Governor Kathy Clown made Contractor Gadget a multi-millionaire

 

Times Union

 One New York City family, led by entrepreneur Charlie Tebele, has donated nearly $300,000 to Gov. Kathy Hochul’s campaign.

Records also show that since December, Tebele's company was paid $637 million in taxpayer funds to provide the state Department of Health — an agency controlled by Hochul — with at-home COVID-19 test kits. The huge expenditure was made without the agency conducting competitive bidding.

Tebele is the longtime owner of Digital Gadgets LLC, a New Jersey-based wholesaler of hoverboards and other electronic devices that sells its wares to companies like the home shopping network QVC. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020, the company pivoted to supplying medical equipment, and began landing major government contracts in New York. Though Digital Gadgets has not always delivered as promised, it has continued to reap major government payments, while the family has kept donating heavily to select politicians.

The $637 million from the Department of Health began on  Dec. 30, and the agency made 239 separate payments through March 25 to Tebele's company, according to state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli's OpenBookNY website.

The website, however, provides no record of a formal contract being signed between Digital Gadgets and the Department of Health. Jennifer Freeman, a spokeswoman for DiNapoli's office, said that no such contract existed: The Department of Health entered into "purchase orders" instead with the company, she said.

"These purchase orders did not come to (DiNapoli's office) for review and approval," Freeman said.

On Nov. 26, Hochul had signed an executive order declaring a new COVID-19 state of emergency and suspending certain aspects of state finance law. The order suspended competitive bidding for certain contracts as well as the normal contract review and approval process conducted by DiNapoli's office, which oversees state government spending.

As the pandemic has subsided and surged, Hochul has extended the executive order on a monthly basis; its current expiration date is Aug. 13.

Avarice by the sea

 

Queens Eagle

A group of more than a dozen Arverne by the Sea homeowners are under investigation for  illegally renting out their homes while collecting approximately $1 million in tax exemptions, the Department of Investigation said this week.

A Department of Investigation report, issued Feb. 8, includes 11 recommendations to expand city oversight and prevent violations following the investigation into a 2018 complaint.

The DOI found that there were 15 homeowners in violation of the primary residence requirement; eight used the properties as rentals or investment properties — one as a hotel that was registered with the city to collect occupancy tax — and four who each owned one property and used them as rentals instead of living there.

There were 11 homeowners with multiple Arverne by the Sea deeds.

According to the DOI, they “were in violation of primary residence requirements by illegally renting their properties while being unjustly enriched by tax exemptions meant for owner-occupied homes.”

The apartments were designated in the early 2000’s as an Housing Preservation and Development Urban Development Action Area Project with a 20-year property tax exemption to homeowners requiring they maintain the homes as their primary residences.

Impunity City 

You wouldn’t think if you looked at them on first impression, but these beautiful beach front houses are actually government sanctioned public housing…

 These Arverne homes are actually impeccably designed, a bulk of them even have patios on the top floors which resemble something like penthouse condos like on Miami and Venice Beaches  with gorgeous views of the Atlantic Ocean and somewhat pleasant views of Jamaica Bay and the poorer parts of Rockaway Beach, where there at least three public housing projects in the same neighborhood.

 You don’t have to be much of a detective to figure out why these 15 motherfuckers took advantage of a government housing program and made millions off it while getting tax breaks and write-offs for nearly a decade. It doesn’t take much sleuthing to figure out why these homes were easily poached for illegal renting and airbnb lodging and why some nefarious scumbags would conspire to take advantage of this government housing program and try to make massive profits from it.All it took was a casual bike ride around this sunny oasis of pirated housing equity, it’s gets real plain to see why some nefarious scumbags would try to take advantage of this government housing program and try to make massive profits from it. Bookending this HUD financed utopian village are two massive vacant lots, one of which is still a landfill.

 

Homeless services provider CEO that almost got the contract to run Trump's golf course makes a million a year profiting from the housing insecure

 

NY Times 

Some executives at nonprofit groups that operate New York City homeless shelters are benefiting from the plight of the people they serve.

Soon after Jack A. Brown III quit his job at a private prison company, his former employer accused him of fraud. A few years later, after Mr. Brown started a nonprofit to run halfway houses, a federal audit found that it had failed to deliver key services. The New York State comptroller concluded in another review that Mr. Brown had shown “a disturbing pattern of ethical violations.”

None of that history seemed to bother officials in New York City.

Since 2017, as homelessness has risen to record levels, the city has awarded more than $352 million to a nonprofit run by Mr. Brown to operate shelters. The money is meant to help homeless people regain their footing in life, but it has benefited Mr. Brown, too.

The nonprofit has channeled contracts worth at least $32 million into for-profit companies tied to Mr. Brown, allowing him to earn more than $1 million a year, The New York Times found. Millions more have gone to real estate companies in which he has an ownership interest. He has also hired his family members and given employees perks such as gym memberships and cars.

 When Mayor Bill de Blasio came into office, he criticized a small group of landlords for charging the city exorbitant rates to house people in squalid rooms while doing little to curb homelessness. In 2017, the mayor pledged to open dozens of new shelters that would be managed by nonprofit groups. Their mission, he said, would be altruistic rather than driven by financial gain.

But four years after that change and an extraordinary infusion of city spending, homeless people still crowd shelters and set up camps on the street, while a new group of operators has figured out how to make money off their plight.

An investigation by The Times, based on hundreds of pages of legal filings, business records and tax documents, as well as interviews with homeless people, city officials and shelter employees, found that under the cloak of charity, executives at nonprofits have collected large salaries, spent their budgets on companies that they or their families controlled and installed relatives in high-paying jobs.

One landlord started a nonprofit that handed out millions of dollars to real estate and maintenance companies that he and his family owned. A Bronx shelter operator was charged earlier this year with laundering kickbacks through a consulting company run by his family. A former board member of another homelessness organization is under criminal investigation after the city said the group paid millions of dollars to a web of for-profit entities he secretly oversaw.

For years, Mr. Brown has personally prospered by running an organization to help the homeless.

In addition to serving as the chief executive of the nonprofit he founded, CORE Services Group, Mr. Brown started a security guard company that polices his shelters, a maintenance company that makes repairs in them and a catering company that feeds the residents, records showed. Mr. Brown heads each of them, collecting total compensation that tops $1 million. He is the highest-paid shelter operator in New York, according to a review of available records.

(This guy is the Jeff Bezos of homeless shelters-JQ LLC)

In one year alone, the for-profit companies that Mr. Brown ran spent more than $460,000 on gym memberships for employees, records showed.

Mr. Brown, 53, has profited in other ways: Along with partners, he owns two companies that have rented buildings to CORE, and his mother, sister, aunt and niece have all worked at the nonprofit, in addition to his brother, who has collected a six-figure salary.

At the same time, residents at one of the largest shelters in Mr. Brown’s operation, Beach House in Queens, said they lived with vermin infestations, creeping mold and violent fights in the hallways.

“A lot of money is going into this place,” said Annabelle Alexander, who lived in the Beach House shelter for more than a year before moving out last week. “But it’s not going to us.”

State and federal laws prohibit nonprofit organizations from engaging in many types of self-dealing, the practice of executives benefiting personally from their organizations without proper disclosure. But the line between permissible transactions and illegal behavior can be hazy, and nonprofit executives are rarely prosecuted for financial abuses.

In fact, executives at the groups that run shelters in New York are permitted to run profitable side businesses — all fueled by city money — as long as they reveal the information to the city and follow contracting rules.

This year, the city has directed $2.6 billion to nonprofits to operate homeless shelters, and officials already know they have a problem with some of them. Nine of the 62 groups that run shelters are on an internal city watch list for issues that include conflicts of interest and financial problems, according to records reviewed by The Times. All of them continue to receive city funding.

THE CITY 

A leading homeless shelter operator has pulled out from a deal to take over a Bronx public golf course after the Trump Organization exits the links at Mayor Bill de Blasio’s demand.

“CORE Services Group, Inc. has decided to withdraw from consideration,” an attorney for the Brooklyn-based nonprofit wrote in an email to executives with the city Department of Parks and Recreation and the golf course operator Bobby Jones Links on Wednesday.

THE CITY exposed CORE’s unlikely involvement Monday, after public records revealed Parks’ proposed 13-year deal to put a company registered by CORE CEO Jack A. Brown in charge of the deluxe Jack Nicklaus-designed 18-hole course near the Whitestone Bridge.

“We are disappointed that we are unable to move forward with this project at this time and help bring workforce training and jobs to communities in New York City that are underrepresented in the sport of golf,” a spokesperson for CORE, which has $544 million in current contracts for family and single adult shelters, said in a statement.

“We will continue our work breaking barriers and creating new opportunities for all New Yorkers.”

Asked Tuesday morning about THE CITY’s report on the future of the Trump Golf Links at Ferry Point, de Blasio said that CORE would be “only working on some of the staffing. It is not the organization that’s operating the whole golf course.”

That organization, Parks officials said, will be Bobby Jones Links. Yet the Atlanta-based golf course operator has not responded to multiple inquiries from THE CITY and is not listed in any public records related to Brown’s company, Ferry Point Links LLC.

 

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.