Is de Blasio the next to go? Op-Ed by George Fiala

I was stunned by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s announcement of the Brooklyn Queens Connector – his $2.5 billion plan for a trolley system that would serve only the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront. What shocked me was the funding source.  It is to be financed by floating a bond issue backed by anticipated property tax increases on land adjacent to the route.

The trolley press conference was held at Red Hook’s Pioneer Works, and the mayor was flanked by the heads of the Red Hook East and West Tenant Associations, as well as RHI’s Jill Eisenhard, and his longtime friend Michelle de la Uz, the Executive Director of the Fifth Avenue Committee.

One of my news sources told me that if something doesn’t seem right, it usually isn’t. We were talking about the recalcitrance of the NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC)  to allow Red Hook any use of its Atlantic Basin. What he told me stuck in my head.

I thought about this recently as the mayor gave his State of the City speech in February. The centerpiece was a sleek new trolley service, which I wrote at the time was the beginning of his re-election campaign.

Despite the fact that the working trolley group was funded by real estate developers who would profit from new and existing buildings along the trolley route, de Blasio framed the project as one that would benefit the 40,000 NYCHA residents also living along the route. There is no current plan to allow free transfers to the subway system. It is doubtful that many lower income public housing residents will be able to afford doubling their transportation expense.

In an April 22 story headlined “Blaz Cash Pipeline,”  NY Daily News investigative reporter Greg Smith details this and other instances in which the mayor’s somewhat hidden agenda has been funded by businesses looking to profit from actions taken by city agencies.

The article details multiple examples. Developer Jed Walentas donated $100,000 to help fund the trolley study and is building a huge luxury condo development on the Williamsburg waterfront. DDG Partners won approval from the Board of Standards and Appeals to build a tall sliver building with 10 luxury condo in Tribeca, despite overwhelming community opposition in June. The next week they made a $10,000 donation to the mayor’s Political Action Committee (PAC). The situation with the horse carriages/political donations has already been well documented.

US Attorney Preet Bharara’s investigations have already brought down former NYS Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and State Senate leader Dean Skelos. They are both now facing imminent jail time. Bharara has now turned his investigative eye toward the mayor.

The FBI is also investigating the Mayor’s One New York PAC. The public advocacy Common Cause has also filed a complaint against the PAC.

The News quotes Common Cause’s director Susan Lerner. “We believe that the mayor’s direct involvement with the Campaign for One New York raises troubling questions regarding the legality of his conduct,” she said.

The mayor shut down the PAC shortly after the Common Cause action.

The first time I saw the Campaign for One New York in action was two summers ago. A mailer arrived in most mailboxes in Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill defending the mayor’s involvement in the demise of the Long Island College Hospital.

It was signed by Gary Reilly, at the time a Carroll Gardens resident with his own political ambitions. It was paid for by the mayor’s PAC.

Reilly writes “I was asked by Mayor de Blasio to share my views on what this means for families in Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill, downtown Brooklyn and Red Hook.”

He goes on to praise the mayor’s on LICH. “The outcome is much better than we expected. In the preceding ten years, at least a dozen hospitals around the city closed, and their neighborhoods ended up with far fewer health care services preserved. As a member of the community, I’m proud of what we were able to achieve by coming together against overwhelming odds,’ he writes in the letter.

A reader brought us the mailer and we couldn’t believe it. The Star-Revue devoted thousands of words on LICH story, and truthfully, we never thought that the state would actually shut Cobble Hill’s 155 year-old hospital.

At the time we – and most everyone in the community –  believed that this was exclusively the work of Governor Andrew Cuomo, who at the time was thinking about running for President.  We assumed that he would add the closing of a money-losing hospital to his resume, which would appeal to conservatives around the country. To this day, we don’t understand  why the hospital, which was supposedly “rescued” by NY State after the previous head, Stanley Brezenoff bled it to a near death, was finally killed.

Brezenoff, formerly head of the Continuum Group, which took over LICH in the 1990’s, is now a mayoral appointee, Chair of the Board of Corrections.

The first time I met de Blasio was when he showed up with a couple of well-dressed assistants to join a protest outside of the hospital. At the time, he was Public Advocate, and an afterthought in the race to succeed Mayor Bloomberg. Anthony Weiner was the front runner, heading a large field of contenders.

The future mayor engaged in acts of civil disobedience, garnering citywide headlines as he caused himself to be arrested in another LICH demonstration. He procured the pro-bono services of attorney Jim Walden, from the firm Gibson Dunn, who also employed his good friend Randy Mastro, who has since made a fortune defending Chris Christie from New Jersey’s BridgeGate scandal.

The charade played out badly, as the state finally achieved its original goal of handing off the LICH campus to the Fortis Group, who is currently being backed by the mayor is they seek a zoning change which will change Cobble Hill forever. Their plan is to replace the hospital with three giant luxury towers – a plan completely out of character with the historic Cobble Hill low-rise neighborhood.

The mailing was paid for by the One New York PAC. I looked it up and saw its connection to the mayor. The mayor, who as candidate vowed to save the hospital, and then, as soon as he got elected, abandoned it. I couldn’t understand why he would want to bring it up again to the community so soon after he failed them. I could only chalk it up as a strange ego booster for the mayor who seems to feel that he can do no wrong.

By the way, Reilly shortly afterwards was elected Chairman of Community Board 6, which happened to be one of the very few community boards that went along with the Mayor’s affordable housing plan. Perhaps sensing a sinking ship, Reilly has since moved his political ambitions to Westchester.

We hope that Bharara’s investigation will include the LICH situation, perhaps exposing de Blasio’s underhanded alliance with the Governor in legally, but immorally, closing our hospital.

Right now the mayor’s team has inserted itself into the battle between Fortis and the community, trying to push through a zoning change that the community does not want. He will say that he wants to make sure that Fortis includes affordable housing, but the unstated goal is to give Fortis an extra half million square feet of apartments to sell.

We will not be shedding any tears if one day de Blasio falls on his affordable housing sword.