Emails show lobbying firm had wide reach during de Blasio's first term

http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2017/08/16/emails-show-lobbying-firm-had-wide-reach-during-de-blasios-first-term-113937 ^ | 08/16/2017 | SALLY GOLDENBERG and LAURA NAHMIAS

[EinNYC]

As Mayor Bill de Blasio’s staff first learned to navigate the city’s vast bureaucracy, they sought regular help from an eager lobbying firm that had much to gain in return.

Commissioners and employees across city agencies solicited the advice of the firm Capalino + Company to shape policy, raise funds for events and answer technical questions on myriad aspects of municipal government, according to thousands of pages of emails reviewed by POLITICO New York.

The emails, obtained through a records request, show Capalino's stable of lobbyists was so entrenched in the minutiae of de Blasio's first term, they formed an unofficial, additional layer of government — sometimes instructing staffers how to do their jobs — all while advancing the interests of their paying clients.

CEO Jim Capalino has been close to the mayor since supporting his 2013 candidacy — but the 3,291 pages of emails between the firm’s employees and the city staff in 2015 and 2016 show what was often a symbiotic relationship between the company and City Hall.

Capalino grew its profits nearly 200 percent between 2013 and 2016 and now ranks as the city’s top lobbying firm. At the same time, City Hall relied on its guidance for requests large and small — on everything from party planning to controversial construction projects to homeless services.

One Capalino lobbyist’s influence was so pronounced she proposed formalizing her role as a consultant with the city.

Veterans Affairs Commissioner Loree Sutton repeatedly relied on lobbyist Claire Altman for contacts and advice as she worked to reduce veteran homelessness, the emails show. At the same time, Altman advocated for Sutton to meet with one of her clients, the housing company Aimco, which has business with the city and was interested in the city's expanding veterans shelter programs.

In the months before City Hall unveiled its plan to create a new veterans affairs agency in 2015, Sutton asked Altman for her input on draft memos coordinated to find real estate partners who could identify shelter for homeless veterans. Sutton asked Altman to join a conference call to discuss the city’s plans.

When a City Hall task force to help find homes for about 1,000 homeless veterans wasn’t moving quickly enough, Altman exhorted Sutton to take charge.

“I think the Task Force has done its job but after three months nothing has happened. I think this is where you can take control of the process,” Altman wrote the commissioner in June of 2015. “I know the players and am happy to draft a memo from you to them (and their bosses) calling for such a meeting and to facilitate the meeting itself. It's clear the current process is not working so it needs to be changed if these people are to be placed asap.”

Altman proposed formalizing the relationship and becoming a consultant to City Hall, with her fees paid by an outside nonprofit, in an attempt to avoid conflicts of interest.

Natalie Grybauskas, a mayoral spokeswoman, denied that Altman played an outsize role in the agency. She said Sutton never responded to the idea of formalizing Altman’s role and nothing ever came of it.

“Her role was not significant, and we disagree with the assertion that she ‘helped craft policy,’” Grybauskas said. “Like any responsible commissioner, Loree Sutton conversed with many, many people with diverse opinions and expertise in the space as she was leading a growing agency.”

She also said Aimco did not end up receiving contracts to provide shelter for homeless veterans. Aimco does have contracts with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development for Section 8 Housing, the city’s contracts database shows.

James Yolles, a spokesman for Capalino, called Altman “one of the leading supportive housing experts in the city” with decades of experience.

“It comes as little surprise that many entities – the city, nonprofits, businesses and civic organizations – come to her for advice on policy matters,” Yolles said in response to questions from POLITICO New York. “We’re proud of the leadership role she’s played on this issue and her work is a good example of our approach more broadly: our strength lies in our deep policy expertise and experience.”

Capalino himself was not afraid to personally instruct City Hall staff to arrange meetings with the mayor and his deputies.

On May 21, 2015 he texted the mayor’s cell phone to raise concerns on behalf of the tourism industry his firm represented.

“Dear Mayor, my firms [sic] represents the helicopter tour companies. We have been working with NYCEDC for six months to find an equitable solution to the issues raised by their flight operations,” he wrote, referring to the Economic Development Corporation.

“This week, NYCEDC informed us of significant cuts to the company’s flight operations which I’m told come at your direction. I would appreciate a brief phone conversation with you before our meeting with NYCEDC next Wednesday. Thank you, sir. James Capalino,” he added.

Several hours later, Capalino forwarded the text to a City Hall aide, asking for him to arrange a call with the mayor.

Five days later, he followed up with a different aide, and on May 28, the mayor emailed Capalino to set up the call.

By early 2016, the industry and EDC had agreed to a compromise that saved the industry from a ban proposed by City Council legislation. Instead, the city agreed to keep the industry in business while reducing the number of flights.

Capalino also played a key role as a fundraiser for various mayoral initiatives. The firm helped draft a guest list for the city’s LGBT and Design Awards ceremony with high-level donors at the request of a City Hall staffer.

The Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities Commissioner Victor Calise personally asked Jim Capalino in an April 2015 email if he knew of potential funders for the city’s month-long celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The following day, Capalino agreed to give $5,000 from his firm to the effort through the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City — a nonprofit run by de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, to raise private funds for public programs.

But the fundraising occasionally came with a catch.

For more than a year, Asphalt Green, the Upper East Side athletic facility had been battling with City Hall to move the proposed location of a ramp to a controversial new marine garbage transfer facility at East 91st Street. The ramp would have sent hundreds of garbage tracks through a route that cut between an athletic field and a children’s playground.

Asphalt Green hired Capalino to advocate for moving the ramp, orchestrating a public campaign against it. Capalino also leveraged its moneyed connections, behind the scenes, to help move City Hall.

In June of 2015 a City Hall staffer sought help from Capalino in organizing an event honoring the city’s valedictorians and salutatorians.

For the graduation honors, the city staffer asked a lobbyist if IBM, whom Capalino was representing, would help fund the program.

The lobbyist promised to ask IBM, and asked what the city’s deadline was.

“Awesome! The event is soon (Jul 7), and we'll take money up until the moment it starts!” the aide replied.

The lobbyist also said he’d look into using the space owned by Asphalt Green for the event, but added a caveat.

“We would want to wait until the Mayor makes a decision on moving the MTS ramp. I don’t want a negative story,” he wrote on June 30, 2015.

One month after the email exchange; a month after the chairman of the board at Asphalt Green donated $10,000 to de Blasio’s now-defunct political organization, Campaign for One New York; and a week after valedictorian event, de Blasio announced the city would move the ramp.

A Capalino lobbyist at the firm forwarded a POLITICO New York article on the news to several City Hall staffers and wrote, “I love you guys.”

While Capalino may have enjoyed unfettered access to City Hall during de Blasio’s first term, it did not always guarantee a victory for the firm’s clients.

While trying to get permission from the city to put on a music festival in Corona Park, Queens, Founders Entertainment gave $15,000 to fund a summer jobs program for teens.

A few weeks later, a different lobbyist from the firm brought up the music festival request: “Our client, Founders Entertainment, is quite interested in Queens (who isn’t these days since it is best borough) and I was wondering if you might have some time in the next week or so to meet and chat about this.”

Founders, which puts on the annual Governor’s Ball event each year on Randall’s Island, didn’t win the right to put on the Queens festival. Nor did the other two aspiring companies because of community opposition.

Instead, City Hall approved an application by concert promoter AEG to hold its own music festival on Randall’s Island the following summer, which Founders’ CEO Tom Russell saw as a direct threat to his company’s existence.

In an email sent in July of 2015 from Founders CEO Tom Russell to a senior administration administration official following a meeting he’d requested, Russell wrote about his displeasure over AEG’s impending event, and highlighted the company’s “charitable donations and support” to the city.

A spokeswoman for Founders said the company’s donations to the Mayor’s Fund began in response to the East Harlem explosion in 2014, and had nothing to do with the Queens festival.

Grybauskas, the mayor’s spokeswoman, said the Mayor’s Fund “doesn’t ‘request money’ — funders either learn about what they’re doing and step forward to help … or they learn about a funder’s interest in an area they’re pursuing and they explore a partnership around a project.”

“We’d work with Capalino – as well as many outside organizations and partners ­– where appropriate for the good of the city,” she added.

In another loss for a high-profile client, Capalino was unable to convince the mayor to lower the amount of mandated affordable housing in a residential project its client, Silverstein Properties, was pursuing on West 41st Street during the summer of 2015.

Capalino, in the emails, asked for multiple personal meetings with the mayor to discuss lowering the threshold. Despite the personal appeal, de Blasio stood firm.

End of an era

Yolles, the Capalino spokesman, said the firm’s relationship with City Hall is an example of “informed, responsible and effective advocacy.”

“Our staff regularly fields calls from business leaders, community and civic organizations and government to advise on complex policy issues, and it’s that expertise that sets our work apart,” he added.

City Hall’s Grybauskas described it in similar terms.

“The emails are evidence of an appropriate relationship,” she said. “The mayor no longer gets lobbied by third party lobbyists.”

Capalino lobbyists are still talking to other people in city government though, Yolles said.

De Blasio has said he distanced himself from Capalino and other lobbyists when former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara revealed his office had begun investigating ties between de Blasio’s political donors and City Hall.

Among the matters under investigation was the city’s decision to lift a deed restriction on Rivington House that allowed the former nursing home to be sold to a luxury condo developer.

Capalino represented a nonprofit that sold the site to the nursing home, though he was unsuccessful in his own efforts to get the deed restriction removed. He also represented the final buyer, Slate Property Group, on other matters.

The federal investigation concluded in 2016 with no charges brought against the mayor or any of his staff.

Prosecutors said the mayor had not committed any crimes but warned him about skirting such lines in the future.

“We have conducted a thorough investigation into several circumstances in which Mayor de Blasio and others acting on his behalf solicited donations from individuals who sought official favors from the City, after which the Mayor made or directed inquiries to relevant City agencies on behalf of those donors,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in March, in a statement that explained their decision not to bring charges.

[EinNYC]

I've been telling FReepers how utterly devoid of the slightest hint of moral fiber this oversized moron mayor of NYC is. How his masters are his real estate developer donors and his copy of Das Capital, not the taxpayers of NYC. They're just his ATM machine. And I've been commenting on how Preet Bharara was as corrupt as the criminals he chose to pass on investigating or indicting. Now, in this article, you see it all laid out. And Politico is a lefty publication! Is this outrageous or not? That our city is actually governed by a LOBBYIST who was not elected, not vetted, and whose only interest is his own. They can't get rid of Comrade Bill, the Dope From Park Slope, fast enough for me.

[onona]

This delta bravo’s handlers are totally looking for a presidential run. effing scary.

[Djl3668]

If you invite this Filth back into your mind, it will harm you and your family. The green flies will become more noticeable, the mouse in your basement will become Times 10X!

So what is the Filth? Everything we read here that we do not discuss with our Christian Brothers and Sisters.

[Djl3668]

YeS

[Djl3668]

Just think of who is waiting in the wings to take his place.

[BostonNeocon]

Is it really a surprise that the guy named “Warren Wilhelm Jr” who changed his name to Bill de Blasio is a crook? Corruption is standard practice at the Democratic Party, from the mayoral levels to the presidential nominees.