City Council members in New York have legally steered millions of tax dollars to relatives, spouses and friends thanks to a city measure that grants lawmakers large slush funds to be spent however they please.
Each of New York’s 51 council members gets a chunk of cash that can be spent at the discretion of the council member. Ideally, the money is supposed to provide valuable community services but no one bothers to follow up, leaving the system rife with fraud, corruption and conflict of interest.
So far, at least seven of the city’s 51 lawmakers have been caught distributing millions of public dollars to relatives, spouses and friends. One lawmaker, Larry Seabrook of the Bronx, actually gave nearly $1 million to a suspicious group—Bronx African American Chamber of Commerce—with the same address as his office.
A pair of councilmen from Manhattan and Queens, each gave questionable nonprofits $400,000. One group was operated by the lawmaker’s top aides and the other featured the councilman’s sister on the board of directors. A Brooklyn Councilman gave $356,000 to a nonprofit operated by his chief of staff, who got caught embezzling $145,000 and another Brooklyn councilman gave a group that employs his wife nearly $200,000.
Incredibly, the council’s speaker acknowledges that some of the council’s so-called discretionary funds were assigned to fake nonprofits to hold the money for future distribution to real groups. A local paper sums the scandal up quite well, writing in an editorial that “the stench of waste, fraud and corruption wafting out of the City Council grows ranker by the day….”
Comments
Political Back Door Deals at New York City Hall
The company that New York City chose to operate a heliport near Wall Street revealed on Monday that it would place a former city official in charge of the facility, despite criticism that it was getting the contract through political connections.
At a public hearing on Monday, representatives of three local aviation companies complained about the city Economic Development Corporation’s decision to sign a 10-year contract for the Downtown Manhattan Heliport with FirstFlight, a company based near Elmira, N.Y., that has never operated a busy urban heliport. But neither FirstFlight executives nor city officials said anything at the hearing, held by the city’s Franchise and Concession Review Committee, to dispel the criticism that the company had ties to City Hall.
Instead, Ron Ricciardi, the vice chairman of FirstFlight, said that Robert Grotell, who was once the senior aviation official for the Economic Development Corporation, would manage the heliport on an interim basis.
Mr. Ricciardi also disclosed that Mr. Grotell, who also served as a city transportation official under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his predecessor, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was the architect of the company’s successful bid for the heliport.
That declaration fanned the discontent simmering among losing bidders and operators of helicopter tours in the city. One of the bidders, Linden Airport Management Corporation, has sued the development corporation in federal court, contending that its selection process was unfair and “based on political motivation.”
Paul P. Dudley, the president of Linden, which operates a municipal airport in New Jersey, asked the review committee to reject FirstFlight because it had no experience operating a heliport and because, he contended, its bid was inferior to Linden’s.
FirstFlight offered to pay at least $1.2 million in the first year of the contract, with the rent rising by about 4 percent annually, according to a summary from the review committee.
Representatives of two sightseeing tour operators — Helicopter Flight Services and New York Helicopter — that use the downtown heliport also asked the committee to overturn the selection of FirstFlight. The target of their criticism was Alvin S. Trenk, a director of First Flight, who owns Air Pegasus, a company that runs another city heliport, at the west end of 30th Street.
John Kjekstad, president of Helicopter Flight Services, said Mr. Trenk should not be involved because he also operates a sightseeing service. “To have our competitor be our landlord, which I would think is a conflict of interest, would be very difficult,” he said.
Patricia Ornst, an official of the development corporation, attended the hearing but declined to respond to the complaints about FirstFlight. After the hearing, a spokeswoman for the development corporation said that it “believes that it has selected the best proposal based on the qualifications and the criteria specified” in its request for proposals.
Mr. Grotell last worked for the city in 2004, when he was deputy commissioner of transportation; he is now an aviation consultant.
Post new comment