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

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) Manhattan Council members make Board of Elections pick in closed-door, split vote (The New York Daily News) Manhattan Dems, City Council on Board of Elections power-struggle/collision course ? (The New York Daily News)

Do private Council speaker lobbying meetings violate open meetings law ?

Do private mtgs. between Bill de Blasio and Bronx @NYCCouncil delegation violate open meetings law ? http://t.co/Fy2AgzNpG7 @AGSchneiderman

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) January 7, 2014

In a Council speaker race already beset by campaign finance violations and issues of possible ethics violations, now comes word that the mayor planned and scheduled private lobbying meetings between publicly-elected officials with neither any notice for the public to witness or participate nor any full recording of the official business transacted during these meetings for the public to be able to examine.

Do private council speaker lobbying meetings violate the open meetings law of New York State ?

Andrew Cuomo Stealth Texting Scandal

* Gov. Cuomo says it's no big secret - reason for unrecorded texting system is fear of hacking. The Daily News reported Monday that Cuomo refuses to communicate by email. If aides can’t talk in person or by phone, they are told to use the BlackBerry PIN-to-PIN messaging system — a function that leaves no lasting trail because it bypasses data-saving email servers. Baruch College’s Doug Muzzio said, “There’s an element of the stealth governorship here. It’s all part of their strategy to tightly control information and message.”

* Gov. Cuomo uses BlackBerry pin-to-pin messaging system to contact key staffers when they can't talk on the phone. A message sent over a data server can always be recovered, even when deleted. Not so for PIN messages, which are gone forever once killed, a spokesman for BlackBerry operator Research In Motion said. And while much of the back-and-forth communication between the governor and his aides is private, it could be subject to subpoena by ethics investigators, prosecutors and possibly members of the Legislature in the event of a probe. All this secrecy, even though Cuomo "promised to have the most open and transparent administration in state history."