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Now, Brothers And Sisters, Guess What, When You Set Up A Slush Fund To Indulge Your Own Venal Impulses, Opposition Emerges

It’s always about the voices of the status quo, now, isn’t it:

Mayor de Blasio joined the Rev. Al Sharpton Saturday to again chalk up his recent string of troubles to people who don’t agree with his policies.

Hizzoner hinted at the federal and criminal probes buzzing around his and his allies fundraising efforts and stood by his belief that the investigations are purely political in nature.

“Now, brothers and sisters, guess what, when you do something different, opposition emerges,” de Blasio told a packed house at the National Action Network’s Harlem headqauarters. “The voices of the status quo find many, many ways to undermine progress, to stand in the way of progress, but we will not be held back.

“We’ll keep moving forward and I need your help to do that,” he added.

Earlier, Sharpton introduced the mayor to a loud round of applause from the crowd, calling him a man of “integrity.”

Posted: May 7th, 2016 | Filed under: Things That Make You Go "Oy"

Leaving To Spend More Time With My Family

It’s not just a seeming veiled message — there’s something almost meta about the press secretary relying on that old trope:

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s press secretary will leave her post next month, the latest sign that the administration is continuing its long struggle to control and disseminate its own message.

[. . .]

Ms. Hinton confirmed her resignation on Thursday afternoon, which she said was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to spend more time with her daughter, a junior in high school.

Posted: May 6th, 2016 | Filed under: Things That Make You Go "Oy"

What’s Really Needed Is An Affirmative Consent Law For Politicians

“De Blasio Asked Me for $20K And it Was Hard to Say No, Developer Says”:

A real estate developer said Bill de Blasio personally called him to donate $20,000 to a nonprofit to promote universal pre-K while he had business before the city — and that it was hard “to tell the mayor no.”

Don Peebles, whose real estate company owned a building they later got city approval to turn into condos, told DNAinfo New York that in March 2014 he received a call from the mayor asking him to contribute the money to the nonprofit, now called the Campaign for One New York.

Federal and state investigators are probing whether the nonprofit illegally raised funds and if contributors got favors from the city in exchange for their donation.

“He asked me for a specific dollar amount,” Peebles, who’s a possible 2017 mayoral candidate, said during an interview in his Fifth Avenue offices Monday.

Even though he believed universal pre-K was important and wanted to support the cause, Peebles, a past de Blasio fundraiser, said he was wary about the call.

“It’s hard for a business person who has business interests in New York City to tell the mayor no, especially real estate developers,” Peebles said.

[. . .]

The developer isn’t the only person de Blasio hit up for money.

One person in the real estate industry who Peebles introduced to de Blasio for fundraising purposes, but who declined to be interviewed because they have business before the city, called Peebles after de Blasio asked for $50,000 for his effort to win back the Senate.

“They just felt uncomfortable. They didn’t want to tell the mayor no,” Peebles said of the call. “They called me for help to guide them on how to get the mayor to lower the amount because they felt it was too much for them.”

Posted: May 4th, 2016 | Filed under: Things That Make You Go "Oy"

Legal And Appropriate

Another take on what the mayor’s likes to describe as “legal and appropriate”:

It was September 2014. Republican Tom Croci was battling Democrat Adrienne Esposito for a Long Island state Senate seat. The state teachers’ union, having already given the legal maximum amount to Esposito, wanted to cut an even bigger check to the Suffolk County Democratic Committee, which can transfer unlimited funds to a candidate.

“We believed it was illegal,” said Richard Schaffer, head of the Suffolk Democrats.

Schaffer says because the money was meant for Esposito, it was an attempt to evade contribution limits, the same violation a state Board of Elections official says Mayor Bill de Blasio’s team committed in directing money to three upstate races around the same time.

“The fact that he told me, ‘We want you to spend it directly on Adrienne Esposito,’ that makes it illegal,” Schaffer said.

Schaffer says he told the union no thanks, but got a check anyway, for $100,000. His committee rejected it, writing, “we are unable to deposit your check and are compelled to return it to you.”

“They were annoyed,” Schaffer said.

Much like de Blasio now, the union, New York State United Teachers, insisted the move was legal and told NY1 it has a longstanding record of meticulously adhering to the law.

“They even said at one point, ‘Well, we do this all the time.’ And I said, ‘Well, then I think you’re doing something wrong all the time. It doesn’t mean I have to do it,'” Schaffer said.

Posted: May 4th, 2016 | Filed under: Things That Make You Go "Oy"

Donations Scrupulously Followed

“Donations to Mayor’s Nonprofit May Have Violated Directive from Conflicts of Interest Board”:

It was one of the first things Bill de Blasio did when he became mayor.

Eight days into his administration, he got a letter from the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board, the agency overseeing ethical conduct for local elected officials. It granted the mayor approval to fundraise for his newly established nonprofit group that was pushing his agenda, the Campaign for One New York.

Of course, there was a catch. De Blasio could not solicit donations for that nonprofit from “anyone with a matter pending or about to be pending” before the city. The letter went on to say quote: “It is the Board’s conclusion that, as applied to the mayor, the ‘agency’ referred to is the entire executive branch . . .”

So more than two years later, NY1 examined all of the donations to the Campaign for One New York, which is now the subject of a federal investigation. We found that at least 60 donations came from an entity that had business with the city, or a company that was directly lobbying the city or was a union with a city contract.

In some cases, action by the de Blasio adminsitration occurred within days or months of the donation. For instance, the city’s health care workers’ union SEIU Local 1199 gave $250,000 in March of 2014. Three months later, the union signed a new city contract.

Or take real estate. A developer won a variance to build a commerical and residential project on a skinny TriBeCa lot in June of 2015. Three days later, the company gave $10,000 to the Campaign for One New York.

[. . .]

In a statement, Maya Wiley, the counsel to the mayor, says, “The COIB letter is clear. It does not prohibit solicitations from people who do business with the City. It only bars the solicitation of someone ‘with a matter pending or about to be pending’ before the City. There was a process in place to insure that this guidance was scrupulously followed.”

Posted: May 4th, 2016 | Filed under: Things That Make You Go "Oy"
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