According to the NY Times, in 2006 as the fight to rezone Willets Point was heating up, then-Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Dan Doctoroff had a meeting with Claire Shulman, who had been the Queens Borough President from 1986-2001. At that meeting, they agreed to create a Local Development Corporation (LDC), with some of the funding coming from the Economic Development Corporation (EDC).

According to Shulman, this LDC hired lobbyists, specifically the Queens lobbying firm Parkside Group, to lobby city officials for the mayor's plan. She is quoted in the article as saying, "We hired lobbyists from the time we began, because we were told it was something we were supposed to be doing." The Times also reports that a Parkside Group spokesperson "said Ms. Shulman hired it to lobby, among other duties."

The problem is, LDCs aren't allowed to lobby. Neither is the EDC, or (apparently) anyone funded by the EDC.

The City Clerk's office fined the LDC about $59K for failing to report its lobbying activities, but according to the Times, "the issue of whether the group should have been lobbying at all went unaddressed."

This LDC is not alone. The Coney Island Development Corporation, another LDC that the Times calls "essentially a subsidiary of the Economic Development Corporation," seems to have done some lobbying as well.

Ms. Shulman is claiming she did nothing wrong -- apparently, she was just following orders.