Showing posts with label pay-to-play. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pay-to-play. Show all posts

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Progressives Make Pay-to-Play Deals In Council Speaker Race

Pay-to-Play in Council Speaker Race

"According to sources close to the situation, Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio has promised a number of committee leadership posts to City Council members in order to guarantee that Melissa Mark-Viverito is named Speaker come Jan. 8," The Queens Tribune reported today.

See : Committee Chairs Found Under The Christmas Tree (The Queens Tribune)

Three original members of the City Council Progressive Caucus, Julissa Ferreras (D-East Elmhurst), Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Woodside), and Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights), were reportedly offered leadership posts in exchange for supporting Ms. Mark-Viverito's speakership.

Ms. Ferreras would be named the Majority Leader, whilst Mr. Van Bramer would be named as chair of the Finance Committee, and Mr. Dromm would head the Education Committee.

The backroom deals that reportedly secured Ms. Mark-Viverito's speakership also included an offer to David Greenfield (D-Brooklyn) to head the Land Use Committee "as a means of swaying Brooklyn," The Queens Tribune report added. Committee chair assignments in the City Council come with annual bonuses called a payment in-lieu-of expenses, more commonly referred to as "lulus." Lulus can range from $4,000 to over $20,000.

See : Corrupt Lulu Payments (The New York Daily News)


What Makes The Committee Assignment Offers An Example Of Pay-to-Play ?

It’s the votes that the City Council members must “pay” to select Ms. Mark-Viverito as the next speaker in exchange for receiving the lulus that come with the committee chair assignments.

The quid pro quo is revealed in the threat that was reported in The Queens Tribune, namely, that "If you're not with them, you're not getting a committee" assignment and the lulu that comes with it. This is what makes it pay-to-play.

Granted, we don't normally think that the inducements involved in securing the votes of City Council members as pay-to-play, but when players are told that the "price of admission" is framed as a vote for a Council speaker candidate, that's another way to examine the speaker candidate votes in order to receive plum Council committee assignments and lulus.


That these Council leadership posts, and the valuable lulus that come with them, are being doled out in backroom deals proves that some amongst the next class of powerful Council leaders will owe their allegiance directly to the mayor, betraying democratic principles of separation of powers and checks-and-balances between the mayor's office and the municipal legislature.

In years past, it was widely reported that the out-going Council speaker, Christine Quinn, awarded (or withheld) Council leadership posts as a way to recompense her allies (or to punish her critics). Speaker Quinn defended this practise as a way to bring "discipline" to the City Council, which was code for being able to exert the power to single-handedly control the Council's legislative agenda. The use of committee assignments and lulus as inducements to support a Council speaker candidate would appear to be a continuation of corruptive coercion over City Council members. Speaker Quinn's own ascension to power was clouded by the influence of lobbyists and special interest groups, including County Democratic bosses, compounded by the distribution of Council leadership posts and lulus.

See : The Outsider Comes In (The Village Voice)

See also : Filling Committee Leadership Posts (The New York Times)

Much of this was documented in Chapter 8 of Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn.

The political ethic of progressivism is supposed to be about delivering reforms, not exploiting the possibility of pay-to-play. Indeed, The Queens Tribune report indicated that City Council members were being pressured into supporting Ms. Mark-Viverito's speakership. "If you're not with them, you're not getting a committee," one source told The Queens Tribune. The campaign promises by this bunch of progressives to administer the city differently from the outgoing administration are about as credible at this point as Speaker Quinn's recent protestations that she had remained faithful to her progressive roots. If there is any difference, it is that the next class of elected officials is already selling out, before they even take their oaths of office.

Left unsaid is whether these latest allegations of pay-to-play will lend urgency to other investigations into possible violations of campaign finance and ethics regulations connected to Ms. Mark-Viverito and to the lobbyists working on her speakership campaign.

Conflicts of Interests, Violations of Ethics : Clash of the Titans in the Fight to Select the Next Council Speaker

The ''Clash of the Titans'' to select the next speaker between the Democratic County bosses and their lobbyists vs. the new ''progressives'' and their lobbyists is escalating. Ms. Mark-Viverito is now threatening to fire all central Council staff that have loyalties to the Democratic County Bosses. Isn't this a violation of civil service regulations ?

See : Melissa Mark-Viverito Lobbyist Firm Never Quit, Continued Lobbying Despite Investigations

See Also : Exploiting NYC, NYS Campaign Finance Law Loopholes

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

U.S. Attorney Bharara is Being Pressed to Help Uncover Corruption

What Happen to the BOE Machine Count Due Out Sunday Night ? Where Is the City Council Hearing On the Missing Vote Count ?

Preet Bharara Begs the New Media Companies to Do What the Old Media Has Not Done, Investigate Corruption

From True News From Change NYC :

Bharara: New Media End NYC's Journalism of Sheep

  • Public corruption, based on all evidence, appears rampant,” Bharara told the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption at its first public hearing. “And the ranks of those convicted in office have swelled to absolutely unacceptable levels.” \Earlier in the day, Bharara’s office moved to take away the pensions of state officials convicted of corruption. The office filing seeks to include pensions as part of the property It comes in the case against state Sen. Malcolm Smith (D-Queens), who stands accused of scheming with officials in New York City and Rockland County to raise funds for his one-time attempt to switch parties and run for mayor as a Republican. Letting felons collect state pensions is a “a galling injustice that sticks in the craw of every thinking New Yorker,” Bharara planned to say Tuesday night in a speech before Gov. Cuomo’s new anti-corruption Moreland Commission.
  • Bharara planned to say Tuesday night in a speech before Gov. Cuomo’s new anti-corruption Moreland Commission. * Preet Bharara hopes for more muckraking in Albany (Capital New York) Albany has been fertile ground for investigative journalists in recent years, with two governors embroiled in ethical woes, and a number of legislators either indicted or forced to resign. With each press outlet that closes or downsizes, opportunities to ferret out fraud and waste and abuse are lost.
  • Preet Bharara: “fresh news outlets like BuzzFeed … bent on doubling down on political investigations will provide grist” 4 corruption probe Bharara, SDNY US Atty, bullish on @buzzfeed, @politico/@ capitalnewyork, & new @WashingtonPoint, in testimony tonight to Moreland Commission * In testimony, Bharara laments loss of investigative journalists, and puts high hope in new outlets and revived old. * Bharara says pensions of corrupt officials should be tapped (Capitol Confidential) * U.S. Attorney To Commission : Political Corruption Is Out Of Hand In N.Y. State (WCBS)
  • While Bharara Was Speaking Last Night At the Moreland Commission Hearing This Is What the Political Director of the Times Was Tweeting :


Carolyn Ryan Update

SIDE BAR : Is it me, or do other folks agree that Carolyn Ryan doesn't get it ? Do you think she never will ? She reminds me of some of the people, who I saw promoted at my last job, who were given supervisory roles, because they were dumb or were known to fold, and they could be counted on to let the power players have their way.

It's in a lot of powerful people's best interests to install a weak link in a powerful post, so that the powerful people can run roughshod over the system. Having somebody disconnected from the serious problem of corruption be installed as the politics editor of The New York Times sure seems to help propagate corruption. Imagine their delight at the prospect of installing Ms. Ryan as executive editor of The New York Times ?

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Rudin Corrupt St. Vincent's Luxury Condo Deal Caused Intern To Quit Christine Quinn Mayoral Campaign

The $30,000 in campaign donations, which Rudin Management Company funneled to New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn before the New York City Council had to vote on the luxury condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's Hospital, so disgusted an intern, that he quit Christine Quinn's mayoral campaign.

Ed May 1, 2013 at 9:43 AM
I was an intern for christine quinn and this post prompted me to quit, I really appreciate you getting the truth out

Friday, January 25, 2013

Quinn uses NYPD to Block Protesters (Again) (No Surprise)

During a peaceful and legal protest against the mayoral campaign of New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, NYPD officers used physical force to attempt to move protesters off of a wide public sidewalk and onto the other side of the street. When we refused and maintained our right to free assembly, they used the bodies to block us from distributing leaflets.

Are the NYPD blocking anti-Quinn protesters again, because she has agreed to retain Ray Kelly as Police Commissioner ?

Speaker Quinn has become emboldened ever since she overturned term limits, got away with using millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars in an illegal slush fund, weakened the campaign finance laws, and used major real estate projects to extract campaign donations from developers in a system that many describe as a "pay-to-play" culture. Now, she is using the NYPD as her own private army. The impression that Mayor Mike Bloomberg has influenced her is an understatement.

Because of her record of corruption, activists are basically waiting for Speaker Quinn to be caught in more scandals, before the mayoral election this year.

The protest last night took place at a "housing debate" in Brooklyn.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Rudin Gets Zoned Up ; Hospitals Get Closed Down

2011-11-30 Bill Rudin St Vincents Hospital City Planning Commission Hearing

Transcript of shady City Planning Meeting officiated by Amanda the People's Burden in possible/developing pay-to-play scandal, after Bill Rudin and his family donated almost $30,000 to City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to look the other way, so that Rudin Management Company could harvest the real estate assets of St. Vincent's Hospital for pennies on the dollar.