The Mayor's Strong Arm
February 28th, 2007
Unlike most politicians, billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg has never had to try to coax campaign contributions from the city’s movers and shakers. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to put on the pressure.
Matthew Schuerman reports in this weeks’ Observer that Bloomberg recently met with about a dozen of the city’s wealthiest real estate developer and asked them for $5 million each – not for himself, but for the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which he chairs. And, as one real estate “insider” told Schuerman, “When the mayor of the city in which you are doing business asks you for money, it is almost impossible for you to say no.” And no wonder. These developers have business before such agencies as Economic Development Corporation, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, and the Department of City Planning – all bodies whose heads are appointed by, you guessed it, the mayor.
Those knowledgeable about city government had varying positions. “It’s touchy ground,” said Andrew White, the director of the Center for New York City Affairs at the New School. But Gene Russianoff of the New York Public Interest Research Group was more sanguine: “The reality is, you have this hole in the ground at Ground Zero, and you have a mayor who is willing to do the heavy lifting….There is a city purpose to it all, not a Mike Bloomberg purpose.”
By Gail Robinson on February 28, 2007, 2:46 pmIn category: Gotham City, Land Use, Voting
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