Hotel homeless shelter in Queens tied to agent of the city community affairs commissioner

  

THE CITY

For months on end last year, residents protesting a planned homeless shelter in Queens struggled to get somebody — anybody — at Mayor Bill de Blasio’s City Hall to hear their argument that enough was enough.

The neighborhoods of Queens Community Board 3 — covering East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights and North Corona — already hosted four shelters, and several hotels within the district were temporarily housing homeless individuals during the pandemic.

Behind the scenes, LGA Hospitality LLC, the owners of the property, fought back, hiring a politically wired lobbyist firm, James Capalino Associates, to move the project along, obtain all required permits and roll over local resistance.

Today the shelter, located at 112-16 Astoria Boulevard near LaGuardia Airport, is scheduled to open soon, but local leaders are now hoping for a more sympathetic ear from de Blasio’s successor, Mayor Eric Adams. As Queens Community Board 3 Chairperson Frank Taylor put it, “We’re happy to have the new administration and we’re hopeful.”

There might be a problem with that.

The key portal to City Hall for neighborhood residents is the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit (CAU), the division within the Mayor’s Office that helps citizens and community boards navigate the city’s bureaucracy. CB3 worked with de Blasio’s CAU on the shelter issue and planned to do so with Adams’ team.

In January, however, Mayor Adams named as his new commissioner of CAU Fred Kreizman — one of the lobbyists who had been retained by the shelter builder, LGA Hospitality LLC, to seek support from City Hall.

“Wow,” Taylor said when told of Kreizman’s dual roles. “Anytime we’re going into these things, we’re apprehensive because of what has happened. We’ve not been listened to. The only thing we can do is that this administration, if that gentleman has that type of connection, what else can we do but fight? And let the community know why are Black and brown neighborhoods being overburdened with these shelters?”

NYC lobbyists profited from the pandemic and got even more access to city hall

 

NY Post

 The Big Apple’s lobbying industry proved to be nearly pandemic-proof last year despite the COVID-19 outbreak that ravaged New York City, new records show.

For months in 2020, most of the city was in lock down, with Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration and the City Council holding virtual meetings and hearings during the pandemic instead.

But well-connected, high powered lobbyists still found a way to rake in bundles of cash from wooing City Hall and the Council for their clients.

The lobbyists raked in $106.34 million in 2020 — just slightly less than $113.2 million in compensation during the 2019 pre-pandemic year, according to a new report from the City Clerk’s Office.

Leading the pack for the fourth consecutive year was Suri Kasirer’s lobbying firm — taking in $14.164 million, nearly matching the $14.3 million earned in pre-pandemic 2019.

One government watchdog wasn’t surprised.

“The seasoned, hot-wired lobbyists still get their phone calls returned. From a client’s perspective lobbyists are more important than ever,” said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

“The top, connected lobbyists can still wield their influence and charge clients the big bucks,” added Horner.

Suri Kasirer’s 32-member firm pressed the mayor and council to provide COVID-19 relief to the hard-hit restaurant and hotel industries. Her clients included ROAR — Relief for the Restaurant Industry — and the Hotel Association of NYC, which has been trying to get the city to defer property taxes and interest fees on hotels that are closed and not generating revenue.

Kasirer’s well-heeled client list also includes Northwell Health, Columbia Presbyterian and Mt Sinai hospital systems. Northwell had been pushing a controversial proposal to expand its Lenox Hill hospital on the Upper East Side, which is facing fierce neighborhood opposition.

The firm’s table of clients last year also included the Target Corporation, T-Mobile USA, IF Cornerstone, which owns part of the vacant Long Island City waterfront property where the aborted Amazon headquarters project was supposed to be located; Charter Communications, Comcast Cable, South Street Seaport, Sotheby’s, Columbia University, the Disney Company, and real estate powerhouses Two Trees Management the Related Company, SL Green Realty and Silverstein Properties; the Archdiocese of NY, Google, the anti-horse carriage group NY-CLASS, etc.

“We are pleased to continue to be the leading advocate in New York City, and are proud to support our clients as they work to reinvest in and rebuild New York as we emerge from the pandemic,” Kasirer said.

“This was a very tough year. This was a year from hell. My clients were struggling to deal with COVID.”

Lobbyist James Capalino’s firm was the second highest compensated firm with $9.9 million — down from $11.9 million in 2019, followed by Bolton-St. Johns, with $6.7 million.

The top ten lobbying firms also included Constantinople & Vallone (includes former Council Speaker Peter Vallone) $5,669,402.00; Pitta Bishop & Del Giorno $4,826,526.51; Greenberg Traurig, $4,571,504.20; Davidoff Hutcher & Citron, $3,240,421; Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver $3,198,924.84; Geto & de Milly Inc., $3,120,500; and CMW Strategies ( Connelly McLaughlin & Woloz), $3,104,899.92.

He must have thought that no one would find out

De Blasio solicited donations in exchange for meetings with major lobbyist’s clients but didn't report it - Daily News

De Blasio wanted donation from NYCLASS as group sought horse carriage ban - Daily News

De Blasio Defends Ethics As Critics Question Why Donors Paid Investigation Settlement Fines - CBS 2

Mayor de Blasio claims he can’t remember secret 2015 meeting with major lobbyist that led to $100G in donations - Daily News

Lobbyists basically run City Hall

From Politico:

As Mayor Bill de Blasio’s staff first learned to navigate the city’s vast bureaucracy, they sought regular help from an eager lobbying firm that had much to gain in return.

Commissioners and employees across city agencies solicited the advice of the firm Capalino + Company to shape policy, raise funds for events and answer technical questions on myriad aspects of municipal government, according to thousands of pages of emails reviewed by POLITICO New York.

The emails, obtained through a records request, show Capalino's stable of lobbyists was so entrenched in the minutiae of de Blasio's first term, they formed an unofficial, additional layer of government — sometimes instructing staffers how to do their jobs — all while advancing the interests of their paying clients.

Use of homeless hotels has doubled in 2 months

From the NY Post:

The number of homeless housed in hotels by the city has soared 50 percent in just two months – from 3,990 in July to 6,000 this month, The Post has learned.

The surge comes despite a pledge by Mayor de Blasio in February to “utilize hotels less and less and, as quickly as possible, to stop using hotels,” following the murder of a homeless woman and her two kids in a Staten Island hotel.

There were 2,656 homeless people in hotels at the time, with an average room cost of $161 per night.

The growing crisis has led to protests in parts of Queens, where residents have railed against the administration for plunking down homeless hotels with little notice.

There were 59,928 homeless individuals staying in shelters and hotels as of Thursday.

Emails obtained by The Post reveal that the surge in hotel use was predicted by de Blasio lobbying pal James Capalino, who in early 2015 questioned why the administration had enacted a moratorium on new “transitional” apartments for the homeless.

On Jan. 15, 2015 Capalino emailed then-Deputy Mayor Lilliam Barrios-Paoli to express concern that the Department of Homeless Services had been “told to suspend development of shelters/transitional residences,” even though he had clients ready to create them.

“Given that residences such as we are proposing are much more appropriate for housing families in transition than hotel rooms, etc., we believe that it makes sense for the city to create a pipeline of these projects (which will take 12-18 months to build) so that as they come on line, the less appropriate units that the city is now using can be ‘shed,’” Capalino wrote.

In response, Barrios-Paoli the moratorium. was temporary.

Neither Barrios-Paoli, who has left the administration, nor Capalino would comment on the exchange.

De Blasio dumps lobbyist

From the Daily News:

Mayor de Blasio said Tuesday he has cut ties with his longtime pal James Capalino, the mega-lobbyist at the heart of the pay-to-plan investigations swirling around City Hall.

Capalino, a long-time fixer who's risen to the top of the lobbyist heap during de Blasio's term, has represented several big-money developers seeking City Hall approval for their projects.

Capalino was the lobbyist who pressed top de Blasio officials to back luxury condos at a former Brooklyn hospital site at the same time he was writing big checks to de Blasio’s political causes.

Nope, no conflict here!

From the Daily News:

Mayor de Blasio's Campaign for One New York fund hit a trifecta on May 27, 2015 — courtesy of lobbyist extraordinaire James Capalino.

The group first received a $10,000 check from Capalino. That same day, identical checks arrived from two of the lobbyist’s deep-pocketed clients, RAL Development and Cipriani USA, for a total of $30,000.

And the very next day, Capalino was on the phone with the man himself — Mayor de Blasio.

Not bad for a guy who, as a lobbyist doing business with the city, is barred from giving more than $400 to a candidate per election.

The mayor’s website and Capalino insist the phone chat concerned a proposed (and ultimately failed) helicopter ban, and Capalino says donations to the mayor’s cause never came up.

Whether anything else came up remains a mystery as City Hall refuses to say whether notes of these lobbying chats exist.