I had heard about this last week, but haven't been able to follow up until now. Bathroom repairs and other apartment issues have been taking my attention in recent days. Steve DiBrienza, the one time City Councilman for the 39th City Council District, has dropped out of the race for his old seat. This leaves us back with Brad Lander and Josh Skaller as the apparent front runners with four other candidates trying to catch up.

Recently I was talking with a Brooklyn politician and he was telling me what a shame the DiBrienza scandal was because DiBrienza had been a good councilman. That was before I lived in Brooklyn, so I don't know. But it is clear to me that the DiBrienza scandal is indicative of what is deeply wrong with the way NYC is run and why we need some serious change. This scandal, where a city councilman was given taxpayer money with only minimal oversight and little to show for it, taints every layer of the city government, from the mayor, to the Public Advocate to the City Council.

According to the Brooklyn Paper, an audit by the Department of Youth and Cultural Development of DiBrienza's agency was not able to even define what was being done with taxpayer money. This was allowed to go on for years, with the active participation of the city council. A complete waste of taxpayer money. And this isn't atypical. Fake non-profits and community "newsletters" that do nothing but glorify incumbent City Councilmen seem to be common place as ways to funnel money and influence into the pockets of political insiders. And both Gifford Miller and Christine Quinn either eagerly encouraged these practices, or at least turned a blind eye.

Mayor Bloomberg loves to say he wants to run the city like a business. Well, what kind of business lets money flow out this way with no oversight? A poorly run business. Let me say that again. If Bloomberg is running the city like a business, he has done it poorly, completely failing to make sure our money is spent wisely. And yet he overrode the will of the voters, trying to award himself another term. Reminds me of the AIG and Bank of America CEOs who messed things up so badly then give themselves big fat bonuses with taxpayer money.

And what about the current city councilman from the 39th district, Bill de Blasio? He knows DiBrienza. His office is two doors down from DiBrienza's fake non-profit. How much money did de Blasio give to this fake non-profit? And why didn't de Blasio notice that DiBrienza was doing nothing with the money? It suggests at best that Bill de Blasio was so unaware of what was going on right under his nose in his own district that he couldn't notice a scandal if he tripped over it. At worst it suggests active involvement in the DiBrienza scandal. And yet de Blasio wants to be Public Advocate. How can he advocate for us if he can't even see a blatant scandal two doors away?

And what about the neighboring city councilman from the 33rd district, David Yassky. Yassky seemed so impressed with DiBrienza's non-profit, or at least so impressed with DiBrienza's endorsement of Yassky himself, that he put $15,000 of taxpayer money into it even though it was out of his district. Didn't he want to know what it was doing before he took our money and gave it to DiBrienza? How could he pour our money into it if, as the Department of Youth and Cultural Development puts it, the non-profit doesn't even properly define what it does? Again, at best this shows a complete lack of common sense on Yassky's part, not even requiring a simple definition of what the organization does before giving it money. And, at worst, it is typical pay-to-play kind of arrangement where an endorsement was exchanged for a favor that lined DiBrienza's pocket. And yet Yassky wants to be Comptroller! He wants to oversee the city's money when he can't even spot such an obvious scam right in his own neighborhood.

This scandal is so typical of what is wrong with NYC and this is why I am supporting challengers to so many incumbents in city government. I think Bloomberg is a lousy CEO of the city even if the CEO model was an appropriate one for running a city, and I don't think it is. I think most of the city council, from Quinn on down, need to be replaced. I want a strong Public Advocate, namely Norman Siegel, who will stand up to crap like this. I'd also like a strong Comptroller, and I am worried that all of the Comptroller candidates are city council members and so may be themselves tainted by this kind of thing. Certainly Katz and Yassky fit the typical pay-to-play mold that we need to get rid of.

And as for DiBrienza...well, I have heard from many sources that he had been a good city councilman. But my only impression of him is what he did since then, and what he did was, probably pefectly legally, but no less immorally, bilked the taxpayers of tens of thousands of dollars. For that, I am not sorry to see his political career crash and burn.