City of Yes there's corruption in this housing plan

 

 Queens Chronicle

Shortly after Mayor Adams was indicted last week on federal corruption charges, Councilman Bob Holden (D-Maspeth) made a request via letter to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York to look into potential wrongdoing surrounding the Housing Opportunity initiative from the City of Yes proposals.

Holden also asked the city’s Department of Investigation to probe the matter last Friday, because he believes there may possibly be special interests at play.

The unsealed federal charges against Adams allege that he accepted bribes from Turkish officials and pressured FDNY members to ignore safety violations to push through the opening of a 36-story tower called the Turkish House in Manhattan in exchange for luxury first-class travel and other accommodations to Turkey.

Since taking office, Adams has touted his efforts to take steps to cut the red tape and streamline the environmental review process in order to create new housing throughout the Big Apple to combat the city’s growing homelessness problem. His Housing Opportunity proposal would change zoning regulations to further accomplish that goal, but many Queens community board members have noted that there is no language in the text amendment guaranteeing affordable housing, which they say could result in developers having carte blanche.

Last Wednesday, the City Planning Commission voted 10-3 to approve the proposal, according to City Hall. The Department of City Planning is formally transmitting the proposal to the Council, which will have 50 days to hold a hearing and vote. If the Council modifies the proposal in committee, it will have another 15 days for the full body to vote.

In Queens, 12 of 14 community boards voted against it.

“The overwhelming opposition to the City of Yes, evidenced by the majority of community boards rejecting it and numerous civic associations voicing their concerns, raises significant questions about the motivations behind the Mayor’s decision to proceed with a plan that grants developers broad authority to overdevelop our city,” said Holden in his letter.

“I urge you to consider these factors and investigate whether any improprieties or conflicts of interest exist regarding the City of Yes proposals, or worse, any potential pay-to-play or quid pro quo may be involved. The integrity of our city governance must be upheld, and it is essential to ensure that the interests of our communities are prioritized over those of potential special interests.”

CB 13 is among the strongest opponents of the housing initiative.

“Community Board 13 objects to City of Yes imposing as-of-right zoning to insert new housing whether or not local neighborhoods have the infrastructure in place first to support it,” CB 13 Land Use Subcommittee City of Yes Chair Corey Bearak, Land Use Chair Michael Mallia and Board Chair Bryan Block said via email. “That said the current situation at City Hall introduces uncertainty about who will be driving this attempt to eviscerate the City Charter’s community review provisions known as [Uniform Land Use Review Procedure] as the City Council begins its consideration of these misguided zoning changes to permit greater scales of development — increased density — on blocks and in neighborhoods without community input and without any guarantee of affordability especially for working families and the middle class.”

 

CBS catches up with illegal airbnbs in houses at Arvene on the Sea

 CBS New York

 A controversy over property rentals is heating up in a beachfront community in The Rockaways.

Some homeowners are being accused of taking advantage of a city program to cash in on a major tax break, CBS2's Lisa Rozner reported Wednesday.

It's prime waterfront property: several homeowner communities made up of around 1,500 homes known as "Arverne by the Sea" in the Rockaway peninsula were built in the early 2000s as part of an urban renewal project.

The city designated it an "urban development action area project," which means homeowners would get a huge break on their taxes.

"We were also first-time homebuyers, so that was helpful," homeowner Adam Linet said. "Our tax rates are probably around 25 percent of what they would normally be."

It was a great deal, which is why the Department of Housing Preservation and Development required every homeowner make it their primary residence.

"One of the same zip codes that has among the deepest pockets of poverty in the entire city of New York. So, this was a real opportunity for folks who had been stuck in generational poverty," Assemblyman Khaleel Anderson said.

In February, a Department of Investigation report uncovered at least 15 homeowners violating the primary residence requirement, receiving in total more than $1 million in tax exemptions. Seventy properties had tax bills mailed outside of the development and one couple even turned its home into a fully licensed bed and breakfast.

Three months after the findings, Inn Your Element is available on reservation web sites. CBS2 also found on Airbnb entire homes available for $350 a night, another for $288, so residents believe there are many more homeowners violating the policy.

"I don't feel safe when so many people are coming in and out of a house," one woman said. "There are addresses that have been turned into three rental units rather than two."

"We have trash issues. We have quality-of-life issues with noise complaints," Linet added.

Finance records show one man who is a real estate investor according to LinkedIn owns at least three properties and also has an address at a luxury high-rise rental building in Manhattan.

Emails and calls to him and other alleged absentee homeowners were not returned.

CBS New York also caught up with yours truly who did a story and synopsis about this continuing scandal on Impunity City back in March. Looks like Mayor Adams and his HPD Dept are not going to do anything about this. Bunch of lily-livered scalliwags.

Avarice by the sea

 

Queens Eagle

A group of more than a dozen Arverne by the Sea homeowners are under investigation for  illegally renting out their homes while collecting approximately $1 million in tax exemptions, the Department of Investigation said this week.

A Department of Investigation report, issued Feb. 8, includes 11 recommendations to expand city oversight and prevent violations following the investigation into a 2018 complaint.

The DOI found that there were 15 homeowners in violation of the primary residence requirement; eight used the properties as rentals or investment properties — one as a hotel that was registered with the city to collect occupancy tax — and four who each owned one property and used them as rentals instead of living there.

There were 11 homeowners with multiple Arverne by the Sea deeds.

According to the DOI, they “were in violation of primary residence requirements by illegally renting their properties while being unjustly enriched by tax exemptions meant for owner-occupied homes.”

The apartments were designated in the early 2000’s as an Housing Preservation and Development Urban Development Action Area Project with a 20-year property tax exemption to homeowners requiring they maintain the homes as their primary residences.

Impunity City 

You wouldn’t think if you looked at them on first impression, but these beautiful beach front houses are actually government sanctioned public housing…

 These Arverne homes are actually impeccably designed, a bulk of them even have patios on the top floors which resemble something like penthouse condos like on Miami and Venice Beaches  with gorgeous views of the Atlantic Ocean and somewhat pleasant views of Jamaica Bay and the poorer parts of Rockaway Beach, where there at least three public housing projects in the same neighborhood.

 You don’t have to be much of a detective to figure out why these 15 motherfuckers took advantage of a government housing program and made millions off it while getting tax breaks and write-offs for nearly a decade. It doesn’t take much sleuthing to figure out why these homes were easily poached for illegal renting and airbnb lodging and why some nefarious scumbags would conspire to take advantage of this government housing program and try to make massive profits from it.All it took was a casual bike ride around this sunny oasis of pirated housing equity, it’s gets real plain to see why some nefarious scumbags would try to take advantage of this government housing program and try to make massive profits from it. Bookending this HUD financed utopian village are two massive vacant lots, one of which is still a landfill.

 

Community and Council member calling for investigation of bad Blaz's bribe derived blood center tower deal

  

NY Daily News

A community group opposed to a contentious Upper East Side rezoning is demanding two city watchdog agencies investigate Mayor de Blasio and a law firm pushing the land-use change, citing what it describes as de Blasio’s “potential conflict of interest.”

De Blasio, who supports the rezoning, owes the law firm Kramer, Levin & Naftalis an estimated principal debt of $300,000 for work it did to defend him against multiple corruption investigations starting in 2015. With interest, the total debt comes to about $435,000 — but so far, none of it has been repaid.

Kramer Levin is also representing the New York Blood Center, a non-profit blood bank, which is pursuing the rezoning so it can replace its three-floor headquarters with a tower more than 300-feet tall.

The plan has been a lightning rod in the community, with locals saying the proposed building isn’t a good fit for the mostly residential neighborhood and area elected officials lining up against it.

 De Blasio and several members of the City Council, however, are backing the plan, which has led one community group that opposes it — Eastsiders for Responsible Zoning — to question the mayor’s considerable debt to Kramer Levin, citing it as a red flag that the city’s Department of Investigation and Conflicts of Interest Board should further examine.

“Mayor de Blasio currently owes Kramer Levin a substantial sum stemming from Kramer Levin’s representation of the mayor in multiple corruption probes of his fundraising activities,” the group’s co-founder Bill Angelos wrote in a letter to DOI dated Nov. 8. “The non-payment of this debt represents a potential conflict of interest.”

Angelos goes on to write that the mayor’s support for the project and his efforts to whip votes in its favor stems in part from “the substantial obligations the mayor owes Kramer Levin.”

“Most concerning is that there’s no payment plan disclosed,” he continues. “With each passing month, this debt grows by an additional $4,000, creating more and more leverage for Kramer Levin against the mayor.”

The million dollar deadbeat

THE CITY 

 As he hints at running for governor, lame duck mayor Bill de Blasio has racked up nearly $1 million in debts to lawyers, campaign consultants and taxpayers that records indicate he currently can’t pay.

The mayor owes one of the city’s biggest lobbyist law firms upwards of $435,000. On Thursday, the city’s Department of Investigation commissioner informed him he must reimburse taxpayers nearly $320,000 for his use of an NYPD securing detail during his failed 2019 cross-country presidential campaign.

Meanwhile, the latest filings for his various campaign and political action committees reveal he’s got more than $182,500 in outstanding campaign debts — and only about $11,800 cash on hand.

Between all of this, he owes upwards of $929,000, THE CITY found.

Danielle Filson, a spokesperson for de Blasio, declined to respond to nearly all of THE CITY’s questions, stating only that he was awaiting his appeal on NYPD reimbursement.

“Once that decision is made, the mayor will of course proceed accordingly,” she wrote.

But Filson would not discuss his modest cash reserve or any of his debts, including his biggest unpaid bill: the $435,000 he owes Kramer Levin & Naftalis — a firm that regularly lobbies City Hall on behalf of real estate developers seeking favors from the mayor’s administration such as zoning changes and city permits.

Between 2015 and 2017, the firm represented de Blasio personally during multiple investigations of his fundraising tactics. As of Tuesday, he had yet to pay a dime of his long-outstanding bill. And at least for the moment, the firm — which has sued other clients for non-payment — has given the mayor a pass.

De Blasio hired Kramer Levin in 2015 after he began getting inquiries from law enforcement and ethics entities regarding his fundraising tactics. The firm then represented him for two years. By the time its services were no longer needed in 2017, Kramer Levin had billed him for some $300,000.

But he likely owes even more due to interest on the initial bill accumulating over the last four years.

According to court papers the firm has filed accusing other clients of non-payment, Kramer Levin starts charging interest after 30 days of missed payment. The papers state that their protocol is to charge a per annum rate of 9%, which would bring de Blasio’s unpaid bill up to $435,000.

In the last year, Kramer Levin has filed lawsuits against a Diamond District dealer for $1.2 million in allegedly unpaid bills, and two hotel developers for $4.7 million. Both suits are pending.

As of last week, the law firm had taken no such action against de Blasio, even though the bills he owes are now overdue by four years.

The Blaz used the NYPD executive protection unit as chauffeurs and valets

 

 FOX News

 New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio misused police resources on his security detail, a new report released Thursday by the city's Department of Investigation (DOI) says, to assist in his adult daughter's move out of Brooklyn, as well as to transport campaign staff during his presidential bid. 

The DOI found that the Democratic mayor misused police resources by directing members of his Executive Protection Unit (EPU) to help move his daughter, Chiara de Blasio, out of her apartment in Brooklyn in 2018. NYPD personnel helped carry furniture and an NYPD sprinter van carried her belongings to Gracie Mansion, which is the official residence of the mayor of New York City located in Manhattan.

EPU detectives also drove the mayor’s son, Dante de Blasio, to or from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on multiple occasions without either the mayor or his wife and first lady Chirlane McCray present. It was also common practice for the EPU to drive Dante de Blasio to locations around New York City without his father or mother, typically at the direction of EPU superiors.

"Although it is the position of the NYPD Intelligence Bureau that both de Blasio children should have full-time protection, both children declined an assigned detail as adults," the 49-page report says. 

DOI also determined that the City of New York expended $319,794 for the members of Mayor de Blasio’s security detail to travel during his presidential campaign trips. The mayor has still not reimbursed the city for those funds either personally or through his campaign. The report also says that during these campaign trips, EPU members occasionally transported de Blasio’s campaign staffers with the mayor. 

Both reflect a use of NYPD resources for political purposes, according to the DOI. 

For approximately one year, the security detail has been conducting frequent security checks at houses owned by the mayor in Brooklyn, where neither he nor his family members reside. The NYPD inspector in charge of the first family’s security detail "actively obstructed and sought to thwart this investigation, frustrating DOI’s efforts to learn the full facts regarding these allegations," the report says.

Maya Wiley's "agents of the city" legal advisory memo encouraged de Blasio to let his aides take bribes for him

 

 

THE CITY

Last Friday, mayoral candidate Maya Wiley held a news conference to blast Gov. Andrew Cuomo for what she deemed were ethical lapses — including reports he’d improperly pressured staff to help on his book “American Crisis.”

She promised that as mayor, she’d run an honest, transparent administration. She did not mention — or eagerly discuss when reporters inquired — another ethics issue: her proximity to the conflict-of-interest scandals that tarnished Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tenure at City Hall.

As the mayor’s first general counsel, or in-house lawyer, Wiley drafted a memo advising him on how he could legally solicit donations for a nonprofit he’d formed called Campaign for One New York (CONY) without violating conflict-of-interest rules. De Blasio nevertheless wound up the target of federal, state and local ethics investigations.

Federal prosecutors declined to bring criminal charges, but determined that de Blasio had intervened on behalf of donors with business before the city.

The state Joint Commission on Public Ethics (JCOPE) cited several donors for providing illegal gifts to the mayor with their CONY contributions. And the city Department of Investigation (DOI) concluded that de Blasio had violated city ethics rules by soliciting individuals with pending matters at City Hall.

This week, in response to a long list of questions from THE CITY, Wiley’s campaign released a terse statement acknowledging that while she had provided the mayor with ethical boundaries for his CONY fundraising, her advice “was not always followed.”

“In her role as counsel to the mayor, Maya provided legal guidance regarding the mayor’s involvement in fundraising for non-profit organizations,” the campaign stated. “Maya has made clear she was not involved with Campaign for One New York nor its implementation of the guidance which she provided. It is clear from DOI’s conclusion the guidance was not always followed.”

On Wednesday, she declined to directly answer most of THE CITY’s questions during a brief interview as she campaigned in The Bronx. Asked how she felt about the mayor not following her guidance, she replied, “I stand by my advice and when I am mayor will always take the advice of my lawyers.”

Wiley also gave de Blasio a way to conceal from the public City Hall’s internal communications with outside political consultants who were paid big bucks from the money he’d raised. She dubbed these consultants “agents of the city” — a justification ultimately shot down by the courts.

Wiley’s advice on CONY and her use of the “agents of the city” argument raise questions about her good government promises, said Sal Albanese, a former City Council member from Brooklyn who first ran for mayor against de Blasio in the 2013 Democratic primary and has since been a consistent critic of his fundraising tactics.

“It was almost like an exercise in, ‘Let’s see how we can make this happen for the mayor,’” said Albanese, who is now seeking a Council seat on Staten Island. “Wiley should have shut that whole thing down immediately,” he added. “The whole thing is a conflict of interest.”

de Blasio's and Banks' DHS covers up the severity of violence and drug dealing in city shelters

NY Post


City officials covered up nearly 120 “serious incidents” at homeless shelters by downgrading their severity so they wouldn’t have to be disclosed to state regulators, according to the city Department of Investigation.

The DOI conducted a yearlong probe into allegations that the Department of Homeless Services wasn’t “adequately” reporting arrests and other problems to the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, which is responsible for ensuring that shelters are safe.

The investigation revealed that DHS created its own “priority codes” that minimized “life-threatening injuries,” mental-health emergencies and some arrests of residents, visitors or staffers, according to an April 8 DOI memo obtained by The Post.

There were “approximately 117 internal reports” from January through June 2017 that contained information that should have been reported, the memo said.
City Councilman Ritchie Torres (D-The Bronx), who tipped off DOI to the situation, told The Post, 

“There’s only one word for the conduct of DHS: inexcusable.”

“DHS adopted a dubious definition of serious incidents that it knew would lead to the under-reporting of incidents consisting of serious injuries, mental health emergencies, arrests and situations affecting the safety of its own residents and staff,” Torres said.

NY Post 

 Security at the city’s homeless shelters is so shoddy that one Harlem facility had its own in-house heroin dealer, according to records and fed-up workers.

Parkview Inn resident Alice Cuesta, 52, was finally busted last month with 60 glassines of heroin after clumsily dropping them right in front of an NYPD sergeant inside the elevator at the West 110th Street shelter, prosecutors said court papers.

Before her fateful fumble, Cuesta had held free rein at the shelter “for a long time,” law-enforcement and DHS sources told The Post — adding that the situation is similar at shelters across the city.

Security gaps, as well as overworked DHS officers who simply don’t have the time, training or help to conduct thorough investigations, have left some residents wondering if they wouldn’t be better off taking their chances on the street.

Fudged homeless stats are focus of investigation

From the Daily News:

State officials have launched an investigation into whether Mayor de Blasio’s administration has been properly disclosing criminal activity in homeless shelters as required by law, the Daily News has learned.

The state Office of Temporary & Disability Assistance (OTDA) “has begun a formal investigation into New York City's conduct and demands that they immediately provide all information required under the regulations,” agency spokesman Tim Ruffinen said Wednesday.

The probe comes in response to The News’ revelation Wednesday that the city has been hiding from the public hundreds of arrests at shelters citywide.

The city Department of Homeless Services (DHS) must by law report a long list of incidents at shelters, including most arrests, to OTDA.

DHS claimed that in December 2016, the state had agreed to their decision to reclassify and reduce the number of categories of “critical incidents” they’re required to report.

But the state said Wednesday that is simply not true.

Building inspectors arrested for accepting bribes

From Eyewitness News:

Working in tandem with the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office the Department of Investigation recently uncovered three different construction schemes involving more than a dozen property managers, developers, and inspectors.

"There is an unquestionable, unbreakable link between construction integrity and safety," said DOI Commissioner Mark Peters.

According to indictments released Wednesday, two New York City buildings inspectors, 55-year-old Hiram Beza and 53-year-old Dean Mulzac, allegedly overlooked violations approving properties under construction in Brooklyn and Queens in exchange for cash and gifts. Beza also allegedly received a new kitchen and driveway for his write-offs.

Only the best and brightest

From Fox News/AP:

One applicant to be a New York City correction officer had been fired from his last job as a security guard for stealing. Another admitted he had regularly socialized with gang members. Another had debts of more than $400,000.

Yet all those candidates and dozens like them were hired last year to be part of the force overseeing nearly 11,000 inmates on Rikers Island, according to a yearlong city probe of jail hiring practices released Thursday. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the findings hours before they were to be announced.

The probe found systemic problems with the Department of Correction hiring system, including no recruiting strategy for the past six years, that allowed an alarmingly high number of hires who had arrest records, gang ties or other red flags that are markers for corruption.

Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters said the chronic problems of violence, smuggling and bribery that plague the city jails can all be traced to the character and qualifications of the employees.

City investigators randomly pulled 153 application files of guards hired last year and found that 54 — or 35 percent — "presented significant red flags that should have either precluded their hiring outright or required further follow-up."

The probe found 79 hired officers admitted having friends or family members who were inmates — including one with nine relatives who had done time in Rikers. Ten new hires had been arrested more than once, and another 12 had been rejected by the significantly higher standards of the New York Police Department, including six for psychological reasons and one who failed a drug test.

Dem rival calls for investigation of Halloran

From City Hall News:

A potential rival to Queens Republican Councilman Dan Halloran wants him investigated for possible ethical and criminal violations for claiming Sanitation Department workers staged a deliberate slowdown during last winter’s New York City blizzard.

Matthew Silverstein, a Queens Democratic state committeeman who lives in Halloran’s district, sent letters two weeks ago to the Department of Investigation, the Queens district attorney’s office and the New York City Council Ethics Committee asking for probes into whether Halloran knowingly reported and circulated false information about the alleged slowdown—a Class A misdemeanor that would carry automatic jail time.

Silverstein also sent a letter to the Grievance Committee for the Queens Judicial District seeking an investigation into whether the councilman violated rules of legal conduct through his use of attorney-client privilege.

Silverstein is the former president of both the Queens and New York State Young Democrats, and is known to be interested in running for City Council against Halloran for in 2013. Any findings of wrongdoing would result in further grist for a Council run. A spokesman for Halloran, Steven Stites, dismissed Silverstein’s letters as political.

Firetrap owners hit with criminal charges

From the Daily News:

The City Department of Investigation has started filing criminal charges against building owners who ignore citations for dangerous code violations, including illegal firetraps.

Starting this month, DOI teamed up with the Buildings Department - which has no authority to make arrests - to pursue deadbeat landlords who blow off code enforcers.

The new approach followed a Daily News series on city firetraps and landlords cited for unsafe conditions who have ignore summons for years.

In the last month, 110 owners have been charged in criminal court with failing to appear after being cited by the Buildings or Fire departments for a litany of safety problems.

That includes two Queens apartment buildings turned into illegal SROs whose owners repeatedly failed to answer court summons.

Did Vito pressure old ladies into doing his bidding?

From the Daily News:

An 86-year-old woman with no business training was one of the people in charge of overseeing Brooklyn political boss Vito Lopez's multimillion dollar nonprofit empire.

And, retired senior Carmen Orlando says, she was paid $25 to go to meetings and sign documents she never read.

"They told me I had to sign the papers, so I signed," Orlando told the Daily News about her 17 years as a board member of the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council.

She never read the papers. She couldn't name the group's budget, or the city agencies that pay it, or the programs they offer.

She said the folks at the Stanhope Senior Center, where Orlando attended some of the many programs funded by Ridgewood Bushwick, asked her to attend meetings every few months in exchange for $25 cash each time - so she did.

"I just went to the meetings - no more - and signed the papers," said Orlando, who resigned a few months ago for health reasons.

And what did they discuss?

"I am 86 years old," she said. "Some things I forget."

The board's 81-year-old secretary Eileen Bowie claimed to know even less.

"I don't know anything about what you're talking about," she told The News.

Asked if she could name Ridgewood Bushwick's executive director, Bowie said, "No. And I don't want to know."

DOI ain't done yet!

From the Daily News:

Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, whose nephew Richard Izquierdo was indicted on charges of looting nonprofit groups she funded, hid behind a wall of aides and security officers as she entered and left the Council.

"I have no comment, no matter what you ask," Arroyo said.

From the NY Post:

City Council members and staffers yesterday predicted that Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo could be the next member of their body indicted in an ongoing "slush fund" probe that just snared fellow Bronx Democrat Larry Seabrook.

"Everybody I spoke to today thought she was next," said one council member, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Another said, "Everybody's speculating [about Arroyo]. There's lots of talk."

And a third council member noted that after Seabrook's arrest on federal charges Tuesday, city Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said the probe is not over.

Arroyo, who refused to answer questions yesterday, is a member of a powerful political family whose members have close and complicated ties to several nonprofit groups that have received taxpayer funds at the behest of her and her mother, state Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo.

Expeditor charged with filing fraudulent DOB paperwork

From the Times Newsweekly:

The president of an expediting business was arrested on charges of faxing a phony document to her client, an architect, to make it appear that the City Department of Buildings (DOB) had approved the architect's construction job when it had not, it was announced.

Commissioner of the New York City Department of Investigation (DOI) Rose Gill Hearn identified the defendant as Marah Howard, 28, the President of Diversified Building Services, an expediting company in Fresh Meadows.

According to the criminal complaint, in November 2008, a Brooklyn based architect hired Howard's company to expedite the filing of necessary documents with the DOB.

On Jan. 6, after receiving repeated complaints from the architect about her company's delay in filing those documents, Howard faxed the architect a purported print-out of DOB's web page, falsely stating that DOB had approved the architect's submitted application for a residential construction job on 14th Street in Brooklyn.

The architect later received the necessary approval from DOB to renovate the building's interior.

Finance Commissioner lets corrupt judge off the hook

From Fox 5:

Did a New York City parking ticket judge facing potentially serious criminal charges wiggle out of trouble because of his connections? Fox 5's John Deutzman got his hands on some documents that raise serious questions about a city investigation.