Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

From Wayne Barrett's THE DEAN OF THE SENATE: A commentary on the chronicles of corruption in the state Senate , originally published by City and State 2/12/15: With all the focus on Shelly Silver and his Assembly apparatchiks, let’s not forget New York’s state Senate, where four of the last five majority leaders have been indicted and the fifth, Dean Skelos, is reportedly under investigation. The first, Joe Bruno, got his conviction overturned because the U.S. Supreme Court significantly narrowed the “honest services” he owed his constituents, excluding the $3.2 million in conflict-of-interest consulting fees he collected from clients with public business before him. Pedro Espada was forced to resign as leader the same day he was indicted for embezzling hundreds of thousands from a state-funded nonprofit, using $49,000, for example, to make a down payment on a Bentley. Malcolm Smith, who thought cash bribes were the quickest way to buy himself a ballot line for mayor, is now fac...

The New York Post reported today, in Cuomo & de Blasio torn between church dinner, Sharpton’s birthday : Gov. Cuomo and Mayor de Blasio faced a holy dilemma Wednesday last night over whether to attend the Catholic Church’s Al Smith Dinner or the birthday bash of the man they really worship — Al Sharpton. Cuomo was so eager to honor Sharpton on his 60th birthday that he ducked out in the middle of the Smith dinner at the Waldorf to greet The Rev and lavish praise him at the nearby Four Seasons restaurant. “He has grown immensely over the years,” Cuomo told the crowd. “And he’s no longer just New York’s Al Sharpton. He’s the nation’s Rev. Sharpton — and the nation is better for it.” De Blasio quickly changed out of his formal duds and dashed over to Sharpton’s party as soon as the New York Archdiocese’s Smith dinner ended, hailing Rev. Al as “a blessing for this city.” “The more people criticize him, the more I want to hang out with him,” Hizzoner added. Others thrilled to b...

In City & State, columnist Alexis Grenell writes  NO GOOD SAMARITAN , observing: It’s not yet clear what Mayor de Blasio’s one city might look like. But at times it seems as if he’s traded Bloomberg’s banker favoritism for another kind of exceptionalism in his dealings with the Rev. Al Sharpton. In early April a Smoking Gun report revealed new details about Sharpton’s collaboration with the FBI. In the 1980s Sharpton was a confidential informant who met with the Gambino crime family several times to record their conversations on behalf of law enforcement. According to Sharpton, this was a selfless act of civic duty, but the report counters that the FBI had him on a potential drug charge, and flipped him in return for his freedom. So it was odd to see Mayor de Blasio stick up for Sharpton’s version of events: “I’m very proud to be his friend. I think he has done a lot of good for the City of New York and this country…. He was asked by the F.B.I. to support their efforts an...