BLURRED LINES Bill ’17 campaign mixed city biz with fund-raising
Mayor de Blasio’s 2017 reelection campaign regularly coordinated with City Hall staffers to set up events and calls, including chats with influential donors, the Daily News has learned.
The email correspondence between campaign officials and the mayor’s office, obtained by The News through a Freedom of Information Law request, demonstrate just how comfortable the de Blasio administration is blurring city business and politics. Ethics rules prohibit all city employees from using public time or resources for political activity.
In one December 2016 exchange, campaign and City Hall staffers organized a sitdown between de Blasio and major Democratic fund-raiser Steve Mostyn – and even tried to get a deputy mayor to stop by the meeting. De Blasio’s fund-raising tactics were still under investigation by federal and state prosecutors at the time.
The month after the meeting, two members of the megadonor’s family gave de Blasio’s 2017 campaign $9,900.
“Steve Mostyn is in town from Dallas. Very important I see him,” de Blasio emailed city staffers on Dec. 5, 2016, explaining his campaign’s finance director had contact information.
The campaign’s finance director followed up to say that de Blasio wanted Herminia Palacio, then-deputy mayor for health and human services, to “stop by to say hi at the front or back end” of the hour-long meeting. The mayor’s director of scheduling even suggested the meeting with Mostyn be held at City Hall, only to be told that wasn’t allowed.
The mayor’s office said de Blasio wanted Palacio to come because he thought she and Mostyn would enjoy meeting, though she couldn’t ultimately attend. Palacio used to work in Texas, where the late Mostyn grew up and lived.
“It’s clear the mayor used City Hall staff to bolster his campaign fund-raising, including having high-level city officials hobnob with potential big donors and made attempts to hide it,” said Sal Albanese, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran against de Blasio in 2017. “All of this is unethical and potentially illegal.”
The campaign also coordinated with city officials over whether de Blasio should attend a Building and Construction Trades Council conference in Florida, where he already had a fund-raiser planned in Miami Beach.
“Let’s be clear: it is NOT my preference to attend. But we need to account for the fact that I will be openly and obviously in the area, and didn’t stop by,” de Blasio wrote to city and campaign officials on March 2, 2017. He decided to go after City Hall’s director of scheduling confirmed, “the timing of our FR will not be affected.”
A 2017 campaign rep also included a top City Hall staffer in an email planning an attack video against de Blasio’s Republican opponent that year, Staten Island Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis.
“Once again Bill de Blasio has proven that he and his administration are ethically challenged; his campaign funds were tainted by ‘pay to play’ donors and his staff supplemented by city workers, how pathetic,” Malliotakis said.
Conflicts of Interest Board Rules prevent public employees from politicking on the job, including using a city email account for fundraising or other political activity.
“The mayor’s campaign and City Hall should establish procedures that create clearer boundaries in setting up meetings and communications to separate campaign work from government work,” said Alex Camarda of Reinvent Albany, a good-government group.
The mayor’s office said that the boundaries were wellestablished and adhered to.
“City Hall and the campaign followed all rules and regulations,” de Blasio spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein said. “There is nothing prohibiting the teams from coordinating on scheduling.”