Inept and Corrupt
INEPT: THE WAY THINGS ARE
In ‘Cool Hand Luke’ a long-ago Paul Newman movie, the great character actor Strother Martin, looks down at a beaten Newman, a prisoner on a chain gang in the deep South, and in a great, oily Southern accent, utters that famous movie line: ‘What we have here is a failure to communicate’. Which of course wasn’t true at all.
Real estate controls New York. Every major city is controlled in one way or other by an important group of business people. Boston and Philadelphia by its bankers. Chicago once upon a time by a former Mayor-for-life..now by nobody.
In New York, when a major real estate voice seeks a favor, that favor is granted. For years the extension of the Flushing line “7” train from Grand Central Station all the way across to 42nd and the Hudson River was the promise. Years later as the NYC real estate boom continues unabated, the train makes a left turn at 42nd and 11th Avenue and ends its run at 34th Street. All four corners at 34th and 11th are being built by Ratner’s Related Companies. Ratner is a close adviser to former Mayor Bloomberg. That’s the way it is. Real estate matters.
And so when the Rivington House, a building on the Lower East Side, was sold by the city to a non-profit in 1992 to be run as a nursing home for people with HIV and AlDS, a deed was written to insure that its use would be limited to non-profit status as a residential health facility forever…despite the obvious value of the property.
But ‘forever’ came quickly. Last year a developer paid the city to have the restricted deed lifted and then sold that property to a builder of luxury condos for $116 million making a $72 million profit.
Mr. Stringer’s report cited a stunning breakdown in procedures and just plain bad management. An appraisal so undervalued that the city never knew the actual value of the property it was losing. Agencies that rubber-stamped the deal. Decisions made but not shared by subordinates. A public hearing so mangled that people didn’t understand the announcement and never appeared.
Stringer said that dozens of administration officials were involved, along with three deputy Mayors, the Mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs and Contract Services, three city commissioners and their staffs. The successful buyer and seller met with city officials six times, with at least 25 known e-mails or phone calls. And the Mayor’s Chief of Staff was in on all of these negotiations.
And still it all took place. And Mr. Stringer tells a stunned and disbelieving media that it was mostly a failure of communications. Really, Scott?
A ONE-TERM MAYOR
Most people think Bill DeBlasio is a well-meaning guy. We did too. We recognized that his election was almost an afterthought. The Mayoral race went on forever as the Democratic Party had a number of very vocal contestants all of whom, but DeBlasio, knocked themselves out of the race for one reason or another. Everybody was so bored and worn out that what should have been a runoff between Bill Thompson ( a man who likes to run for the office but surely doesn’t want to be Mayor) and DeBlasio never happened because Thompson walked away.
Despite the tiny number of votes, DeBlasio saw himself with a mandate because of his margin against Lhota and immediately declared himself America’s newest PROGRESSIVE LEADER…angering his former buddy Andrew Cuomo who had already convinced himself that HE WAS AMERICA’S NEWEST PROGRESSIVE LEADER, even though he clearly had no intention of doing a thing to stop the runaway corruption that made the New York State Legislature the most dysfunctional in America.
That feud continues and will remain in force through both administrations. Andrew must wait his turn at the Presidency and so will have to remain New York’s Governor until he gets that opportunity. Once you are Mayor of New York, your political career is over. That is an historical fact. The problem now for DeBlasio is that he hears day after day is that he is going to be a one-term Mayor. Bill has never had a job that wasn’t in politics. He is not an attorney. He’s got to do something. He absolutely needs another four years of employment.
Too many people are talking about and acting as if DeBlasio is not worth reelecting. Once whispers, those voices are getting louder.
Why? Is it just a matter of this administration being incapable and incompetent? Of promising great things and failing to deliver? We think it’s more than that.
CORRUPTION
Let’s look at the promises first. DeBlasio’s support from people of color was apparent from the beginning. With a mixed race family and a reputation for being a vocal liberal, who would know people’s needs and struggles better than he?
And he certainly talked that game. While it’s difficult to be specific about much of his “progressive” rhetoric, it is clear that his pressure to tax the rich in New York City to pay for a form of universal pre-kindergarten pushed Gov. Cuomo into releasing State funds to expand the Pre-K program in New York City. The State controls how the city gets and spends its money and there was going to be no tax increase on the rich in a Cuomo controlled State government.
There has been little or no independent appraisal of how well that program is working to prepare children as they could be prepared, so its success is questionable. Considering the horror that is New York City public schooling, we may never know if Pre-K really did what it could for little children.
There are promises about affordable housing that sound wonderful but with no apparent building going on. The real estate industry surely is doing as well as it can building as they please all over the city. They are clearly happy with the Mayor, do not mind his rhetoric because they see through it and we believe they will take the right steps to continue his administration for another four years.
But there are problems. Seven or eight Federal and State investigations into many areas of city government.
There are levels of corruption just as there are big lies and little “white lies”.
After a century or more of corruption in New York City history, it is impossible to govern in New York without some aspect of corruption everywhere you look.
The arrests and convictions of major and minor elected officials rivals any city and State in the country.
That’s obvious corruption and the current investigations of City Hall now in progress are almost to be expected.
But then there are other less obvious signs of corruption:
Why were 126,000 Brooklyn Democrats suddenly dropped from voter registration…dropped by a Board of Elections staffed by Democrats?
Why is the Brooklyn-based former Long Island University Medical Center being turned into luxury condos after the community had a campaign promise from the Mayoral candidate that it would be used as a health facility?
Why does the Mayor constantly promise to build thousands of affordable housing units and then allow the New York City Housing Authority units to rot away with 500,000 poor people in it?
Why did the Republican leadership select a man to run for Governor whose first public statement was the reaffirmation that a woman has no right to choose regarding having children. A statement like that in New York State and you expect to win? Hardly.
These are just a few examples of what it means to protect the status quo through a series of seemingly honest actions that in fact are not honest at all.
The Mayor has all the right words but few of them reflect what is actually going to take place.
The Mayor and his formerly retired Education Commissioner are gloating over the fact that New York City’s children have scored a 35% reading proficiency almost as high as the 38% across the State. Why the happiness when after all that talk, fewer than two of every five NYC school children can actually read at grade level.
Well-meaning is a cover for a lack of performance…for knowing what to do and how to do it.
Worse ‘a failure to communicate’ is a cover for looking the other way and making believe you didn’t see the crime.
If Donald Trump were elected NYC mayor, the middlemen could be eliminated.