Financial irregularities at the Corona-Elmhurst Center for Economic Development remain enshrouded in a mystery

With seemingly endless public corruption scandals in Queens, one goes overlooked

The Queens District Attorney, the State Attorney General, and the U.S. Attorney for New York's eastern district all look away as half a million dollars go unaccounted for A shuttered Queens-based non-profit, the Corona-Elmhurst Center for Economic Development, has never publicly accounted for its use of $500,000 in funding. The news Web site Progress Queens contacted various prosecutors, finding a wall of silence from local, state, and federal investigators. Are the political ties to high-ranking elected officials the reason no prosecutor wants to investigate the missing money ?

RELATED The collapse of the Corona-Elmhurst Center for Economic Development, a nonprofit partly organized by State Senator Jose Peralta, remains a mystery (Progress Queens)

Rep. Joseph Crowley asks DOJ to release information regarding vindictive prosecution of Lt. Daniel Choi

New York Congressman presses Department of Justice to answer Freedom of Information Act request

U.S. Representative Joseph Crowley (D-NY) wrote a letter to the staff of the U.S. Department of Justice, requesting that the agency answer a Freedom of Information Act request submitted last year.

The FOIA request was submitted on 30 April 2013 to obtain information about the Department of Justice's policy of aggressively prosecuting activists. One activist in particular, Lt. Daniel Choi, who led the charge to over turn the military's discriminatory policy known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," was the target of a "vindictive prosecution," according to a court finding. A pattern of others being targeted for their activism shows that some federal prosecutors may be overreaching in a deliberate campaign to punish activists.

• RELATED : FOIA Appeal Update Regarding the DOJ's ''vindictive prosecution'' of Lt. Daniel Choi

Lt. Choi's circumstances very visibly highlight questions about why the government chose to press federal charges against one of the nation's most visible LGBT civil rights activists. Lt. Choi's activism, sometimes involving direct action, was undertaken to end the military's discrimination against gays and lesbians in the U.S. Armed Forces. After the U.S. Congress acknowledged the harmful discrimination of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and repealed the policy, and after President Barack Obama signed the repeal into law, the government still prosecuted Lt. Choi as if he were a criminal, even though his activism was undertaken solely to advance social justice. Rep. Crowley's crucial letter to the Department of Justice comes as the FOIA request remains pending over nine months after its initial, formal filing. In December, the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP filed an appeal in support of the FOIA request after it had become apparent that the Department of Justice had constructively denied the FOIA request by refusing to provide any response.

2014-02-10 Rep Joseph Crowley Letter to DOJ - Lt Dan Choi FOIA Request by Connaissable

Here is the appeal filed in December by Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP :

2013-12-06 Lt Daniel Choi FOIA Appeal - Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP - Flores Louis by Connaissable

And here is the original FOIA request, formally filed last April :

2013-04-30 Lt Daniel Choi DOJ FOIA Request Louis Flores by Connaissable

Global Supermarket in Jackson Heights reopens, but union workers were not rehired

HAPPENING NOW : Protest at Global Supermarket in Jackson Heights ; owner fired all workers before Christmas. pic.twitter.com/lvLNyU96wK

— Bold Progress NYC (@boldprogressnyc) January 30, 2014

About 2 dozen union members, neighborhood residents, and members of Occupy Queens stood outside the new Global Supermarket at 75-07 37th Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens, to protest this morning the new supermarket owner, who refused to rehire former supermarket employees. The supermarket changed hands after the former owner, then operating under the name of Trade Fair, fired all of its employees and shut down right before Christmas in an ultimate act of union-busting against its employees.

Union employees at Trade Fair had been demanding better working conditions, and the supermarket had become the site of many demonstrations last year. Some of last year's demonstrations had even attracted mayoral candidates, including former Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who spoke at one protest last April :

Because the labor problems have dragged on from the previous owner to the successive owner at the Jackson Heights location, it was important to former Trade Fair employees that Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Queens) showed up this morning in a sign of solidarity with the former employees.

Some activists, including Congressman Crowley, distributed flyers, informing the community about the corrupt actions of the new supermarket owner. Other activists collected signatures on a petition, demanding that Global Supermarket rehire the former Trade Fair workers. Some of the former Trade Fair employees had been members of a local service union, Local 338 RWDSU/UFCW.

During this morning's protest, few neighbors walked in Global Supermarket. If local residents continue to express their disapproval with the new owner, perhaps the new owner will make the commercially-responsible decision : to rehire the former Trade Fair employees ? Otherwise, the store may fail anew -- and end up closed, for good.

Daniel Garodnick concedes ; Melissa Mark-Viverito Expected To Become Council Speaker

Or else, @BilldeBlasio offered sooooooo many perks and privileges that @DanGarodnick couldn't match ? @MichaelHwrdSaul

— Informed Voting (@informedvoting) January 8, 2014

• RELATED : Were possible coordination of independent expenditures and free gifts of lobbying services between The Advance Group, NYCLASS, the de Blasio mayoral campaign, and Councilmember Mark-Viverito's speakership race violations of federal laws ? Will the Moreland Commission investigate possible campaign corruption ? (The Advance Group Federal Complaint Referred To Moreland Commission * NYC : News & Analysis)

Quinn joins Cuomo in Lifeboat rushing to save sinking U.S.S. Crowley Party Boss

Holy Shit In The News : Quinn helps Queens make the case against Mark-Viverito

As one of my activists friends said, "This does NOT mean that Melissa Mark-Viverito is bad or that Garodnick is good." I want to add to that by saying : This is all about the great lengths that corrupt political insiders go to, to strike backroom deals to determine the who becomes selected to be the next Council speaker. In this insider race, the people have absolutely NO say. The same machinations that former Council Speaker Quinn is using, each of Mayor de Blasio and Councilmember Mark-Viverito are using. How is this making "progress" ? How is this consistent with ending the rubber-stamp City Council that we had during the Bloomberg-Quinn era ? All the people, who say, "Let's reform how we pick the Council speaker ‪#‎nexttime‬," you give former Council Speaker Quinn free license to do her shit right now. How is this ‪#‎winning‬ ? Me, I've lowered my expectations. Instead of hoping that people will come forward to make a demand for reforms, I'm just hoping that one side will get so desperate to win this Council speaker race that they will break so many laws that it will trigger a federal corruption investigation. We've got about 7 days to go. Let's see who gets burned ?

Quinn's involvement augments earlier reports that Gov. Andrew Cuomo was also answering Queens County Democratic Political Boss S.O.S. signal.

It would be one thing if the Queens County Democratic Party was moving in a truly reform direction vis-à-vis Mayor de Blasio and Councilmember Mark-Viverito, but that's not been explained. If the Queens County Democratic Party were going to serve as a check on the mayor's expansive influence over every corner of city government, that would be great. There's room for a populist check to emerge to balance the mayor's anticipated neoliberal bent, all his fake "progressive" talk notwithstanding. But it remains to be seen how the Queens machine "evolves" in a new political landscape, where the mayor has emerged to be so dominant.

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)

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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.

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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

Lobbyists Plan to Fix the 2013 Election For New York City Council Speaker

The Shifting Balance of Power in the NYC Council Speaker Race ; On One Side Are County Party Bosses and Big Business, On Other Side Are Lobbyists And Special Interests

The issues discussed at the docile City Council Speaker candidate forums have nothing to do with the backroom deals and the lobbyists jockeying to pick the next Council Speaker. The flood of money into politics from Citizens United is creating a "clash of the titans" between the County Political Bosses and Big Business, on one side, and Lobbyists and Special Interest Money, on the other. With campaign finance law failing to keep up with the changes in money in politics, the voters are being kept in the dark about the true way that the speaker is selected.

Election Big Loser Kathy Wylde, reports True News

Kathy Wylde had one job, and she blew it ! How long will she remain as head of the Partnership For New York City ?

(Revised : Thursday 7 Nov 2013 1:05 p.m.)

Beaten By The Working Families Party, The Flack For The 1% Kathryn Wylde Fights To Keep Her Job

CYA Statement from Wylde : “I keep telling my members that the Bloomberg era was an aberration,” said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a leading business group. “Bill captured the disconnect for many New Yorkers between the fact of the city’s prosperity and the reality of their lives in this increasingly unaffordable city.”

The election of Bill de Blasio and the take over by the Working Families Party has more to do with the city's corrupt election system and an elite media, which most New Yorkers no longer follow. In the past, the 1% made it possible with great schools, hospitals for the poor, and good jobs for the 99% of New Yorkers to move themselves and their children up the social and economic ladder. Most New Yorkers today face an economic crisis as big as the crime crisis of the 70's and 80's.

The change voters were looking for in the exit polls was good jobs, good educations for their children, and an affordable place to live. The job of the Partnership For New York City, which Kathryn Wylde has run for the last decade, was to keep that social contract the rich always had with the other New Yorkers. Wylde sat there in her fancy office and collected her fat pay check while her real estate partners pushed the city's poor and middle class out of New York. Wylde lunched with her rich partners at the city's best, trendy restaurants in Manhattan, while record high numbers of New Yorkers went without jobs. Wylde visited her friends penthouses on Park Avenue, where their children pay $50,000 for private schools, while most New Yorkers parents send their kids to failing schools, destroying their children's future. Wylde sold her rich and media partners that the way to keep her fellow looters in power was through Bloomberg's puppet, Speaker Christine Quinn. It's not so much that the Working Families Party grew powerful and took over, so much as that the clueless Partnership-backed Joe Lhota did not even put up a fight. Wylde and her elite partners in government and the media allowed the protectors of the poor and middle class to be run by a bunch of bottom feeders. Elected officials and party leaders, who only care about growing rich and getting jobs for their friends. A media who tries to control New Yorkers rather than further their Bill of Rights mission to inform to protect. If Wylde stays in power and the Partnership does not end it class war in NYC, then so will the Working Families Party and Bertha Lewis.

True News's Biggest Loser of the 2013 Election : The Partnership's Kathy Wylde

From True News From Change NYC :

If you think the Giants are having a bad year check out the head of the Partnership. Wylede allowed the Working Families Party to take over the mayor's and Public Advocate's office. She now must count on Virginia resident Corrupt Queens' Boss Joe Crowley to line up enough councilmembers to elect Mark Weprin as Council Speaker. As long as Wyde is in power there will never be reform of the city's corrupt party leadership or Board of elections.

OFFICIAL DISPATCH from Lhota's closed-door meeting yesterday, via Kathy Wylde of the Partnership for NYC: "Joe Lhota met with about thirty members of the Partnership for New York City today to detail priorities he would focus on as mayor including support for job creation, making the city more affordable, and ensuring that it remains safe. the big question was whether there is a path to victory for a Republican in an increasingly Democratic town. Joe argued that most New Yorkers agree with him on big issues if he can get his name known and his message across. Those attending included CEOs from finance, real estate, media and law. The Partnership has met with all mayoral candidates, but does not make endorsements. Joe was introduced by Loews CEO Jim Tisch."

(Original : Friday 11 Oct 2013 3:10 p.m.)

To Become Speaker In 2006, Christine Quinn Sold Out Her Commitment To Reproductive Freedoms

Christine Quinn Compromised On Reproductive Freedoms For Women

A passage from Chapter 8 of ''Roots of Betrayal : The Ethics of Christine Quinn'' about Christine Quinn's ascension into the speakership of the New York City Council :

For Christine to make these giant leaps in power after less than six years in the City Council, she had to cut deals. The winners weren’t going to be the voters, who were still naively waiting for Christine to be a source of top-down support for bottom-up community empowerment. Instead, the winners were going to be the power brokers, the insiders, the lobbyists, and the political operatives on whose backs Christine climbed to further her own position in government. For example, in the weeks leading to the formal announcement that Christine had clinched the speakership, Christine co-hosted a fundraiser for Rep. Joe Crowley, a weak supporter of reproductive freedom for women. Rep. Crowley had succeeded Tom Manton in Congress, and Mr. Manton expected his subjects, which now included Christine, to express loyalty to the members of his political machine. Even though Christine kept brandishing her myth as an advocate for, among other things, abortion rights, the LGBT activist and social critic Bill Dobbs told The Village Voice that Christine was motivated to help Rep. Crowley “solely to win Manton’s support and the Queens delegation.” It was no coincidence that the higher up the totem pole that Christine climbed, the more glaring the betrayals to her own political ethics became. The rationalizations of Christine’s supporters became all the more bold, as well. Michael McKee, the controversial tenants’ rights activist, who was called on to provide more and more political cover to Christine, expressed his support to Christine for her contradictory support of Rep. Crowley. “Does it bother me ? No,” he told The Village Voice.

Crony Queens Community Newspapers

True News From Change NYC : "A Takeover Of Journalism by Lobbyist and Politicians"

Political reporter and blogger Gary Tilzer, the author of the blog True News From Change, published a scathing post about crony journalism in Queens community newspapers that have "not only turn their back on journalism," but have become "partners" with and "house organs" of U.S. Representative Joseph Crowley, who heads the Democratic Party in Queens. Mr. Tilzer refers to Rep. Crowley as "Boss Crowley."

Mr. Tilzer's blog post was in response to an article published by The New York Times that, in turn, drew the conclusion that one of the largest indicators of political machinery in Queens is the Surrogate's Court, the court which decides what to do with the assets of Queens residents, who die intestate. The Surrogate Court also appoints guardians, who profite from the court process to handle the assets of people, who die without wills. Intersecting with the Queens political machine article was a separate NYTimes feature questioning when a blogger becomes a journalist.