Assembly Member Barbara Clark has died

From the Times Ledger:

State Assemblywoman Barbara Clark (D-Queens Village), who represented parts of southeast Queens, died at the age of 76 Monday night, a representative from her district office said. The cause of death was not immediately known.

Clark had been serving the 33rd Assembly District since 1986. The district includes Cambria Heights, St. Albans, Queens Village, Hollis and Bellerose.

She played a key role in converting Andrew Jackson HS into four small magnet high schools and served as a primary sponsor of the 1996 New York City Governance Law, which mandated parental involvement in school policy decision-making.

Clark also supported the plaintiff in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity vs. State of New York lawsuit, which resulted in a $5.5 billion increase in funding for city public schools and authored a bill to establish the age of 6 as the statutory age for full-time attendance in school.

Inspector General confirms that Creedmoor sale was shady

From the Queens Chronicle:

A scathing report issued by the New York State Inspector General’s Office blasts actions taken by the Indian Cultural and Community Center — and inaction by the New York State Dormitory Authority — in connection with the sale of more than four acres of property on the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center site in Queens Village.

The ICCC was before the city’s Board of Standards and Appeals on Tuesday in continuing its effort to construct a pair of nine-story towers on the property.

The project has been roundly opposed by residents, local elected officials, civic associations and Community Board 13.

The 18-page IG report found that “the ICCC exploited loopholes in the statute and lapses in oversight by the Dormitory Authority ... which was tasked with overseeing the transaction.”

The ICCC first proposed purchasing about 4.5 acres for the creation of a cultural and community center, an athletic field and parking spaces, a sale that went through in 2008 with the backing of Assemblywoman Barbara Clark (D-Queens Village), former state Sen. Frank Padavan and then-Assemblyman and current Councilman Mark Weprin (D-Oakland Gardens).

By the time the contract was signed, the ICCC was claiming it was allowed to build the two apartment towers, first proposing 126 units and now seeking 143.

The IG’s report states that Dormitory Authority officials negotiating the contract were ignorant of the Legislature’s intent on land use restrictions when making the deal; and that the ICCC representatives did nothing to fill the gap in the agency’s knowledge.

It also said the Legislature never placed the specific restrictions in the authorizing statute itself.

Queens Dems worked with Padavan on corrupt land deal

From the NY Post:

Members of the Indian cultural group, including Koshy and Sanu Thomas, went to Padavan and pitched a community center to hold “community activities and social gatherings,” including picnics, dances, weddings and holiday celebrations. They targeted two chunks of land on Creedmoor’s 98-acre campus and drew up plans.

So Padavan and then-Assemblyman Mark Weprin (D-Queens) rammed through separate legislation to OK the sale through a three-day message of necessity. That passed in July 2006. When the sale took longer than expected, Padavan and Weprin authored another bill in 2007 to extend the timetable for the sale by a year.

The group showered Padavan and Weprin with campaign contributions. Members donated at least $2,850 to Padavan and $2,510 to Weprin for his City Council and Assembly runs between 2000 and 2009. Group members also gave $1,600 to Assemblyman David Weprin (D-Queens), Mark’s brother, for his 2009 city comptroller bid. Sanu and Koshy Thomas shelled out the lion share of the group contributions.

Padavan, whose daughter-in-law is Indian-American, went on a crusade to get the land sold. He hounded state dormitory authorities to approve the deal without the usual attorney general review, according to state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Queens). Sale of state land is usually conducted through an auction to the highest bidder, or granted to public entities. Since 2006, the Creedmoor parcels were the only sale of state Dormitory Authority land to be pushed through with special legislation, according to state records.

Clark introduced a bill in January to grant the group roughly 6 acres to eliminate the state’s concerns about the patchwork of property. Last month, as the legislative year was winding down, she and Assemblyman Weprin visited Avella in his office and asked him to co-sponsor it. When he refused, she got downright “threatening,” Avella said, and later publicly slammed a “freshman senator” for not knowing his place. Clark then went to Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) to co-sponsor a bill, which he did last month.

Local civic associations are up in arms over the development’s monstrous apartment buildings, which are slated for area seniors. The towers are too tall for the area’s zoning, and the group is trying to get a variance by using obscure examples from those granted in the dense sections of the South Bronx.

It’s not a difficult to see, in Sanu Thomas, the beginnings of a New York politician in the mold of Pedro Espada or Vito Lopez. Espada started a non-profit health clinic in The Bronx, then, when elected to office, steered millions in contracts to it, enriching himself. He will now stand trial for embezzlement.

If the Indian Culture and Community Center gets its land, it could be a low-cost way for Thomas to have a non-profit that “gives back to the community” while it potentially pays his friends and cultivates voters that put him on the City Council or in state government. Decades from now, will Sanu Thomas be steering taxpayer “member items” to these groups?

Thomas already has learned one lesson of New York politics. Any criticism is not motivated by the misuse of public funds, or suspicion about private deals, but racism.

More on the sweetheart land deal

From the NY Post:

State leaders went out of their way to push through a controversial land deal -- which robbed taxpayers of millions of dollars -- to gain the favor of a politically powerful Indian church, sources said.

Former Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Queens) championed the sale of 4.5 acres of the old Creedmoor Hospital to the cash-poor Indian Cultural and Community Center, going so far as to hound state Dormitory Authority officials to OK the deal without the usual attorney general's review, state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Queens) claims.

"Why would you want to circumvent the normal contract-review process? Only if you want to hide something," charged Avella, who is pushing the AG's Office to investigate the fishy deal.

Padavan's 2006 legislation authorized the sale of the Queens psych-hospital parcel for $1.8 million, a fraction of its estimated market value of $7.3 million. The measure allows the Floral Park group to build a community center and apartment buildings.

Sale of state land is usually conducted through an auction to the highest bidder, or granted to public entities. Since 2006, the Creedmoor parcels were the only sale of state Dormitory Authority land to be pushed through with special legislation, according to state records.

This year, Assemblywoman Barbara Clark (D-Queens) shopped around another bill to sell the group roughly six more acres as they seek to erect 126 potentially lucrative apartments.

Padavan -- who lost a re-election bid last year -- and Clark received a combined total of $5,201 in campaign contributions from the cultural group's members, elections records show.

The nonprofit is led by a circle of increasingly powerful Queens and Long Island businessmen.

Honest graft attempt at Creedmoor

From the NY Post:

Two legislators who backed the 2009 sale of 4.5 acres of Creedmoor land to [The Indian Community and Cultural Center of Floral Park] - Assemblywoman Barbara Clark (D-Queens) and former Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Queens) - got thousands of dollars in campaign cash from its members, records show.

It was a great deal for the Cultural Center: The $1.8 million purchase price was a pittance compared to the property's estimated $7.3 million market value in 2010, city records show.

Now the Floral Park group is twisting state legislators' arms to push a deal for another six acres from the site. They plan to build an access road there to two giant nine-story apartment towers.

The Assembly passed a bill pushing the second sale on Wednesday. When Avella refused to sponsor the bill in the Senate, Clark persuaded Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-Queens) to back the idea instead. Smith introduced Senate legislation backing the second sale last week. But after getting furious letters about the land grab, Smith put the bill on hold.

Avella said Clark's insistence that he back the deal was borderline "threatening."
Group leaders and their family members delivered at least $2,351 in campaign cash to Clark last year. They've donated $2,850 to Padavan and $2,510 to Mark Weprin for his City Council and Assembly runs.

Weprin has also backed the development.

Democrats wanted, dead or alive

From City Hall News:

Twelve-term Assembly Member Barbara Clark is counting on her old friends Gloria Black and Warrington Canston, two state committee members from Clark’s district in Southeast Queens, to help her win another term in office this year. And she did not let the fact that both Black and Canston are apparently dead deter her from putting their names at the top of her petitions.

Clark’s opponent, Clyde Vanel, a 36-year-old lawyer and former candidate for City Council in 2009, filed a challenge to Clark’s petitions with the Queens Board of Elections last Thursday. He said Clark’s indifference toward the petition-gathering process speaks to a wider sense of apathy in the community he hopes to provoke with his candidacy.

“That’s just ridiculous,” Vanel said. “Barbara’s county committee people, a majority of them don’t even know that they’re on county committee. We’re fighting against something that has historically kept a majority of the community uninvolved and outside the process.”

“Is a dead person a Democrat?” he asked. “I don’t know.”

But Clark could end up skating by without much damage to her re-election efforts. According to the Board of Elections, while it may seem odd to include the deceased on a candidate’s petitions, the signatures that are collected are technically counted as separate for each person on them. Therefore, while the fact that they are deceased makes Black and Canston ineligible for the ballot, as long as Clark herself is living (which she is), there is no legal problem.

Another fake charity set up by a pol

From the NY Post:

Queens Assemblywoman Barbara Clark has steered hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer money to a charity she helped found, which spends a large portion of the money on rent, salaries, office expenses and tax penalties while operating as a vague "referral center."

The Community Care Development Project, which has taken in more than $1.9 million in city and state money since 1996, is supposed to help residents "avoid the bureaucratic obstacles which prevent them receiving immediate services."

That's the same help constituents can get at Clark's district office -- located only three doors down from the charity on Springfield Boulevard in Queens Village.

The lone employee at the referral center last week sent a reporter seeking help in finding a nursing home for a family member to Clark's office, saying the group did not provide that service.

Community Care acts as an intermediary in handing out taxpayer money to groups including the New York Junior Tennis League and Kickers Youth Sports Association as well as public schools, churches and Little Leagues.

Clark sponsored at least $481,500 in member-item money to Community Care from 2006 to 2009, with $209,500 going out to other organizations. The rest was used for salaries and office expenses.

Hearings and reports before hospitals close

From the Times Ledger:

A bevy of elected officials representing Queens at the city and state level gathered last week outside Jamaica’s Queens Hospital Center to call on Gov. David Paterson to sign a bill that would require the state to notify communities about hospital closings and plan more extensively for the fallout.

The bill, introduced by state Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Fresh Meadows), would force the state Health Department to hold public hearings in communities where hospitals were scheduled to be shuttered as well as produce a report on the impact of health care availability following the closures.

Hearings and reports? This is the crap these smiling fools came up with? That'll save a lot of lives...