{"id":13385,"date":"2020-03-02T13:19:20","date_gmt":"2020-03-02T08:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/?p=13385"},"modified":"2020-03-02T13:19:20","modified_gmt":"2020-03-02T08:19:20","slug":"in-2019-113m-made-by-lobbyists-pursuing-nyc-city-hall-council-report-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/archives\/13385","title":{"rendered":"In 2019 $113M made by Lobbyists pursuing NYC City Hall, Council, report says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well-connected lobbyists made a killing in 2019 pursuing City Hall and the City Council on everything but the kitchen sink list of issues, raking in a cumulative $113.19 million, according to a new report by the City Clerk.<\/span><\/p>\n

That eye-popping total represents a 10-percent hike from what the scale-tippers pulled down in 2018, underscoring just how loudly money talks in the political arena, watchdogs said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The increase in spending shows the well-heeled can spend for a megaphone compared to the average New Yorker, who speaks with a whisper, said Blair Horner, of the New York Public Interest Research Group.<\/span><\/p>\n

It must be working or they wouldn\u2019t be spending more dough on lobbying.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tops on the list for the third year running was Suri Kasirer\u2019s firm, Kasirer LLC, which pocketed $14.3 million from its more than 200 clients, the report found.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her sizable stable includes: PETA, which\u00a0seeks better treatment\u00a0for carriage horses and\u00a0backs a proposed ban on furs; Tobacco Free Kids and the Cancer Society, which\u00a0supported a ban on flavored e-cigarettes; NY1 owner Charter Communications, whose\u00a0franchise needs to be renewed\u00a0by the city; Uber, which is fighting city\u00a0proposals to cap trips; and the consortium that sought to redevelop the area in Long Island City for the\u00a0aborted Amazon campus.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not my first rodeo, said Kasirer, who has built inroads with Mayor Bill de Blasio plus Mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani before him as well as City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, who is widely considered a front runner to become the city\u2019s next mayor.<\/span><\/p>\n

You have to build coalitions in both the council and the administration.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second-highest compensated firm was James Capalino & Associates, which earned $11.9 million in 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like Kasirer, Capalino also has decades-long ties to de Blasio and others in city government, and a diverse roster of clients that includes the Staten Island Mall, the Archdiocese of New York, vaping giant Juul Labs, Macy\u2019s, New York University, UPS and more.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of Kasirer\u2019s clients, the pro-animal rights, anti-horse carriage group New Yorkers for Clean, Livable and Safe Streets or NYCLASS agreed in 2018 to\u00a0pay state run-watchdog\u00a0the Joint Commission on Public Ethics a $10,000 fine to settle allegations of lobbying-act violations after donating $75,000 to the Campaign for One New York, a de Blasio-controlled advocacy group.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the same year, Capalino\u00a0paid a $40,000 fine to JCOPE\u00a0to settle accusations of lobbying violations, admitting he personally contributed $10,000 to de Blasio\u2019s CONY and secured another $90,000 in contributions from nine clients who retained him to lobby the city, the mayor and his senior staff.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bolton St. John\u2019s firm came in a distant third in the city clerk\u2019s report, earning $5.6 million in 2019. <\/span><\/p>\n

With respect to outgoing funds, the parent company of RJ Reynolds Tobacco RAI Services had the biggest lobbying stable, paying seven different firms in its fight against legislation to\u00a0ban menthol cigarettes.<\/span><\/p>\n

But real estate and development remains the bread and butter of the lobbying industry, accounting for 40 percent of all compensation, the report noted.<\/span><\/p>\n

The developer of a project to build a 13-tower mixed-use project along Flushing Creek in Queens the FWRA consortium paid over $1 million in lobbying bills as it seeks to win city approval to rezone the area, the most paid by any one client last year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Capalino is one of the consortium\u2019s lobbyists.<\/span><\/p>\n

It begs the question of whether the public interest is being served or whether special interests have too much influence by hiring experts, said Alexander Camarda, of watchdog group Reinvent Albany.<\/span><\/p>\n

While his since-disbanded CONY group was under investigation, de Blasio said he would restrict directly meeting with lobbyists, a stance that City Hall said he maintains.<\/span><\/p>\n

The mayor does not meet with any lobbyists-for-hire, said mayoral spokeswoman Freddi Goldstein.<\/span><\/p>\n

Johnson who has publicly said that he would\u00a0reject special-interest money\u00a0in his City Hall run declined comment.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well-connected lobbyists made a killing in 2019 pursuing City Hall and the City Council on everything but the kitchen sink list of issues, raking in a cumulative $113.19 million, according to a new report by the City Clerk. That eye-popping total represents a 10-percent hike from what the scale-tippers pulled down in 2018, underscoring just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":13386,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1469,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-york","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13387,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13385\/revisions\/13387"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}