Mister Sleaze
To do biz with NYC, you gotta pay the man
AND so another shoe drops on Mayor de Blasio, underscoring yet again the big fellow’s astonishing contempt for law, custom and ethical conduct in the pursuit of the people’s business.
You would have to go back to Jimmy Walker, and maybe earlier than that, to find a mayor so egregiously inclined to use the municipal fisc as a political piggy-bank.
Blas has been in ethics trouble virtually since Day One, when he dropped a multibilliondollar contract on the teachers union and then swept $350,000 in teacher money into the accounts of a now-defunct PAC, the Campaign for One New York. Or maybe it was the other way around; it’s hard to keep his conflicts straight. But you know what? Nobody can do anything about this guy. That is, New York’s public-integrity enforcement infrastructure is so compromised, and so incompetent, that de Blasio is free to carry on his shenanigans for the remainder of his term.
News of Blas’ latest scandal arrives via The City, a local-news-oriented Internet startup that Wednesday revealed a heavily redacted city Department of Investigation report alleging woeful wrongdoing. To wit, that the mayor has heavily pressured folks doing business with the city to contribute to his various political schemes. And he did so despite repeated official warnings that he was acting improperly.
DOI had blacked out the juicy bits, but what is public sounds very much like what state and federal gumshoes dogged de Blasio over for much of his first term. (Can you say Campaign for One New York?) But then Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance blinked and bailed on the probe, and Hizzoner danced off.
This new, sure-to-build, scandal followed news that the city had bought 21 shabby apartment buildings in Brooklyn and The Bronx from two infamous but politically well-wired slumlords for three-plus times their listed value: $173 million versus $50 million. The mayor says he’s wellpleased with the deal — hardly a surprise; the slumlords’ lawyer has been a mayoral fundraiser.
And then there is the ongoing matter of who’s kicking in to de
Blasio’s “Fairness PAC” — the bank account funding his increasingly ludicrous presidential campaign. Donors apparently include a Boston businessman who hopes to win city contracts and, if history is any guide, companies already doing business in Gotham.
Says venerable municipal watchdog Betsy Gotbaum: “I think it is something wrong. I think you do not take money from people who are doing business with or who want to do business with the city. I’m shocked.”
Now, if you can shock Betsy Gotbaum, you’re a singular item — she’s been around for a while.
This administration reeks — that’s no secret — but what’s to be done about it? New York is
so compromised, on so many levels, that nobody reasonably can call out the mayor.
Take the three authority figures most relevant to this situation:
Gov. Cuomo lacks the constitutional authority to do much about de Blasio. There’s always the bully pulpit, but that’s no option given his own past practices and circumstances. His administration has grievous ethical issues of its own — it’s hard to keep track of how many aides and advisers are now in prison or on their way — and his childish feuding with de Blasio sucks the credibility out of even clearly legitimate criticism of City Hall.
Attorney General Letitia James, now so amusingly preoccupied with President Trump, effectively was brought to office by Cuomo and so would be hobbled by many of the governor’s credibility issues. Plus, there’s nothing in her thin record to suggest that she could find her own name in a telephone book, so Big Bill’s safe on that front.
Vance, the Manhattan DA, has already had at least one bite from the Blas apple — as noted, probing the mayor for his campaign-solicitation practices and, in addition, for alleged election-law violations involving state Senate campaigns. Vance said he found a raft of irregularities but declined to prosecute on the ground that because de Blasio’s lawyers had told him everything was OK, everything was OK.
Meanwhile, Vance’s own campaign-finance skirts are soiled; he was embarrassed last year by revelations that his office had dropped cases against high-profile defendants, including Harvey Weinstein, after their lawyers had kicked in to Vance’s re-election accounts.
So there you go: governor, AG and a district attorney — the three blind mice of Gotham.
Is it any wonder that de Blasio is the way he is? Or that he’s forever wearing that goofy grin?
It’s especially good to be the king — of a corruptocracy.