Caption MAGA Eric Adams

The case against Yes

 

 

Queens Chronicle

Residents, elected officials and community groups on Wednesday gathered outside City Hall to announce a lawsuit against the zoning changes under the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity plan, which passed in December.

The Article 78 complaint, filed on Tuesday night, argues that the plan violates the State Environmental Quality Review Act and the City Environmental Quality Review.

Quoted in a press release from the office of Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Ozone Park), the suit alleges in part that the city failed to properly examine “significant areas of environmental concern.” According to the release, the City Planning Commission concluded that new development under the plan would have no significant negative impact on communities, even though many neighborhoods face issues such as flooding, pollution and overcrowded schools.

“How, with a straight face, can the city of New York say that what they’re doing is not going to have an effect on these things, which are already overburdened and overtaxed, at capacity or beyond capacity, today?” urban planning consultant Paul Graziano said at the press conference.

People against the City Of Mess and the indicted mayor who's leading it.

Throwing the book on Eric Adams

 

 New York

In mid-September, shortly after the New York City police chief resigned amid a federal criminal investigation and Mayor Eric Adams’s chief counsel quit, apparently because her client wasn’t heeding legal advice, and a couple of retired Fire Department officials were arrested on bribery charges, Ingrid Lewis-Martin disappeared from City Hall. Lewis-Martin had long been the most loyal and indispensable of Adams’s advisers — he brings the swagger; she swings the stick — so her sudden absence was noted in the building. “She’s not in this country,” one Adams critic told me. “I hear she is on a beach.” Questions kept bubbling up. Was she fighting with Adams? Was she cutting a deal with the Feds? Was she gone from City Hall for good?

In fact, Lewis-Martin was in Japan on what her attorney later described as a personally financed “friend trip,” sightseeing with a group that included the city official and former state senator from Brooklyn Jesse Hamilton, real-estate executive Diana Boutross, and former state assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV. “It was pure vacation,” says Powell, who chronicled his highlights — resort hotels, bullet trains, a night out in Roppongi, a geisha show — on Instagram. The whole time, though, Lewis-Martin’s phone was buzzing. One day, the FBI was searching the interim police commissioner’s house, reportedly looking for classified documents. The health commissioner announced he was on the way out the door and was soon followed by the schools chancellor, whose phone had been seized. City Hall reporters were pestering Lewis-Martin for comment. Rumors were rampant that the mayor was about to go down. On September 26, at around 10 a.m. Tokyo time, the news leaked that Adams had been indicted on corruption charges — a long-anticipated but nonetheless shocking moment in the city’s history.

 

The next day, Lewis-Martin flew home to a city on the brink of a municipal civil war. Some prominent officeholders, like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had already called for Adams to resign. Others wanted Governor Kathy Hochul to exercise a seldom-used power to remove him from office, which would trigger a snap special election. A half-dozen potential replacements were jostling for position — including Hochul’s predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, who was looking for a comeback express lane. It appeared certain that more arrests, more scandal, and more pressure would be coming. “We continue to dig,” Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said at a press conference unveiling the Adams indictment. Investigators had conducted yet another search, this time at Gracie Mansion, earlier that morning. When Lewis-Martin and her travel companions arrived at JFK the next day, Powell heard a loud voice call out at Customs and saw Lewis-Martin pulled to the right. Two separate groups of investigators were waiting. The Feds served her a subpoena for documents, and the Manhattan district attorney’s office had a warrant for her phone. (The Daily News would subsequently report that Hamilton’s was taken too.)

Outraged and device free, Lewis-Martin went to see her criminal-defense attorney, Arthur Aidala, at his office on 45th Street. The investigators, meanwhile, had hit her Brooklyn rowhouse. “They’re using very heavy-handed tactics all around,” Aidala told me. The federal subpoena involved fundraising, he said, and the DA’s warrant was related to an investigation of potential bribery. Lewis-Martin assured her lawyer she had done nothing wrong. He moonlights as an AM-radio host, and she appeared on that evening’s edition of his show, “The Arthur Aidala Power Hour.”

“We are imperfect, but we are not thieves,” she said on the air. “And I do believe that in the end, that the New York City public will see that we have not done anything illegal to the magnitude or the scale that requires the federal government and the DA’s office to investigate us.”

The defense was set: Maybe we’re just a little criminal. The indictment alleged that, for years, starting during his tenure as Brooklyn borough president, Adams had cultivated a relationship with a representative of the Turkish government who arranged for him to receive some $123,000 worth of illegal gifts, such as discounted business-class tickets on Turkish Airlines and a stay in the Bentley Suite at the St. Regis in Istanbul. When Adams ran for mayor, his Turkish supporters allegedly channeled illegal donations to his campaign through straw donors with the connivance of Adams himself. In return, prosecutors say, Adams performed a number of favors as a public official, most notably pressuring FDNY inspectors to certify that the new Turkish Consulate near the U.N. was safe without conducting the necessary inspections.

The mayor’s defenders described all this as a whole lot of nothing. His defense attorney, Alex Spiro, ridiculed the indictment, calling it the “airline-upgrade corruption case,” and filed an immediate motion to dismiss the bribery charge, citing a recent Supreme Court decision that enlarged the bounds of acceptable gift taking. (He had less to say about the foreign donations.) Over the following week, Adams went on the offensive, speaking to Black audiences and looking to clothe his plight in the language of redemption.

“I’m not going to resign,” Adams said at Emmanuel Presbyterian Reformed Church in the Bronx the Sunday after his indictment. “I’m going to reign.”

The city’s political class seemed to take a deep, steadying breath. Influential voices in the Black community called for due process. Hochul went quiet. Everyone would wait to see how deep the rot went. Spiro has said he wants a quick trial, which could occur before next year’s Democratic primary. But investigators appear to be taking their time. They are reportedly looking into the mayor’s dealings with other foreign governments in addition to Turkey and scrutinizing contracts for the school system and migrant shelters. More revelations and indictments are sure to be coming.

Not since the dying days of the Koch administration had the city appeared to be so much for sale, and never in the 126 years since the five boroughs consolidated had any mayor been personally charged with crimes of corruption. Adams and his supporters, determined to brazen it out, were convinced that the old rules of political accountability no longer applied. “We look at what happened with President Trump,” said Bishop Gerald Seabrooks, a minister who prayed with Adams at Gracie Mansion the morning the indictment was unsealed. “Thirty-four counts, and nobody is asking him not to run.” (During a press conference, Trump wished Adams luck in his legal fight.) Adams loyalists signaled that if Cuomo, or anyone else, wanted the mayoralty, they would have to take it. “We don’t worry about what’s in the shadows,” said attorney Frank Carone, the mayor’s still-influential former chief of staff. “The mayor is not resigning — full stop.”

With Ingrid Lewis-Martin at a rally of clergy and community leaders outside City Hall on October 1. Photo: Mark Peterson/Redux

Eric Adams had the talent to be a great mayor. He is as lively as his city and loves its nightlife, even if it brings him into contact with some unsavory characters. He is funny, and there’s a lightness to his egotistical flourishes, like his prodigious use of the possessive case (“my city,” “my cops”) and his practice of walking out to “Empire State of Mind” when performing even the smallest mayoral function, like wheeling the Sanitation Department’s new trash can up to a press conference.

Until recently, Adams’s habits of evasion, of creating a fog of mystery around even the most basic questions — where does he live? What does he eat? — had mostly made him seem like a scamp, not a criminal. Even after his indictment, some of those who had worked for him found it hard to believe he is personally crooked. “I’m certain that Eric is not corrupt,” says a former Adams aide. “On the other hand, Eric can have terrible judgment in people and is incredibly stubborn.” Adams has often called himself “perfectly imperfect,” a phrase that now seems likely to serve as his epitaph, however the end comes. The positive side of his record includes his hiring of a number of highly competent — and mostly female — deputies and empowering them to run much of the city with minimal interference. The imperfections start with some of the other individuals on his payroll, who represent the very worst that city politics has to offer.

“How did we get here? He brought with him a set of people whose track record of corrupt activity was already well known,” says Brad Lander, the city comptroller and a declared candidate for mayor in the next election. “I think that sent a broad signal to people that this was an administration with a very high tolerance for corruption. And unfortunately, a lot of people seem to have gotten that message and then people who did really genuinely try to do things with integrity paid for it.”

Reports of corruption have dogged Adams’s administration since its earliest days; now, they’re just more detailed. Straw donations. A nightclub-shakedown racket. Nepotism hires. A buildings commissioner who took alleged bribes from alleged mobsters. A mayoral crony who supposedly cried out, “Where are my crumbs?” And it was all so crummy, so careless, so old-school, so Tammany Hall.

“It’s a surprise to me how stupid they seem to be,” says one veteran of Brooklyn politics who has seen a few bosses come and go. “In the sense that if you’re going to milk your positions for private gain, that they weren’t more thoughtful about how they went about doing it.”

 

Caption Council Member Lincoln Restler

  

@ImpunityCity

From Sanctuary City to Emergency City

 

AMNY 

Mayor Eric Adams declared a city State of Emergency Friday over the more than 17,000 migrants who have come to the Big Apple seeking shelter since April, calling on Washington and Albany to provide the city with additional resources to handle the influx.

During a live streamed speech at City Hall Friday morning, Adams said the city has been doing all it possibly can to handle the thousands of asylum seekers who are getting bussed here by southern states like Texas after coming from South and Central America across the southern border. This includes stretching the shelter system to nearly 100 percent capacity, opening 42 emergency hotel shelters and building a tent-like shelter on Randall’s Island – first cited for Orchard Beach in the Bronx – he’s dubbed a Humanitarian Relief and Response Center (HERRC).

The emergency declaration, the mayor said, is coupled with an executive order intended to expedite construction of the HERRC.

“New York City is doing all we can, but we are reaching the outer limit of our ability to help,” Adams said. “Today I’m declaring a state of emergency in the city of New York and issuing an executive order. This executive order will direct all agencies to coordinate their efforts to construct the humanitarian relief centers. We are also suspending certain land use requirements to expedite this process.”

Without mentioning them by name, Hizzoner blasted southern elected officials like Texas Governor Greg Abbott for bussing thousands of asylum seekers to the five boroughs every day without coordinating with his administration or so much as a heads up of when and how many buses will be arriving. Adams repeated what has become a common refrain that Abbott and others are exploiting the city’s “right to shelter” law – that requires it to house anyone seeking shelter – for “political gain.”

“Our right to shelter laws, our social services, and our values are being exploited by others for political gain,” he said. “New Yorkers are angry. I am angry too. We have not asked for this. There was never any agreement to take on the job of supporting thousands of asylum seekers. This responsibility was simply handed to us without warning as buses began showing up. There’s no playbook for this, no precedent.”

And the responsibility of accepting 17,000 asylum seekers and counting comes with a hefty price tag. The mayor said his administration expects to spend at least $1 billion on handling this crisis alone by the end of the current fiscal year next June.

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

  

NBC New York

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not GSD

 

NY Post

It’s the late show, from City Hall!

A portal offering proactive public access to NYC government records has been inundated with late notices scolding agencies for failing to file reports on crime stats, infectious disease updates, and notifications about multi-million-dollar project cost jumps, the Post has learned.

The 762 late notices filed so far in 2022 are more than double the late filings during the same period in 2021, a spike the Department of Records has attributed to a “system flaw.”  

The findings are “disturbing,” and pose a “tremendous disservice” that leaves the public “in the dark,” said Paul Wolf, president of the New York Coalition for Open Government.

Late notices make up a staggering 29% of the total 2022 Department of Records filings. In 2020, its 632 late notices made up 15% of total filings. The agency filed 374 late notices during the first half of 2021, representing just 12% of total filings for that period, and filed just two additional late notices in the second half of 2021.

Eric hires Eric for advisor job.

I am pleased to announce that I have been appointed as a Senior Advisor @NYCMayorsOffice

I am truly grateful for the opportunity to serve in the @ericadamsfornyc Administration. I look forward to helping him implement his vision for a better New Yorkhttps://t.co/Hh0S5j3I6i

— Eric Ulrich (@eric_ulrich) January 5, 2022

Ridgewood Post 

Former Queens Council Member Eric Ulrich has joined Mayor Eric Adams’ administration as a mayoral advisor, Adams announced Wednesday.

Ulrich — a Republican who represented District 32 in southwest Queens up until the end of 2021 — has been tapped as a senior advisor to the mayor.

He is one of two general advisors Adams named in a list of new staff members that includes chiefs of staff, commissioners and directors.

Ulrich represented the neighborhoods of Belle Harbor, Breezy Point, Broad Channel, Howard Beach, Lindenwood, Neponsit, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Rockaway Park, Roxbury, South Ozone Park, West Hamilton Beach and Woodhaven for 12 years on the City Council.

He was succeeded by Republican Joann Ariola, who now represents District 32.

In his announcement, Adams noted Ulrich’s instrumental role in passing legislation that established the New York City Department of Veterans’ Services as well as his relief efforts for constituents following Hurricane Sandy.

Ulrich is not the first Queens resident to take on an important role in the Adams administration.

Blaz hides and flees in final hours at City Hall

Now everybody knows deBlasio went back inside to hide in city hall.

The jeers and insults were merciless.

This was a long time coming

(Cameo by Crackhead Barney) pic.twitter.com/QicybfUqCJ

— This is JQ LLC (@ImpunityCity) December 31, 2021

According to police sources, this is Mayor DeBlasio leaving City Hall. This was after his aid told all the press that he is staying to work and will not be walking out tonight. This car drove away minutes after all the press left. pic.twitter.com/olF4ADxc3z

— Scootercaster (@ScooterCasterNY) December 30, 2021

Community Boards want to keep hearings virtual during pandemic resurgence

 

Patch

Community board chairs are pushing back on a requirement that their meetings resume in person next month — with some saying they plan to defy state law if necessary to keep their sessions COVID-safe.

And as interpreted by New York's official watchdog for public access to government, the state's open meetings law means that every community board member who Zooms into a meeting now technically must advertise in advance the address they are dialing in from — even if that is their home — and open their doors to all who wish to join.

"Opening up people's homes? That's insanity. That's ridiculous," scoffed Frank Morano, chair of Staten Island's Community Board 3.

After Gov. Andrew Cuomo suspended in-person government meetings last year in declaring a state of emergency at the dawn of the pandemic, the city's 59 community boards migrated to online video platforms such as Webex and Zoom.

Civic engagement soared as members of the public, the boards and government agency reps easily participated from the comfort of their homes via the internet, mastering the mute button and other video conferencing features.

But once vaccinations made gathering safer, the state lifted the emergency order on June 24. Community boards were once again subject to the state's open meetings law — requiring public access to the physical premises of an official gathering.

With the return of board meetings following a summer break coming up in September while virus risks remain, volunteer board members and boards' government-employed managers are sounding the alarm on the risks of in-person gatherings, pleading with city and state officials to allow them to continue meeting remotely.

"Not only are we still in the midst of this ongoing health crisis, but we're on a trajectory with cases going up," said Alexa Weitzman, chair of Queens Community Board 6, which represents Forest Hills and Rego Park. "This is not a time to reconvene in person."

Because board members are not employed by the government, the vaccine and testing mandates covering city workers do not apply. Nor can boards screen members of the public in the way that restaurants, gyms and theaters now must.

All in the room must wear masks, according to a City Hall memo, which also directed community boards to keep six feet of distance between participants.

Morano and Weitzman told THE CITY that they plan to keep holding virtual-only meetings, either because of virus concerns or because of a lack of space to socially distance.

Senator Liu warns City Hall to be prepared for the Delta school year

 

NY Post 

 The chairman of the state Senate’s New York City education committee warned Wednesday of a troubled start to the school year — and didn’t rule out a delay if ongoing issues aren’t solved in the coming weeks.

State Sen. John Liu told The Post that a lack of clear guidelines from City Hall is fueling uncertainty among parents and staffers.

“All the ingredients are there for another chaotic reopening — and possibly a delayed reopening — based on this administration’s track record,” he said. “There are still so many unanswered questions that don’t make me totally confident.”

Liu cited a raft of concerns ahead of the new term — including confusion over social distancing rules, the lack of a concrete plan for COVID-19-infected students, and stalled vaccination rates among school staffers.

“The mayor is trying to project certainty,” he said. “But unfortunately, people are not confident in the certainty he is trying to project. I hope there’s not going to be any delay. But everyone remembers what happened last year.”

Fight the power and the vaccine mandate

“If you’re not gonna fight for yourself, at least fight for your children” Speeches outside NYC City Hall as today’s protest against the vaccine pass begins #NYC #NewYork pic.twitter.com/L4lAocAcOz

— Brendan Gutenschwager (@BGOnTheScene) August 9, 2021

The Blaz and Cojo approves irresponsible reserves deprived city budget plan

 

THE CITY 

 

Mayor Bill de Blasio and Council Speaker Corey Johnson announced a nearly $100 billion budget deal Wednesday that boosts spending by $10 billion, restores pandemic cuts, increases education funding and even puts $1 billion in a new rainy-day fund.

But for all the self-congratulations at a City Hall news conference, budget experts, comptrollers and advocates for a range of causes assailed the plan as unsustainable — saying it will leave billions in budget deficits for the next mayor.

Critics also pointed to $1 billion in federal aid earmarked for recurring expenditures like the expansion of Pre-K and no effort to wring substantial savings from poorly performing programs or the municipal labor force.

“This is a missed opportunity when you have so many resources to restructure government to be sustainable in 2024 and 2025 and to stabilize the city’s finances,” said Andrew Rein, president of the non-partisan Citizens Budget Commission.

 City Comptroller Scott Stringer, a defeated candidate for mayor, criticized the use of federal money for Pre-K and called for more reserves. State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said revenues must be identified to pay for new and expanded programs. And Councilmember Brad Lander, who is battling Johnson to succeed Stringer, voted against the budget, saying it lacks transparency on the use of the federal aid.

“I favor expanding Pre-K, but you have to do it with a plan to pay for it in the long run,” Lander said. “Rolling back on cutting the workforce through attrition and counting on $1 billion in labor savings you have been promising for three years is not a real plan.”

Lander is a douchebag, but it's fair to say that it would be better if he's comptroller than super shady big spender Cojo.

 

The Blaz: "Why so serious?"

 

NY Daily News 

 Hizzoner has been in such a good mood recently, he’s been making numerous wisecracks and puns at public appearances.

The attempts at showmanship make for a strong contrast with his mood at events through the end of last year, when New Yorkers were wondering whether the COVID-19 pandemic was spiraling out of control.

But with a historic vaccination campaign underway and infection numbers down, Mayor de Blasio has been on much more jovial.

In his latest gag during a briefing, he cut to a video feed from the Shack Shake in Madison Square Park in Manhattan, where the chain’s CEO Randy Garutti touted an offer of free burgers and fries for people who get vaccinated.

By the time the video jumped back to the mayor in City Hall’s stately Blue Room, he had a Shake Shack meal in front of him.

“Did you say free fries when you get vaccinated?” he said playfully before he stuffed a handful in his mouth. “I got vaccinated.

“You’re saying I can get this — delicious fries — wait a minute, but there’s also a burger element to this?” de Blasio said with a mischievous smile.

“If this is appealing to you, just think of this when you think of vaccination,” he said before chomping down. “Mmm, vaccination! I’m getting a very good feeling about vaccination right this moment.”

The silly streak comes with just over seven months left in the de Blasio administration. During the mayor’s tenure, headlines have been dominated by the scandal over the Campaign for One New York — his nonprofit that nearly got him indicted — his humiliating 2020 presidential run and the coronavirus pandemic.

None of that made for an atmosphere of levity at City Hall and Gracie Mansion.

But with COVID-19 numbers improving, the mayor has been promoting the coming months as the “Summer of New York City,” expressing a love of the Big Apple long absent from his administration, according to his critics.

It probably doesn’t hurt that Hizzoner’s main nemesis, Gov. Cuomo, has been reeling from scandals over allegations of sexual misconduct and his handling of coronavirus deaths at nursing homes.

Asked why he’s been so upbeat at a recent press conference, de Blasio shied away from mentioning his arch-rival’s crises.

“There’s a lot of good stuff happening and a lot of people are working together. Those are the kinds of things that make me happy,” he said on April 22.

Admin note:

What I really like about this Daily News article is how it's similar to my post about how the Blaz and his media management monkeys have been slicing up their press briefing uploads, cutting out reporters questions and also the responses by the Mayor and his health commissioner. Which they did again in the most recent video where the joke from Park Slope was scarfing down fries and a burger like a degenerate slob. Most of all, I appreciate the Daily News for posting those briefings in full, because while I am still deplatformed on Twitter, I bombed the hell out of the comments section on those videos, so my voice will still be heard by the masses. (Well, maybe hundreds) Ciao, baby.

de Blasio abolishes YourLIC development plan

Patch

 City Hall has cut ties with Your LIC, a coalition of four developers formulating plans for a portion of the Long Island City waterfront where Amazon had planned to build a second headquarters, after failing to reach an agreement with the developers over infrastructure investments they would make.

The city will withdraw its plots of land from the Your LIC planning process, after officials determined that the developers were not offering adequate open space and infrastructure investments as part of the project, City Hall spokesperson Mitch Schwartz confirmed to Patch.

Patch has reached out to a spokesperson for the Your LIC coalition and will update this story with their response.

"We remain committed to Long Island City's future as a thriving mixed use community," Schwartz said in an emailed statement. "That means supporting proposals that properly account for the development's critical infrastructure needs and impacts, like open space, transportation and water and sewer.

"After extensive discussions with YourLIC developers, we are disappointed that the proposed project does not deliver on those requirements. This project must complement the surrounding area and properly support the development's residents, workers, and visitors. We're going to hold private developers accountable to those goals. Queens deserves nothing less."

Contractor Gadget buys a seat on the EDC board

THE CITY

 

A major donor to Bill de Blasio’s aborted presidential campaign and seller of COVID-related gear to New York has scored a seat on a powerful board controlled by the mayor.

Charlie Tebele, whose business has hawked hoverboards out of a New Jersey warehouse, joined the board of the New York City Economic Development Corporation, with his first appearance on May 6, meeting minutes indicate.

A spokesperson for de Blasio said the mayor made the appointment on March 18 — one week before Tebele and the city signed the first of nearly $119 million in no-bid contracts for masks and ventilators.

The nonprofit is the city’s chief vehicle for steering subsidies and real estate to private businesses, including the failed 2018 proposal to usher Amazon to Long Island City. Last year, EDC received more than $2 billion via exclusive contracts from the city Department of Small Business Services, making it City Hall’s single largest contractor, according to city comptroller records.

As THE CITY has previously reported, Tebele’s firm Digital Gadgets LLC secured three emergency contracts in late March to sell masks and ventilators to the de Blasio administration as the coronavirus crisis surged and the city scrambled to secure gear.

The administration later canceled the largest of those contracts, for $91 million in ventilators and breathing kits, after the life-saving ventilators did not arrive — but not until after advancing $9.1 million to Digital Gadgets.

The firm has continued to be a major supplier of N95 and other masks to city government, with payments totaling more than $25 million since March 30 registered in the comptroller’s Checkbook NYC system.

Federal records show that Digital Gadgets received Paycheck Protection Program aid of between $150,000 and $350,000, covering a dozen workers in New Jersey — even as the firm and a new Manhattan-registered company associated with Tebele called Digital Gadgets Medical LLC scored tens of millions of dollars in COVID-related business from New York, followed by Cook County, Ill., and other local governments across the U.S.

City defunds the police by abolishing placard abuse enforcement

NY Post


City Hall has pulled the plug on its latest effort to tackle rampant placard abuse by municipal employees, shutting down the NYPD unit meant to enforce the most recent crackdown.

Officials said Friday they are axing all 116 positions that were dedicated to placard enforcement through attrition and zeroing out the unit’s $5.4 million annual budget — just a little more than a year after Mayor Bill de Blasio rolled out the effort to great fanfare.

“A dedicated unit is no longer needed because we are enhancing enforcement coverage by introducing new technology and other advancements that allow any TEA to do this work more seamlessly,” said City Hall spokeswoman Laura Feyer, explaining away the budget cuts.

The cuts are projected to remain in effect for at least the next four years — effectively permanently disbanding the effort.

 The de Blasio administration also admitted in response to questions submitted early Friday that officials had yanked just five placards from city employees under de Blasio’s three-strike policy for placard abuse, which was another highly touted policy announced in City Hall’s February 2019 crackdown.

Contractor Gadget has come up short on PPE supplies

THE CITY 

Nearly 13 million virus-blocking N95 and similar face masks ordered in March for the city’s public hospitals and other emergency services have still not arrived as medical staff at Bellevue and other facilities plead for protective supplies.

Of the nearly 34 million masks contracted for between March 6 and April 11 by the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, only 637,760 had been received as of Friday, according to the department.

Also still missing are at least 2,000 ventilators purchased last month, toward which City Hall paid $9 million — even as Gov. Andrew Cuomo has announced plans to ship hundreds of surplus ventilators to other states combating coronavirus.

None of the two million N95 masks secured in a March 25 contract with a New Jersey company called Digital Gadgets have been delivered, according to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which signed the $8 million deal.

Out of a March 28 deal for six million similar KN95 masks with the same firm, just 137,760 have come in so far, DCAS reports.

The Digital Gadgets masks are “designated as medical and are intended for use by Health + Hospitals,” a DCAS spokesperson told THE CITY.

The Health and Hospitals Corporation told THE CITY it has 745,000 N95 masks on hand.

In all, a review of city contract records indicates, vendors have delivered N95-type masks in just two out of 14 DCAS emergency contracts made between March 6 and April 11.

And only one company, Tivuna Systems Inc., has produced its goods in full, providing 500,000 KN95 masks in a deal signed by DCAS on April 2.

Most of those companies, including Digital Gadgets, had never before done business with the City of New York. Under an emergency order issued March 16 by Mayor Bill de Blasio, those contracts and companies bypassed standard reviews by the city contracts office and comptroller.

“Estimated delivery dates are constantly shifting due to overall demand and supplier manufacturing capacity,” said Nick Benson, the spokesperson for DCAS. “There is not a fixed delivery date for these or most of the COVID-19 related orders.”

On Sunday, de Blasio hinted at a news conference of troubling delays in delivery of crucial supplies.

“We have a huge number of orders out around the world that if we started to see a little more consistency on the deliveries, we would be in much better shape,” he said.

For weeks, nurses have railed against the dangerous conditions inside the city’s 11 public hospitals where they say they’ve been forced to care for a wave of virus patients without proper protective gear.

 Eventually, de Blasio will make it up to all these hospitals with more clapping, donuts and coffee.

City Hall tied ex-gangbanger activist threatened to kill a traffic cop

NY Daily News

A prominent anti-gang activist with ties to City Hall is accused of threatening to sic the Bloods on his Brooklyn neighbor.

“I’m going to get my people, the Bloods, to come handle you. I’m going to have you killed," activist Shanduke McPhatter told his neighbor, according to a criminal complaint.

The former Bloods member’s group, Gangstas Making Astronomical Community Changes, has been a fixture at protests against gun violence alongside prominent politicians since it first partnered with City Hall in 2014.

Last month, McPhatter, who founded the group, attended a meeting with Mayor de Blasio and received a proclamation from Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. Public Advocate Jumaane Williams has contributed city funds to G-MACC for years. The Mayor’s Office to Prevent Gun Violence listed G-MACC as a resource for recently-released Rikers Island inmates. The advocacy group received more than $1.5 million in city funding between 2014 and 2018, according to its most recent non-profit tax filing.

But McPhatter’s recent arrest for threatening his neighbor, who works in traffic enforcement for the NYPD, as well as a recent federal takedown of a Rikers Island contraband ring, have raised questions about the anti-gang group.

Two of the people charged in the bust have ties to the advocacy group, which includes former gang members who know first-hand the danger of street life. A G-MACC staffer and McPhatter’s brother are among those charged with the smuggling operation allegedly involving crooked correction officers.

City Hall said it was unaware of “the extent” of the allegations involving G-MACC. The group is no longer providing re-entry services to former Rikers inmates as the city conducts a review.

“The described allegations are unacceptable and of great concern. To ensure G-MACC is able to serve our neighborhoods in a manner that reflects the values of our administration, we are requiring the organization to strengthen their internal protocols and procedures," City Hall spokeswoman Avery Cohen said.