Stopped by the Metropolitan Ave station and had to school the MTA's mass engagement posse about how the IBX is not going to work in the future when the current transit system is still a hot mess. Spoler alert: Eminent Domain is a major factor with this project
Governor Kathy Hochul’s campaign received $55,000 from social adult daycare centers in Flushing, the New York City neighborhood where Nick Shirley investigated alleged fraud. This month, the New York Post reviewed donation records, visited the two largest donors, and found both centers empty of patients during business hours. Nick had found the same situation there about a month earlier.
There are nearly 400 of these centers in New York City, but only nine donated more than $5,000 to Hochul’s first campaign for governor in 2022. Those nine centers billed Medicaid about $49 million that year. In July, Nick’s investigation described Flushing as a place where billing no longer matched the population it was meant to serve. The Post’s donor list comes from this same small group of operators.
Nearly half of the donations came from two men. Baoli Zhang, gave $10,000 himself and another $5,000 through his business, Bao Kang Adult Day Care, according to financial records reviewed by the Post. Since 2018, Zhang’s businesses have claimed at least $32 million from Medicaid for tens of thousands of listed patients. He also owns Confucius Social Daycare Center in Manhattan’s Chinatown, which billed $15.7 million during the same time.
The other major donor is Jiemin Shang, who runs Livingwell Day Care. Livingwell gave Hochul $5,000 in 2022 and billed Medicaid $5.8 million that year. Another $5,000 donation came from Finest Adult Day Care, which Shang also manages. Livingwell’s Medicaid billing grew from $114,000 in 2018 to $8.05 million by 2024. Bao Kang’s billing rose from $1.5 million to $7.22 million in the same period. Overall, monthly daycare revenue in Flushing has almost doubled since before the pandemic.
At Bao Kang, a worker told Post reporters the center serves between one hundred and two hundred people each day, but then checked a security monitor and saw the common areas were empty. In July, a staff member at another Flushing center told Nick on camera that the thousands of names on its records were not actually present in the building. None of the centers mentioned in the Post’s report have been charged with a crime.
An industry source told the Post that these centers were struggling during COVID until someone helped them out, describing the situation as “Take care of me, I’ll take care of you.” This is just one anonymous person’s opinion about why the donations began, not a proven fact. There is no public evidence that Hochul or her campaign gave anything in return. Political donations from business owners are legal. The Post’s reporting shows that the centers donating to the governor are the same ones billing Medicaid at levels their facilities cannot explain.
Federal prosecutors have been investigating this type of spending throughout the summer. On August 4, the Justice Department’s Fraud Division charged 19 people in Medicaid home care schemes and expanded its Northeast Health Care Fraud Strike Force. The department links this work to the fraud task force led by Vice President JD Vance. CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, who visited Flushing with Nick in July, said in the announcement that the agency is creating safeguards to spot criminal activity before any money is paid out.
StreetsblogNYC
The heat is on.
The Fire Department actually really does support the city’s expansion of protected bike lanes, the agency’s commissioner said on Monday — a revelation that shouldn’t be newsworthy at all, but for the fact that several FDNY rank-and-file as well as a key chief have recently criticized the life-saving street designs that the city has been implementing for decades.
“We are a life-saving agency, it’s our mission – our core mission, to save lives – and we appreciate the fact that bike lanes put people in a safer place and they save lives,” FDNY Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore testified at a Council budget oversight hearing on Monday. “The Fire Department has no problem with bike lanes.”
Bonsignore noted that there are some situations where “maneuvering around them are an issue,” but added that they work with the Department of Transportation to resolve those conflicts.
The FDNY has become a central player in street redesign fights, despite the fact that DOT consults with the agency experts and gives area firehouses a chance to weigh in on projects.
Opponents of bike lanes often claim that the safety infrastructure impedes emergency response — the opposite is true — and often find support from individual firefighters or the FDNY union.
Indeed, some smokeaters and their union bosses showed up en masse and in uniform to protest the 31st Street redesign in Astoria, Queens last month after a Supreme Court judge paused that overhaul because DOT allegedly did not get the proper paperwork to indicate that the agency had consulted with local firefighters.
And at a bizarre Council hearing in February, Chief of Fire Operations Kevin Woods, a 36-year veteran of the department, rattled off bikelash talking points – while senior DOT officials sat right next to him – claiming without evidence that protected bike lanes hobble first responders and adding the agency was against protected cycle paths.
DOT’s bike lanes are, in fact, wide enough to serve as a clear emergency lane free of cars – vehicles that are the actual impediment to fast response times, as Streetsblog has previously reported:
Chief Woods walked back his stance on protected bike lanes after Streetsblog flagged them with the press office. But later, Council Member Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn Heights) wrote to Bonsignore to confirm that the agency was not obstructing DOT projects.
Woods also told Streetsblog at the time that he does not tell first responders to use bike lanes for faster access to a fire or other emergency, but the below video indicates otherwise.
The agency did not say whether Woods or other rogue agents in the Department have faced any discipline for using their bonafides to rail against city safety policy. In fact, an agency spokesperson suggested that Bonsignore’s comments and Woods’s previous remarks were aligned.
At the Monday hearing, Restler also asked Bonsignore to commit to giving DOT feedback within 30 days, barring extraordinary circumstances, so as not to add to the already extensive bureaucracy lawmakers have dumped on the agency, which delays any bike or bus project exceeding three blocks.
The Firefighter-in-Chief declined to do so, but said the agency would do its “very very best.”
“Sometimes it’s not only the process, it’s not only the Fire Department I would say that slows things down, it may be something a more complex thing that needs to be reviewed, it takes a little longer,” Bonsignore said. “But we certainly will commit that we’ll do our best to get them a timely response.”
Never mind the fact that Department of Transalt are painting these bike lanes in defiance of a court order. I guess Lily wants more work for the EMT's to do.
Of course you know, this means that this is the third municipality to be regulatory captured by these insidious car xenophobic and e-micromobility violence enabling lobbyists
Apologies for posting a Streetsblog story. Everyone keep your head on a swivel outside and remember to close the door.
Update:
Update
The new bike lane just got christened with it's first crash. Congrats Lily, now you're another one who doesn't know shit about the streets, just like Transportation Alternatives
31st Street Bike Lane is not even a week old and we have our first accident. Even with a protected lane a cyclist and scooter collide. We need Pricilla’s Law now! @nyc_evsa @Shebbie4nyc @AFineBlogger @EricsRambles @ImpunityCity @queens_parents @JoannAriola32 @SpeakerMenin pic.twitter.com/siZ8ILb73c
— Maria G. (@mariagardenia22) June 4, 2026
