City Clerk's Certified Letter: Corey Johnson Complaint

Remember my June 26 email to Walter Carcione, the chief investigator of the Lobbying Bureau of the New York City office of the City Clerk, complaining that Corey Johnson was for at least three-years the Government Affairs Director for the GFI Development Corporation, a real estate firm, but that he wasn't registered as lobbyist?

I mentioned how strange it was the City Clerk's site contained no details about how to file a complaint against a lobbyist or whom to contact to make the complaint. This matter got a bit stranger today when a certified letter arrived via snail mail and required a signature acknowledging receipt of it.

Carcione acknowledges receiving my complaint but oddly asks for me to send him material which may substantiate my claim. Um, I sent him via snail mail and email the link to the Lobbying Bureau's database where Johnson's name does not show up, and Carcione was also sent links to proof Johnson was the GFI guy in charge of their contacts with City government.

Well, let's be happy we have the certified letter and wait to see if Carcione conducts an investigation.

In terms of good government and transparency, I gotta complaint about this office. It's impossible to locate on the City Clerk's site even the name of the City Clerk, his bio and how he came to occupy the office, whether elected by popular vote or appointed to the position. The About page omits his name and don't even think about contact info for him. That page mentions he's the Clerk of the City Council, which is some info.

According to the Daily News of February 2009, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was arm-twisting to have the acting City Clerk, one Michael McSweeney, take the helm:

So far, there's no official deal on the city clerk, but Council Speaker Christine Quinn is still trying mightily to make one. 

Things are looking good for Quinn as the morning progresses, but Brooklyn Democratic Chairman Vito Lopez is continuing to hold out hope that he'll be able to at the very least postpone the vote today that Quinn is seeking on her preferred candidate, acting Clerk Michael McSweeney, who hails from Queens. 

The New York Observer reported McSweeney was approved by an 11-to-3 vote of the Rules Committee. That Quinn sure knows how to twist Councilmembers' arms!

My gut says I should not expect much from Quinn's "preferred candidate" who is the City Clerk, regarding a thorough probe of her political protege Johnson's failure to register as a lobbying during the years he worked for GFI Development.

NY Corey Johnson Ignores Simple Transparency Questions

(Credit: Miguel Dominguez, Queer Life NY.)

This past Sunday, I submitted these easy questions to out Democratic politician Corey Johnson who is chair of Manhattan's Community Board 4 for the Westside including the Village and Chelsea gayborhoods and is seeking to replace Christine Quinn on the City Council for district 3.

The questions were submitted to his campaign team and ignored. No reply was sent to me. However, my questions about the missing minutes at the CB4's site seems to have forced Johnson and the board to get their site up to speed and fully transparent yesterday.

As a high-profile gay candidate in America's biggest city, I think Johnson should address these transparency matters and clearly state his agenda to expand transparency at NYC departments and for members of all elected and advisory councils, boards and committees that comprise City government:

1. Is Corey willing to post on his campaign site all of his disclosure filings since 2005, when he was appointed to Community Board 4, that he's made to the Conflict of Interest Board? As a candidate, let me know if has a plan to expand transparency by proposing a law requiring online disclosure of the filing at COIB's site. 

2. What about linking from the campaign site to his list of donors and expense reports over at the Campaign Finance Board's site, and assisting voters in following the money? Voters need to be educated about campaign finance and told by candidates where such reports are located online. Please explain how Corey engages voters to read his campaign's public filings and if he will cross-post his COIB filings on his campaign site. 

3. The CB4 monthly minutes are current only up to December 2011, and minutes from January 2012 through April 2013 should be on the board's site as basic government transparency. Why has Corey not rectified sixteen months of omitted minutes from the CB4 of which he's chair? This is quite an excessive amount of time for minutes to not be made available to the public. When does he expect the missing minutes to be up at the board's site? [UPDATE: The CB4 site now includes the minutes.]

4. Once those minutes are up, will Corey's campaign site link to them and all resolutions passed by the board? Making it easy as possible for voters and old and new media writers is vital. 

5. Share with me Corey's agenda, if elected, for expanding NYC government transparency at the City Council, for the Mayor and all departments and agencies? 

6. I've filed a complaint with the City Clerk's Lobbying Bureau stating that I believe Corey should have registered as a lobbyist when he was government affairs director for the GFI Development Corporation. Why didn't he register as a lobbyist during the years he served in this position for the real estate giant with much business with the city? Greater details about this lack of registration are needed, as are details about his duties as director of this important function for GFI and if those duties would be cause for Corey to recuse himself from matters related to GFI that may come before the City Council, if he wins the seat? 

7. Regarding any gifts of travel or of value at $50 or above received since 2005 when he was appointed to CB4 and began serving as a public official with hands on levers of power, I'd like to know if he has received such gifts. If so, has he disclosed them and are the disclosures publicly available, and will he post them on his campaign site? On the other hand, if no gifts have been received by Corey during these years, that should be stated on his site. 

8. If elected, will he propose a law requiring an additional string to nonprofits receiving taxpayer dollars, a requirement that groups accepting $250,000 or more in municipal funds post their three most current IRS 990 tax filings on their web sites? Such a legal mandate would assist the public in following city funds that flow to thousands of nonprofits across the five boroughs. Please provide details about Corey's plans to make such nonprofits more transparent. 

9. Here in San Francisco, I was part of the coalition that successfully passed the Nonprofit Public Access Ordinance requiring any nonprofit receiving $250,000 or more to hold at least two board meetings open to the general public, except abortion and domestic violence groups. The law is posted here. If elected, will Corey work to create a New York City version of this law?

Village Voice's Damage Control for NY Gay Pol Corey Johnson

(Barney Frank listens to Johnson ask a question. Credit: Towleroad.)

He didn't have a good week, new and old media wise. From a Village Voice blog post yesterday written by John Surico, titled "The Misunderstood Candidacy of Corey Johnson":

[O]ne Democratic candidate named Corey Johnson is in the running as (New York City's District 3 Councilmember Christine Quinn's) replacement. But he faces many of the same attacks on Quinn's mayoral campaign, some of which are mired in too-easy-to-leapfrog judgments.

Laying on sympathy before we get to any specifics, because Johnson has allegedly been attacked this week. I would say his thin record of accomplishments has been challenged, his omitting and then replacing a job with a real estate corporation from his resume noted by City Hall Watch's Seth Barron, and the Queens Politics blog's Adam Lombardi reported Johnson was not a registered lobbyist.

Good thing Barron and Lombardi weren't waiting for the Voice to poke around Johnson's resume and lobbyist records.

[Johnson was appointed in 2005 to and through election by his peers became] the chairman of Community Board 4, the local citizen group in Quinn's constituency. Using that experience, he joined GFI Development Corporation as its director of government and community affairs in 2008--a position that would naturally attract attention from opponents.

Sounds to me that Johnson used his CB4 position and network contacts to hire himself out to that corporation and should be scrutinized by rivals and voters, a key constituency left omitted by Surico.

So, like Quinn, Johnson has benefitted (sic) from real estate wealth, which his campaign has received $8,400, in total, from; several of his donors are even veterans from the speaker's past and current campaigns, like Mario Palumbo of Millennium Partners and the development crew behind the Brooklyn Naval Yard.

Interesting to see that $8,400 figure very probably came from my post examining real estate donations to Johnson and Surico conveniently fails to mention my research. The central point about Johnson has received four-figure real estate donations hadn't come up till my post appeared and undercuts the Voice's contention that there's been too-easy leapfrog judgments. I'm just following the money.

According to sources who spoke to the Voice, Johnson never registered [thanks for the link. -MP] with City Hall as a lobbyist for GFI as required by law. But that's because, in his position, he was not responsible for those efforts on behalf of the corporation--a misconception from which the aforementioned judgments originate.

Huh? His job title was director of government affairs and he wasn't responsible for GFI's efforts with City government. Really? Who are the anonymous Voice sources and why can't they be named? Might be good for the Voice to check with the Lobbying Bureau of the City Clerk and see what they have to say. Also, if he wasn't fully in charge of all GFI government affairs, Johnson still could have spent consider time and effort communicating and lobbying City officials and agencies.

At GFI, his job was simply PR for the public, to make sure the Corporation didn't look like the bad guy to tenants by mending ties between Big Development and the little man.  

Says who? More anonymous Voice sourcing.

I chose the treatment of Corey Johnson's candidacy for a reason. His situation highlights an all-too-common theme of election seasons: laziness, plain and simple. The most catchy clip jobs are fueled by accusatory dialect, a ton of misdirected pathos and, as a result, SEO [search engine optimization] bait. It's a replacement of logic that detracts the voter from the reality of the situation, stretching facts and leaving truths few and far between.

Yes, the laziness of publications like the Voice to not scrutinize Johnson's donors and his track record of alleged accomplishment and not simply list where he's been employed, and raise questions about his ethics as a high-profile GFI government and PR guy.

There's been no replacement of logic, which Surico and the Voice imply they are now using to bring forward a better examination of Johnson's candidacy. All they have done is provide a large dose of damage control for him.

Complaint: NYC Pol Corey Johnson Not Registered as a Lobbyist

(Johnson, left, interviewing Democratic gay power broker David Mixner in October 2010. Credit: Towleroad.)

After rooting around the Office of the City Clerk of New York City's web page for its Lobbying Bureau and finding no email addresses or info regarding how to file a complaint requesting an investigation, I phoned 1-212-NEW-YORK and eventually was connected to a live person in the Clerk's office.

I was given the name of the Chief Investigator, Mr. Walter Carcione, and his direct dial number, and in a call he shared his addy with me and the following complaint was sent this morning.

(New Yawkers oughtta be squawking about the dearth of details for citizens looking to make complaints regarding lobbyists at their City Clerk's web site. The Clerk wants to hear from folks about the lobbyists wielding power with City government, right?)

A tip o' the hat to Adam Lombardi at the Queens Politics news site for sparking my interest to file this complaint with Carcione, with whom I'm follow up with tomorrow. Updates will appear as they happen.

Text of my complaint:

I wish to file a complaint against Mr. Corey Johnson, who served as Director of Government Affairs and Community Relations for the GFI Development Company starting in July 2008 according to Crain's New York site:

Corey Johnson, former political director for Mark Green’s 2006 attorney general campaign, began this week as government relations director for G.F.I. Development, a Wall Street-based real estate firm. 

Further, reporter Seth Barron of the City Council Watch site wrote earlier this month that Johnson may have left his lobbyist position at the GFI Development Company in 2011.

At the Queens Politics news site, Adam Lombardi reported yesterday that despite being GFI Development's lobbyist for a number of years, Johnson has not registered with the City Clerk as a lobbyist. 

I have searched the City Clerk's database for registered lobbyists and Corey Johnson's name isn't listed.  

For your information, please be aware that Johnson is currently a candidate for the 3rd District seat on the City Council. 

In my view, Johnson was legally required to register as a lobbyist for the years in which he was employed as the Director of Government Affairs and Community Relations at the GFI Development Company, and there is no evidence at the City Clerk's site that he was properly registered. 

Therefore, I request that you investigate my complaint and determine if Johnson violated City lobbying laws.

NY Post: Gay Pol Johnson Worked for Anti-Gay Marriage Firm

(Corey Johnson with Lady Gaga at the National Equality March in 2009. Credit: Towleroad.)

Color me way over Democratic Party gays working their way up the political ladder and maintaining the status quo,with only lip service paid to challenging or actually changing political norms.

The NY Post's reporter M.L. Nestel shared this news on Monday:

The gay community-board chairman running for City Council this year tried to hide his past work for corporate clients that have opposed marriage equality, The Post has learned. Corey Johnson, 31, who is in the race for Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s seat, proudly portrays himself as a trailblazer for gay rights [...]

But from 2008 to 2010, he served as director of government and community affairs at Wall Street-based real-estate firm GFI Development Co. — a fact that was left off his site. GFI and some of its brass have spent more than $30,000 backing candidates who oppose gay marriage [...]

Johnson also says he’s a champion of affordable housing [...] “I did work for them, but I no longer work for them currently,” Johnson said about GFI.

Much, if not all, of this info seems to have originated from reporting blogger Seth Barron posted on June 13 at his City Council Watch site, reporting which included many links to source documents. Barron shed much light on this firm and their anti-tenant activities, and Johnson's work for the firm:

GFI Development buys old buildings and turns them into hotels, condominiums and the like.  Corey Johnson’s job was to facilitate the political side of things, as we see in this June 2009 article detailing his advocacy on behalf of a GFI development before Community Board 2 in Brooklyn.  

In 2008, around when they hired Corey to be their front man in New York City, GFI Development bought the old Breslin Hotel, on 29th Street, which was an SRO.  Their efforts to evict or buy out the existing tenants led to a series of court battles, but eventually the Breslin gave way to the trendy Ace Hotel.  Corey Johnson had his birthday party there when it opened in 2010, and was so delighted that he even wore a tiara, according to this record of the evening.

At the time of the Ace Hotel’s opening, Corey Johnson, top lobbyist and community affairs director for GFI Development, was also Vice-Chair of Community Board 4 and Co-Chair of the CB4 Land Use Committee.  Is this a conflict of interest?  Well, it is true that the Ace Hotel at 29th and Broadway is two blocks east of CB4’s eastern boundary, so maybe not, technically.

I'm glad to see Barron's City Council Watch and the NY Post are keeping tabs on Johnson, and expect to see more sunshining of the candidate as the race for the District 3 City Council seat progresses to the fall primary. Oh, and the NY Post should have properly credited Seth Barron for his investigative reporting.