Happy St. Patrick's Day from Queens Crap!

Tickets going fast! Oh wait, there are no tickets. Just a big Irish tweederfest. Who wouldn't want the Tom Manton Irish Person of the Year award?

The dirty deal that made Christine Quinn speaker

From WNYC:

At its core, the details of the deal-making that December day involved key Council jobs and committee assignments. In turn, the Council shaped in these negotiations became a critical conduit for the big redevelopment projects that the bosses and their corporate allies wanted.

Back in 2002, Rivera had positioned his 21-year-old son, Joel, to be the majority leader of the Council when Gifford Miller became speaker with the support of the Bronx and Queens. Quinn kept Rivera in the post, which came with a $23,000-a-year bonus over the base council member’s salary, and also named him chair of the Health Committee, a post she had held herself for four years. Quinn appointed Baez to head State and Federal Legislation, a gain for the Bronx delegation. Rivera had elected his daughter Naomi to an Assembly seat in 2004, and Quinn, who’d given $1,000 to Naomi’s campaign, put her husband, Antonio Rodriguez, in a $109,000 graphic designer job at the Council. Rivera also won the power to name the next city clerk, a patronage plum with 86 jobs controlled by the speaker.

Crowley’s Queens team already had the Council’s top staff job: Chuck Meara – whose brother Brian is Crowley’s personal lobbyist – had been Miller’s chief of staff and kept the job under Quinn. But Queens also wanted the second most powerful job, first deputy, and it had a Crowley family candidate for it: Ramon Martinez, Crowley’s one time brother-in-law. Quinn knew Martinez from the ‘90s, when they worked briefly together in the Council before Martinez went on to work for Hillary Clinton and other New York elected officials.

Martinez and Crowley’s sister Maura had finalized their divorce in 2003. Now, in 2005, they were faced with the challenge of financing the college educations of three teenagers. In the family business of county party politics, Crowley’s family needs, like Rivera’s, rose to the top of the patronage agenda. The Queens negotiators made it clear that they wanted Martinez to get the job so he could “pay Crowley’s sister’s alimony” or “support Crowley’s sister,” a theme that all the sources at the meeting agree was conveyed in these general terms. Crowley declined to talk to WNYC for this story.

The denouement? When Quinn took over as speaker in January 2006, firing 61 staffers she branded as patronage employees, her top hire was Martinez, who remains her key aide, dwarfing the influence of the laid-back Meara. Martinez, who was then working in the Public Advocate’s office, got an instant $20,000 raise when he moved to the Council. His salary soared by $50,000 in two years, and he now makes $206,190 – some $94,295 more than the speaker herself.

And then there's this:

Roll the calendar forward to 2009. That’s when Queens leader Joe Crowley surfaced at the Council with a project of his own to champion. A member of the House Ways and Means Committee, Crowley rarely gets involved in Queens controversies. But he interjected himself into the debate over another Related Companies project: the $3 billion redevelopment of Willets Point.

The Bloomberg administration wanted to transform the scrapyards and light-industrial zone there – in the heart of Crowley’s congressional district near Citi Field—into a housing, hotel, mall and office colossus. But the project required condemnation by eminent domain of a raft of businesses - 150 of them Hispanic-owned. So when the rezoning of Willets Point came before the Council in November 2009, it was already shrouded in such controversy that 32 members, including a dozen from Queens, signed a letter opposing it. It fell to Quinn to get the Council to support the project.

It didn’t help appearances that the project was a bit of an ethical mess. Claire Shulman, the 83-year-old former Queens borough president, had set up a nonprofit local development corporation, Flushing Willets Point Corona LDC, to build grassroots support for the project. The LDC was underwritten by a $250,000 city grant and real estate interests, including Related’s co-developer on the project, Sterling Equities, the real estate arm of Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz. But Shulman had failed to register the group as a lobbyist with the city clerk and was fined $52,000 for the omission. Then she registered it, and a storm ensued, since LDCs are barred by law from lobbying the Council. The Times quoted hersaying that “we lobbied the city for the city,” a statement that eventually resulted in a state attorney general’s finding that the LDC had “flouted the law” and a settlement that barred it from lobbying the Council. Quinn did not criticize the grandmotherly Shulman at the time - indeed, she shared stages with her, beaming about Willets Point – and remains silent on the lobbying gaffe.

Though the project’s opponents, led by local Councilman Hiram Monserrate, vowed they would not support the rezoning unless it was stripped of any use of eminent domain, they switched en masse when Bloomberg and Quinn added 800 more affordable housing units to the project. The day before the vote, in unscripted moments at a press conference, Bloomberg extolled Quinn’s efforts, saying repeatedly that “we would never have gotten this done” without her and Monserrate. Crowley held a pre-vote press conference at City Hall, pushed recalcitrant Council members, and delivered a speech backing Willets Point at a breakfast of the prestigious Association for a Better New York on the morning of the vote. He called himself “part of the leadership team” that won its passage.

Quinn told WNYC that she never talked directly to Crowley about Willets Point, indicating that she didn’t even know the Queens organization’s position on the project.

Now, a revised project is back before Quinn, slated to come to a Council vote in October. Critics note that it cuts the affordable housing units in half, and that the developers may not have to build any if they delay the housing project for a decade, which they are permitted to do under the deal. The emphasis now is on a huge mall, an echo of Related’s Gateway development in the Bronx.

Mayor Bloomberg, of course, is the granddaddy of the Yankees, Gateway and Willets Point deals. But as speaker, Quinn’s charter duty is to lead a Council that is the only check and balance to mayoral power. Years ago, the media began calling her "deputy mayor" Quinn, a tag earned by her frequent support of Bloomberg. But almost none of the coverage of her over the years has noted the inside track the Democratic leaders have had as well, shaping staff and policy.

Queens Machine still stinks

From the Times Newsweekly:

Ranking members of the Juniper Park Civic Association (JPCA) publicly slammed "clubhouse" politicians who allegedly put their own self-interests before the people they represent during the civic group's meeting last Thursday night, Mar. 8, at Our Lady of Hope School in Middle Village.

Robert Holden, JPCA president, specifically railed against Rep. Joseph Crowley, who is also the head of the Queens County Democratic Party, for overseeing a "corrupt system" that has led to the gerrymandering of the borough in order to ensure the re-election of established incumbents with little or no opposition.

Toward the end of the session, things turned testy when a member of the civic group spoke out against the ranking members' opinions about local lawmakers, past and present, in an editorial published in the JPCA's magazine, The Juniper Berry, which criticized Crowley. Holden and others defended its position, saying that the organization maintains its right to criticize anyone it believes is misrepresenting or harming the neighborhood.

Holden criticized the proposed realignment of Assembly and State Senate districts as proposed earlier this year by the Legislative Task Force on Redistricting and Reapportionment (LATFOR), claiming that the lines give an unfair advantage to incumbents and political parties.

"We've had that in Queens County for far too long," he said, charging that Representative Crowley and his cousin, City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley, "are an example of this clubhouse atmosphere in Queens."

Holden claimed that Representative Crowley was "handed the Congressional seat" from the late-Rep. Thomas Manton, who declined to seek re-election in 1998. The civic president claimed that after Manton — the former head of the Queens County Democratic Party — secured the petitions to get on the ballot, he announced his retirement, which allowed him to pick Crowley to take his place on the ballot.

Since winning the Congressional seat in 1998, Holden stated that Representative Crowley has run unopposed in many elections since. He went further to claim that the legislator keeps his primary residence in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. rather than in his own Congressional district.

"This is the kind of corrupt system that we have," Holden told residents.

Joe Crowley's definition of democracy

From City Hall:

Want to become an Assembly member? One way is to raise money and run a campaign. Another option—seemingly more frequently exercised in the city’s most sizable borough—is to work for an Assembly member, then eventually win an uncompetitive special election, in which all you need a small group of insiders to give you the Democratic line. Assembly Audrey Pheffer, who is leaving for the plum patronage pastures of the Queens County clerkship, already has reportedly lined up the Queens Democratic Party’s support behind her chief of staff. And as soon as Assembly Member Nettie Mayersohn announced her retirement, her chief of staff already had the party’s support. It may not be good democracy, but it’s good politics on the part of Joe Crowley, the Queens county chair. Of course, Crowley learned from the best, winning his congressional seat in 2006 when it was handed to him by former county chair Tom Manton.

Driscoll leaves Parkside

From the Queens Campaigner:

A founding partner of the Parkside Group who has been involved in Queens politics for decades has left the political consulting and lobbying firm for Gotham Government Relations, a Long Island-based lobbying firm.

Bill Driscoll, one of three founding partners of the Parkside Group, which runs a number of campaigns for Queens political candidates, was the former chief of staff to the late Tom Manton, a congressman and Queens Democratic Party chairman, and was counsel to Manton’s successor, U.S. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Jackson Heights).

Driscoll’s departure comes as Parkside is gearing up for its busiest political season, [Evan] Stavisky said.

He said Parkside is handling former City Councilman Tony Avella’s campaign to unseat state Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose) and other Senate candidates stretching from western New York to Long Island.

Stavisky said Driscoll had been focused on the lobbying side of Parkside’s business during his latest years at the firm.

Driscoll is one of three lobbyists joining Gotham Government Relations, which has addresses in Manhattan, Albany and Washington, D.C., along with Mark Lieberman and Tiffany Raspberry, who also formerly worked for Parkside.

Unlike Parkside, Gotham does not do political consulting. Its clients include insurance giants Allstate and Geico, the New York Tobacconist Association and John Catsimatidis’ Red Apple Group and Gristedes supermarket chain, according to its website.

Driscoll, an attorney, also once served as counsel to the Queens County clerk’s office and chief of staff to members of the City Council and state Assembly.

And if that doesn't work out for him, he can always become a Deputy Queens Borough President.

Quinn carries on Manton legacy

From the Daily News:

There's a remedy for political insurgency - incumbency.

There's nothing like winning office to turn insurgents into the best pals of the powers-that-be. "You're one of us now," the late Queens-Democratic boss Tom Manton was known to tell candidates who bucked him and won.

Christine Quinn must have learned that lesson well from Manton, who helped make her City Council speaker in 2006. In her carrot-and-stick reorganization last week of the Council's swarm of committee chairmanships, Quinn doled out committee or subcommittee chairs to 11 of the 13 newcomers to the Council, including eight who were elected with the help of the insurgent-friendly Working Families Party .

There was much talk after the November election that the new members, especially the WFP bunch, would form the nucleus of a more independent Council.

Quinn did one of her smiling burns when asked if giving chairs and lulus to so many newbies could be seen as trying to co-opt them. She said the newcomers "might bring skill sets to make a committee work well and help the Council do a good job."

In other words: "You're one of us now."

An endorsement you wouldn't want

From a guest editorial in the Woodside Herald by former Council Member Walter McCaffrey:

...Deirdre Feerick is the best qualified. As a lifelong district resident, she has the best real-life experience of knowing our community. She is the only candidate with legislative experience, which means she will hit the ground running as our council member. She did not cynically shop around for a district to run in. She will serve in the fine tradition upheld by other elected leaders who came from our community. Just like Tom Manton, Eric Gioia and myself.

She's like Tom Manton, Eric Gioia and Walter McCaffrey? Well then you'd better vote for one of the guys instead!

This analogy is interesting considering that Walter McCaffrey, a term-limited councilman who represented Woodside, Sunnyside and part of Maspeth, took part in a desperate and filthy race baiting campaign against Gioia, who originally ran as an outsider.

But now they're all great political pals and Gioia is no longer an outsider, but getting endorsements from Manton's successor, Joe Crowley. So if this Feerick chick is receiving glowing praise from the likes of Walter McCaffrey - now a lobbyist - and the rest of the Queens Machine, then you'd best vote for O'Leary or Van Bramer.

Unless you like the changes that have happened in Woodside...

Part of Queens Blvd named after Manton

From NY1:

Officials held a street renaming ceremony Saturday in Sunnyside to remember the life and public service of former Congressman Thomas J. Manton.

Now we know why they spent all that money to fix up the arch...