Donovan Richards civic engagement committee features the Department of Transportation Alternatives dominating the bus redesign hearing

 

 

Conspicuously absent from the city bus redesign hearing is anyone from the MTA. Also funny is how there are more people who desire to screw up the streets and bus routes than there are about discussing the housing crisis. 

Oh, and hold the hearing on zoom instead of doing a live town hall or even a hybrid hearing of course so the bike/public space scientologists can also dominate the discussion and cut off residents whose lives will be impacted by their shit ideas. Another grossly unethical exploitation of antiquated pandemic guidelines.

The return of the agents of the city

Politico 

 Mayor Eric Adams has dispensed with a de Blasio-era policy to voluntarily disclose meetings top administration officials take with lobbyists — further obscuring an already-opaque system of outside influence over government actions.

Two City Hall attorneys alerted administration employees of the change in a March 1 memo laying out rules governing communication with lobbyists, a lucrative line of work that brought firms $104 million last year, according to a recent report from the city’s lobbying bureau. The top firm, Kasirer LLC, took in north of $15 million — nearly double the earnings of the second-place company, James F. Capalino & Associates, Inc.

The two-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO, defines lobbying as “the attempt to influence certain government actions” and advises the staffers that they may be subject to this type of outreach.

The city lawyers go on to explain common motivations for lobbying — land use changes that impact multi-billion-dollar real estate deals, competitions to win city contracts, an effort to shape pending legislation.

“Mayor’s Office employees are not required to maintain or file any reports or documents in connection with their meetings with lobbyists,” the attorneys wrote, effectively undoing a discretionary policy former Mayor Bill de Blasio instituted to mandate routine disclosure of lobbying meetings. The former mayor, who had his own ethics problems during his tenure, demanded his deputy mayors and agency heads report their interactions with lobbyists and the information was made public through a city-run portal.

“It is nonetheless important to preserve communications with lobbyists,” the lawyers added. “You should not delete emails, texts, calendar entries, or voicemails related to lobbyist communications or meetings. As you engage in email and text communications with lobbyists, please remember that these communications may be disclosed in response to a FOIL request or a civil or criminal subpoena.”

Adams spokesperson Jonah Allon did not explain the reason for the change, instead providing a statement highlighting the new mayor’s commitment to ethics. Allon also declined to provide a list of lobbyists who have met with the mayor so far.

“Even before he took office, Mayor Adams made clear that everyone in his administration would be held to the highest ethical standards, and that is exactly the kind of administration he has run since day one,” Allon said.

Literally de Blasio 2.0

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.