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)

City Council Leadership Denied Lawmakers a Look at the Details of a $75 billion City Budget

Withholding of City Budget Details Undermines Financial Oversight and Checks and Balances

RELATED Council Staffers Withheld Budget Documents From Lawmakers (The Wall Street Journal) New York City Budget : Vote First, Read Later (The Wall Street Journal) Melissa Mark-Viverito Is Quiet on City Council’s Budget Losses (The New York Observer)

City Council Central Staff, reportable to Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, delayed sharing with all municipal lawmakers some of the budget paperwork for several hours on the day that the Council voted on the city budget. IN A CONTINUATION OF corrupt strong-arming of City Council votes, Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito's central staff deliberately withheld some budget documents from Councilmembers for up to six hours before the full Council would vote on the Fiscal Year 2015 $75 billion city budget. The phony reason that Speaker Mark-Viverito's central staff gave for holding back some of the budget paperwork was because all of the budget had not yet printed, and that staffers were told that “you don’t slow drip the budget,” as one person told The Wall Street Journal, whose City Hall reporter broke the story. But this blatant lie flies in the face of that fact that Council Speaker Mark-Viverito did "slow drip the budget" -- by dropping the 400+ page budget report of the speaker's slush fund, otherwise known as "Schedule C," the night before the Council voted on the city budget. Releasing the Schedule C report of slush fund allocations to politically-connected charities, Council Speaker Mark-Viverito satisfied Councilmembers' first order of business : how much tax dollars were they going to be able to award to nonprofit groups that helped Councilmembers with get out the vote efforts, mailing lists, and other soft forms of political contributions. By withholding the details of the FY2015 city budget up until the very last minute, the Council Speaker aimed to thwart any debate on or challenges to the budget by her fellow Councilmembers. Details of the city budget were probably largely dictated to the City Council by de Blasio administration Budget Director Dean Fuleihan on the mayor's behalf. Suppressing debate, examination, or challenges to the $75 billion budget is detrimental to the healthy function of the City Council. Political bloggers and government reform activists, such as Suzannah B. Troy, have long argued that the Council leadership under Speaker Mark-Viverito's predecessor deliberately thwarted investigations into corrupt multi-billion dollar technology outsourcing contracts, such as CityTime employee timekeeping system and the ECTP program of the 911 emergency call system. Who knows how many corrupt over-payments, contract-overrides, or payment extensions were granted under the city budget documents that Speaker Mark-Viverito's central staff deliberately withheld for several hours. But the Councilmembers surely did know how many millions they gave to quiet down police reform groups, to deescalate political pressure from the Left on the neoliberal de Blasio administration.

Government Budget Transparency Suffering In Albany, New York City

Gov. Cuomo defends shady, closed-door budget negotiations

Gov. Andrew Cuomo defended his closed-door budget negotiations, saying, “Just because something is done behind closed doors, doesn’t mean the process isn’t transparent,” the Politics On The Hudson blog is reporting, adding, “You can’t do everything in the public view always and have frank, candid meaningful conversations.”

In further remarks, Gov. Cuomo called past attempts at budget transparency, "silly theater."

Wow. @NYGovCuomo bullies @RobAstorino w/ FOIL, but Gov. 1% keeps budget negotiations behind closed doors. http://t.co/meTQR6f5Ne @eorden

— Informed Voting (@informedvoting) March 18, 2014

Many politicians, once elected, cease acting on behalf of voters and, instead, become captured by big business interests. Gov. Cuomo has apparently crossed over to the "dark side." Within days of his inauguration in 2010, Gov. Cuomo proposed radical cuts to Medicaid that would lead to a further push to close a series of hospitals in a scorched earth approach to make healthcare cuts to the poor. Now, he's being accused of making tax cuts to benefit the wealthy, aggravating income and wealth inequalities in New York state. That the neoliberal governor is now trying to obfuscate the state's budget negotiations comes as no surprise. Gov. Cuomo is trying to control political blowback to his shady neoliberal machinations.

• RELATED : Healthcare As Bargaining Chips in New York City Politics // The Pelican Brief (NYC : News & Analysis)
• RELATED : Contrasting "Narratives" on Medicaid, Hospital Budget Cuts Under Obamacare (NYC : News & Analysis)

Mayor de Blasio has outsourced opaque negotiations of city labor contracts to an unpaid advisor, who is not accountable to voters

Further enshrouding government budgets behind a cloak of secrecy, Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed the political insider Stanley Brezenoff to be the city's "special unpaid adviser on 152 municipal labor contracts," The New York Daily News reported, noting that Mr. Brezenoff's choice was a "poor" one, given Mr. Brezenoff's history of driving Long Island College Hospital into bankruptcy.

When elected officials want to hide the government functions, they usually hide the business of government behind closed doors or special appointments.

United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew told The New York Daily News that he had "promised Mayor de Blasio not to negotiate in public," according to the news report. When Mayor de Blasio was later confronted by the media about his decision to set aside budget reserves in preparation for the costly city union labor negotiations, Mayor de Blasio refused to answer questions about cost savings, telling Politicker, "I’m not going to answer any specific question," Mr. de Blasio said, in part.

On one hand, you have a governor hiding the business of negotiating the state's $90 billion budget behind closed doors, and, on the other, you have the mayor, refusing to discuss details about the negotiation of what is being estimated to be $7 billion in union contracts, and that is just in back bay demands.

What happened to the Democratic Party's commitment to progressive values, like transparency ?

Attacking or "controlling" bloggers as a way to thwart scrutiny

To further thwart government transparency, the governor and mayor have been taken alternate approaches with respect to bloggers. Over the week-end, Gov. Cuomo discredited bloggers, who are not subject to corporate-controlled editors, for their critical observations of government and elected officials. For his part, Mayor de Blasio has tried to control parent bloggers, forcing them to reprint his political point-of-view in his campaign for universal pre-kinder.

In radio interview, Gov. Andrew Cuomo bemoans bloggers and 24-hour news cycle

24-Hour News Cycle Makes Government More Transparent, An Aspect That Gov. Cuomo Apparently Dislikes

In a radio interview conducted this morning by John Catsimatidis, Gov. Andrew Cuomo complained about the scrutiny that social media, bloggers, and the 24-hour news cycle place on elected officials, a problem that his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, never had to face.

Gov. Cuomo's just whining that some blogs can't be led like sheep to re-write his campaign press releases. @thomaskaplan @JCats2013

— StopNYMRT (@StopNYMRT) March 16, 2014

“I don’t believe it raises the quality,” Gov. Cuomo said during the radio interview. “As a matter of fact, I think it lowers the quality, but it increases the frequency. These 24-hour blogs. Everybody’s in a competition. They have to get it up first. They have to get it up fast. So you have this constant chatter, that is not necessarily the most credible, the most insightful. But it’s constant and that dictates a rhythm to the governmental dialogue, which again is fast, and quick and facile, but not necessarily intellectual or correct.” (via The New York Daily News)

Bloggers are notoriously difficult to control. Each one is independent, and bloggers strenuously defend their autonomy. Perhaps this independence is a cause of concern for Gov. Cuomo. The armies of lobbyists and campaign consultants employed by elected officials and big business interests are always calling newspaper, radio, and TV reporters to control the daily talking points that elected officials want to see advanced in the mainstream media. But bloggers generally find the motivations of the backroom class of political insider operatives more suspect than mainstream media reporters, who are more resigned to go with the flow. Witness how reporters basically failed to vet -- and refused to accept responsibility for vetting -- Bill de Blasio in last year's mayoral race. If it weren't for bloggers, nobody would have covered the shady, undeclared lobbying that corrupted the race for New York City Council speaker.

But for bloggers, few would read information, for example, about how Gov. Cuomo's Medicaid Redesign Team has been a front group to make wholesale cuts to healthcare by closing entire hospitals, a furtherance of austerity measures begun by former Republican Gov. George Pataki's Berger Commission, a view you wouldn't get from, say, Anemona Hartocollis, the metropolitan healthcare reporter for The New York Times. A Web site administered by the housing activist and blogger John Fisher contributed to the years-long, grassroots effort to vote former City Council Speaker Christine Quinn out of office. The Atlantic Yards Report blog has published a wealth of information about the real estate corruption and community betrayals that took place in the furtherance of Forest City Ratner's zone-busting development for the Atlantic Yards section of Brooklyn. And many mainstream reporters are said to check in daily on the Queens Crap blog for news tips that regularly show up as full-fledged reports on local New York City TV news broadcasts. Since bloggers aren't afraid to tell the political truth, no matter how unflattering it may be to elected officials, the followers of certain political blogs will actually learn about how voters get short-changed by the shortcomings of the political expediency that elected officials practise.

• RELATED : You Could Die Waiting In A New York City Emergency Room (NYC : News & Analysis)
• RELATED : Good Government Group Lashes Out At Cuomo Over Interfering With Moreland Commission (NYC : News & Analysis)

How does @NYGovCuomo explain longer EMS transport times to communities affected by @NewYorkMRT hospital closings ? @JCats2013 @Azi

— StopNYMRT (@StopNYMRT) March 15, 2014

But the steadfast independence of bloggers hasn't stopped politicians from trying to control bloggers. Concerned about parental backlash to administration attacks on charter schools, New York City Mayor de Blasio recently announced an effort to subvert bloggers' independence by spoon-feeding parent bloggers with campaign-styled messaging on his universal pre-kinder program. Mayor de Blasio had to scurry into the arms of parent bloggers after he angered the City Hall press corps by restricting their access to him, hiding appointments from his public schedule, and by walking away from reporters' questions. His predecessor, former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, was king of his own media empire, and he didn't need bloggers. Hence, Mayor Bloomberg once derided all bloggers as lawless partisans.

This is a breaking-news post. Please check back for possible updates.

Councilmembers Criticize Speaker, Mayor Over Lack of Transparency On Paid Sick Day Deal

This is the tricky part, and it shouldn't even have to be "tricky" to understand : people vote for Councilmembers for their own, respective Council district, and however compromised that elections are by the corruptive role of money and lobbyists, those Councilmembers become disempowered when things get rammed through City Council based on an agenda that solely politically-expedient for the leadership. How is this any different from what Speaker Quinn did, other than she did it to appease Mayor Bloomberg, whereas Speaker Mark-Viverito does it to appease Mayor de Blasio ? What of all the other Councilmembers ? Don't they matter to the democratic, deliberative process of the Council ? What of their constituents ?

I whole-heartedly support expanding paid sick leave, but, shit, how are these machinations meant to empower people, who had been shut out of the Council legislation process under Speaker Quinn ? RELATED --> Bill de Blasio, New York Liberals, and the Veal Pen (Updated) Several New York City Council members, including supporters of Mark-Viverito, were not consulted about the expansion of paid sick leave legislation until late last night after it had been reported, Politicker writes.

Save Bradley Manning Rally Outside Obama NYC Campaign Headquarters

On the Evening of President Obama's Acceptance Speech at the Democratic National Convention, Activists Demand Freedom and Liberty for PFC Bradley Manning.

A coalition of activists and members of groups, like World Can't Wait, Veterans For Peace, and others, showed up for a rally outside of President Barack Obama's NYC campaign headquarters to demand freedom for LGBT service member and whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning. PFC Manning faces 22 charges in an unjust court martial, which denies him due process and other basic civil rights. PFC Manning faces government accusations that he released government documents and videos to WikiLeaks.

For more information, please visit : BradleyManning.org or CourageToResist.org or WorldCantWait.net

If you believe that whistleblowers should not be prosecuted, please ask President Obama to release PFC Manning -- send Tweets to the White House at : @whitehouse and @BarackObama

Cuomo's Obsession With Secrecy

Governor Andrew "Control Queen" Cuomo

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is removing government records from the State Archives, and he is even going to so far as to destroying electronic records and denying public access to government information.

"The governor’s aides have also tried to withhold, possibly for decades, public documents created during his previous job as attorney general. Earlier this year, according to recent reports, his staff scrambled to deny public access to some documents in the State Archives after reporters from The Times Union of Albany received a box of papers relating to the so-called Troopergate investigation by Mr. Cuomo in 2007. Josh Vlasto, the governor’s spokesman, said the files were private and were released in error by the state archivist," wrote The New York Times in an editorial.

Read more : Governor Cuomo at the Controls

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."

CENSORED : True News From Change NYC Blog

Update : True News From Change NYC Blog Has Been Restored

Google Blogspot Blog Has Been Removed For No Reason ; Blogger Community Suspects Political Censorship ; Call To Action

Please send an e-mail to press@google.com and copy Gary Tilzer, the owner of the censored blog, at Gtprinter@aol.com -- demanding that the True News blog be restored.

True News is a blog dedicated to reporting about government scandals, politics, and transparency. (Here is the cached version of the True News blog.)

This is not the first act of censorship against Mr. Tilzer. Before the 2010 election, a YouTube video that Mr. Tilzer produced was banned by NBC/YouTube and had to be replaced with an edited version. In the last couple of years, others have faced incidences of cyber censorship or retaliatory activity. One and a half months before the 2009 election, the YouTube channel owned by the artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy was likewise censored, until bloggers and a lawyer intervened on her behalf. In 2010, this blogger was attacked by computer viruses 3 or 4 times, including on the day this blogger reported to the New York Department of State Committee on Open Government an act of censorship committed by Brad Hoylman.

Flashback : Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed Internet freedom as tool to ‘spread truth and expose injustice’

We need your help to keep courageous bloggers, like Mr. Tilzer, doing what they do. If you are reading this, it is because you are turning to the Internet for reliable information. For it to be here, bloggers, like Mr. Tilzer, have to be able to do their work without fear of retribution or censorship.