Memo contradicts denials on condo deal
about the Rivington transaction.”
He said ultimately the Law Department turned over the memo with the Harlem Dance Theater portion unredacted.
De Blasio said during an April 1 appearance on NY1 that he’d asked DOI to investigate the Rivington sale and added, “We also are going to use this investigation to show us exactly what we need to change in the approach the city takes so this cannot happen again in the future.”
He noted, “We’re going to take a very close look not only at that agency, but any other agency that deals with deed restrictions because this again goes against all my values.”
Last week DOI wrote to Carter threatening to go to court to force the release of all the documents in unredacted form, and demanding total access to the mayor’s computers. On Tuesday Carter agreed to their demands.
On the Lehrer show, the mayor made a point of defending Shorris, saying he had “total confidence” in the top aide, who, he pointed out, is extremely busy.
When Lehrer asked how Shorris could have missed that the city was paid $16 million to ditch the deed limits, the mayor declared the amount wasn’t big enough to notice.
“Here’s the simple way of saying it,” he replied. “In the context of an $82 billion budget, in the context of all the issues we deal with every day, 16 million — I care deeply about 16 million, as do the taxpayers — but compared to everything else we deal with, it is on the smaller side of the equation.”
DOI is the city’s independent watchdog. By executive order, the agency has unlimited access to city agency internal communications, including emails.
In this case, DOI Commissioner Mark Peters has had to recuse himself from the investigation of Rivington and an unrelated probe into the mayor’s campaign fundraising. Peters was, for a time, the mayor’s campaign treasurer.
But his staff has pressed forward with both investigations, and have characterized Carter’s intervention as “unprecedented.”
Multiple officials familiar with how the DOI conducts business say the involvement of the Department of Law in vetting documents requests by DOI is, in fact, unprecedented in modern history.
No DOI commissioner has been forced to threaten a lawsuit to get documents from a city agency during the administrations of David Dinkins (1990-1993), Rudy Giuliani (1994-2001) and Mayor Michael Bloomberg (2002-2013).
Both Carter and the mayor have called the dispute between the Law Department and DOI “normal.”