De Blasio Fought for 2 Years to Keep Ethics Warning Secret. Here's Why.

[brooklynite]

Source: New York Times

When Bill de Blasio first took office as mayor of New York in 2014, he called two powerful real estate developers who had active projects in the city, and asked them to donate money to a nonprofit organization that he had created to advance his political agenda.

The request to help his nonprofit, the Campaign for One New York, seemed to violate the city’s ethics law, and a ban against asking for contributions from people who had business pending with the city. Within months of his solicitations, Mr. de Blasio was formally warned by the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board — in a previously undisclosed letter — not to repeat the behavior.

But even after that warning, the mayor continued to hit up well-connected donors for money, according to documents that the city has now released after years of an extraordinary legal campaign by the de Blasio administration to keep the documents secret.

In February 2015, the mayor made a call to Jeffrey Levine, chairman of Douglaston Development, which had just won city approval for $12 million in financing for an affordable housing complex, and had taken ownership of a parcel of city-owned land in the Bronx.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/08/nyregion/bill-de-blasio-donors-nyc.html

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I’m honestly worried tha same behavior is going to play out with Adams.

[oldsoftie]

1. Anyone surprised by this news? Anyone?

With the shenanigans his family has been in since being elected, I'm not.
I havent heard any negatives about Adams, but I dont live in NYC either.

[brooklynite]

2. At least DeBlasio talked a good progressive game...

…Adams is extremely political, and has many of the same links to the real-estate industry.

[nycbos]

6. That tells me Adams more honest

[disndat]

8. Yes, Adams connections to DeBlasio's

real estate developers are worrisome. What happened to Comptrollers compliants
about DeBlasio's use of the pandemic money to enrich himself? Also, DeBlasio's wife's mental health program funded by $40 million seems to have evaporated.

[LymphocyteLover]

3. sounds like basic corruption... not good

though not clear there was any pay to play

main problem is our campaign finance system is FUBAR... ridiculous that people need to raise so much money

[George II]

4. What's the point of this OP?

[nycbos]

5. Big Bird has some sleaze to him.

Not that anyone is surprised.

[Polybius]

7. What's the point of any OP?

A news story broke, and he posted it.

[frazzled]

9. If this had happened in Chicago (or Illinois)

it would have been an endless media story, and he'd be in prison already. Corruption is severely routed out here, and practitioners are held legally accountable. Not so much in other places. It's why the city has a reputation for corruption ... it's not that it's not practiced elsewhere, just that it's a footnote or ignored in most cases.

[brooklynite]

10. I have a friend who works with the Cook County Democratic Party....

...and from what she tells me, SOME people get caught and jailed, but there's plenty that goes on behind the scenes.