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City Pays $2.6 Million De Blasio Legal Fees; Campaign-Related Debts Unclear


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Mayor de Blasio (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's Office)


At a public hearing Thursday morning in downtown Manhattan, an official from the city’s Law Department plainly read the fifteenth item on the docket: a proposed contract for legal services that would cost the city $2,627,500. No individuals testified and the hearing was over in less than five minutes, allowing the city to move forward with its intent to award the contract.

That contract is just the latest development in the long-running saga of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ethical and fundraising scandals, which invited federal and state investigations of the mayor and his aides but resulted in no criminal charges. The $2.6 million city contract award was to the law firm of Kramer, Levin, Naftalis and Frankel for services provided to the mayor in an investigation by the Manhattan United States Attorney’s office into to what extent the mayor and his administration gave favorable treatment to his campaign donors.

By March 2017, the city had already spent about $10.5 million on 11 outside law firms for work related to the two investigations.

Although the separate investigations by the U.S. Attorney and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, which was looking at de Blasio’s involvement in 2014 state Senate races, closed in March 2017, the cloud of scandal around the mayor’s administration never entirely cleared.

Then-Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim noted in 2017 that though the mayor would not face charges, he had nonetheless sought donations from donors and then “made or directed inquiries to relevant City agencies on behalf of those donors.” Recently, in a separate case in Long Island, one of those donors pleaded guilty to attempting to bribe the mayor, raising a new round of questions -- which de Blasio has repeatedly refused to answer -- on how far the mayor and his administration went to help out close allies and campaign funders.

De Blasio has repeatedly argued that he and his associates acted legally and ethically, and has said that thorough investigations with no charges proved that to be the case. However, there are major leaps in his logic that have been undercut by many critics, including Kim.

As his legal bills mounted and though he always maintained his innocence, de Blasio had pledged that taxpayers would not foot the cost of his representation. While the City would pay for any outside counsel needed to represent other governmental employees, the mayor said he would not saddle taxpayers with his own costs. De Blasio eventually reversed course, leading to the contract approved on Thursday morning. But, there is also the matter of de Blasio’s legal bill for representation in the District Attorney’s investigation of his efforts to elect Democrats to the state Senate and possibly violations of state campaign finance law.

The administration has been less than forthcoming on what legal bills remain unresolved, nearly a year after the investigations concluded. The contract approved on Thursday wasn’t available for review except for a summary of the “scope of services” provided. Nicholas Paolucci, a Law Department spokesperson, said in an email that the contract had yet to be finalized. “The hearing was scheduled before final contract was established,” he wrote. “We are in the process of finalizing.”

Paolucci did provide the “scope of services” summary from the contract, which runs from April 11, 2016 through June 30, 2018, referencing the U.S. Attorney’s investigation. “Contractor’s services will include provision of all legal and related services necessary for satisfactory disposition of the Matter and incidental and related matters,” it reads.

“You will have to foil for contract when it's complete,” Paolucci added, referencing a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request.

“The purpose of today’s hearing was to give members of the public an opportunity to speak on the record concerning the proposed contract. The hearing is required by law. Next steps: the city can now proceed to completing the City procurement process, executing the contract, and submitting the contract to the Comptroller for registration,” Paolucci said in a subsequent email. Though asked, he did not provide any estimates on the mayor’s legal bills.

“We anticipate completing the remaining procurement steps promptly and the Comptroller has 30 days to register once the contract is submitted,” Paolucci wrote in a follow-up email.

Mayoral spokesperson Eric Phillips declined to comment when asked about the total legal bills faced by the mayor and the administration in the investigations, and the outstanding amount from the D.A. investigation and how the mayor plans to pay it. Dan Levitan, a spokesperson for the mayor’s reelection campaign and for the mayor’s political nonprofit at the center of the federal investigation, the Campaign for One New York, directed Gotham Gazette to Phillips. Levitan’s firm, BerlinRosen, was also among the players involved in the 2014 efforts to flip the state Senate to Democrats.

During a March 2017 City Council hearing, just days before the simultaneous U.S. Attorney and District Attorney announcements that no charges would be filed in either investigation, Corporation Counsel Zachary Carter, the city’s top lawyer, testified that the Law Department had spent about $10.5 million already on outside law firms for the legal defense of the mayor and his aides in both investigations. (Earlier news reports had revealed that the city had entered into contracts with outside law firms worth about $11.6 million for those purposes).

When insisting for months that he would not allow taxpayers to bear the burden of his legal costs, de Blasio had indicated he would explore setting up a legal defense fund to raise the money. “That’s money that will have to be raised. So that’s the reality, because I guess you didn’t know, I’m not a billionaire like my predecessor,” de Blasio said in February 2017.

But, after The Conflicts of Interest Board, an independent watchdog and advisory agency, issued guidance that effectively limited donations to such a fund to just $50 from any individual or entity, the mayor found himself having to avail of public money for as much of his legal defense as applied to his government work.

In a post from June on the online publishing site Medium, de Blasio wrote that roughly $2 million would come from the city’s coffers, corresponding with the contract that was approved Thursday. For the rest of the fees, related to “some non-governmental work” that was the subject of the District Attorney investigation, the mayor said he would have to raise about $300,000 from private donors through a legal defense fund.

“Employers have a legal and moral responsibility to cover the costs of representation when employees are doing their jobs, like we were,” the mayor said in the post. “It’s true in the private sector and it’s true in government.”

When asked in June 2017 what his level of frustration was given that he had been cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the investigations but still had the legal bills to pay, de Blasio said, “I’m beyond frustration. I don’t register that emotion anymore. Look, it is what it is. I said what I believe – that was had done things the right way. This is the world we’re living in. It’s something we have to find a way to deal with.”

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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Max & Murphy Podcast: Analyzing De Blasio's State of the City Address


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Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits


February 14, 2018 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Analyzing De Blasio's State of the City Address

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John Mollenkopf has been studying and writing about New York City politics and government for decades. Mollenkopf, who is a distinguished professor and director of urban research at the CUNY Graduate Center, joined the podcast to analyze Mayor Bill de Blasio's 2018 State of the City speech, and assess where de Blasio is in his quest to make New York "the fairest big city in America." While he calls de Blasio a friend and agrees with much of the mayor's approach, Mollenkopf gave clear-eyed assessments of de Blasio's speech and politics, while also helping to put de Blasio's tenure, speech, and policies in historical perspective.

Listen to the full conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax and @JarrettMurphy. You can listen to the episode through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts.

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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De Blasio Promises Fairness, Democracy in State of the City Address


De Blasio State of the City 2018

Mayor de Blasio delivers his 2018 State of the City (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


Mayor Bill de Blasio delivered his first State of the City speech of his second and final term at the Kings Theater in Brooklyn on Tuesday evening, mostly retreading old ground on policy while exploring new ways to improve the city’s “battered” democratic and electoral processes.

De Blasio, a Democrat, made few new policy announcements as he enumerated a 12-point “gameplan” to make the city fairer and safer while improving the lot of the most vulnerable New Yorkers. In resolute tones, the mayor reiterated a variety of major accomplishments and programs from his first term, promising to build on them as he counts down his remaining time leading the city. He did announce plans to call a charter revision commission to evaluate the city’s campaign finance and election systems, and plans to infuse more civics into city schools.

“Three years, ten months, and 15 days. That’s how long this administration has to ensure New York City becomes the fairest big city in America,” de Blasio said, using what is now a common refrain, though a relatively new one for the mayor.

“My mandate to my entire administration is this: Make every decision, whether about policy, or budget, or personnel, with this simple question in mind: Will this action help make us the fairest big city in America?” he said. While de Blasio has still not explained if New York lags behind other cities, large or small, or what policies from elsewhere the city should adopt, on Tuesday night he fleshed out a bit more of what fairness means to him.

As he often does, de Blasio spoke of the city’s unprecedented drop in crime and promised to expand neighborhood policing and the use of body cameras on police officers to make the city even safer while improving police-community relations. Following the success of universal pre-kindergarten, he said his administration is on an “aggressive path” to expand the program to all three-year-olds in the city, citing racial inequities built into the education system. He did not discuss integrating the city’s exceedingly segregated schools.

De Blasio did promise that in the weeks ahead he would address one specific goal of his Equity and Excellence education program -- getting all children reading at grade level by the third grade, when state standardized testing begins.

The mayor touted his ambitious affordable housing program as well, with its goal of preserving and creating 300,000 units of affordable housing by 2026, and emphasized the city’s efforts to ensure that current residents are the ones who benefit from expanded affordability by receiving jobs that pay well. His administration has set out to create 100,000 jobs over ten years that pay at least $50,000 per year each.

The mayor doubled down on what he sees as the city’s role in being “the antidote to broken policies in Washington” on climate change by taking action at the local level including stronger efforts to reduce carbon emissions and transitioning to an all-electric city car fleet.

Although de Blasio sparingly mentioned President Donald Trump and made no direct reference to Governor Andrew Cuomo except to praise him for an early voting funding proposal in the governor’s budget plan, he issued clear warnings about the “big fights ahead in Albany and Washington,” including for education and infrastructure funding, and made several calls on New Yorkers to pressure state leaders for policies like bail and voting reforms.

De Blasio vowed to push the state to provide full education aid to the city under the state Supreme Court’s Campaign for Fiscal Equity decision, and again advocated for a millionaire’s tax to fund the city’s subways and provide half-priced MetroCards to low-income New Yorkers. He made reference to congestion pricing, which he has repeatedly opposed as a “regressive tax” over the last year, but recently warmed to when the governor’s panel made its recommendations. “I believe in progressive taxation,” de Blasio said Tuesday. “That will always be my first goal when it comes to finding revenue. But I will sit down with leaders in Albany, any time, anywhere, to find solutions to the subway crisis.”

The mayor said his “one condition” on congestion pricing is that “the money raised in New York City stays in New York City,” and reiterated his calls for a “lockbox” provision in any new law that installs new fees for traveling into a Manhattan congestion zone.

He called for bail reform and speedy trial reform to pass in Albany, which are crucial to his administration’s goal of reducing the city’s jail population to about 5,000 and closing the Rikers Island jail complex. Later, he emphasized the need for election and voting reforms such as easier absentee voting and same-day voter registration, which would have to be approved by the state legislature.

Though the mayor has little influence in Washington, D.C and on the larger national stage, he nonetheless pledged to fight for the 30,000 New Yorkers and 700,000 Americans who are Dreamers, undocumented immigrants who came or were brought to the country as young people, have lived here for years, and currently face the threat of deportation under Trump.

In a reference to the recently passed federal tax code overhaul, de Blasio also added, “One day, one day soon, after an election or two, we will fight to rescind the Trump giveaways to the wealthy and big corporations.” The mayor’s somewhat cryptic reference to future elections won’t do anything to convince people of his repeated attempts to dispel the notion that he might explore a run for the presidency in 2020.

The mayor also said he would expand ThriveNYC, First Lady Chirlane McCray’s signature mental health program, promising mental health care access to all, and would redouble efforts to combat the opioid epidemic that has touched parts of the city by “increasing prevention, enforcement, and treatment.”

Although de Blasio did not mention the most recent scandals over lead paint and heating failures that have engulfed the city’s already ailing public housing system, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), he touted his administration’s focus on NYCHA and promised to invest further in the system. “Our public housing residents are a priority for me and this administration, and the City Council as well,” he said in forceful defense, during the twelfth of his 12 initial points.

Among a few other specifics, the mayor also promised to ensure gender pay equity through the Commission on Gender Equity and the Commission on Human Rights.

The novel elements of the mayor’s speech came near the end, as he delved into a ten-point “DemocracyNYC” agenda to "shake the foundation of the broken status quo right here in our state and our own city.”

Taking direct aim at the state’s “exclusionary” electoral system and the consistently low voter turnout in the city, de Blasio proposed a plan to reduce the effects of money in politics and to better engage city voters. “We must re-democratize a society that is losing its way,” he said.

De Blasio said he will call a Charter Revision Commission to create a plan for expanding public financing of city elections and reducing donor contribution limits to candidates. Typically, the City Council has legislated reforms to the city’s campaign finance system, which includes generous public matching, already incentivizes small-dollar donations, and is considered a national model. A charter commission would propose ballot referenda for New Yorkers to vote on, and the mayor plans to have them done in time for this year’s election in November, he said.

The commission will also be tasked with finding ways that the city government can disseminate information and conduct outreach for elections, which is currently the purview of the Board of Elections, a quasi-state agency that has long been criticized for its dysfunction. Noting that the BOE has resisted an offer of $20 million from the city for reforms, de Blasio repeated a few of those critiques, including the BOE’s failure to inform voters of poll site changes and lack of translation services for the city’s massive immigrant population. “And in the digital age, the best our Board of Elections will do to encourage you to vote is send you a postcard,” he derisively joked (though he later asked those in the audience to fill out a postcard pledging civic action).

Warning of the Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, de Blasio also set aside $500,000 to bolster the BOE’s cybersecurity efforts.

In coming weeks, the mayor said he would appoint a Chief Democracy Officer charged with registering 1.5 million voters over four years, particularly by targeting 17-year-olds in high schools and voting-eligible students in the city’s colleges. He also announced a Civics for All education initiative for city schools that will include “rapid response lesson plans” to help students process current events, and, taking a cue from the New York City Council, announced a “participatory budgeting” component in which high schools will receive $2,000 that students can decide how to use. De Blasio also announced an online portal to inform New Yorkers about elections to local office.

The mayor also spoke of new lobbying disclosure requirements for city agency heads and officials that report directly to him, which will take effect March 1. De Blasio touted the measure as a transparency advancement, though the pledge, along with his campaign finance reform plans, also serve as reminders that the mayor has hid correspondence with outside advisors he dubbed “agents of the city,” gave extraordinary access to his campaign donors, and created a political nonprofit that accepted millions of dollars in contributions from entities with city business.

democracynyc postcardFinally, the mayor announced a massive outreach campaign to ensure all New Yorkers are counted in the 2020 Census. “Getting accurately counted can make all the difference for the size of our congressional delegation and the amount of the funding we get from Washington,” he said. “It’s about getting our fair share.”

De Blasio ended on a note of hope, holding up the postcard for his DemocracyNYC initiative, one of which was handed out to each attendee. The card included a checklist for how New Yorkers can choose to engage with city government and make their voice heard more broadly.

“We are poised at the beginning of a new age with a new and bolder chapter to be written,” he said, gesturing to the audience, “and its author will be you.”

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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