Join us in wishing Speaker @MMViverito a very happy birthday! Wishing you a day full of joy, love & celebration! pic.twitter.com/QS9J9i5gqV
— NYC Council (@NYCCouncil) April 1, 2015
Showing posts with label Melissa Mark-Viverito. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Melissa Mark-Viverito. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
City Council staff using taxpayer resources to post the happy birthday wishes of elected officials
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Teachout Wu Cuomo Mark-Viverito Bratton Whistleblower Fired NYPD Eric Garner - Twawking Tweets Episode 2
Twawking Tweets - Episode 2 - Top NY political tweets on Twitter
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New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito fires an NYPD whistleblower. In this episode, the following issues were discussed :
Twawking Tweets is sponsored by the Twitter account, @InformedVoting. |
RELATED Twawking Tweets - Episode 2 - Top NY political tweets on Twitter (Progress Queens)
Michael Hayes, LMT, has practiced massage for more than 20 years as a licensed massage therapist in New York City. |
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Mark-Viverito fires Council whistleblower for disputing Commissioner Bratton's stats on NYPD use of force
City Council aide Artyom Matusov was fired for exposing a misrepresentation by Commish Bratton that "implied the percentage of arrests in which force was used had dropped in recent years"
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Speaker Mark-Viverito's War on Whistleblowers A Harvard University Kennedy School of Government-educated City Council staffer was fired on Friday after he blew the whistle on inaccuracies in the official testimony provided by NYPD Commissioner William Bratton last Monday. In the City Council hearing, on the subject of police use of deadly chokeholds, Commissioner Bratton testified that police use of force was declining, stating that police officers used force in about 3 per cent. of the time out of an annual arrest rate of about 400,000. After City Council staffer Artyom Matusov heard the testimony, he did some number crunching, and Mr. Matusov discovered that Commissioner Bratton's calculations couldn't hold water. According to statistics analyzed by Mr. Matusov, Commissioner Bratton's testimony was incorrect, because police officers self-reported arrests in which force was used at a rate more than double than the rate to which Commissioner Bratton testified. That doubled rate covered approximately only 10 per cent. of annual arrests, meaning the actual use of NYPD force during arrests could be extrapolated to be at a much higher rate.
In an interview with The New York Daily News, Mr. Matusov claimed that speaking out about Commissioner Bratton's faulty testimony cost him his job, because Speaker Mark-Viverito retaliated against him to protect Mayor de Blasio from any political fallout from Commissioner Bratton's perjury. Mr. Matusov noted how Speaker Mark-Viverito owes her political career to Mayor de Blasio, telling The New York Daily News that, “Remember, he appointed the speaker.” |
RELATED Council aide claims he was fired for disputing Bratton (Capital New York) City Council aide says he was fired for exposing Bratton’s bogus data (The New York Post) Melissa Mark-Viverito Won’t Say Race Was a Factor in Eric Garner’s Death (The New York Observer)
Michael Hayes, LMT, has practiced massage for more than 20 years as a licensed massage therapist in New York City. |
Wednesday, September 3, 2014
After early ridicule, Tim Wu calls out de Blasio as "accomplice" in Hochul's voter deception
Gov. Cuomo's running mate, Kathy Hochul, supports the Keystone XL energy pipeline, which the fracking industry needs to keep expanding their water-poisoning extraction across North America
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The Cuomo administration is under federal investigation for reportedly obstructing the anti-corruption work of the now-defunct Moreland Commission, and Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito don't care. They're endorsing the Cuomo-Hochul ticket. Once it became clear that the self-anointed progressive Mayor Bill de Blasio was going to endorse former Rep. Kathy Hochul for lieutenant governor in this year's Democratic Party primary, the first reaction from the Teachout/Wu campaign was to give Mayor de Blasio and his enablers the room to double-cross progressive voters. Many government reform activists see Mayor de Blasio's endorsement of Ms. Hochul's campaign as a betrayal of voters' progressive sensibilities. Not only is Ms. Hochul a supporter of the fracking industry, but she has also voted to limit or roll back regulations under the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act. She once earned the endorsement of the N.R.A., and she also voted to repeal Obamacare while she was in Congress. Even the specter of a federal investigation into the Cuomo administration's role in reportedly obstruction the corruption-fighting work of the now-shuttered Moreland Commission hasn't stopped Mayor de Blasio and his cronies from propping up the Cuomo/Hochul ticket. Nevertheless, the Teachout/Wu campaign initially didn't want to publicly question Mayor de Blasio's motivations for planning to endorse such an abysmal and conservative record as Ms. Hochul's. However, once government reform activists began to question the Teachout/Wu's silence, the Teachout/Wu campaign took a different approach. Pressure on the Teachout/Wu campaign kept building this morning, especially after some wise political reporters began to notice the blatant contradictions in Mayor de Blasio's spin, leading Ms. Hochul's opponent, Tim Wu, to call out Mayor de Blasio for his duplicity. In a press conference this morning, Mr. Wu reacted to news of Mayor de Blasio's impending endorsement of Ms. Hochul with some of the harshest words yet expressed of Mayor de Blasio's dishonest portrayal of Ms. Hochul as a "progressive." "When it comes down to it, Kathy Hochul's record is out there. No one can look honestly and deeply at that record and say she's a progressive Democrat," Mr. Wu said at his press conference, adding that Mayor de Blasio was "serving as an accomplice" in "misrepresenting her record." For her part, Zephyr Teachout, Mr. Cuomo's opponent in the gubernatorial race, said, "I'm thrilled that Bill de Blasio's my mayor, I supported him, but he's wrong on this. Kathy Hochul's a conservative." |
RELATED Tim Wu: Mayor de Blasio serving as ‘accomplice’ to Hochul (Capital New York) Cuomo, de Blasio Panic As Progressive Candidate Tim Wu Gains Traction (The Gothamist) Activists fear Teachout will back Cuomo in General if she loses in Primary (NYC : News & Analysis) |
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Mark-Viverito convenes secret meeting to fix pick of Board of Elections chair
PUBLISHED : TUES, 26 AUG 2014, 06:57 PM
UPDATED : WED, 27 AUG 2014, 08:20 AM
The New York Daily News to City Council Speaker : Vote of No Confidence
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Threatening retaliation, the City Council's Manhattan delegation, overseen by Speaker Mark-Viverito, are on quest to stop leaks to the media about shady closed-door meetings to select the city's next chair of the Board of Elections The Editorial Board of The New York Daily News again admonished Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito for her lack of ethics and violations of transparency, this time over the decision by the Manhattan delegation of the City Council to meet in secret to select a new commissioner representing the Democratic Party on the city's Board of Elections. As if that weren't enough, the Editorial Board found it appalling that City Councilmembers, who are overseen by Speaker Mark-Viverito, further decided to retaliate against a fellow member for blowing the whistle about the shady closed-door meeting. Apparently, one of the Councilmembers has been leaking information to The New York Daily News political reporters, and City Council officials have set out to identify and punish the whistleblower. In an act of retribution, the Manhattan Councilmembers circulated a memo of unspecified origin "stating that the leaker would be expelled from the delegation if identified," according to The New York Daily News editorial. That Councilmembers are having to conduct the public's business in an environment of secrecy, political hostility, and likely retribution means that the City Council hasn't change much since it was governed by former Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who famously strong-armed the City Council to do her political bidding. This isn't the first time when self-appointed progressive members of the City Council have tried to use secrecy to subvert the public's business of running city government. Late last year, during the race to select the next City Council speaker, members of the Council's Progressive Caucus briefly considered voting by secret ballot to select their choice for City Council speaker. The Progressive Caucus, then co-chaired by Councilmember Mark-Viverito, was trying to finagle ways to rally support for her speakership campaign without agitating big money campaign contributors, who were then coalescing around her opponent in the speakership race, Councilmember Daniel Garodnick. The brief flirtation with the idea of a secret ballot was abandoned after government reform activists pointed out the hypocrisy of self-styled progressives flagrantly violating government transparency. Councilmember Mark-Viverito eventually won the speakership race, after she reportedly violated city ethics rules and possibly campaign finance laws, triggering previous condemnations by the Editorial Board of The New York Daily News. |
RELATED For Council Speaker Mark-Viverito, a Vote of No Confidence (The New York Daily News) |
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Corruption of New York City Council slush funds leads to another guilty verdict, this time for Ex-Councilmember Dan Halloran
PUBLISHED : TUES, 29 JUL 2014, 09:36 PM
UPDATED : MON, 04 AUG 2014, 11:05 AM
Amongst the charges for which former Councilmember Halloran was found guilty was plotting to funnel $80,000 in City Council slush funds as bribes to others
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Controversy over City Council slush funds continue under the new Council speaker, Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito  Former New York City Councilmember Daniel Halloran was found guilty today by a jury, concluding a federal trial for corruption charges stemming from his arrest for participating in a scheme to buy the GOP ballot line for State Sen. Malcom Smith, a wannabe mayoral candidate in last year's municipal elections. Former Councilmember Halloran's accepted money in what was described as a bribe for his role in the corruption scheme. In exchange, he had pledged, in part, to use $80,000 in City Council slush funds for further bribes in this corruption scheme. Former Councilmember Halloran had planned to funnel the $80,000 from the monies awarded to him by the City Council speaker, who, at her discretion, awards member items to Councilmembers for further payment to various nonprofit groups. The practice of distributing member items from the speaker's discretionary fund has been a historical source of corruption in the City Council. Government reform activists also see the use of these slush funds as ways to keep community groups locked up in proverbial "veal pens," preventing, for example, some community groups, such as VOCAL-New York, from pressing for a complete overhaul to end corruption at the New York Police Department. Previously, three Councilmembers : Larry Seabrook, Hiram Monserrate, and Miguel Martinez, and two former council staffers of then Councilman Kendall Stewart : Asquith Reid and Joycinth Anderson, have been charged in connection with corruption related to the slush fund scandal. After former Councilmember Halloran's arrest, his slice of the slush funds came under review by former Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who was once the target of a federal investigation into her own, larger slush fund scandal. After the outcome of last year's municipal elections, former Speaker Quinn was succeeded by Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito as speaker. Speaker Mark-Viverito had promised to reform the politically-corrupt process of doling out the Council's slush funds. However, this year, Speaker Mark-Viverito sparked controversy when she was caught allocating millions of dollars in slush funds to a charity group founded by one of her key campaign consultants. This year's allocation of slush funds were further complicated when Councilmember Ruben Wills was arrested on unrelated corruption charges. Councilmember Wills' cut of this year's slush funds were reportedly to be divided up amongst groups in his Council district at the direction of Speaker Mark-Viverito's office and other Councilmembers of the Queens delegation, Capital New York reported. As the U.S. Attorney for New York's southern district, Preet Bharara, continues his campaign to prosecute government corruption cases, former Councilmember Halloran's conviction shows voters that federal prosecutors know where to keep looking : at the role that the Council's slush funds plays in elected officials' machinations to "sell out their offices." How many more Councilmembers and their staff must be ensnared in corruption cases by federal prosecutors before the Council's slush funds are either reformed with true integrity or ended entirely ? |
RELATED Former Councilmmember Dan Halloran Found Guilty in Corruption Case (The New York Observer) Quinn in the Slush (New York Magazine) Lulu heroes and zeroes : End the City Council’s legal bribery (The New York Daily News) City Council members can’t prove they donated bonuses to charities (The New York Post) |
Monday, July 21, 2014
US Ambassador to South Africa meddling in New York politics -- again
Patrick Gaspard is back to his old political tricks, with more possible violations of the Hatch Act
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The unrelenting political activities of a U.S. State Department ambassador to prop up the Democratic Party's political machine in New York  America's ambassador to the nation of South Africa, Patrick Gaspard, is once again engaging is political activities that some critics say may violate a federal law that prohibits such involvement by federal government employees. Ambassador Gaspard has been engaged in behind-the-scenes political machinations to support the candidacy of Michael Blake, who is campaigning to seek the New York State Assembly seat vacated by Eric Stevenson after he was convicted of bribery in January, The New York Post reports, adding that, Mr. Blake is a "protégé" of Mr. Gaspard.
This isn't the first time that Ambassador Gaspard has flouted Hatch Act regulations. Today's article in The New York Post mentions that prior to reportedly lobbying the healthcare union SEIU 1199 into endorsing Mr. Blake, Ambassador Gaspard was engaged in political activities in support of the reelection campaign for Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY). Prior to that, a New York Republican Party political operative, E. O'Brien Murray, lodged a Hatch Act complaint with the State Department, accusing Ambassador Gaspard, a former top White House aide and the former top political operative with SEIU 1199, of violating restrictions on political activities by getting involved last year in Bill de Blasio's mayoral campaign. Ambassador Gaspard appeared to further flout the Hatch Act by reportedly lobbying in favor of City Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito's selection as the new Council speaker. All of Ambassador Gaspard's electioneering activities were conducted while serving as an ambassador under the U.S. State Department. How many times will prosecutors, intent on cleaning up corruption in New York politics, keep allowing Ambassador Gaspard a green light to exploit his office, position of influence, and federal resources accorded to him in relation to his position in the U.S. State Department, if any, for electioneering activities to benefit Democratic Party candidates for public office ? |
RELATED State assembly candidate Michael Blake’s ‘ragged’ efforts for ‘hope and change’ (The New York Post) |
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Will NYPD Commish Bratton be forced to resign over Eric Garner's violent, choking death ?
Community anger escalating over NYPD's continued obsession with "broken windows theory" of policing that appears to justify police brutality, and even violent deaths, for low-level crimes.
Five months before Eric Garner was choked to death by police on Staten Island, ex-Marine Jerome Murdough died while being incarcerated at Riker's Island.
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Eric Garner died in a chokehold by NYPD on Staten Island on July 17. 
Do the officers of the New York Police Department get to decide if the suspects of low-level crimes deserve a death sentence on the spot ? That's the question many political bloggers are asking this week-end, as Mayor Bill de Blasio heads for the isle of Capri in the aftermath of the NYPD's choking death of married Staten Island dad, Eric Garner, 43. During last year's mayoral election, then candidate Bill de Blasio campaigned on promises to end policing tactics that unfairly targeted the poor and people of color. But then after he won the mayoral election, mayor-elect de Blasio swiftly made clear that he was appointing William Bratton as his new police commissioner, a signal of coming broken campaign promises on police reform. Mr. Bratton has a long history of stoking racial tensions by championing a controversial approach to policing known by the moniker, "broken windows." Under this policing theory, the cops target very low-level crimes before larger crimes are committed. But such an approach has been extremely controversial with civil rights activists, communities of color, and political bloggers, because the NYPD's obsession with combatting crime is focusing all of its resources on people suspected of committing very low-level offenses, like privately selling single cigarettes, as Mr. Garner was accused of doing, instead of major criminals. For example, former Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes has been accused of using millions of dollars of confiscated criminal assets to pay for a campaign spokesman, Mortimer Matz. Yet, Mr. Hynes remains free, even those these accusations have been reported and repeated through valid media outlets through out New York state. While government reform activists wait for the NYPD to arrest former D.A. Hynes for the larceny of over $1 million, Mr. Garner is imposed an immediate death sentence for trying to sell single cigarettes for 50¢. Jerome Murdough died on Feb. 15 while being incarcerated at Riker's Island. 
But Mr. Garner's death is not the first time when the city's law enforcement has been accused of causing the death of an innocent person under the de Blasio-Bratton administration. Last February, a former U.S. Marine died while in law enforcement custody at Riker's Island. Like with Mr. Garner's situation, the former Marine, Jerome Murdough, first attracted police attention because of Commissioner Bratton's obsession with "broken windows" policing. Mr. Murdough's only crime was that he was homeless, and when police took him into custody, he had been huddling in the stairwell of a New York City public housing development, seeking warmth from the frigid, polar-express winter experienced by the Northeast. The frail, the poor, people in crisis, and people of color are the targets of Police Commissioner Bratton's insistence on terrorizing those with the least. And all of this sadness and drama is approved by Mayor de Blasio, a blatant contradiction to his campaign promises to reform the NYPD. The calls for NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton to be fired, or to resign, are beginning to grow. On last night's edition of NY1 The Call with Emmy Award-winning journalist John Schiumo, the nearly universal sentiment was that the NYPD were out of control. It appears that Mayor de Blasio's promises to reform the NYPD have gone unfulfilled. Thus far, though, the mainstream media has been giving Mayor de Blasio a free pass for having to failed to reform the NYPD, but already political bloggers, such as Suzannah B. Troy, and grass roots groups, like New Yorkers Against Bratton, have not let up on demanding reforms. Ms. Troy was assaulted last year in a case that the NYPD refused to investigate, Ms. Troy alleges, in order to manipulate crime statistics in New York. And New Yorkers Against Bratton has been the sole group to take a hard line position against the new mayor over his broken promises to overhaul the corrupt NYPD. Indeed, at last spring's Left Form 2014, various activists collaborated on an open forum to draw attention to how many nonprofit reform groups have deescalated calls for police reform out of deference to the new mayor. This is Commissioner Bratton's second service as head of the city's police department. He had previously served under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's first term, but resigned in 1996 amid a probe into 21 out-of-town trips he had taken and other sources of friction with former Mayor Giuliani. During his brief first stint as commissioner, NYPD were involved in the choking death of Anthony Baez, a controversy that critics of Commissioner Bratton readily point to, in demonstration of his callous disregard of police brutality and police murder. Now that two deaths of innocent people have occurred in Mayor de Blasio's young administration, political bloggers, activists, and minority communities wonder how many more deaths, incidences of police brutality on senior citizens, incidences of people of color being refused peaceful accommodation on public transportation, and military-style police raids will it take before the nonprofit "veal pen" reform groups remobilize to renew their demands for a complete overhaul of the NYPD, beginning with the Commissioner Bratton's removal from office. |
RELATED 
Michael Hayes, LMT, has practiced massage for more than 20 years as a licensed massage therapist in New York City. Flatiron Massage is located in the Flatiron District of Manhattan. |
Friday, July 18, 2014
When Cuomo closed the Moreland Commission, he was hoping to shut down all efforts to investigate political corruption
PUBLISHED : FRI, 18 JUL 2014, 08:27 PM
UPDATED : SUN, 20 JUL 2014, 01:45 PM
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The Governor's interference with the Moreland Commission's efforting to combat corruption has prompted federal prosecutors to seek grand jury testimony in an inquiry into Gov. Andrew Cuomo's closure of the Moreland Commission  Ever since the administration of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) agreed to close the Moreland Commission as part of an unseemly budget negotiation with corrupt state lawmakers at the end of March, the sordid gossip amongst political bloggers has been whether any prosecutors would dare investigate whether allegations that Gov. Cuomo interfered with the Moreland Commission's investigations would rise to the level of obstruction of justice. When it was reported that members of the Moreland Commission were contemplating issuing subpoenas to real estate developers, including the Extell Corporation, which had made contributions to Gov. Cuomo's campaign committee account, the Cuomo administration was said to have become involved in managing those subpoenas. To the consternation of the control-obsesses Cuomo administration, the Moreland Commission was reported to have issued a subpoena to the corrupt state Democratic Party, that subpoena was later downsized and redirected under the specter of possible influence by the Cuomo administration, according to political bloggers. Finally, when the Moreland Commission dared to poke around in how the state's corrupt legislators earn outside income, that is when the state legislature brokered a backroom deal with the Cuomo administration to finally shut down the politically dangerous Moreland Commission, triggering a backlash that portrayed Gov. Cuomo as being a power-hungry megalomaniac. At one point, Gov. Cuomo publicly declared that he controlled the independent functions of the Moreland Commission in a Gollum-like "My Precious" tirade, saying, "The Moreland Commission was my commission," adding, “It’s my commission. My subpoena power, my Moreland Commission. I can appoint it, I can disband it. I appoint you, I can un-appoint you tomorrow. So, interference ? It's my commission. I can’t ‘interfere’ with it, because it is mine.” At each turn, whenever the Moreland Commission's investigations into political or campaign corruption threatened to splish-splash onto Cuomo administration officials, the governor or his staff appeared to be protecting their own political interests as they overlapped with the investigations by the Moreland Commission. Political bloggers wondered whether the Cuomo administration was trying to protect wealthy campaign contributors from the possibility of investigation or having the activities of wealthy campaign contributions come under review by Moreland Commission investigators. Actions reportedly by Cuomo administration officials or political operatives loyal to the Cuomo administration to downsize, redirect, or otherwise alter the investigative work by the Moreland Commission cast questions over the independence needed by investigative bodies, such as the Moreland Commission, conducting politically-unpopular but wholly-necessary criminal investigations into government and campaign corruption in New York state. That the Cuomo administration appeared to be heading off the possibility of investigations -- before the Moreland Commission could announce actual investigations or substantiated suspicions of wrong-doing -- created a sense of unease amongst political bloggers, because political bloggers wondered what activities were the Cuomo administration trying to conceal or hide from investigators. The culture of pay-to-play : Billionaire real estate development corporations make big money campaign donations, and then developers receive tax breaks, insider access to politicians  During the period of time when the mainstream media was reporting that the Moreland Commission might investigate the culture of pay-to-play between campaign contributions made by wealthy real estate developers and the development of government policies that favored these developers, political bloggers cheered at the prospect that finally state investigators would look into corrupt real estate developers and their lobbyists. One of those lobbyists is the one-man power house, George Arzt. Mr. Arzt is a political adviser, lobbyist, spokesman, public relations consultant, and a very generous campaign contributor. Over the years, it is said that he made over $90,000 in traceable campaign contributions to various politicians in New York State. Critics of Mr. Arzt assert that Mr. Arzt buys access to top politicians with these sizable campaign contributions, and that that, plus his campaign consulting work and lobbying work, help to give his real estate developer clients an unfair advantage in gaming government policy for his clients. In this culture, where the right amount of campaign contributions, lobbying retainers, or the exchange of other funds, can give real estate developers an inside track to getting planning approvals for zone-busting real estate projects or tax breaks for billion-dollar skyscrapers, is what leads to so much corruption in government. The corrupt pay-to-play culture plays out like this : Mr. Arzt was a consultant for Extell Corporation, the developer of the billionaire luxury condo skyscraper on West 57th Street. Extell Corporation made sizable campaign contributions to Gov. Cuomo just before Gov. Cuomo signed into law multi-millions in tax breaks for Extell. All this money changing hands, and the local prosecutor for Manhattan, Cy Vance, abdicates his responsibility to investigate for bribes and corruption, leaving this matter for the Moreland Commission to investigate, except Gov. Cuomo shut the Moreland Commission down before any investigation could get off the ground.
Closing the loop on Mr. Arzt is that he was a campaign manager for former Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes' doomed reelection campaign. Questions of public ethics violations and even possible embezzlement were raised when it was discovered that former D.A. Hynes had been using an official slush fund of money proceeds from seized cash from drug deals gone bad to pay for another campaign advisor, Mortimer Matz. While Mr. Arzt wasn't implicated in that campaign controversy, when D.A. Hynes used proceeds from seized criminal activities from the office accounts of the Brooklyn District Attorney's office to pay Mr. Matz millions for his consulting services, by some estimates, that left more money in D.A. Hynes campaign committee accounts to pay other campaign consultants. Besides Mr. Arzt, another consultant who worked for D.A. Hynes and was paid through D.A. Hynes' campaign committee account was the lobbying firm, The Advance Group. All corrupt legislative deals passed through Albany are marked with the same fingerprints.  Whenever corrupt big business interests and their lobbyists need legislative help, the go-to-man is New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Several sources, who were involved in the tax break for wealthy real estate developers, including Extell Corporation, told The New York Daily News that Speaker Silver was the "creator of the lucrative tax relief." Over the years, Speaker Silver has been involved in so many corruption controversies that he has learned how to survive investigations into corruption by facilitating the corruption of other politicians. In the case of the tax breaks for wealthy developers, if Speaker Silver was ever fully challenged in a criminal corruption investigation, he could possibly expose the role of Gov. Cuomo's apparent pay-to-play deal to sign the tax breaks into law in exchange for large campaign contributions from the real estate developers, which stood to benefit from the tax law amendment. Many government reform activists and political bloggers estimate that Speaker Silver has been involved in so many self-serving or insider-serving deals that, if he were fully investigated by prosecutors, a take-down of Speaker Silver could potentially implicate over three-quarters of the entire state legislature. Indeed, one outcome of the low-level prosecution of former State Senator Shirley Huntley was her revelation that she would see “bags of cash" brought into the State Senate building. From whom was all that and other money coming from ? Who, in a leadership position, having received that money, got to divide that money up ? None of these, and other activities, ever get investigated by state law enforcement, whether that be the local district attorneys, who roll up to the state attorney general, or, as witnessed by the fate of investigative corruption panels under the Cuomo administration, by the Moreland Commission. Corrupt officials and political operatives have learned to game the weak-willed district attorneys and timid attorney general. Politicians and lobbyist know that the corruption in New York state runs so deep that, collectively, the size of some investigations would involve the prosecution of significant political or government individuals, which may pose special problems for the local prosecutor, making federal prosecutors, like U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, the only hope that political bloggers and government reform activists have at overhauling the corrupt political system running local and state governments across New York. It was Mr. Bharara's office, which issued a subpoena this week, seeking grand jury testimony from the assistant to the former executive director of the now shuttered Moreland Commission. Mr. Bharara took possession of the investigation files and correspondence of the former commissioners serving on the Moreland Commission, along with other records, to try to reconstruct the activities and involvements of various elected officials, lobbyists, and other political operatives. To complete his due diligence and review of all these potential criminal investigations, Mr. Bharara's office recently recruited the help of super lawyer Daniel Stein, a former top prosecutor with years of corruption prosecution experience, giving political bloggers hope that we are about to witness a once-in-a-century renewal of government integrity. |
RELATED Is Gov. Andrew Cuomo under investigation for obstruction of justice ? (The New York Times) |
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Speaker Mark-Viverito's campaign paid a lobbying firm, which also lobbied back at her on behalf of clients
How much corruption has to happen, before progressive activists protest against City Council, demanding reforms to end the corruptive role of money and lobbyists in New York politics ?
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How many Mark-Viverito-lobbyist exposés in The New York Daily News will it take before the Mark-Viverito administration and all of her teams of lobbyists come under federal investigation ? On the heels of yesterday's blog post about campaign finance questions pertaining to New York City Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito's successful Council speakership campaign, an article in today's The New York Daily News revisits on-going questions over the role of lobbyists in the Speaker Mark-Viverito's administration of the City Council. In the first few months of this year, Speaker Mark-Viverito has been paying approximately $28,000 to the lobbying firm of Pitta Bishop Del Giorno & Giblin -- at the same time when Pitta Bishop was lobbying Speaker Mark-Viverito on behalf of the lobbying firm's clients. The lobbying firm of Pitta Bishop essentially rescued Councilmember Mark-Viverito's speakership campaign last year when it appeared that Pitta Bishop took control over Councilmember Mark-Viverito's sagging speakership campaign after she became engulfed in a series of mainstream media exposés in connection with the lobbying firm, The Advance Group, which had been managing her lobbying campaign for the Council speakership. Various political campaigns managed by The Advance Group have since become the subject of a series of recent punitive findings and fines assessed by the city's Campaign Finance Board. Nevertheless, The Advance Group remained involved in Councilmember Mark-Viverito's speakership campaign at the time until she won her lobbying campaign. Since Speaker Mark-Viverito became indebted to her lobbyists, government reform activists question how could municipal ethics and campaign finance regulatory authorities condone her close relationship with these lobbyists. Not only can lobbyists close to the new Council speaker leverage her political indebtedness, but some of these same lobbying firms have also played a role in determining secondary and tertiary City Council leadership assignments, extending the control that lobbyists exert over the municipal legislative body. If you look the media, the City Hall press corps keeps looking the other way when it comes to concerns about illegality.
For years, government reform activists have complained that the culture of corruption in government is allowed to get worse under the enabling eyes of do-nothing regulators, do-less good government groups, and non-plussed mainstream media reporters, who claim that some forms of government and campaign corruption are "perfectly legal." The situational ethics of political hacks acting in regulatory capacities is what undermines the public's confidence in government and in elected officials, but yet for every scandalous conflict of interest between elected officials, like Council Speaker Mark-Viverito, and lobbyists, like those at the firm of Pitta Bishop, is that good government groups and government reform activists rarely propose reforms that effectively render illegal the corruptive role of money and lobbyists in government. In the time leading up to the City Council vote to determine the next Council speaker, some political bloggers suggested a suite of proposed reforms to overhaul the role of lobbyists in determining leadership posts in the City Council. Some of those reforms, first published on November 24, 2013, in a YouTube video, included :
These recommendations, in addition to revoking the cloaking rule that allows lobbyists to avoid disclosure when they lobby the City Council for leadership or administrative appointments and banning campaign consultants who receive payments from the Campaign Finance Board's matching dollar program from acting as municipal lobbyists, can strengthen voter confidence in the integrity of government and in elected officials. Other reforms can be suggested by voters, government reform activists, and by good government groups. But the media neither invites voters to make recommendations for reforms, nor does the media launch government reform campaigns to support the recommendations of government reform activists working to overhaul this broken political system. |
RELATED |
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito evaded campaign finance caps by opening second account to fund Council speaker race
City and state campaign finance regulatory authorities look the other way, as New York Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito uses a campaign committee account set up for a sham 2017 campaign to pay over $100,000 for her 2013 Council speaker race.
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Not even former Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who was accused of being each of shady, unethical, and a political boss in the old-fashioned corrupt sense by many New York political bloggers, ever dared to be this blatantly egregious Updated information about campaign committee fundraising and expenditures were made this week by elected officials serving in New York State to the state's campaign finance regulatory authority, the New York State Board of Elections. The filing by New York Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito showed some activity since her January filing, but the latest disclosures of her 2017 campaign committee still showed no expenditures to pay for the lobbying services provided to Councilmember Mark-Viverito's successful speakership campaign that began in earnest following her successful reelection to the City Council.
Council Speaker Mark-Viverito's use of The Advance Group triggered extensive media scrutiny, notably by political bloggers and several mainstream media outlets. Further criticism were made when it was shown that many of the political operatives, who worked on Councilmember Mark-Viverito's successful speakership campaign were later given high-ranking patronage jobs with the City Council. Other lobbyists were reported to have been helping Speaker Mark-Viverito determine the assignments of secondary and tertiary leadership posts at the City Council. Candidates, who run for the City Council and who participate in the matching contribution program of the city's campaign finance regulatory authority, the Campaign Finance Board, as was the case with Councilmember Mark-Viverito, are subject to fundraising caps and spending limits. However, Councilmember Mark-Viverito opened a second campaign committee account with the state's campaign finance regulatory authority, and her campaign committee designated that second account for the 2017 election cycle. If the state Board of Elections had done its due diligence, it would have relatively easily discovered that Councilmember Mark-Viverito had just participated in the Campaign Finance Board's matching campaign contribution program, and that the leadership post she was very publicly seeking would be won through a lobbying campaign of her fellow City Councilmembers, who vote to select the Council speaker, rendering that second state campaign committee account to be a vehicle to fund the leadership post that would be served concurrently with her elected office. Until now, nobody knows the rationale for why the state's Board of Election continues to approve the fundraising and expenditures through Council Speaker Mark-Viverito's sham 2017 campaign committee account, when that account has been and is being used for a leadership post with dual mandate implications. A dual mandate is a controversial loophole that allows a person to serve more than one elected office at the same time, meaning, that an elected official would have competing interests as the office holder carries out his or her duties to the public. An elected official serving a dual mandate would be beholden to teams of lobbyists, campaign consultants, and big money donors that would trash the spirit of campaign finance laws and would open the door to appearances of conflicts of interest, steering patronage jobs to political operatives, allowing lobbyists a greater say over government business, and other questionable dealings. There is no known municipal precedent for dual campaign committee accounts to be authorized for the concurrent service of a publicly elected municipal office and a municipal leadership post that is secondary to the elected office. Furthermore, no other City Councilmember was allowed the unfair advantage of staying within the fundraising and expenditure caps of the Campaign Finance Board and still circumvent those caps with a state Board of Elections campaign committee account that is subject to no restrictions. When contacted last March, representatives of the state Board of Elections turned down a Freedom of Information Law request for the rationale for approving Councilmember Mark-Viverito's second campaign committee account, and, after negotiation, agreed to provide the account opening documents for her sham 2017 campaign committee. |
RELATED Council speaker puts connected lobbyist on payroll (Crain's New York Business) Lobbyists aid Mark-Viverito transition (Crain's New York Business) |
Monday, July 14, 2014
At the Board of Elections, Council speaker's political machinations threaten to undermine ballot petitioning
Ousting the president of the city's Board of Elections was supposed to give City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito "power and control of a host of patronage jobs," but the succession process has been turned ndsıpǝ poʍu
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"It's in the Council's hands." New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito was all set to expand her power, influence, and control over patronage jobs that govern the corrupt ballot counting for New York City elections. Except that the president of the Board of Elections, whom she had threatened to replace, got up and quit on her. Last Friday, Board of Elections President Gregory Soumas resigned his post. With President Soumas' sudden departure, Speaker Mark-Viverito may lose the upperhand she had been coveting in choosing his replacement. Since Manhattan Democratic Chairman Keith Wright had failed to reappoint Mr. Soumas for another term as president of the Board of Elections, the City Council, headed by Speaker Mark-Viverito, was salivating at the opportunity to seize control of the appointment process. But President Soumas' resignation may allow the Manhattan Democratic chair to appoint a replacement.
Generally, appointments of the commissioner, who serves as president of the Board of Elections, comes with corrupt spoils and privileges. A commissioner on the Board of Elections, especially the Board's president, can establish election policy and make politically-motivated hires for the scores of patronage jobs controlled by commissioners. Often, those politically-motivated hires are made in concert with the politicians or political operatives, who appointed the commissioners, The New York Daily News reported. While the Council speaker and the Manhattan Democratic chair fight over control over President Soumas' successor, the broken political system is ignoring the threat of confusion that now threatens to spread to the ballot petitioning being undertaken now by political candidates running for office this year. The Board of Elections reviews balloting petitions for accuracy and completeness, and on top of the mixed-motivations that govern who gets appointed as commissioners of the Board of Elections, those political machinations are compounded by the way some political operatives scheme to challenge balloting petitions, a process ultimately overseen by the Board of Elections' commissioners -- and its president. |
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Monday, July 7, 2014
NYTimes Editorial Board bemoans corruption as Brooklyn Beep Eric Adams cleared to funnel money through shady nonprofit
PUBLISHED : SUN, 06 JUL 2014, 02:10 PM
UPDATED : MON, 07 JUL 2014, 09:30 AM
Adams' shady nonprofit, the One Brooklyn Fund, is set to pattern itself after the mayor's own shady nonprofit, the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City
Across New York State, many corrupt politicians get indicted for misusing monies from nonprofits for illegal personal or political activities
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Before he was elected Brooklyn Borough President, former State Sen. Eric Adams endorsed the failed reelection bid of ex-Brooklyn D.A. Charles Hynes. Brooklyn Beep Adams now wants to use a nonprofit charity to serve as his political arm in Brooklyn nonprofit circles. 
In its house editorial yesterday, the board of editors that oversee the Opinion pages of The New York Times reminded its readers that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has failed to make good on his campaign promise to clean up the corruption in Albany. The editors point to the sad statistic that 26 state legislators have left office due to political scandal. But the editorial overlooks the role that funneling donations or tax dollars through nonprofit groups plays in the corruption charges against several notable politicians. Despite this, the editors of The New York Times see no need to worry that more and more politicians are creating nonprofit groups that operate as the political arms of politicians. The One Brooklyn Fund, a nonprofit that Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams is running out of his own office, had not yet received approval from the city's corrupt Conflicts of Interest Board before Brooklyn Beep Adams began soliciting donations for his controversial nonprofit with admitted political motivations. Another violation, failing to register the nonprofit with the New York Department of State, came to the fore after The New York Post reported that the city’s Department of Investigation was probing Mr. Adams' new nonprofit. Two of the directors of the controversial One Brooklyn Fund have previously run afoul of ethics regulations, and one of the directors has become the target of journalism investigations over her role in using still yet another nonprofit group to fund an 11-day vacation to China for Mr. Adams and Diana Reyna, a top female deputy, The New York Post reported. Whenever Brooklyn Beep Adams appears at public forums, Ms. Reyna is at his close side, clutching her pearls. 
Ms. Reyna, a former City Councilmember from Brooklyn, had previously served as chief of staff to embattled Brooklyn political boss Vito Lopez, who, himself, is a former New York State Assemblyman. The objective of the One Brooklyn Fund is to provide or support public services to the residents of Brooklyn, not too dissimilar to the objective of a larger fund overseen by the mayor's wife. The Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, which facilitates innovative public-private partnerships throughout NYC. It is headed by First Lady Chirlane McCray, and its goals are to support the mayor's political ambitions. Parallel to the Mayor's Fund to Advance New York City is The Campaign for One New York, the group formerly known as UPKNYC, the 501(c)(4) not-for-profit organization that the mayor has used to funnel money into his political agenda, ranging from paying for a million-dollar political TV ad featuring the First Lady and deceptive astroturf mailers supporting the closure of Long Island College Hospital. Now that First Lady McCray has benefitted from the million-dollar TV ad blitz to fluff her name recognition at the expense of a nonprofit, she has reportedly began shopping around a political memoir, with political bloggers gossiping that she is seeking a seven-figure book deal. At every turn, the repeated pattern of political activities involving charity nonprofit organizations is that politicians use these tax-free vehicles for personal gain -- whether for 11-day trips to China or to build up one's name recognition -- not for public service, contrary to the very purpose of nonprofit objectives.
State Sen. Malcolm Smith faces corruption charges involving the possible use of City Council nonprofit slush funds allocated to Councilmember Dan Halloran to buy the GOP nomination for Sen. Smith's doomed mayoral campaign. After former State Sen. Shirley Huntley was sentenced to jail for allegedly misusing tax money funneled to a nonprofit organization, her former Chief of Staff, who is not a New York City Councilmember, Ruben Wills, faces his own investigation into the possible misuse of nonprofit for personal gain. State Sen. Jose Peralta has also been being scrutinized over $500,000 directed to a nonprofit he helped to organize. After nonprofit don William Rapfogel was arrested, it was revealed that there was a scheme to use tax money funneled through the Metropolitan Council to pass through inflated insurance premiums as a way to fund illegal straw donations to political candidates. On the day when the Metropolitan Council-straw donations scam was announced, former Council Speaker Christine Quinn's doomed mayoral campaign immediately announced that they were returning $25,000 in tainted donations. Since the New York City mayoral race of last year, political bloggers and government reform activists have continued to demonstrate how the corruptive role of money and lobbyists in politics work to move shady campaign financing from official campaign committees, to Super PAC's, to political party committee accounts, to 501(c)(3) nonprofit groups, to 501(c)(4) nonprofit groups, etc. -- through any entity that can act as a "pass through" for illegal personal or political gain. Whenever a nonprofit appears in the political landscape around elected officials, the lobbyists, campaign consultants, other political operatives, and the elected officials themselves aim to exploit that nonprofit for short-term political gain at every point possible instead of serving the greater public good. One of the largest sources of tainted nonprofit funding in New York City is the annual Council Speaker's slush fund. There is a long history of corruption tied to the misuse of this nonprofit funding source. Former New York City Councilmembers Hiram Monserrate, Larry Seabrook, and Miguel Martinez were convicted for their role in the slush fund scandal and political aides to former Councilmember Kendall Stewart also pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the nonprofit funding-related scandal. Continuing former Council Speaker Quinn's pattern of funding nonprofit groups that do the speaker's bidding, the new Council speaker, Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito has allocated over $830,000 to a nonprofit group tied to one of her chief campaign consultants. And the City Council, under Speaker Mark-Viverito, has allocated over $7 million from this slush fund to nonprofit groups, including VOCAL-New York, that are deliberately deescalating political pressure for police reforms in exchange for receiving City Council funding. If the editors of The New York Times are serious about reforming the broken political system, then they should mount a public campaign that ends the misuse of nonprofit organizations for personal and political gain. And this proposed campaign should begin with investigating why the city's ethics board can continue to clear politicians to operate nonprofit groups in parallel to their political offices. If voters reviewed the list of corrupt politicians, who have had to leave office due to criminal charges involving nonprofit funding, there is never any accountability for the big name politicians, who control the large pools of slush funds that enable this kind of nonprofit corruption. It's as if the big-name corrupt politicians know that cases consisting of violations of local or state law and involving the possible prosecution of significant political or government individuals pose special problems for the local prosecutor. If voters are to take The New York Times seriously, then the editors must address this paradox, too -- not just bemoan the on-going corruption by elected officials. |
RELATED Nonprofit run out of Adams’ office hit up donors before city OK (The New York Post) Nonprofit paid for Brooklyn borough president’s trip to China (The New York Post) |
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