Does this group deserve taxpayer cash?

From the Daily News:

A scandal-scarred Queens nonprofit is getting $69,000 in taxpayer cash from City Council pols doling out member items, budget records released Monday show.

The Sports and Arts in Schools Foundation was picked for the grants as part of more than $60 million the Council is giving out to favored nonprofits in the $85.2 billion city budget set to pass later this week.

The Council’s discretionary spending adds up to $61.5 million — a $1.7 million spike since last year.

The Daily News reported the foundation — which has been represented by powerful lobbying firm Constantinople & Vallone — got $1.88 million in city contracts in the past year despite a string of criminal charges against employees, city probes and bad performance evaluations.

The group has twice been penalized for losing a child on a field trip, and is currently being investigated for payroll discrepancies and conflicts of interest.

Sports and Arts is set to receive 12 new grants, ranging from $3,000 to $10,000, from 12 different Council members, according to the budget documents.

Cuomo flip-flops on pork spending

From Capital New York:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo blasted legislative earmarks during campaigns, investigated them as attorney general and promised in 2012 that he would banish them from the state budget.

Now, he's approving them.

In the last week, leaders of the state Legislature publicly disclosed lists of earmarks they secured under the State and Municipal Facilities Program, which fiscal analysts have likened to the old “member item” program that let legislators direct money to local groups and projects at their discretion.

But unlike the past, agencies that report to Cuomo are reviewing — and signing off on — the projects before the money is released. According to critics, that means the Democratic governor is approving “pork” spending that skews to support powerful incumbents: Republicans in the state Senate and Democrats in the Assembly — even after railing against spending for “pet projects” earlier this year.

Speaker is still a pork princess

From Crains:

A nonprofit organization founded and represented by the chief political consultant of Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito saw its pork-barrel funding quadruple in a speaker's first budget, through a system that critics say remains politicized despite reforms.

Of the $1.3 million windfall allocated to the nonprofit Hispanic Federation in the city budget passed last Wednesday, more than $830,000 came from a newly created program funded by monies directly under Ms. Mark-Viverito's control. The lobbying firm that serves as her campaign consultant, the Manhattan-based MirRam Group, specifically lobbied lawmakers including Ms. Mark-Viverito to create the fund.

Luis Miranda, a founding partner of the MirRam Group, who is close to Ms. Mark-Viverito, founded the influential Hispanic Federation in 1990 and now serves as its paid lobbyist. The Hispanic Federation has also paid more than $680,000 for "consulting" to MirRam and a firm registered to Mr. Miranda and his wife, the New York Post reported in 2012.

Porking the public

From the Daily News:

Two City Council members running for Manhattan borough president have showered taxpayer cash on nonprofit groups whose boards and staffers have contributed to their campaigns.

City Councilwoman Jessica Lappin (D-Manhattan) raked in nearly $250,000 in hundreds of campaign contributions from board members at 46 nonprofits she's slathered with pork.

And a Daily News review of the 25 groups that got the biggest grants from Councilman Robert Jackson found that at least 20 of them had board members or employees who have given to his campaigns.

All 51 members of Council are given at least $400,000 to hand out to nonprofits that help people in their district plus sometimes millions more to help nonprofits with new construction projects.

The pork has a checkered history with several Councilmembers busted in recent years for illegally using the funds to enrich themselves or their careers.

Vito's non-profit still rolling in state dough

From the Wall Street Journal:

A Brooklyn social-services network that has been the subject of investigations by the city, state and federal governments and has close ties to Assemblyman Vito Lopez is poised to receive nearly $2 million under New York's latest budget deal.

The $1.9 million grant to the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council is part of an Albany tradition known as a "member item," an earmark with an anonymous sponsor slated for a nonprofit group. The grant would pay for the council's "community youth capital construction program," the purpose of which isn't described in the budget.

Lawmakers plan to vote this week on the item, part of a 1,023 page Aid to Localities budget bill. The grant's sponsor wasn't disclosed.

The last member-item funding was approved in 2010 under Gov. David Paterson, but all of the money wasn't spent right away, and there was $136 million still left to be spent for member items when Mr. Cuomo took office in 2011. After he and lawmakers couldn't agree on a plan to shift that money elsewhere, Mr. Cuomo and lawmakers have been drawing down the funding gradually for member items.

Mr. Cuomo proposed spending the last of the $57 million in that pot of money. Matt Wing, a spokesman for the governor, said the budget doesn't include "new funding for Ridgewood Bushwick" and said the money was approved before Mr. Cuomo took office. The $1.9 million earmark for Ridgewood Bushwick wasn't made until this year, according to state budget records.

Representatives of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate GOP leader Dean Skelos and Senate Democratic leader Jeff Klein didn't respond to messages.

Attorney General Eric Schneiderman's public integrity bureau is investigating Ridgewood Bushwick, a person familiar with the probe said. The inquiry's scope hasn't been disclosed.

Ridgewood Bushwick has received member items in the past, including a $150,000 grant in 2011 and more than $800,000 of economic development funding from the Cuomo administration that same year."

Hmmm. Why wasn't the sponsor disclosed? Why were we told there was no member item funding for the past 3 years when there was?

Tweeding.

Another course of pork

From the NY Post:

Pols are quietly pigging out on $31 million worth of new pet projects — despite a 2010 pledge that pork-barrel spending was done for good, the Post has learned.

The new spending is hidden in the budget as state Dormitory Authority grants — and they fund everything from buying cars and washing machines for nonprofits to designing pedestrian plazas and sprucing up community centers.

Since the authority issues bonds, future taxpayers will pay for the pork — plus interest.

“The state is trying to get out of a financial mess, and now we’re borrowing to help politicians,” a legislative source said.

On June 21, in the last minutes of the legislative session, the state Senate awarded cash to more than 130 projects through a $350 million capital-spending allowance created in 2008 that’s administered by the Dormitory Authority and Empire State Development Corp.

The Assembly already spent nearly $250 million of the allowance on major capital projects over the years, but the Senate had $31 million left to fund the barely camouflaged “member items.”

“It’s a classic Albany shell game,” the source added.

Quinn oinks all over town

From the Daily News:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn may not have Mayor Bloomberg’s billions, but she does have City Council millions.

As the Manhattan Democrat contemplates her campaign for mayor, she enjoys a political boon that has to make her opponents salivate — millions of dollars in pork that’s hers to hand out like party favors. And hand it out she does — to an Italian-American group in Brooklyn, a Hispanic center in the Bronx and an AIDS task force on Staten Island.

Like all Council members, Quinn has a pot of discretionary money to fund local concerns in her district, such as senior centers or nearby museums. But as Council speaker, she also controls a huge stash of $15.7 million that she can spread to groups around the city.

Sharing the wealth is part of her job as speaker, but as she plans to run for mayor next year, she’ll be able to boast of bringing home bacon to people far beyond her Chelsea apartment.

“Having tens of millions of dollars available to distribute to Council members and their constituents translates to votes,” said Baruch College political scientist Doug Muzzio. “It gives her an advantage, a significant advantage, as a matter of fact. The money helps her win support for legislative initiatives among Council members and also raises her profile among voters.”

Quinn spokesman Jamie McShane said the speaker doesn’t factor politics into funding decisions.

Member item pork is once again shady

From the NY Post:

The City Council dished out nearly $147 million for pet projects throughout members’ districts, including a grant to a dysfunctional medical center in Queens that even Mayor Bloomberg’s agencies doubt should get taxpayer money.

Included in the massive list of “member items” — funds individual council members dole out to non-profits — is a $5,000 allocation to Angeldocs, whose city funds are under examination by the city Health Department.

Last year’s taxpayer-funded council grants to Angeldocs were reviewed in April by the Department after The Post reported it was delinquent on property taxes and its only staffer, Dr. Dorothy Ogundu, refused to reveal details about her practice.

Despite that, Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-Queens) appropriated another $5,000 for the clinic, which Council Speaker Christine Quinn has yet to approve.

Comrie couldn’t be reached for comment last night.

Quinn’s spokeswoman, Maria Alvarado, pointed out that many member items have not been approved and allocated yet for Fiscal Year 2013, which begins Sunday.

The council also gave $573,589 to the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, the massive charity run by Brooklyn’s Democratic Party chairman, Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

More pork doled out to favored council members

From the Daily News:

The heartiest eaters at the trough of City Council slush funds were named Tuesday in a good government group report which argues that the way the money's doled out gives the Council speaker too much sway over individual members.

Brooklyn Democrat Domenic Recchia, the powerful head of the council’s Finance Committee, was number one in FY 2012 with $12.1 million, according to Citizens Union.

Councilman Erik Martin Dilan (D-Brooklyn) came in second with $11.3 million and Councilman Lew Fidler (D-Brooklyn) was third with $10.7 million.

The Council allocated $459 (fixed) million in discretionary funds in FY 2012. Members gave the money to non-profits and used it for capital expenditures on city property.

Citizen Union head Dick Dadey said the funds should be handed out “more objectively” and with “greater equity” and that politics should be taken out of the process.

“The City Council speaker and some of the other leaders have too much say in what gets distributed,” he said. “One could argue that that’s a way to keep the Council in line as you try and move a legislative agenda forward.”

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn pointed out in a statement that Council had already made changes to make its expense funds more transparent and was planning to do the same with capital funds.

From the NY Post:

A new analysis of how the City Council allocated more than $2 billion in discretionary funds between 2009 and 2012 has found a wide gulf between the haves and have-nots.

Dominic Recchia (D-Brooklyn), chairman of the powerful Finance Committee, was the biggest winner in the Citizens Union study, collecting $66.7 million to spend on capital projects and nonprofits of his choosing. Erik Dilan (D-Brooklyn), an ally of Brooklyn Democratic leader Vito Lopez, came in second with $37 million.

Dead last in 51st place were Dan Halloran (R-Queens) and his predecessor Tony Avella, now a state senator. Over the four-year period, they pulled in just $9.5 million for their constituents.

Avella, an outspoken critic of Council Speaker Christine Quinn, said the results should come as no surprise to anyone.

“Nothing is done by merit,” he said. “I was independent and took on the speaker.”

From the NY Post:

Council Speaker Christine Quinn is yanking Seabrook’s discretionary funds in the upcoming budget as the beleaguered Bronx politician gears up for a second federal trial on charges of extortion, money-laundering and fraud, The Post has learned.

“Council Member Seabrook and I have come to a mutual agreement that this year’s funding to his district will be determined by the Speaker’s Office and the Bronx delegation chair,” Quinn said in a prepared statement, reversing her position on the issue from several months ago.

“All allocations will undergo the appropriate review and vetting process, including by the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services and city agencies,” she said.
In February 2010, federal prosecutors alleged that from 2002 through 2009, Seabrook funneled more than $1 million in council member items — also known as pork — to nonprofits he controlled, with about half that money lining the pockets of his girlfriend and family members.

Pork still on the table

From the NY Post:

Don’t count pork out of the state budget just yet.
Assembly Democrats are eyeing an existing source of cash to pay for new “member items,” The Post has learned.

It’s a $103 million account that’s supposed to pay for prior-year projects — but that could be tapped for new items if some older projects are scrapped.

Gov. Cuomo and Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-LI) are on record as opposing new pork projects, which traditionally fund athletic fields, senior-citizen centers, and the like in the lawmakers’ home districts.

Cuomo, Skelos and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver are negotiating a budget for the fiscal year that begins April 1.

Pass the pork!

From Eyewitness News:

Incumbent lawmakers pushing to bring back member items should come as no surprise, as pork is the currency of incumbents.

"This is basically re-election insurance. They have their photos taken handing over their checks to people and they expect that good will flow back to them at election time," said E.J. McMahon, Empire Center.

New push for pork

From Times-Union:

Democrats who dominate the Assembly are quietly pushing to insert pork spending into the state budget, leaders in the chamber said.

The state's ongoing fiscal crunch has meant no new cash for "member items," state funds directed by legislators to non-profit groups in the areas the represent, since 2009.

Last week, Assembly staffers directed Democratic members in the chamber to submit lists of organizations that were in need of funding, several members said. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, confirmed to the Times Union he would push for their inclusion in a spending plan for the coming fiscal year, which must be in place by April 1.

Quinn dishes pork out to thieves

From the NY Post:

City Council Speaker Chris Quinn, who presumes to the mayoralty, has just laid $350,000 in council pork on colleague Larry Seabrook — the Bronx Democrat under federal indictment for gross misuse of previous pork disbursements.

That is to say, for funneling $1.2 million in city funds from 2002 to 2009 to multiple fake non-profits he secretly controlled, while directing the bulk of the cash to salaries for his girlfriend and relatives.

He’s also the dude who billed city taxpayers $177 for a bagel and a Snapple.
He has no shame.

Which brings us back to Speaker Quinn — a serial aider-and-abetter of council chiselers and cheats.

Quinn’s $350,000 cash transfusion to Seabrook is — at best — a campaign contribution. If he chooses to spend it on $177 bagels and his girlfriend — well, he’s already done that, hasn’t he?

Then Quinn refilled his cash drawer.

Seabrook’s the miscreant, for sure.

But Quinn’s his enabler.

Should such obvious moral myopia be rewarded with the mayoralty?

Is Christine Quinn fit for the job?

Council still willing to dish pork out to shady charities

From the Daily News:

The City Council tried to shell out nearly $100,000 in pork-barrel items this year to shady groups that city investigators had flagged or the IRS had slapped down, documents show.

Six new groups that have lost their earmark funding — including the Mount Hope Housing Co., a Bronx advocacy organization — are the latest losers since the budget was passed this summer. Nearly $1 million in earmarks to small community organizations and charities has been eliminated.

Critics say the funding pullbacks show that safeguards enacted following the Council’s slush-fund scandal in 2008 have not stopped lawmakers from trying to funnel money to questionable neighborhood-based groups.

Mount Hope, for example, has been under review by the city’s Department of Investigation since April 2009, records show.

A note attached to the charity’s city file states: “Investigation is ongoing and have no summary of funding to date.”

Despite that warning, the Council still sent $70,000 in pork to the charity in the Fiscal Year 2011 budget.

Court rules against taxpayers in pork lawsuit

From Capital Tonight:

The state’s highest court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a group of 50 taxpayers who challenged state government’s constitutional authority of doling out economic development grants and tax breaks to private companies.

In a 4-2 ruling handed down today by the state Court of Appeals, Judge Theodore Jones wrote there were no grounds for suit despite the questioning “the wisdom of policy choices.”

Judges Eugene Pigott and Robert Smith wrote separate dissents, taking a more word-for-word interpretation of the constitutional argument in the suit.

Wrote Pigott:

“Unconstitutional acts do not become constitutional by virtue of repetition, custom or passage of time. But that is what the majority opinion holds today. The arguments made by these defendants are precisely the kind of claims that sully taxpayers’ view of our State government. It is unfortunate that the majority gives credence to those arguments and, as a result, deprives these plaintiffs – 50 New York State taxpayers who are attempting to exercise their right to air their grievances – of an opportunity to conduct the most basic discovery to support their claims.”

Private Sunnyside park a Speaker favorite

From the NY Post:

A private, members-only park in Queens has been getting a lot of public assistance lately.

Sunnyside Gardens Park, a 3-acre oasis created in 1926, has steadily received more taxpayer-funded grants under the watch of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and local Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer, records show.

Friends of Sunnyside Gardens Park, the all-volunteer nonprofit that funds the park, is set to receive $47,600 worth of council member items in fiscal year 2012.

That's on top of $25,000 it got this year and $20,000 in 2010.

"It's an incredible resource and important place where a lot of people go and a lot children play," Van Bramer said, adding that he secured $2.4 million for public parks in his district.

Van Bramer has known Quinn for decades and worked for her in 1999, during her first council campaign. Quinn approves all member items.

Sunnyside Gardens Park members pay $335 a year, plus a one-time $150 initiation fee for access to the groomed grounds and ball fields.

Jewish groups get fed the most pork

From the NY Post:

City budget data shows that Jewish affiliated nonprofits have far outpaced their religious counterparts in bringing home taxpayer dough. Jewish groups secured $4.26 million from City Council members in the 2012 budget, far more than Catholic groups, which will take home $517,250, and Islamic/Muslim groups, which secured $19,000.

The numbers reflect a million-dollar bump for Jewish groups, compared to this year’s budget, and a dip of $50,000 for Catholic groups.

The council distributes $50 million in so-called “member items” to nonprofit organizations citywide, and a recent report by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said favoritism is endemic in the flawed system.

Estimates vary, but according to 2008 data from the Association of Religious Data Archives, Catholics, at 62%, make up the bulk of the city’s population, followed by Jews at about 22%, Protestants at 10.7% and Muslims 3.5%.

Council members bribe Lopez with pork

From the Daily News:

The taint of a federal investigation hasn't stopped City Council members from lavishing pork on the social-services empire founded by Brooklyn Democratic boss Vito Lopez.

The Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, which was slapped with corruption probe subpoenas last fall, will be the second largest recipient of Council earmarks next year.

Documents released yesterday show Lopez's group is poised to pick up $607,000 from the Council's Brooklyn delegation - andmembers Erik Martin Dilan, Domenic Recchia, Elizabeth Crowley and Stephen Levin.

Ridgewood Bushwick is the subject of ongoing criminal probes by the FBI and the city's Department of Investigation. It has millions of dollars in city contracts - but may have difficulty collecting new Council money because of delays in filing needed documents with the state attorney general.

Old timers get around the earmark ban

From the NY Times:

Congress pledged to usher in a new way of doing business in recent months when it banned earmarks, the widely criticized provisions that lawmakers insert into huge federal budget bills to pay for pet projects back home without much, if any, public oversight. The ban was one of the promises made by a newly elected class of conservatives in the House.

But, as it turns out, lawmakers still have a way to get their favorite projects funded: appealing directly to federal agencies for money that is already available. And agency officials seem to be paying attention, though an executive order has directed agencies not to take on projects based on the recommendations of members of Congress. In some cases, that may be the result of the clout certain lawmakers have over how much money an agency receives.

Some lawmakers say the earmark ban has left them no choice but to go directly to the agencies. “We have to make an end run around the roadblocks we are facing,” said Mr. Ackerman, a 14-term incumbent. “Those of us who are fast on our feet will have the advantage of being able to deliver for our constituents.”

Honest graft in the Bronx

From the NY Post:

A Bronx assemblyman on Gov. Cuomo's transition team attempted to shower his pet organization with hundreds of thousands in taxpayer cash even as federal investigators were closing in on the questionable group.

Democrat Peter Rivera steered almost $2.2 million in government dough to Neighborhood Enhancement for Training and Services since 2000, including nearly $400,000 in member items after the feds launched a probe in 2008 that led to last week's indictment of NETS Executive Director David Griffiths.

But Rivera, 63, had few answers when investigators quizzed him about Griffiths, his campaign treasurer and former law partner.

The lawmaker told them he had no knowledge of the group's day-to-day dealings and didn't even know if Griffiths drew a salary, according to court papers.

But not only was NETS wholly financed by Rivera's pork, it also shared space with his law firm, Rivera & Suarez, at 7 Hugh Grant Circle in Parkchester. Griffiths worked for both the law firm and the nonprofit.

Rivera even paid $35,000 out of the firm's own funds to divide the office in 2001 to make room for NETS, according to architect Timothy Nanni and contractor Giovanni Cupelli. The barely functioning organization claimed it spent $29,266 in rent between July 2007 and June 2008 for the space.

The relationship between Rivera and the nonprofit was so cozy that the architect was under the impression that the lawmaker was running NETS when he was hired to design the group's community center and headquarters in a converted synagogue on Virginia Avenue.