Well, we all know that the current Republican Party takes corruption and cronyism to heights previously unimagined. But the Brooklyn Democratic Party manages to be corrupt almost to a Republican degree.
Clarence Norman, the previous chief of corruption for Brooklyn Dems is now behind bars where he belongs. But many of his allies continue his tradition of corruption. People wonder about Clarence Norman's right hand man, Carl Andrews, and whether he will follow in the footsteps of Norman all the way to jail. So far, Andrews has avoided that fate and now emphasizes his ties to Spitzer more than his ties to Norman.
But Assemblywoman Diane Gordon hasn't been so lucky. I come a bit late to this but Diane Gordon has been caught on videotape demanding that a developer build her a $500,000 house in exchange for using her influence to steer a city-owned vacant lot into his hands [1].
A few things here. First off, Gordon is doing pretty well here. Often Brooklyn politicians sell out for far less than half a million. On the other hand, where was this house going to be? Half a million is not a lot of money for a home in NYC these days!
But notice that behind the deal was a deal to smooth the path for a developer to get some property outside of normal channels. Here Gordon is doing nothing different than the same old backroom deals that Pataki, Markowitz and Bloomberg do all the time with developers. I don't think Pataki, et. al. are doing it for bribes the way Gordon is, but the cronyism behind Pataki law school pal Ratner getting special consideration on all levels of his development plans isn't really any less disgusting than Gordon's blatant corruption. Giving special treatment to developers is par for the course these days in NYC. Of course getting a personal bribe is particularly blatant. But in the case of David Yassky, he got support from some Ratner allies right before he turned around and proposed putting $3 million of city money into a jobs program that Ratner had promised to fund. Seems like developers are in control here.
Apparently Gordon could have been off the hook had she retired from politics and cooperate with a broader corruption investigation but she backed out of the deal and is running for re-election. This leaves open the question as to who is targeted in that broader investigation? Which former ally of Norman is sweating more these days? Vito Lopez? Carl Andrews? Perhaps time will tell.
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