Accountability and transparency — from Yankee Stadium to slushgate…?

https://swampman.nypost.com/seven/10152006/sports/a_little_perspective_sports_.htm?page=2

LOOK AT THE DATE OF MY LETTER 2006 and I talk about NYC’s budget crisis than….
Thanks to swampman new york post because without you I couldn’t have found one of my favorite letters in The New York Posts sports section. Check out my letter on the Yankee’s passionless play and my idea on how to get money back in to the city’s budgetary black hole and this is an old letter! (I am an ex-jock and was a basketball star in high school despite a lousy coach so getting published in The NYPOST sports section on behalf of Brian Leech and busting the Yankee’s big bloated ….salaries including the head dudes in the office telling us we need to give them more money for their over priced stadium is an honor.

https://www.nypost.com/seven/05202007/sports/curses_on_the_yanks_sports_.htm

http://www.christinequinn.com/

http://weblogs.amny.com/entertainment/urbanite/blog/2009/01/citys_share_of_yankee_stadium_1.html

Can we have a clause written in to bloated players salary packages that if they don’t make the play offs they have to return mega bucks of their salary and it gets donated to NYC’s on going black hole of a budgetary crisis?

Is city council going to unvote themselves a raise?

Is Christine Quinn going to step forth and explain slushgate and the tax payers having to pay close to a quarter million dollars so far in legal bills for her and her staff?
Will city council slush receipents account for the 20 million the mayor has given them…because between the two slush funds that is aprox 40 million dollars so where did it all go?

Activist sent me this comment with this email: What no paper or reporter has yet addressed is that the value of work by any of these law firms for any council member should be treated as additional personal income subject to taxation. If attorney Lee Richards, charging $600 per hour as the article states, is being paid from taxpayer money (as previous articles have stated), then Quinn should pay taxes on that additional benefit.

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COUNCIL IN $LUSH MESS
By SALLY GOLDENBERG
NY Post
Last updated: 3:29 am
December 11, 2008
Posted: 2:38 am
December 11, 2008

The City Council is quickly running through taxpayer money paid to two top-of-the-line law firms and a high-profile attorney hired to advise and represent members and staffers snagged in a slush-fund probe – and has even quietly signed another firm, The Post has learned.

White-collar crime specialist Steptoe & Johnson so far has been paid $122,173. A $95,000 retainer for the firm Sullivan & Cromwell already has been depleted. And ex-federal prosecutor Lee Richards, who charges $600 an hour, has been hired as personal criminal defense lawyer for Council Speaker Christine Quinn.

Now, The Post has learned, the firm Brune and Richard was hired Sept. 30 with a $90,000 retainer – and no public announcement. This, despite assurances from Quinn the process would be transparent.

Quinn spokeswoman Maria Alvarado said the latest firm was brought on board in case any conflicts of interest arose for people seeking help from Steptoe & Johnson. Alvarado refused to release the names of individuals who tapped into the Steptoe fund, saying it is “confidential information.”

A council source, however, said it was staffers – not members – who have sought advice.

Since 2002, the council hid $17 million in grants to nonexistent organizations and later gave the money to individual members for projects in their districts. The city Department of Investigation and the US Attorney’s Office in New York have launched joint probes into the practice.

Please also check out this article on the mayor’s slush fund

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10192008/news/regionalnews/3rd_term_is_lush_hour_134241.htm

and my youtube

http://www.tenantplanet.org/2009/03/03/was-there-a-secret-deal-to-dump-term-limits/comment-page-1/#comment-98

Duration : 0:2:27

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