‘Shady’ ties between city unit, Bill elex bid

A city-run tenant outreach program led by one of Mayor de Blasio’s top political operatives is strongly believed to have doubled as an arm of his 2017 reelection bid, according to sources who worked for the program.

The Public Engagement Unit, which falls under the city’s Human Resources Administration, had workers knock on “thousands” of tenants’ doors to gather personal information, including names and addresses — in what former staffers described as an effort to lay the groundwork for the 2017 campaign.

David Andrade, a former engagement unit tenant support specialist, described the it as “very shady” and said he has no doubt the data it gathered was directed to de Blasio’s political operation.

“This wasn’t kosher,” he said. “It wasn’t talked about … but you could connect the dots. I knew it would be migrated.”

Andrade said a connection to the campaign wasn’t spoken about openly, but was laid out to him by co-workers with ties to Rick Fromberg, who worked as de Blasio’s 2017 campaign manager and the inPEU’s senior adviser from January 2015 to May 2016.

“It was wink wink, like this is going to be helpful in 2017 — that’s the way the senior adviser [Fromberg] would talk about it,” said another former PEU staffer. “Everybody could smell that it was sketchy.”

Public records confirm Fromberg was politically active at the time.

A March 2015 email obtained by the Daily News shows that while working at the unit, Fromberg wrote to former de Blasio adviser Peter Ragone about devising political strategy at the behest of City Hall.

“Emma/Boss gave me point on putting together a suburbs/ upstate political strategy,” Fromberg wrote, referring to top de Blasio adviser Emma Wolfe. “She lets me know you’ve (very generously, of course) offered some guidance here. Got some time to connect on it?”

A month later, Fromberg followed up with Ragone about “suburban strategy.”

“Boss is meeting with (former Nassau County Executive) Ed Mangano next week, and a couple other elements are in play for some regional partnerships,” he wrote. “Would love to wrap this all together. What do you think?”

Fromberg denied sending PEU data to the campaign.

“We unequivocally did not move data between the PEU and the de Blasio campaign,” he said. “Anyone insinuating that we did is both misinformed and uninformed.”

Before working for the city, Fromberg worked for the Global Strategy Group, a public affairs firm that specializes in political campaigns.

A de Blasio spokesman also denied anyone from the PEU directed data to the campaign.

“City government never shared this data with the campaign, and the campaign never had access to it in any way, shape or form,” de Blasio spokesman Eric Phillips said. “Any suggestion otherwise is made by someone who is either lying or doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

Another former wellplaced de Blasio administration official painted a different picture, noting the public engagement unit deserved more scrutiny and should be investigated.

Using city workers to participate in political activity is illegal and subject to fines and other sanctions.

If substantiated by an investigation, such a blurring of lines would be a “big deal,” said John Kaehny, of the watchdog group Reinvent Albany.

“There are many red flags here. There needs to be an outside investigation to determine what happened,” he said. “That should include the Campaign Finance Board, the Conflicts of Interest Board and the Manhattan DA’s office.”

Andrade and other sources noted the PEU — which budget records show received $11.2 million in city money in 2018 — also used NGP VAN Votebuilder software, which is typically employed by political campaigns.

One source said canvassers gathered names, addresses and whether tenants received public assistance while offering help with resources like senior rental benefits.

“Our canvassers would develop a relationship and the goal was to bring over the canvassers (to the campaign),” he said. “They wanted to use all that intel for the reelection.”