Council Member's campaign workers charged with fraud

From the Daily News:

Three former campaign workers for Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo were officially charged with fraud Wednesday.

Betty Julien, Elbin Lopez and Luis Vargas were quietly arrested Tuesday night — eight months after being accused by the elected official of forging signatures for her reelection petitions.

The trio of hired staffers were fingered by the Councilwoman after volunteers for her primary challenger, Julio Pabon, noticed names such as Derek Jeter Jr. and Kate Moss on the rolls.

“I thought this was all behind me,” said Lopez, 49, looking dazed as he left the courtroom.

Arroyo, who went on to win both the primary and general elections, was nearly booted from the ballot for lack of legitimate signatures.

A staggering 81% of the 3,339 signatures filed by the campaign were deemed invalid.

After accusations of fraud were filed against Arroyo by a lawyer for Pabon’s campaign, the councilwoman claimed she and her mother, Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, were the first to notice page after page of forgeries in the petitions.

“We have concluded that they falsified these documents,” Arroyo said during a Board of Elections hearing in July. The Councilwoman added that the only thing she thought she was guilty of was “trusting people too much.”

Tweeding in Bronx Council race

From the NY Post:

One of the biggest winners in the City Council race involving Bronx Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo was her son, public records show.

Ricardo Aguirre Jr. scored more than $55,000 working as a campaign consultant for Arroyo’s campaign between March 2012 and October 2013.

The hefty payout consumed half of the $102,256 in private funds raised by the third-term Democrat, who was also awarded more than $64,000 in public matching grants.

“The $55,000 was paid to the son for record-keeping compliance, and it’s been publicly disclosed,” said Arroyo aide Michael Drezin.

He said the 30-year-old is on contract with the campaign through Dec. 31.

The city’s Campaign Finance Board forbids family members and their spouses from being paid with public funds — but otherwise allows them to be on campaign payrolls.

Arroyo reclaimed her council seat handily, beating challenger Julio Pabon 69 to 31 percent in the Democratic primary. She won the general election with 93 percent of the vote.

“It would be up to the voters to weigh in on such expenditures, admittedly a hard thing to do in a non-competitive race,” said Gene Russianoff of the New York Public Interest Research Group.

City Council actually says no to a developer

From the Daily News:

A Bronx property owner is going to have to trim two stories off the top of his Southern Blvd. building now that the City Council rejected his bid for a zoning exception.

Now, the fate of 57 families who are being sheltered in the controversial and squalid building appears to be up in the air.

“Maybe now, we’ll be relocated to someplace decent instead of this rathole,” said Kevin Sanford, 49, who lives on the sixth floor.

The building owner, Julius Ausch, started trying to legalize the eight-story building — which is two floors taller then permitted — in response to a loud outcry this summer over his alleged disregard for local laws.

The Council rejection disregarded an earlier okay by the City Planning Commission, in August, that appeared to give Ausch the green light.

“The overbuild of the facility was not done in error, but done intentionally in order to maximize the number of homeless families the facility could accommodate,” Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo wrote in a letter to the Council’s zoning committee.

The decision caps months of rallying by Bronx officials and residents, who have called the building’s living conditions “deplorable.”

Tenants have complained of rodents, leaks and shoddy workmanship in the building, which is run by the non-profit New Hope Transitional Housing.

Arroyo and local community board leaders have also questioned why the shelter has been allowed to operate without valid paperwork since last year.

Council members surprised kids don't take gym in school

From the Daily News:

City Council members Monday grilled the city’s health commissioner over Mayor Bloomberg’s planned supersized-soda ban, with one arguing that restoring cut gym classes would be a better way to combat obesity.

By the city’s estimate, about 40% of public school students are overweight or obese — part of the evidence the Bloomberg administration cites as justification in its latest push to reverse the obesity trend.

Yet as city lawmakers from two committees quizzed city Health Commissioner Thomas Farley, Brooklyn Councilman Domenic Recchia said his children don’t get required physical education in city schools.

In fact, when the city controller’s office reviewed 31 elementary schools last year, it found that none offered physical education classes required under state law.

“If obesity is so important, why is gym being cut?” Recchia asked.

Are these people serious? The City Council funds the construction of school extensions which are built on top of schoolyards and knows that gyms are subdivided into classrooms and then they wonder out loud why kids aren't exercising in school? These people are the problem, not the solution.

And check out these same council members stuffing their faces with junk food during a hearing about banning soda...

Fresh Direct deal under fire

From the Daily News:

Two months after the Bloomberg administration approved $82 million in subsidies for the company to move to the South Bronx, two City Council members have asked the Cuomo administration to halt the deal.

Melissa Mark-Viverito and Maria del Carmen Arroyo want Albany to delay the move pending an audit of the Harlem River Rail Yards, the state-owned, privately-controlled waterfront site where FreshDirect plans to build its new headquarters.

"We need greater transparency," Mark-Viverito said Tuesday.

The city, state and the Bronx have already committed about $120 million to the online grocer, with some caveats, but the Cuomo-controlled Empire State Development Corp. has yet to approve an additional $9 million. It expects to vote on the grant this summer.

"We are concerned that this property has been and continues to be used in a manner that is causing severe harm to the residents of the South Bronx and that undermines nearly two decades of rezoning and development," the councilwomen wrote in a May 3 letter to Joan McDonald, state Department of Transportation commissioner.

When Harlem River Yard Ventures leased the site from the state DOT in 1991, the company vowed to develop a new rail system that would reduce local truck traffic.

But Mark-Viverito and Arroyo claim it has done the opposite, inking subleases with heavy truck users such as FedEx, the New York Post and now FreshDirect.

Honest graft in the Bronx

From the NY Post:

Bronx Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, who has been identified as a target of an ongoing Department of Investigation corruption probe, collected $8,000 in campaign donations from executives at Eastmond Corp., the same firm that federal prosecutors say paid Seabrook $50,000 to win a Yankee Stadium contract, according to campaign finance records.

Even though the company was virtually blacklisted after the Mayor's Office of Contracts Services issued two "cautionary" advisories about its questionable activities, Arroyo publicly has gone to bat for it.

Arroyo -- who funneled more than $80,000 to her nephew's nonprofit group only to see him indicted last year for embezzlement -- helped get a corner of Leggett Avenue in The Bronx renamed after Eastmond's founder, Arlington Leon Eastmond, in 2008.

Campaign records show that his son, Arlington Leon Eastmond Jr., the current president of the boiler company, donated the maximum amount of $2,750 to Arroyo's campaign last year. Two people listed as affiliates of the firm also donated: Tyren Eastmond, manager of the company, gave her $2,750 and Robert Reyes, listed on the company's Web site as a former manager, gave her $2,500.

DOI ain't done yet!

From the Daily News:

Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, whose nephew Richard Izquierdo was indicted on charges of looting nonprofit groups she funded, hid behind a wall of aides and security officers as she entered and left the Council.

"I have no comment, no matter what you ask," Arroyo said.

From the NY Post:

City Council members and staffers yesterday predicted that Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo could be the next member of their body indicted in an ongoing "slush fund" probe that just snared fellow Bronx Democrat Larry Seabrook.

"Everybody I spoke to today thought she was next," said one council member, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Another said, "Everybody's speculating [about Arroyo]. There's lots of talk."

And a third council member noted that after Seabrook's arrest on federal charges Tuesday, city Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said the probe is not over.

Arroyo, who refused to answer questions yesterday, is a member of a powerful political family whose members have close and complicated ties to several nonprofit groups that have received taxpayer funds at the behest of her and her mother, state Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo.

Well isn't this special?

From PolitickerNY:

One little-noticed result of last night's primary: the grandson of Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo who was charged with embezzlement earlier this year was just elected as a delegate to the judicial convention.

Richard Izquierdo Arroyo defeated Linda Duke for the position, which is unpaid but would help decide the Democratic Party's picks for Supreme Court judgeships in the Bronx. Delegates are elected by Assembly district.

Photo from Daily News.

Heat lamps turned up on Council

From the Daily News:

Hours after Councilman Miguel Martinez admitted being a thief, prosecutors and investigators emphasized their inquiry into City Council slush money was far from over.

Already on their radar screen is Bronx Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo.

Like Martinez, Arroyo funneled hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars from the slush fund into a nonprofit controlled by relatives.

The relative was her nephew, Richard Izquierdo, and the nonprofit was the South Bronx Community Corp. Last month Izquierdo was arrested for stealing money from an SBCC affiliate.

The charges included using funds from the nonprofit to pay for flights to Puerto Rico and other warm locales for Arroyo and her mother - and Izquierdo's grandmother - Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo.

Izquierdo also had the nonprofit supply a new floor for the assemblywoman's Bronx office, a criminal complaint said.

City Council spending spree

From the NY Post:

Despite the Big Apple's fiscal crisis, City Council members went on a spending spree with taxpayer money last year, snatching up expensive furniture, flashy electronics, wedding invitations and a bizarre order of school supplies.

A Post review of the council's expense reports at Staples and J&R, where city lawmakers have tax-free business accounts, revealed a slew of unusual purchases for the 10 months from July 2008 through May 2009.

In one of the more peculiar purchases, Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo (D-Bronx) spent $1,176 on school supplies, including 162 glue sticks, 95 boxes of crayons, 200 rulers and 10 easels.

She bought the goods from Staples at the start of the school year, but her spokeswoman insisted the supplies were kept in the office to occupy the kids of constituents who visit. None of her 50 council colleagues made similar purchases.

She also spent $186 on junk food, like Twizzlers and muffins, and $105 on Tylenol.

Relative of Assemblymember and Councilmember arrested for embezzlement

From the NY Post:

The nephew of a Bronx City Councilwoman and his associate were arrested today for stealing federal money from a non-profit to go on an expensive shopping spree, pay for trips to Puerto Rico and donate to political campaigns, the Department of Investigation charged today.

Richard Izquierdo, the nephew of City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo and the grandson of Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, and his business partner Margarita Villegas were charged with embezzling $200,000 from the South Bronx Community Corp., a non-profit that helps low-income disabled and elderly tenants, DOI said.

They also are accused of spending $48,000 on travel expenses, including trips for the councilwoman; $34,000 on car rentals and $5,500 on florists.

They used the non-profit's money to make campaign contributions to the councilwoman's mother, Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo (D-Bronx) and paid $3,800 to install floors in her district office.

So why haven't the pols been arrested, too?

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