parks’ proposed 13-year deal to put a company registered by CORE CEO Jack A. Brown in charge of the deluxe Jack Nicklaus-designed 18-hole course near the Whitestone Bridge.

“We are disappointed that we are unable to move forward with this project at this time and help bring workforce training and jobs to communities in New York City that are underrepresented in the sport of golf,” a spokesperson for CORE, which has $544 million in current contracts for family and single adult shelters, said in a statement.

“We will continue our work breaking barriers and creating new opportunities for all New Yorkers.”

Asked Tuesday morning about THE CITY’s report on the future of the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, de Blasio said that CORE would be “only working on some of the staffing. It is not the organization that’s operating the whole golf course.”

That organization, Parks officials said, will be Bobby Jones Links. Yet the Atlanta-based golf course operator has not responded to multiple inquiries from THE CITY and is not listed in any public records related to Brown’s company, Ferry Point Links LLC.

 

Eric Adams flaunts nepotism hire for his mayoral campaign

 

NY Daily News

 Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams is taking advice from a former NYPD chief who once said he’d plead the Fifth Amendment in a corruption trial — and whose brother is now a top contender to become Adams’ schools chancellor if he’s elected.

Former NYPD Chief of Department Philip Banks is one of several former cops advising Adams when it comes to public safety, three sources confirmed.

And Banks’ brother, David Banks, the president of the Eagle Academy Foundation, is in the mix with Adams as well, but in a slightly different respect.

He’s being eyed as someone who could helm the city’s Department of Education in an Adams’ administration, according to two sources familiar with Adams’ expected transition.

According to one of those sources, Banks is a virtual shoo-in for the job.

“I would be shocked if there were other candidates who came out ahead of him,” the source said. “They go way, way back.”

 When asked about Philip Banks’s role as an advisor, Adams’ campaign spokesman Evan Thies said he “is one of a number of policing experts who have offered their institutional knowledge of the department, including former Commissioner Bratton and other former chiefs of department.”

Adams himself also backed up his choice of Philip as an advisor when it comes to the NYPD

“I’m relying on everyone with experience in law enforcement. I’m not excluding anyone to keep my city safe,” he said Thursday. “Everyone who has served, everyone from police officers to former heads, I’m relying on.”

 

Royal tweed services

 

 

NY Post

The waste hauler set to benefit from a proposed exemption to the Big Apple’s stringent caps on trash hauling employed the son of the lawmaker who led the fight to create the loophole, The Post has learned.

The company, Royal Waste Services, hired Councilman I. Daneek Miller’s son in August 2017 and he remained on the company’s payroll through at least 2019, according to records the company filed with city officials at the time.

That means that Miller’s son, Coron, was employed by Royal Waste as the lawmaker led the effort in 2018 to kill legislation that initially imposed the caps and for at least one of the years that Miller, himself, says he worked to weaken the reforms.

Those efforts controversially culminated in July when Council Speaker Corey Johnson fast-tracked Miller’s legislation, which would have lifted the caps for haulers in his Queens district for four years — before reversing course amid allegations of favor-trading.

Good government advocates called for the city’s ethics watchdogs — including the Conflict of Interest Board — to probe the connections between Miller and Royal.

“There’s enough here to warrant an investigation by COIB and the Department of Investigation,” said John Kaehny, the executive director of good government group Reinvent Albany.

In response to questions, Miller (D-Queens) said that his son left the company “more a year ago,” but could not provide an exact date. He denied that Coron’s employment had any bearing on his repeatedly efforts to undo the 2018 hauling caps.

Caption Chirlane de Blasio's first "campaign ad"

Bill de Blasio actually had this picture made for the news media and Gothamist to publish. Pathetic.

Mayor de Blasio concocts a COVID-19 task force for his wife to run

NY Post

Mayor de Blasio isn’t letting the controversy surrounding his wife’s embattled billion-dollar mental-health initiative stop him from appointing her to head a new coronavirus recovery task force.

Citing her work with the ThriveNYC initiative, de Blasio revealed on Sunday that First Lady Chirlane McCray, a rumored contender for Brooklyn borough president, would co-chair a Task Force on Racial Inclusion and Equity as the city plans its eventual reopening.

“The economic and racial disparities that have been made so clear by this crisis, we knew about them before,” said de Blasio, who was elected six years ago on a pledge to make the city more equitable and eliminate its “tale of two cities.” “A powerful, painful exclamation point has been put on them by this crisis.”

New York’s poorest ZIP codes have been hardest hit by pandemic, city data show, and minorities — many among the city’s essential workers — have died at disproportionately high rates.

De Blasio said he formed the task force to ensure New York’s underdogs aren’t left behind in the recovery.

But city lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were scratching their heads over the appointment of 
 McCray in light of her signature Thrive program, criticized as a billion-dollar money pit with a dubious record of results.

I don't know if there is precedence, but this is the most brazen, craven and sleaziest integration of nepotism and campaigning that I've ever seen. And in plain sight during a pandemic and a crisis caused by the decisions of de Blasio that afflicted the communities the most that he now assigned his wife to help. This is graft at it's most honest.


I apologize to my loyal and occasional readers to this blog for posting such a big picture of the co-mayor of New York City, but it was important to definitively illustrate what a facial expression of hubris and entitlement looks like.

Liz Crowley and generational nepotism infects faculty staffing at a public school

 
NY Post


The sister and nephew of Liz Crowley, an ex-city councilwoman running for Queens borough president, are getting special treatment as teachers in a city middle school, a whistleblower charges.

The politician’s sister, Patricia Crowley, returned to IS 5 the Walter Crowley School — named for their late councilman uncle — after a higher-paying Department of Education assignment to land an easy gig supervising kids in a detention room, insiders told The Post.
In what one staffer called “cronyism,” Patricia’s son, Eugene Cullivan, a day-to-day substitute, was filling in for an art teacher on leave. But when that teacher returned in November, Principal Kelly Nepogoda let Cullivan keep the class full-time instead of returning it to the licensed specialist.
“This is not just about favoritism. It’s about hurting students,” a veteran DOE teacher said. “The art students are subjected to a substitute when an experienced, licensed teacher is available.”
The veteran called it “preferential treatment” for the politically-connected duo. The Crowley sisters’ cousin is Joe Crowley, the longtime congressman and former Queens Democratic Party boss defeated in 2018 by primary challenger Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Patricia Crowley declined to discuss the arrangement. Nepogoda did not return a call or answer an email. Liz Crowley did not return calls. A special election for borough president is set for March 24.
Patricia Crowley, 50, is licensed to teach children in pre-K to 6th grade, and special education. She taught 6th grade science at IS 5 before taking a special, two-year DOE assignment as a “peer evaluator” in other schools, making $141,300 last school year.
Since returning to IS 5 in September, her salary reverted to $121,862,  the DOE said. She doesn’t teach a class, but supervises the SAVE, or in-house suspension, room. Typically five to 10 students at a time come from various classes with work assigned by their regular teachers.
A SAVE teacher may help kids with questions, but no lesson planning or grading is required. It’s considered an easy, less stressful job.
Crowley could be teaching a regular class, or helping reduce class size, the DOE veteran said: “Her services should be utilized helping students with the greatest need, instead of being put in a practically phantom job.”
Her son Cullivan, 27, was subbing for an art teacher on medical leave when the school year started, Nepogoda granted his request to keep the class after the art teacher returned on Nov. 22.  Nepogoda assigned the art teacher a class of students scheduled for music, replacing a music teacher she had removed for alleged misconduct. The school is now without a music teacher.

de Blasio ordered NYPD to drive his son to school

NY Daily News

Mayor de Blasio ordered his NYPD security detail to repeatedly take his son back and forth from Yale University during his first years at school, the Daily News has learned.

Executive Protection Unit detectives drove Dante de Blasio to or from New Haven, Conn., at least seven or eight times, the sources with direct knowledge said. Members of the detail also took Dante to visit his uncle, who lives nearby, sources said. Dante faced no security risks at the time, the sources said.

“If the commanding officer of the 75 (precinct) said, ‘move my kid to college,’ do you really think that wouldn’t kill his career? But because it’s the mayor, everyone just does it,” a former member of the detail said.

The revelation comes four months after The News exclusively reported that members of the unit moved de Blasio’s daughter, Chiara, out of an apartment in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

 Sources said Dante — who the mayor hired as a paid policy analyst for his failed presidential campaign — only made the 75-mile trip to Yale with cops during his first year at the Ivy League university.

 At some point during his sophomore year, Dante decided he preferred traveling on his own by train, sources said. Members of the detail often picked him up from Penn Station when he returned to town.

Another former member of the unit described the trips as “a courtesy” that were not questioned.

“There was no justification,” the former member said. “If you were told to bring him home from Yale, that’s what we did.”

Wards Island homeless shelters run by Governor Cuomo's sister non-profit group are in slum conditions

 

THE CITY

Last fall, a Cuomo administration agency signed off on a new shelter on Wards Island to be operated by HELP Social Services, part of a nonprofit founded decades ago by the governor and chaired by his sister, Maria Cuomo Cole.

The Office of Temporary & Disability Assistance had inspected the facility several times before and after it opened on three floors in a state psychiatric hospital. On Oct. 5, the agency certified that the site on the island between Manhattan and Queens was fit to provide safe lodging for single homeless men, records show.

Then cold weather arrived.

Inspections by the Coalition for the Homeless found interior temperatures in two dozen rooms on all three floors of the new shelter hit lows in the high 50s. Men slept with their jackets on. Extra blankets and space heaters arrived, but the chill remained. At one point, some men were moved into city-run shelters.

That wasn’t the only problem for HELP on Wards Island. An investigation by THE CITY discovered that as the state has approved an expansion of HELP’s homeless shelters in the city, multiple woes have plagued the nonprofit’s four Wards Island facilities.

THE CITY’s examination, based on public records, interviews with clients and accounts of inspections of the Wards Island HELP shelters by the Coalition for the Homeless, found:

• Raw sewage flooding a basement, black mold creeping along walls and ceilings, and a summer blackout that stranded a man in an electric wheelchair for hours in the dark. On Memorial Day, inspectors found another man in a wheelchair locked in a bathroom – apparently by shelter staff.

• As of May 24, the three shelters in facilities within city Department of Buildings jurisdiction had 71 building code violations — some dating to 2017. The fourth shelter, Meyers, where the heat outage struck, is in a state building and is not inspected by the city’s Buildings Department. The city 

Department of Homeless Services says most of the violations have been addressed, though they’re still in the process of certifying that the repairs are complete and have allocated $10 million for upgrades.

• HELP currently has 33 active contracts with the city dating back as early as 2013 — 20 of which wound up costing more than their original estimated amounts by as much as 80%. While the city contracted for $371.8 million in services, HELP USA has so far been paid $419.5 million.

• Since 2008, Cuomo Cole, her shoe-designer husband, Kenneth Cole, seven other members of HELP’s board and several top employees have written dozens of checks totaling $451,285 to Andrew Cuomo’s campaigns for governor, a review of campaign finance records shows.

 Stephen Mott, a HELP spokesperson said, “We are now and have always been a non-political organization. We have never endorsed any candidates for public office, nor have we ever raised money for political purposes.”

Mott added, “HELP USA has been working with the homeless for more than 30 years. We are deeply committed to this work and proud of our record of service to the people of New York City.”

Gov. Cuomo’s office declined to comment. During an interview with Cuomo Thursday on WAMC, host Alan Chartock spoke generally about donors expecting something in return. The governor scoffed at the notion of pay-to-play.

“If anybody ever walked up to me and said, ‘I contributed to your campaign and I therefore want you to do me a favor,’ I would knock that person on their rear-end in a nice, polite, legal way,” Cuomo said. “But look, I think it’s simpler than that. If you can be bought off for a contribution — I don’t care for $10 or $5,000 or $50,000 — you are unethical or you are criminal.”

That would also make you a prostitute, Andrew. 

Which is just as unethical as nepotism motivated patronage.

Tell us something we didn't know

From NY1:

The city's Department of Investigation and Board of Elections may not be getting off on the right foot.

"The illegalities, misconduct and antiquated operations detailed in the report are deeply corrosive," Mark Peters, the city's new commissioner of the Department of Investigation, said at a City Council hearing Friday.

Peters' target, the city's Board of Elections, was sitting in the second row. As they looked on, Peters combed through a damning investigation of the board, saying that the agency was mired with ineptitude. He went as far as to claim that criminal activity could have occurred.

"There are aspects of this ongoing investigation that could lead us to make criminal referrals," Peters said.

Outside of the hearing, the new commissioner would not provide other details.

"At this point, I can't talk about the specifics," eh said.

"Speculation about criminal charges often go nowhere," said Michael Ryan, executive director of the city's Board of Elections.

The report, released in December, said that the board is overrun by nepotism and had dead voters on its rolls, and is rife with dysfunction.

"Close to 10 percent of the staff at the Board of Elections is related to one another, which suggests significant problems in terms of nepotism and hiring," Peters said.

"That does not necessarily bespeak of, quote unquote, 'nepotism,'" Ryan said. "I have a side of my family that there's multiple firemen."

The report was penned by the previous administration. Mayor Michael Bloomberg loudly criticized the agency. So far, it's unclear if the new mayor will be pushing for similar changes.

Shocking news: BOE full of political cronies

From the Times Ledger:

Good government groups are not the only organizations calling for city Board of Election reform these days.

Just before Mayor Bill de Blasio and 21 new City Council members took oaths of office, the city Department of Investigation published a report contending that nepotism, wastefulness and incompetency at the BOE illustrate the need to transition the agency into a non-partisan entity.

The BOE did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Under state law, the two major political parties share control of the Board of Elections, which is required to hire equal numbers of personnel registered with the Democratic and Republican parties. Ten commissioners comprising one Republican and one Democrat from each borough oversee the BOE.

The DOI report concluded that county political committees maintain an outsize role in personnel decisions. BOE employees told investigators they work with the county parties to recruit and hire, with one commissioner saying he had “to have a talk with my Garcias,” referring to the committee, before making a hire.

Investigators discovered the board does not generally post openings publicly or solicit applications, nor does it follow a standard procedure for screening prospective employees. Although election law gives county committees the opportunity to recommend commissioners to the Council, it does not establish roles for the parties in hiring other BOE staff, the DOI said.

These hiring procedures have led to at least 69 BOE employees working with relatives, including two commissioners, the report said.

Investigators referred two substantiated cases of commissioners engaging in nepotism to the city Conflicts of Interests Board. It did not name the commissioners.

Demanding answers from Paul Vallone

Letter to the Editor (Queens Tribune):

In his campaign kickoff for the City Council 19th District, Paul Vallone correctly points out the importance of small businesses. (The Race for District 19 Heats Up - Queens Tribune Jan. 10-16). If Mr. Vallone wished to be taken as a serious candidate, not simply predicated upon nepotism, he is challenged to state publicly here and now his position on the following important Queens issues:

First, Mayor Michael Bloomberg does not believe small business is the backbone of our economy and has made it clear his true constituency is real estate moguls and big business. He has no interest in the poor, the middle class and small business. His ill advised Willets Point proposal, which would destroy over 200 small businesses and the livelihood of thousands of workers and their families, is a case in point. While initially portrayed as including some affordable housing, Bloomberg has engaged in an unparalleled lack of transparency and finagling for which he should be ashamed. Housing, if any, will not occur if at all until 2025. Instead he now plans to allow the Mets to vacate its parking lot, which incidentally is on parkland, and arrange for parking in Willets Point, where his initial proposal will not take place for many years. On the current Mets parking lot, the Mets will construct with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and subsidies, a shopping mall, so much for the all the small businesses on Northern Boulevard and the mall on 20th Avenue in Whitestone. Mr. Vallone should make it clear where he stands on Willets Point. Will he stand up for the small businesses and the poor and the middle class or will he go the way of Bloomberg? This issue is still open and the small businesses can still be preserved.

Second, eminent domain has traditionally been used by government for a public purpose. That concept has been wrongfully skewered by using it for strictly commercial purposes. Many municipalities have enacted legislation prohibiting the taking for commercial purposes, but not New York City. Condemnation never impacts upon the wealthy, only the poor and the middle class, for example Willets Point. Indeed in the case of Willets Point the Mayor's argument - the area was a blight - was a sham because it was the city's neglect that caused the blight which could have been repaired if the city used the tax dollars it extracted from the area to maintain it properly. Will Mr. Vallone seek legislation to prohibit condemnation for private for-profit businesses and never when it is the City that causes the claimed blight?

Third, it is the poor and the middle class that do not have homes in the Hamptons and need full use of Flushing Meadows Corona Park. Will Mr. Vallone step and help to prevent the ongoing prostitution of this much needed park and oppose the MLS in the park and the further expansion of the USTA in the park, and make it clear once and for all enough is enough, no more intrusions in the park?

Mr. Vallone, the public awaits your answers.

Benjamin M. Haber,
Flushing

It's who you know...

From the NY Post:

Deputy Mayor Patti Harris’ stepson enjoyed a meteoric city career, with nine raises in nine years, before he quit his $175,000 job last August and got a pretax $57,803 payment for unused vacation days, The Post has learned.
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Michael Lebow is the son of Harris’ husband, MTA board member Mark Lebow.

Soon after Harris became Mayor Bloomberg’s top deputy, Michael, then 27, was hired by the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunication at $115,000 a year to help launch the 311 call-in system.

He’d dropped out of Washington University and held IT gigs at Bloomberg LP and Rudin Management. His first job required six years’ experience for those without a BA.

“It’s actually rare to find a tech person who didn’t start working in the field as a young student,” said City Hall spokesman Stu Loeser.

But an ex-DOITT worker griped: “No one knew exactly what he did, but it was ‘Hands off . . . He’s Patty Harris’ stepson.’ ”

Crowleys raked in conflict-of-interest $$$

From City Hall:

The Queens court system is getting crowded with Crowleys—so crowded that the borough’s top political dynasty is breaking rules meant to prevent nepotism.

In early 2010, Margaret Crowley, sister of Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley and cousin of Queens Democratic Leader and Congressman Joe Crowley, landed a $100,000-a-year job as the principal law clerk to Queens Supreme Court Judge Darrell L. Gavrin.

Since then, records show Margaret Crowley’s sisters, Bernadette and Theresa, and their law firms have seen a spike in the number of cases they have been appointed to by Queens judges.

Those appointments violate rules that bar siblings of high-level court employees from winning case appointments in the same judicial district where that sibling works. Those rules were imposed nine years ago to prevent the rampant nepotism previously found in the state’s court system, especially in Queens.

After an inquiry by City Hall, a spokesman for the New York Unified Court System, David Bookstaver, said the Crowley sisters had improperly failed to remove themselves from a list of attorneys eligible for case appointments, and have now agreed not to receive cash for any future appointments.

“The sisters were on the eligible list prior to their sister [Margaret] becoming law clerk,” Bookstaver said. “They should have removed themselves from the eligible list at that time.”

Photo of Bernadette Crowley & husband from Bayside Patch