DeB pal rakes in $13.5M
Scandal lobbyist
Big Apple-based lobbyists raked in record-setting total pay for the third straight year — with Mayor de Blasio’s pal James Capalino still at the top of the heap, data from the City Clerk’s Office revealed Thursday.
Capalino is the lobbyist embroiled in several City Hall pay-to-play controversies that have caught the eyes of prosecutors — including the lifting of the Rivington House deed restriction and the conversion of the Long Island College Hospital site into luxury housing.
His firm, James F. Capalino & Associates, raked in $13.5 million in 2016 — about $500,000 more than the roughly $12.9 million in payments it received in 2015. Since de Blasio took office in 2014, Capalino has nearly tripled its earnings.
“It’s certainly becoming one of the municipal growth industries,” said NYU urban-policy Professor Mitchell Moss. “One of the unfortunate byproducts in the surge in municipal spending is the concomitant growth of spending on lobbyists.”
Over the next fiscal year, the city budget is projected to grow by about 3 percent. Overall earnings for firms lobbying city government climbed to a record $95.4 million in 2016, nearly an 11 percent increase from $86.1 million in 2015.
The new figures from the clerk’s office come as de Blasio faces probes into whether his administration illegally traded political favors for campaign contributions.
Capalino lobbied City Hall on behalf of the Rivington House nursing home to have deed restrictions lifted from the property just 16 days after de Blasio took office.
The sale and resale of the Lower East Side property — and the city’s eventual lifting of deed restrictions there — sparked a number of investigations.
Capalino was also the lobbyist who pressed top de Blasio officials to back luxury condos at the former Brooklyn hospital site at the same time he was writing big checks to de Blasio’s political causes.
Last year, de Blasio said he would no longer meet with Capalino on city business, citing “the atmosphere we’re in and the ongoing investigations.”
Capalino has raised $44,940 for the mayor’s 2017 re-election bid and gave $10,000 to the Campaign for One New York, a nonprofit under investigation by the feds that raised more than $4.3 million to back de Blasio’s pet projects.