New York Post

A Streetcar Named Pay-To-Play

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Mayor de Blasio’s Campaign for One New York slush fund now looks even shadier than ever. As The Post reports Thursday, several bigwig players who forked over major bucks to the mayor or his fund stand to gain from de Blasio’s BrooklynQu­eens streetcar project.

Really, does he have any ideas that don’t reward friendly fat cats?

Two Trees Management, Forest City Ratner, the Durst Organizati­on, Broadway Stages, the World Wide Group and the Park Tower Group all have realestate interests near the planned route. Once the project’s done, the value of sites by the tramline are bound to soar.

And each firm — or parties with ties to them — gave handsomely to the CONY fund or to de Blasio’s campaign. That includes donations of more than $265,000 to the Campaign for One New York.

The tram plan has real appeal. But developers have long dreamed of a waterfront tram, yet couldn’t get other mayors to sign on. Something swayed de Blasio. It all fits a troubling paytoplay pattern:

De Blasio keeps embarrassi­ng himself with failed bids to kill the carriageho­rse trade — to please a key political donor.

He tried to cap the growth of Uber to please the big givers of the taxi industry.

He’s given special access to oldpal lobbyists. Surprise: That can mean special favors, like the unusual permit for a concert promoter’s event on Randall’s Island.

The watchdog Common Cause this week filed a formal demand for a probe of whether the mayor uses CONY to endrun city law. It specifical­ly flagged the cash from the realestate industry, among others.

The Post’s latest scoop shows how urgently that probe is needed.

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