de Blasio campaign paid Forest City Ratner nearly $17,000 for campaign office (but paid more for main office)

I wrote in October how Democratic mayoral nominee de Blasio was paying developer Forest City Ratner--whose executives have raised campaign funds for him and co-hosted a fundraiser--$5,000 to rent a campaign office in Brooklyn.

Well, a look at the most recent campaign finance filings show that de Blasio's campaign paid nearly $17,000 over three months for the space at 345 Jay Street in MetroTech, formerly occupied by Sid's Hardware. 

It was referred to informally as "campaign headquarters." But it surely was an expansion on, and subordinate to, the longer-term main campaign office, for which the campaign was paying approximately $5,000 a month, at 32 Court Street in Downtown Brooklyn.

As I wrote, I suspect there's a plausible explanation for the MetroTech lease, that it was better-priced, better-located space than the alternatives, though I never got any explanation. And if you're going to rent space in New York, it's not unlikely you'll intersect with a developer.

Still, even if it's not clearly payback, it's also somewhat unseemly, a bit of you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-yours, and another sign of coziness between the candidate--sometimes "elastic and opportunistic" (to quote NY magazine's Chris Smith)--and the developer.