Can’t mask self-dealing Pols turn giveaways of key supplies into campaign events
City elected officials are mingling campaigning with the distribution of vital items like face masks and hand sanitizer.
A staffer for Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (DBronx) passed out literature promoting his boss along with hand sanitizer and census info last month.
“Today … I walked around our community to drop off hand sanitizer and [census] information in mailboxes! Shout out @bestdealcarservice for donating hand sanitizers,” the staffer, Kevin Riley, tweeted April 2.
A picture he included in the tweet showed him holding flyers touting Heastie’s work bringing home the bacon, like getting $60 million for a new YMCA.
A tweet from Heastie’s account showed the staffer wearing a mask promoting Riley’s own campaign, for a district leader seat in the area Heastie represents.
“As we face this unprecedented health crisis it is imperative that we continue to assist the community at large. Thank you @MetCouncil for providing these food boxes … and thank you to all that assisted!” the speaker tweeted, tagging the handle for Riley.
Government watchdog Common Cause decried the activity.
“What we’re seeing is politicians using this crisis to promote themselves or their reelection instead of doing their jobs as lawmakers,” Susan Lerner, the group’s executive director, told the Daily News.
Common Cause has scolded state lawmakers for effectively calling it quits for the year since they passed the state budget last month, holding few hearings since then.
“The job title is lawmaker. Are they making laws? What are we paying them to do?” Lerner fumed. “There are staff members that we also are paying to hand out sanitizers and masks and food — all necessary for constituents. But the job isn’t constituent services; the job is lawmaker, and they’re supposed to be in session right now.”
Heastie’s spokesman Michael Whyland rejected the criticism, noting the speaker is not facing a primary this year.
“The literature was not campaign-related,” he said of the material Riley distributed.
“It is unfortunate that [Lerner] is trying to pit legislating against hands-on constituent services like wellness checks, ensuring people have food and helping them process their unemployment claims,” he added.
Scandal-plagued Councilman Mark Gjonaj (D-Bronx) recently offered free face masks — only to people who get emails from his reelection campaign.
“Mayor de Blasio has failed the Bronx yet again, let’s do our part by being prepared to stop the spread,” the email read, faulting Hizzoner for excluding Pehlam Bay Park from locations where the city did an initial round of face mask distribution.
The May 4 message encouraged recipients to email the campaign “to receive your free face mask and details on the giveaway.”
In fact, Gjonaj’s campaign has yet to acquire any masks. And the mayor’s office provided his Council office — along with that of every other member — with 1,080 cloth masks and 1,100 paper masks to distribute within their districts.
Gjonaj’s email drew outrage from good-government group Citizens Union.
“Don’t just give it to your donors,” Betsy Gotbaum, the group’s executive director, told The News. “Maybe you’ll get more people voting for you if you give it through the office.”
Gjonaj spokesman Reginald Johnson called the issue “yet another absurd agendadriven Daily News nonstory.”
“To help make up for the relative shortage of masks provided by other government agencies, the councilman directed his campaign to provide additional facial coverings,” he said in a text message. “To make this anything more than that is pitiful.”