And the Sleaze Goes On
Mayor de Blasio’s $300,000 debt to his outside law firm is starting to cast a huge shadow over his staff ’s decisions. As The Post reports Tuesday, opponents of plans to expand the Frick Museum have gone to court, claiming in part that the Frick’s use of the firm — Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel — to represent it before the city creates a conflict of interest.
They’re right: Frick hired Kramer Levin to push its plans before the Board of Standards and Appeals and the Landmarks Preservation Commission. But the mayor chooses their members, and they’re all surely aware that he owes the firm 300 grand.
The BSA will also decide Tuesday whether to OK a 64-story East Side apartment tower. Who’s repping its developer, Jonathan Kalikow? Yep: Kramer Levin.
The firm reportedly lobbied two key mayoral aides, Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen and City Planning Commissioner Marisa Lago, to let the building reach its planned 64-story height — and the planning commission obliged.
The City Council later nixed that decision, but the BSA will now decide whether enough of the tower was built by then to shield it from the council’s action.
Even if de Blasio hasn’t tried to pay off his debt with political favors, his debt creates an appearance that the firm will be treated well by the city. What company lets a client not pay a bill (or even work out a payment plan, as de Blasio has yet to do) unless it’s getting something in return?
Frankly, the BSA should OK the 64-story tower because its wealthy foes, who are trying to protect their scenic views, raise no good argument to stop it. Yet the law firm’s role would taint that decision.
And those are just two projects of many on which Kramer Levin lobbies City Hall. In 2017 alone, the firm pressed the mayor’s office on behalf of 26 different clients.
Moreover, the firm’s done nicely just by repping the mayor: It’s billing taxpayers as much as $850 an hour (for a total of $2.6 million) for having defended him in various probes. City Hall even agreed to keep the bills secret, though city Comptroller Scott Stringer’s office disclosed them.
De Blasio has no one to blame here but himself: It was his pay-to-play schemes that sparked those probes in the first place. Now he’s continuing the sleaze by failing to pay his legal bills — while letting his lawyers lobby him. The corruption never ends.