Gotham Gazette

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Open Government

Open Government

Outside Income by Member


Council members serving in 2009 brought in at least $533,000 in outside income.

Below are all current council members' income disclosure for 2009 -- a quarter of them were not serving at the council last year.

These figures do not include assets (like the market value of securities or real estate).

COUNCILMEMBERS TOTAL AMOUNT OF OUTSIDE INCOME SOURCES
Peter A. Koo*
$556,000 - $625,000 or more
Owns a number of pharmacies, interest
Domenic M. Recchia, Jr.
$155,000 - $430,000
Attorney, real estate
Thomas White, Jr.
$115,000 - $370,000
Executive director at a nonproft, real estate, pension and social security
G. Oliver Koppell
$107,000 - $210,000
Attorney, social security, pension, interest
David G. Greenfield**
$105,000 - $285,000
Executive director of nonprofit, attorney
James G. Van Bramer*
$100,000 - $250,000
External affairs officer for Queens Library
Karen Koslowitz*
$100,000 - $250,000
Deputy borough president in Queens
Daniel Dromm*
$100,000 - $250,000
Teacher
Stephen T. Levin*
$75,000 - $220,000
Legislative assistant, royalties
Lewis A. Fidler
$71,000 - $185,000
Attorney, interest
Fernando Cabrera*
$61,000 - $105,000
Professor, lecture
Mark S. Weprin*
$60,000 - $100,000
Attorney
Deborah L. Rose*
$60,000 - $100,000
Director of dropout prevention program
Ydanis A. Rodriguez*
$60,000 - $100,000
Teacher
Brad S. Lander*
$46,000 - $105,000
Director and senior fellow at Pratt Institute, consulting, real estate
Jumaane D. Williams*
$40,000 - $60,000
Strategic planning consultant
Robert Jackson
$40,000 - $60,000
pension
Daniel J. Halloran III*
$40,000 - $60,000
Attorney
Inez E. Dickens
$15,000 - $120,000
Real estate
James Vacca
$11,000 - $85,000
Professor, mutual funds
Larry B. Seabrook
$5,000 - $40,000
Professor
Daniel R. Garodnick
$5,000 - $40,000
Interest
Elizabeth S. Crowley
$5,000 - $40,000
IRA withdrawal
Peter F. Vallone, Jr.
$10,000 - $80,000
Attorney, real estate
Eric A. Ulrich
$1,000 - $5,000
Development associate at Queens church
Jessica S. Lappin
$1,000 - $5,000
Interest
Gale A. Brewer
$1,000 - $5,000
Professor
Charles Barron
$1,000 - $5,000
Interest
James Sanders, Jr.
none
none
Joel Rivera
none
none
Diana Reyna
none
none
Christine C. Quinn
none
none
Annabel Palma
none
none
James S. Oddo
none
none
Albert Vann
none
none
Michael C. Nelson
none
none
Rosie Mendez
none
none
Darlene Mealy
none
none
Melissa Mark-Viverito
none
none
Letitia James
none
none
Vincent M. Ignizio
none
none
Sara M. Gonzalez
none
none
Vincent J. Gentile
none
none
James F. Gennaro
none
none
Helen D. Foster
none
none
Julissa Ferreras
none
none
Mathieu Eugene
none
none
Erik Martin Dilan
none
none
Leroy G. Comrie, Jr.
none
none
Margaret S. Chin*
none
none
Maria Del Carmen Arroyo
none
none


*Members that just joined in January 2010.

**David Greenfield joined the council in March 2010. He was not a candidate in 2009.

The District is Brooklyn Heights, But Albany is the Issue


Assembly District 52

When the Metropolitan Transportation Authority cuts service, not even Brooklyn Heights and Carroll Gardens easily absorb the loss. Despite being Brooklyn's most affluent neighborhoods, these two communities cannot escape the trouble in Albany.

According to one candidate for State Assembly, corruption and mismanagement in the state capital is responsible for cuts that have reverberated in these sections of Brooklyn and throughout the city.

Engineer and former unsuccessful candidate for New York City Council Doug Biviano announced on May 12 that he would challenge Joan Millman, the assemblywoman from Brooklyn’s diverse 52nd District, in the September Democratic primary. A fourth-generation Brooklynite who studied at Cornell University, Biviano has attacked what he sees as Albany's corrupt tendencies and has accused Millman of not taking action to address the misdeeds of her colleagues in the capital.

Almost every problem, Biviano believes, has its roots in corruption and waste and the misdeed of Albany incumbents.

For her part, Millman points to a number of accomplishments including having successfully advocated to designate the Gowanus Canal as an Environmental Protection Agency superfund site, holding hearings on funding for the New York City Board of Elections to introduce new optical scan voting machines, and urging the inclusion of a new middle school in Two Trees Management's Dock Street project in Brooklyn.

Keeping Brooklyn Going

Like so many New Yorkers, the people of the district have felt the sting of MTA service cuts, which will create hardships for many, particularly the area’s elderly and disabled residents. Both Biviano and Millman have stepped up efforts to try to restore the original bus lines.

Assembly District 52, which spans from Brooklyn Heights and Vinegar Hill in the north to Gowanus in the south, lost several bus routes on June 27, including the B37, B51, B71 and B75. By many accounts, travel has become chaotic and overcrowded because there is no parallel subway for many of those bus routes.

Millman, who spent over 30 years in education as an elementary school teacher and librarian and educational consultant to former City Council President Carol Bellamy before going to Albany in 1996, began fighting the MTA over possible service cuts when the agency proposed eliminating student metro cards. Now that the students cards have been preserved, Millman has been working to recover the lost bus lines.

On June 25, Millman sent representatives to a large rally at a B71 bus stop, where constituents criticized the transportation cuts. For those who cannot access the subway, such as senior citizens and those with disabilities, buses are the only option. Moreover, the buses, claims the assemblywoman, provide "a link between communities and access to school, work, medical facilities and cultural institutions."

Millman also has sponsored legislation in the Assembly that provides alternative funding for the MTA. One such bill would allow $30 million of federal stimulus money to be included in the MTA's operating budget. Millman has also sponsored a bill to create a residential parking permit system with the fees going to support mass transit. "It is difficult to get traction for a lot of these bills," Millman said, but she added they are at least not completely dead in the water.

But Biviano has less hope for the bills. "These are just short-term fixes," he argued. He blames the MTA budget gap on "entrenched interests" in the state government and, on his web site, says, "We need to elect assembly members who have the guts to stand up to entrenched interests in Albany and force change."

Biviano's plan to fix the MTA's finances would include a low-interest federal infrastructure loan to refinance the authority's debt. Repaying the loan at a rate as low as 0.5 percent interest over 24 years to the Federal Bank for Infrastructure Modernization, which has yet to be officially created, could save the MTA $726 million each year, Biviano calculates. Additional federal stimulus funds could further serve to balance the budget.

That $726 million would allow the MTA to fix its budget in the long-term and stave off fare hikes in the near future.

Changing the Capital

Beyond transportation, Biviano's key point in his bid to represent the 52nd Assembly District is that Millman has done too little as chair of the Assembly Committee on Election Law to reform New York’s system.

Joan Millman
Incumbent Joan Millman said she has offered solutions to the MTA's daunting budget woes.

"The election law system keeps most of Albany reelected for life," Biviano charged. This, he believes, results in complacency by legislators, which is not in the best interests of the voters. "There's no push" by the elected officials, "Biviano said. "They do the bare minimum. There's no accountability whatsoever."

Currently, 98 percent of incumbents return to the capital if they seek another election, prompting Biviano to call Millman's work with election law as an "Incumbent Protection Program." Challengers should be encouraged, Biviano said, not undermined by the system.

Millman, though, defended the election process. The ballots, she said, "are not that difficult to get on. You need 500 signatures." Regarding the high reelection rates of incumbents, she said, "Look, the voters make that decision. I pass decent legislation, so I think they're satisfied. I’m running on my record."

After petitioning for enough signatures to enable him to get on the ballot, Biviano, like other challengers, will be up against the system of member items, also known as earmarks of pork. Under this current system, Biviano said, "Money comes with the incumbent’s name on it." Groups that receive the money may therefore be reluctant to throw their support behind someone else and risk that funding. Voters also may associate the funds with whoever the incumbent is.

Doug Biviano
Challenger Doug Biviano sees the misdeed of Albany's incumbents as causing any of his districts problems.

Assemblywoman Millman, though, does not think the member items play a significant role. "This year there may not even be member-items, given the trouble with the budget," she said In past years, according to Millman, the amount was "never very large" for her district -- in the neighborhood of about $175,000, which she disbursed to various nonprofit groups.

If elected, Biviano said he would introduce ethics reform legislation to foster competitive elections by creating term limits, requiring all candidates to disclose their income, and advocating for an independent redistricting commission.

Yet Millman, who also supports changing the redistricting system, charges that Biviano lacks a concrete plan to end the Albany corruption. At an Independent Neighborhood Democrats meeting, she said, Biviano was unable to articulate a plan of action.

"What I do in Albany, is that I associate myself with the good government groups and with the legislators that try to help the most people," Millman said.

Millman has received endorsements from the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats and Lambda Independent Democrats. As of July 11, her campaign had $154,773 on hand compared to Biviano's $5,659.

Claims of Dysfunction At City Clerk's Lobbying Bureau


Photo (cc) 2009 Noah S. Kunin

Better late than never.

The City Council and the Bloomberg administration are in the process of forming a commission to look at the city's major lobbying law revamp approved in 2006 -- two years after the group was supposed to be formed.

The five-member lobbying commission should have been empaneled in early 2008. An administration official said the passage of the city's pay to play law, restricting contributions from those that do business with the city, including lobbyists, delayed its implementation.

But as the city prepares to take another look at the law, critics contend the city clerk's lobbying bureau, which oversees lobbying disclosure and enforcement, is inundated by delay and dysfunction. Perhaps, they charge, the office just isn't up for the job.

For example, the clerk's office has discontinued its annual top 10 lobbyist report, detailing what firms brought in the most cash every year, since former clerk Victor Robles left in 2007. The current clerk, Michael McSweeney, has officially held the reins since early 2009 and prior to that was deputy clerk since 2004. (Hector Diaz immediately preceded McSweeney, but he held the post for only a year.)

Nonprofits, many registering for the first time in the last several years, claim the agency is unresponsive and disorganized. It takes weeks, if ever, to get answers from the office, leading to inaccuracies when reporting and so-called illegitimate fines, the groups argue. Just last month, the Urban Justice Center filed a lawsuit against the clerk over violations it says it doesn't deserve.

"It's just bad management," said Doug Lasdon, executive director of the Urban Justice Center. "It's just bad government."

"Whatever it is," Lasdon continued, "somebody over there is making some really bad decisions."

McSweeney declined to respond to the criticism, although he did say some of these issues will be addressed in a report to be released by his office later this year. He declined to give any more detail.

Fighting Fines

Under the 2006 law, any organization or company that is paid or expends more than $2,000 worth of time trying to sway officials must register as a lobbyist and report its activity to the city clerk every two months. They must disclose who they were targeting and what for. If they fail to do so, they can be fined thousands of dollars.

Under McSweeney, registration of lobbyists has skyrocketed. Since 2007, the number of lobbyists registered with the office has more than doubled -- from 246 to 580, according to the office's annual reports.

For veteran lobbyists who have been circulating City Hall's corridors for decades, those numbers indicate the clerk's oversight is effective.

"To point the finger and say the city clerk hasn't been doing a good job ... I wouldn't do it," said Arthur Goldstein, who has been a lobbyist in New York for 20 years. Goldstein said he always gets a timely response from staff there.

But much of the increase in registered lobbyists has come from nonprofits registering for the first time. After the 2006 law took effect, the clerk's office boosted its outreach and enforcement to register organizations and companies who engaged in lobbying, but hovered below the radar, officials said. That meant nonprofits.

Four years later, some of those affected say it isn't going very well.

"The clerk's office does not provide the best guidance for not-for-profit agencies," said Allison Sesso, deputy director of the Human Services Council. "We have had several trainings on this issue, and it's amazing to me that so many organizations are trying to comply. The guidance that is available from the city is so all over the place. [Nonprofits] are really at a loss."

The lobbying bureau has been without a department head for several months, but many of these issues, nonprofits say, go back years.

Unfamiliar with the system, some nonprofits that have tried to register their lobbying activity inadvertently filed the wrong paperwork or they claim it got tied up in the city clerk's allegedly clunky lobbying database. In the Urban Justice Center's case, the group says it filed the right information in the database, but it never reached the clerk's office.

When the center reached out to fix the problem, Lasdon said, the clerk's office refused to listen. They organization now faces a $2,700 fine, which they are challenging in court.

"I think it's a combination of mismanagement and insensitivity," said Lasdon. "Somebody running a city agency that deals with small not-for-profits has to have a better understanding of what we go through and how to work with us."

As of February 2010, the clerk has issued $314,790 in late fees, according to its annual report from March. In a statement from the city's Law Department, Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo called the lawsuit "frivolous," contending the clerk's office had agreed to reconsider the fines despite the center's failure to comply with the lobbying law requirements.

The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty is equally frustrated with the clerk's office. It is facing approximately $29,000 in fines (the cost of a social worker, says one staffer) for a whole year of missing reports. According to the council, it first registered at the tail end of 2008, thinking it would file reports going forward. The fines from the clerk's office are for missing reports from that year.

Public Information

Meanwhile, the success of other aspects of the 2006 lobbying law remains up for debate.

Inside the Worth Street headquarters, the city clerk was supposed to start posting violations of the law online "as soon as practicable," according to the 2006 law. The clerk said the violations are only posted once a year in the clerk's annual report.

Since being given enforcement powers, the clerk has repeatedly gone after registered lobbyists for late filings. But, critics contend, it rarely triggers its other power: tackling unregistered lobbyists. Last year was the first time the city clerk found entities, including the League of Humane Voters of New York and the Flushing Willets Point Corona Local Development Corp., guilty of unregistered lobbying, according to its annual report.

Also as part of the 2006 revision, all lobbying reporting was moved from filing cabinets to an online database. But as of Wednesday, none of the 2010 filings were posted online. A spokesperson for the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications said it is in the process of revamping the database, and lobbyists were still in fact reporting.

McSweeney said he did not know when those filings would be available online.

Removing Responsibility

Many nonprofits said they want the clerk's office to be more understanding and more flexible in handing out late fees -- now $25 a day, no budging.

As it stands, they contend, it is far more likely to be fined for late filings than for unregistered lobbying. So, critics ask, why register at all?

But at least one good government group wants to go a step further.

In a report to the city's Charter Revision Commission released late last month, Citizens Union, the sister organization to Gotham Gazette's publisher, urged the commission to completely remove oversight from the clerk.

The report argued the Campaign Finance Board should oversee the lobbying bureau, contending it was more transparent and had the capacity to handle financial reporting. Most other cities, including Los Angeles, give lobbying oversight to their ethics bodies.

"The clerk is appointed by the council," said Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union. "The conflict arises by the clerk being appointed by the very body over which he has authority for lobbying oversight."

In an e-mailed statement, Matthew Gorton, spokesman for the Charter Revision Commission, said, "The Commission is continuing to review this and other proposals offered by the public, experts, and groups like Citizens Union."

The commission will be narrowing down its proposals to put on the November ballot in the coming weeks.



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