Showing posts with label Conflicts of Interest Board. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conflicts of Interest Board. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Jo Hamilton, ex-official involved in St. Vincent's Hospital condo conversion, fined for ethics violations

Jo Hamilton was on the take

Jo Hamilton, former member of Manhattan Community Board 2, which rubber-stamped and fast-tracked the demolition and luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital, was on the take.

From the Demand a Hospital listserv :

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
From: Demand A Hospital
To: Demand A Hospital
Subject: Jo Hamilton was on the take
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 04:41:25 -0500

Dear All :

For a decade, Jo Hamilton was receiving free gifts from an entity that had business before Community Board 2. Please read the following reports :

    (i)    http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/community-board-member-fined-free-soho-house-membership-blog-entry-1.2022053

    (ii)    http://nypost.com/2014/11/25/board-member-fined-10k-over-free-soho-house-membership/

    (iii)    http://gothamist.com/2014/11/24/soho_house_2.php

    (iv)    http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20141124/meatpacking-district/community-board-2-member-fined-for-accepting-free-soho-house-membership

    (v)    http://www.scribd.com/doc/248068157/COIB-Disposition-CB

How many other members of Community Board 2 were on the take ?

What did the former chairs of CB2 and the former subcommittee chairs know about Jo Hamilton being on the take -- and when did they know it ?

How many lobbyists paid for entertainment, meals, and other gifts for members of CB2 that were never reported or may have crossed the line to be inappropriate or illegal ?

Never give up.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Tell Mayor Bill de Blasio and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to stop closing our hospitals. Call 311 for the mayor and 1 (518) 474-8390 for the governor.

You can also tweet your concerns to : @BilldeBlasio -and- @NYGovCuomo

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Taking out Melissa Mark-Viverito’s trash

Ethics watchdogs slam sanitation man for simple tip while ignoring speaker’s violations.

Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito broke a lot of rules, but paid no price.

From the Editorial Board of The New York Daily News :

Twenty-four years on the job couldn’t protect Sanitation worker Lenworth Dixon when he pocketed a measly $20 tip from a grateful homeowner last fall.

For taking the gratuity — a reward for helping to remove an extra-heavy load of furniture and wood — Dixon was forced by the Conflicts of Interest Board to retire, as well as to fork over a $1,500 fine. Rough justice.

Which brings us to Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.

In her campaign for the speakership, Mark-Viverito accepted free services from the Advance Group, a political consulting firm that also maintains a lobbying practice. That’s a violation of the city’s gift ban as well as the ban on lobbyist giving.

When exposed, she switched to Pitta Bishop Del Giorno & Giblin, a lobbying law firm. While she paid them, did she underpay?

She also hid years of personal rental income from the conflicts board. The City Council didn’t care and still unanimously elected her as speaker.

Yesterday, the same City Council approved Mark Peters as the new Department of Investigation commissioner. A Friend of Bill (de Blasio), he served as the mayor’s campaign treasurer.

In 2010, Peters, put on the state ethics panel by his friend Gov. David Paterson, voted to impose a record $62,125 fine on Paterson for taking Yankees World Series tickets worth $2,125.

Peters rightly hit Paterson for soliciting and receiving a gift from a lobbyist with business before the government — just like Mark-Viverito did.

Will Peters and conflicts board Chair Nick Scopetta hammer a trash hauler while letting a powerful speaker skate?



Tuesday, December 24, 2013

NYC Conflicts of Interest Board : Cover Your Ass End of The Year Review

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Conflicts of Interests Board CYA Time : The Big Losers on the COIB makes voters the Biggest Losers in 2013

From True News From Change NYC :

No Connecting the Dots or Follow Up By the Daily News of the Conflict of Interests Board Speakers' Race Duck and Cover

The Conflicts Board Ignores the Free Work Advance Group and Others Have Done for Mark-Viverito and Fines A Losing City Council Candidate and the Sister of UFT Union Boss

The New York Daily News : Terrible Ethics Seddio Deal to Make Mark-Viverito Speaker

Frank-Seddio-Scott-Levenson-Melissa-Mark-Viverito photo Frank-Seddio-Scott-Levenson-Melissa-Mark-Viverito_zpsa53fe53f.jpg

Many of the 30 who signed on share her progressive agenda. Joined in ideology, they overlook the conflict of interest that aided her candidacy. To rally support, she accepted free consulting from the Advance Group, a major lobbying firm that will press Mark-Viverito to support legislation and budgetary requests sought by its clients. After the Daily News disclosed the arrangement, Mark-Viverito denied impropriety even as she cut loose the Advance Group. She then hired consultants, paying them with money from donors whose identities she is not required to disclose until after the Council vote on her elevation.

Correction to DN Ed : Advance Group Operative Involved in the Seddio Deal : An operative with the controversial Advance Group, Jonathan Yedin, who has been working in Brooklyn Democratic Party politics for more than a decade and belongs to Mr. Seddio’s political club. Though Ms. Mark-Viverito eventually stopped taking free advice from the Advance Group, Mr. Yedin remained a crucial player in the brokering of the deal, sources said. Inside Melissa Mark-Viverito’s Road to Victory (NYO)

Mark-Viverito and her supporters are setting a terrible ethical standard. Further clouding the situation, she garnered support with the help of Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio, who pressed Brooklyn Democratic boss Frank Seddio to put the Brooklyn delegation in Mark-Viverito’s corner. Seddio complied. His Council troops will get plum committee assignments. Sources told The News that Seddio is also angling to line up posts for his loyalists in the de Blasio administration. Let this not be the return to City Hall of Democratic patronage. That cancer was excised 20 years ago with the election of Rudy Giuliani.

Seddio is a ward heeler out of the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club in Canarsie. He climbed from aide to backbencher assemblyman and then was shoehorned into a Brooklyn judgeship. After this page revealed that Seddio had improperly given tens of thousands of dollars from his campaign to his Brooklyn buds, Seddio quit the judgeship 17 months into a 14-year term to avoid judicial ethics charges. Seddio’s record shows that he wants things. He will make requests of Mark-Viverito, who would be in a weak position to refuse him. And, having helped de Blasio avoid embarrassing defeat, he will no doubt make requests of the new mayor. Vito Lopez expects to anoint a successor as Brooklyn party boss who has his own questionable history (NYDN Ed) * Frank Seddio resigned a judgeship while under investigation by the state's judicial watchdog agency * B'klyn Judge Probed. Allegedly Gave Campaign Bucks To Pols (NYDN)

The Conflicts Of Interest Board Covers Up Corruption, Rather Than Investigate It

The mayor-elect violated checks and balances by championing Ms. Mark-Viverito's speakership. The mayor should not be meddling in the affairs of the municipal legislature to the extent that he can determine its leadership. What is more, his support for her flies in the face of a possible ethics violations during her speakership race and a campaign finance investigation into the shady dealings of one of her lobbyists. If Ms. Mark-Viverito does become speaker, she and the mayor-elect will have authority over the Campaign Finance Board and the Conflicts of Interest Board to make these investigations go away. How convenient.

Board Members of the Conflicts Of Interest Board Enable Corruption and Conflicts of Interests

Mark Davies (Executive Director) : Mark Davies has served as Executive Director and Counsel of the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board since January 1994. He previously served as Executive Director of the New York State Temporary State Commission on Local Government Ethics, where he drafted the Commission's bill to completely revamp New York State's ethics law for local government officials, and as a Deputy Counsel to the New York State Commission on Government Integrity. During 15 years in private practice (first with a major New York City law firm and then with a small suburban firm), he specialized in litigation and municipal law. He has also served in local political party positions and was a major party candidate in 1993 for the New York State Supreme Court, 9th Judicial District. A graduate of Columbia College and Columbia Law School, he has been an Associate Professor at St. John’s University School of Law, a Visiting Associate Professor at Fordham University School of Law, and an Adjunct Professor at New York Law School and is currently an Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham Law School, where he teaches New York Practice. He is a member of the executive committee of the New York State Bar Association's Commercial and Federal Litigation Section, whose newsletter he edits, and the chair of the Ethics and Professional Responsibility Committee of the State Bar’s Municipal Law Section and a member of that Section's Executive Committee. He serves on the board of directors of Global Integrity and is a former member of the editorial board of PUBLIC INTEGRITY and a former member of the Steering Committee of the international Council on Governmental Ethics Laws. He has lectured extensively on civil practice and on government ethics throughout the United States and abroad, most recently at the IV Global Forum on Fighting Corruption in Brasilia at the request of the Brazilian Government and to officials in Jamaica at the request of The Carter Center, and has authored some two dozen publications, including several articles on governmental ethics laws, the municipal ethics chapter for ETHICAL STANDARDS IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR (ABA 1999), the governmental ethics chapter for a new international work on ETHICS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT: TOWARD GLOBAL GUIDELINES (Praeger 2000), and a chapter on adopting local government ethics laws for a recent New York State Bar Association publication. From 1990-2006, he was the directing editor and revision author of WEST'S MCKINNEY'S FORMS FOR THE CPLR and is the directing editor and lead author of NEW YORK CIVIL APPELLATE PRACTICE (West 1996). In 2000 he received the New York County Lawyers' Association Award for Outstanding Public Service, and in 2007 he received the New York State Bar Association Excellence in Public Service Award.

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Nicholas Scoppetta (Chair) : Nicholas Scoppetta was appointed to the Board and as Board Chair on December 28, 2012. Mr. Scoppetta serves as counsel to Scoppetta Seiff Kretz & Abercrombie, the law firm that he co-founded in 1980. Mr. Scoppetta has served in numerous City positions since 1972, when Mayor Lindsay appointed him as Commissioner of Investigation, including Deputy Mayor for Criminal Justice, Chair of the Mayor’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, Chair of the Commission to Combat Police Corruption, Commissioner of the Administration for Children’s Services, and Commissioner of the Fire Department of the City of New York. Mr. Scoppetta has also served as a Professor of Law and Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University Law School and as a Lecturer in Harvard Law School’s Trial Advocacy Program, as a Commissioner for the New York State Waterfront Commission, as an Assistant District Attorney under Frank Hogan, as Associate Counsel of the Knapp Commission, as a Deputy Independent Counsel under the federal Ethics in Government Act, and as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. Among his many civic activities, Mr. Scoppetta has served as President and Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Children’s Aid Society, as President of New Yorkers for Children, and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

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Erika Thomas-Yuille (Board Member) : Ms. Thomas-Yuille was appointed to the Board in February 2012. She is currently Associate General Counsel for The McGraw-Hill Companies, where her litigation practice primarily consists of employment matters, internal investigations, and providing legal advice in connection with the company's worldwide anti-corruption, compliance, and ethics initiatives. Prior to joining McGraw-Hill, Ms. Thomas-Yuille served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. Before her tenure as a federal prosecutor, Erika worked as an associate at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. Ms. Thomas-Yuille graduated from Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. She is a past member of the Judiciary Committee of the New York City Bar Association and the Board of Managers of the Harlem YMCA and currently volunteers as a Girl Scout troop leader.

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Andrew Irving (Board Member) : Andrew Irving was appointed to the Board in March 2005. Mr. Irving serves as Senior Vice President and Area Counsel of Gallagher Fiduciary Advisors, LLC, a registered investment adviser that provides consulting and decision-making services to public and private sector benefit plans and other institutional investors. He leads GFA’s fiduciary decision-making practice, which focuses on providing independent, conflict-free, discretionary decisions regarding particular transactions or plan assets. Prior to joining GFA’s predecessor firm, Independent Fiduciary Services, Mr. Irving was a partner at Robinson Silverman Pearce Aronsohn & Berman and Bryan Cave LLP, where his practice focused on employee benefits, labor relations, and collective bargaining matters, and also included representation of regulated companies in the telecommunications and energy industries. While at the firm he supervised its New York office's pro bono activities, and mentored the Moot Court team from Brooklyn's Thomas Jefferson High School. After graduating from Yale College and Columbia Law School, where he was a member of the Law Review, Mr. Irving clerked for the Honorable Eugene H. Nickerson, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of New York.

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Burton Lehman (Board Member) : Burton Lehman was appointed to the Board in July 2009. He is Of Counsel to Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, a law firm which he helped to found in 1969. Mr. Lehman is an alumnus of Columbia College (A.B. 1962) and Columbia Law School (J.D. 1965, magna cum laude), where he was the Writing and Research Editor of the Columbia Law Review. Mr. Lehman has been a lawyer, advisor and counselor throughout his career. His practice has been very broad-based, with an emphasis on financial and real estate transactions and partnership matters. Mr. Lehman was Chairman of the Board of Governors of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion from 1997 through 2006. He continues to serve on that Board and is also a trustee of The HealthCare Chaplaincy. Mr. Lehman is a member of the Board of Visitors of Columbia Law School and was a trustee of The Town School from 1980-1989. Mr. Lehman served as a law clerk to the Honorable Harold R. Medina, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Judicial Circuit, in 1965-66, and also was Associate Counsel to the Temporary New York State Commission for the 1967 Constitutional Convention.

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Anthony Crowell (Board Member) : Anthony W. Crowell is Dean and President, and Professor of Law, at New York Law School. Prior to his appointment, he served as Counselor to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg from 2006 to 2012. His responsibilities included managing a broad portfolio of legal, regulatory, legislative, governance, administrative, and operational matters focused on enhancing New York City’s performance, competitiveness, accountability, and public integrity. He provided coordination and oversight of City agencies, boards, and commissions and spearheaded government reform efforts and business process re-engineering initiatives. He negotiated and helped implement landmark reforms to the City’s lobbying and campaign finance laws. He also has served either as a commissioner or an executive staff member of six charter revision commissions. Before becoming Counselor to the Mayor, Dean Crowell served as Special Counsel to the Mayor from 2002 to 2006. From 1997 to 2002, he served as Assistant Corporation Counsel in the New York City Law Department’s Tax & Condemnation and Legal Counsel Divisions. Dean Crowell is a recipient of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York’s Outstanding Municipal Attorney Award. Dean Crowell received a B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied urban policy, and a J.D., cum laude, from American University. He is a member of the bars of New York and New Jersey. While in City service, he taught State and Local Government Law courses at Brooklyn Law School for 12 years and New York Law School for 9 years. He serves as Board Chair of the Brooklyn Public Library.

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Additional Reporting by Louis Flores

Monday, December 23, 2013

This Week In Bill de Blasio Conflicts of Interest : Rafael Cestero

Bill de Blasio transition advisor may be creating conflict of interest : The New York Daily News

Dick Dadey, a Christine Quinn loyalist who never confronted Quinn's administration of the City Council over corruption, is now coming forward to charge that the incoming de Blasio administration is guilty of more conflicts of interest.

The affordable housing developer Rafael Cestero is vetting possible agency heads for the New York City Housing Authority and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, The New York Daily News is reporting, adding that, "Cestero's role creates the possibility that one day he might be lobbying or doing business with the appointees he's helped to select, creating a conflict of interest, experts said."

However, Cestero's role has been being hidden from voters and the media, and in the opaque shadows of developers and lobbyists controlling government leadership positions, the only thing that can result is corruption.

If the de Blasio administration doesn't do something to stop all these conflicts of interest, maybe we just have to wait for Cestero to rig development deals with NYCHA and NYCHPD, resulting in the kind of embarrassing scandals that will perhaps lead to reforms in how the mayor-elect will choose his deputies ?

Friday, December 20, 2013

Melissa Mark-Viverito Lobbyist Firm Never Quit, Continued Lobbying Despite Investigations

Mission Accomplished : Mark-Viverito Defeats Garodnick ; Checks And Balances Are For Stooges

New York City Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito self-delcared herself the winner in the race to be the next City Council Speaker, saying she had defeated Daniel Garodnick and replacing Christine Quinn, who leaves office on Dec. 31, 2013 ; although, the vote to actually select the next Council speaker won't actually take place until Jan. 8, 2014, leading Jim Dwyer of The New York Times to write, "And you do wonder if former President George W. Bush has phoned City Hall to offer the loan of his Mission Accomplished banner."

Mission Accomplished Melissa Mark-Viverito MMV

Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio violated separation of powers by championing Mark-Viverito's speakership. His support for her flies in the face of a possible ethics violations during her speakership race and a campaign finance investigation into the shady dealings of one of her lobbyists. If Mark-Viverito does become speaker, she and the mayor-elect will have authority over the Campaign Finance Board and the Conflicts of Interest Board to make these investigations go away. How convenient.

The County Boss system has been surpassed by the corruptive influence of money and lobbyists in politics. While neither system is free from corruption, it is incumbent upon good government groups to address the fact that if Mark-Viverito does cinch the speakership, then it will be because of the role of lobbyists and the pay-to-play promises of Council chair appointments, payments of lulus, and distribution of Council slush funds.

These progressives-in-name-only are seizing power through machinations that violate the very anti-corruption principles of progressivism.

What is more, violating separation of powers, campaign finance laws, ethics, and flouting anti-corruption ideals are coming from the "Left." These kinds of actions are typically ascribed to the sleazy, corporate-controlled "Right" in American politics. What a disgrace that all this is playing out in the progressive capital city of New York -- and it's coming from the "Left !"

The Advance Group Flouts Campaign Finance, Ethics Regulations

The Advance Group Never Quit Mark-Viverito Speakership Campaigning, Other Lies Told To The Media

"As controversy simmers around the Advance Group, Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito revealed tonight she is no longer taking free advice from the leading consulting firm in her bid for City Council speaker," Ross Barkan reported on Dec. 2, adding that Ms. Mark-Viverito said that, "we will not be receiving any additional advice from The Advance Group."

After Ms. Mark-Viverito's association with Mr. Levenson and The Advance Group was at risk of derailing her speakership campaign, she misrepresented the role of The Advance Group just long enough to take the heat off her campaign, and let one of the lobbying group's consultants continue to provide "crucial" support.

Seventeen days later, it was confirmed that Ms. Mark-Viverito never completely stopped receiving advice from The Advance Group. The very same reporter, Mr. Barkan, to whom she had said, "we will not be receiving any additional advice from The Advance Group," now reported that Mr. Levenson's chief deputy, Jonathan Yedin, kept lobbying on behalf of Ms. Mark-Viverito.

"Ms. Mark-Viverito’s team was Brooklyn-infused for this purpose and included a paid operative, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz’s chief of staff John Paul Lupo, and an operative with the controversial Advance Group, Jonathan Yedin, who has been working in Brooklyn Democratic Party politics for more than a decade and belongs to Mr. Seddio’s political club."

It's unclear how Ms. Mark-Viverito can fire The Advance Group but keep receiving advice from one of their chief consultants ? Was Mr. Yedin's involvement just a backdoor way for Scott Levenson to each of keep tabs on the negotiations and feed instructions to Mr. Yedin in a smoke and mirrors attempt to confuse the editorial board of The New York Daily News ?

These are not the only misrepresentations that have been told to the media by those connected with The Advance Group. Representatives from The Advance Group were caught telling two different stories about the firm's work to defeat LGBT candidates for the City Council.

In a Nov. 21 report in The New York Daily News, a spokesperson for the lobbying firm said that the anti-LGBT work that the firm did was as a result of a "favor for a political operative." Four days later, Mr. Levenson told Michael Powell of The New York Times that, "I didn’t do my due diligence."

But Mr. Levenson has a calculating reputation and "tends to hedge his bets" on clients. At the time he was advancing Ms. Mark-Viverito's speakership campaign, it was reported that he had previously attended a function promoting another Council speaker candidate, Inez Dickens. Mr. Levenson also worked for opposing candidates in the same political race.

It may be too soon to find out if all these misrepresentations will have any impact on the investigations, before Ms. Mark-Viverito has them dismissed against her and her lobbyist firm, or if prosecutors will look into this mess.

Conflict between the old County Boss system of Big Business and the Super PAC's and Lobbyists of Special Interests

The aggressive and deliberate flouting of campaign finance laws and ethics regulations pushed the Editorial Board of The New York Daily News to denounce Ms. Mark-Viverito's Council speakership candidacy last month. Relatively speaking, all the backroom machinations of the mayor-elect and the Council speaker-select are making the old County Boss system, never transparent and always shady, look like reformers. As Sal Albanese wrote, "You can't make this up."

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Mark-Viverito Fires The Advance Group ; Has Scott Levenson Become Radioactive ?

Scott Levenson and Melissa Mark-Viverito photo Scott-Levenson-Melissa-Mark-Viverito_zps79ef0787.jpg

Efforts to distance Mark-Viverito from The Advance Group are seen to thwart the Campaign Finance Board and the Conflicts of Interest Board, says source

Proponents of campaign finance reform have faced difficulty in trying to restrict the corruptive influence of money in politics. Look at what is happening right here, right now.

Yesterday, the Campaign Finance Board (CFB) made public several disclosures of contributions and expenditures for the period including immediately following Election Day. However, those reports were immediately shown to be inaccurate, because at least one report does not capture the financial activities involving the Council speaker race. How can the Campaign Finance Board accept and produce reports of Council speaker candidate Melissa Mark-Viverito when the CFB knows full well that her reports are incomplete, disingenuous, and misrepresentative of the actual contributions to her political campaigning ?

After allegations of campaign finance controversies in this year's Council speaker race and anti-LGBT discrimination by prominent political consultant/lobbyist Scott Levenson, Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito informed Politicker reporter Ross Barkan that she has ceased receiving any political advice and lobbying services from Mr. Levenson and his firm, The Advance Group. But simply firing Mr. Levenson doesn't cure Ms. Mark-Viverito's misrepresentative CFB reporting.

Mr. Levenson's controversial provision of undeclared in-kind campaign contributions to Ms. Mark-Viverito's speakership campaign is coming under heavy scrutiny, now that the Campaign Finance Board is said to be investigating this shady arrangement.

But Mr. Levenson is not alone in providing undeclared contributions to several political candidates. Ealier this summer, it was reported that the political consultant/lobbyist Stanley Schlein has been providing free services to political candidates. Lobbyists can curry favor with politicians for themselves and for their clients when they provide "free services," and political candidates gain unfair advantages of receiving valuable consulting and lobbying services that are unavailable to other candidates, who do stupid things, like naively observe the caps on regulated campaign contributions. (What's a campaign debt between friends ? * The New York Times)

Nor is Mr. Levenson the sole lobbyist doing work on behalf of Ms. Mark-Viverito's speakership campaign, where there remains no transparency about lobbyist payments, campaign contributions, or applicable campaign finance, conflict of interest, and lobbyist regulations or restrictions. Ms. Mark-Viverito is or has also been represented by the consulting/lobbying firms of Pitta Bishop Del Giorno and the Mirram Group, according to Crains Insider. And since Ms. Mark-Viverito has reportedly fired Mr. Levenson, in his place she has retained two more political operatives : Jon Paul Lupo and Amelia Adams, again according to Crains Insider.

No improvements in disclosure or reporting in the age of Citizens United and run-away lobbyists : Show me the money !

How are all these consultants being paid, and where is the money coming from that is paying these consultants ?

Meanwhile, the growing scandal and controversy engulfing the speakership race, which includes the Editorial Board of The New York Daily News openly calling for Ms. Mark-Viverito's disqualification over the questionable ethics and campaign finance violations, has thus far led to no deeper examination of the corruptive role of campaign consultants, who double as lobbyists, in our democracy.

At each step of the way, no good-government groups are willing to come forward to demand real reforms from all of these supposedly "progressive" politicians, nor is the media looking at the role of big business or special interest lobbyists in the campaigns of other Council speaker candidates, Mark Weprin and Daniel Garodnick. Democracy's been derailed, and the media's been found to be asleep at the switch as the speeding train of money in politics is about to take the dangerous curve in the tracks caused by Citizens United and out-of-control lobbyists. What happened to voters' rights to not be deceived by the corruptive influence of money in politics ?

Still left unanswered is whether Mr. Levenson has become so radioactive that Mayor-elect Bill de Blasio will skip the NYCLASS fundraiser set for tomorrow.

Blinders-Anti-Quinn-Activists-Ignore-Rampant-Campaign-Finance-Violations photo Blinders-Campaign-Finance-Violations_zps838f4ae4.jpg

What happened to all those activists, who protested against Christine Quinn's troubled and corrupt mayoral campaign under the guise of demanding reforms ? Judging by how those activists are keeping silent while scandal and controversy engulf this year's speakership race, those activists must be wearing blinders.

When reform activists demand campaign finance reform and call for the corruptive influence of money in politics be ended, exactly who do reform activists believe will deliver these reforms, progressives or conservatives ? Realistically, it would be our allies on the left, who should deliver these reforms. Hence, when will liberal, progressive, or leftist politicians deliver these reforms ? Or do we put on blinders while the new progressive-in-name-only ("PINO") administration in-waiting exploits campaign finance loopholes in a power grab that differs none from what we would naturally expect that conservatives would orchestrate ?