Wave of ethics scandals threatens to engulf Queens Library, and its leadership

PUBLISHED : FRI, 27 JUN 2014, 12:17 PM
UPDATED : SAT, 28 JUN 2014, 09:24 AM

Not even Councilmembers with former leadership posts at the corrupt Queens Library can reign in rampant public corruption at the troubled lending library

RELATED Sack them all : Bye-bye to Queens Library chief Tom Galante — and the board members who enabled his reign of greed (The New York Daily News) Queens Public Library trustees plan to remove Thomas Galante as director — then give him consulting job that pays $800G (The New York Daily News) Gov. Cuomo signs bill to reform operations at embattled Queens library system (The New York Daily News) City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer explodes at colleagues over charges he's too close to corrupt Queens Library President Thomas Galante (The New York Daily News)

Just hours after Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an emergency bill into law, giving Mayor Bill de Blasio and Queens Borough President Melinda Katz powers to remove from office the corrupt Trustees of the troubled Queens Borough Public Library, the Editorial Board of The New York Daily News published a scathing editorial, encouraging the mayor and the Queens beep to do exactly that. The Editorial Board wants the Queens Library Board of Trustees to be held accountable for the charges of corruption against the nonprofit's president, Thomas Galante. "De Blasio and Katz must sack all those who aided and abetted Galante and appoint top-notch replacements, who will open the library’s internal workings under him to full scrutiny before paying him a penny." Can the Queens Library survive this ethics and financial scandal ? Queens Library President Galante has seen his management of the lending library come under immense scrutiny once it was reported by The New York Daily News that he was earning nearly $400,000 per year, enjoying six-figure office renovations, and receiving other perks, including a reported $37,000 annual car allowance. Mr. Galante was seen as perversely milking the Queens Library dry at the same time that the lending library was laying off low-paid employees. A report in The New York Daily News indicated that the Queens Library has eliminated nearly 130 jobs over the past five years. Not even Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer, who formerly served in the leadership of the Queens Library, was able to hold his former colleagues accountable for the wave of ethics scandals that now threaten to engulf the Board Members of the troubled lending library. Queens residents don't know how the Queens Library can survive a scandal of these proportions if its nonprofit trustees failed to each of keep a check on its governance, administer "normal" compensation for its executives, propose and award construction contracts based on sound business judgement, and reasonably determine other perks, such as the awarding of car allowances. According to a report by a library watchdog group, the Queens Library is "currently under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and city Department of Investigation." Strategically-important community nonprofits in New York City, which have collapsed in recent years under governance and financial scandals, include the Bronx Community Pride Center and People of Color in Crisis, or POCC. The swift passage of the Queens Library reform bill through the corrupt state legislature and Gov. Cuomo's swift enactment shows that there is a way for Albany to clean up public corruption in New York State. Many New York City-based political bloggers and reform activists wonder why does one lending library in Queens receive this kind of rapid response, but the public corruption scandals playing out right now from City Hall all the way up to Albany get no immediate legislative attention at all.

With no effort at reform after past missteps, Dirk McCall keeps exploiting the broken political system

After separating from Gay Men's Health Crisis, Dirk McCall now works for Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr., in a post many see as a soft landing political operative post.

After separating from GMHC at the end of last year, Dirk McCall, former communications officer for GMHC, now works as the external affairs director for the office of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.

Mr. McCall was the former executive director of the now-defunct Bronx Community Pride Center. The Bronx center closed following Mr. McCall's stint as executive director after a prior executive director, Lisa Winters, was accused of stealing more than $143,000 from the non-profit. Prior to that, Mr. McCall worked as a campaign operative for several politicians, and he was a former president of the Stonewall Democratic Club, the city's largest LGBT political organization. Prior to that, Mr. McCall worked for the shady real estate lobbyist, James Capalino. Given Mr. McCall's career pattern with many of Manhattan's permanent government insiders, he has learned the ropes of what it means to protect the broken political system from community demands for reform. Because no matter how many "change" elections New Yorkers vote for, or how many "progressive" campaign promises that voters hear, the New York City government keeps on working only for permanent government insider-operatives, their lobbyists, and the clients of those lobbyists.

Mr. McCall's post with Borough President Diaz allows Mr. McCall to remain firmly ensconced within other permanent government insider-operatives in New York City, inspite of his uneven record.

When he worked at GMHC, Mr. McCall once attended a meeting with representatives of the Harlem Ballroom community. Ballroom activists were upset that GMHC was, among other complaints, appropriating Ballroom culture in New York City for its own financial gain, at the expense of Ballroom houses and their artistic members. Mr. McCall did nothing to resolve Ballroom community concerns, leading Ballroom activists to call for Mr. McCall's ouster from GMHC. To this day, the Ballroom community views GMHC with distrust over the way agency officials, including Mr. McCall, disrespected the Ballroom community. One sign of that distrust was expressed when the Ballroom community called for a boycott of GMHC's Latex Ball last year. Mr. McCall's separation from GMHC followed years of controversies at the agency, including how the agency wasted so much money on fundraising expenses in connections with its annual AIDS Walk event and how the agency lost so much money on a controversial move to new office space. Despite the controversies that many viewed to be mistakes by former GMHC CEO Marjorie Hill, Mr. McCall never demonstrated autonomous leadership by showing a different vision for the agency. Instead, as criticism piled up on Ms. Hill for the agency's financial losses, Mr. McCall reportedly arranged for Ms. Hill to receive an award from the Winter Pride gala organized by the Queens Pride Committee. At times, he appeared to be working as Ms. Hill's personal publicist rather than for fighting to serve the agency's best interest. At GMHC, Mr. McCall's philosophy was go along to get along.

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In-between Mr. McCall's stints in political posts, some government reform activists question whether Mr. McCall uses his jobs with LGBT community groups as temporary jobs until he gets another political post. When government reform activists try to build support amongst community groups to press elected officials for reforms, the reason why some community groups refrain from building public pressure for reform may be that these community groups are populated by political operatives trying to maintain good networking relationships with elected officials. Political operative-insiders, who work in the non-profit world, are always on the look-out for opportunities to land another well-paying and prestigious political appointment.

And now, after years of cultivating an expansive network of relationships across political and LGBT community groups, Mr. McCall is using those connections to prop up the political career of Borough President Diaz. The political motivations behind this partnership are unclear.

That Mr. McCall keeps bouncing back, no matter how corrupt the finances of community groups like the Bronx Community Pride Center and GMHC are shown to be, is a testament to how the broken political system keeps rewarding political insiders, who know to leave well enough alone. Like a cat jumping off of a hot tin roof, Mr. McCall always lands on his feet.

Mr. McCall is safe at his new post all the way up in The Bronx as this year's AIDS Walk continues to show that GMHC is having trouble turning itself around. The agency's chief fundraiser resigned after the year-to-year cash inflows from AIDS Walk appear to be collapsing. Critics of Mr. McCall don't fault him for making mistakes like any human, but, rather, for the long string of mistakes that leave the LGBT community and voters having to pick up the pieces left by selfish political operative-insiders. So long as critical community groups that underpin the LGBT community in New York City keep hiring from the same corrupt pool of permanent political insider-operatives, it shouldn't be too long before GMHC ends up like the Bronx Pride Community Center : closed.

The only glimmer of hope that government reform activists have is that in the last year, activists were able to oust Ms. Hill from her post at GMHC and former Council Speaker Christine Quinn from public office. There is a hunger within the community for deeper reforms. For New York City government and its key non-profit groups to embrace reforms, activists wonder whether the only way to bring about change is to continue pressing to oust permanent government insider-operatives, like Mr. McCall.