Hundreds of Millions of Dollars missing from ThriveNYC a project headed by de Blasio's wife

a reply to: UncleTomahawk

I personally wonder how they are not in deep water with the irs but i suspect they do not have to pay taxes on most of the funds.

Well, considering this is all 501(c)(3) (as per the OP) activity, then of course they will have not paid taxes on any of their financials. They are a non profit, tax exempt organization.

Also, this is tax money from the city, some of it federal funds. There are some private funds involved as well, but those funds are through other tax exempt organizations and foundations.

a reply to: queenofswords

From the NYT last year:

Even as fund-raising has stalled, the fund has moved into larger offices — which include a new, private office for Ms. McCray — and the cost of running the operation has increased by more than 50 percent in the last two years.

Continuing:

In interviews with more than a dozen donors and others who had contact with the fund, none said that they had substantive conversations with Ms. McCray.
...
City Hall later provided a list of 44 people contacted by Ms. McCray in 2015 and 2016. Several people on the list, when asked about the call, either did not remember the interaction or did not recall discussing donations.

“She makes calls to share what our priorities are and to get attention and interest from others,” said Mr. Bloch, describing Ms. McCray as a key part of the organization’s fund-raising.

So she says she's making calls but the people she's reporting as calling don't have any recollection of speaking with her or making donations.

So what is she actually doing then?

But another pattern is revealed by the calls: almost half of those contacted by Ms. McCray were contributors to her husband’s mayoral campaigns (the Simonses each gave the maximum donation to Mr. de Blasio’s re-election campaign last year). In at least two cases, a person made a campaign donation to Mr. de Blasio within days of one of Ms. McCray’s calls on behalf of the fund.

So she's mixing her non profit efforts with helping her husband's political effort.

Familiar figures in Mr. de Blasio’s orbit who gave to the fund include James F. Capalino, a top lobbyist and campaign contributor to the mayor who also made donations, later ruled improper, to the Campaign for One New York, a political nonprofit started by Mr. de Blasio that the mayor was forced to shut down amid ethics questions and the investigations into his fund-raising. The inquiries were closed in 2016 without charges being filed.

There's a lot more in the article demonstrating a similar pattern of behavior.

Also of interest is that the mayor's fund was originally started by Giuliani and it has grown beyond it's original scope by quite a bit.

With this ThriveNYC initiative that McCray is in charge of nominally, they've found a way to divert huge sums of money with very little accountability to what is done with it.


Once-Thriving City Nonprofit Sputters Under Mayor’s Wife, Chirlane McCray

a reply to: 772STi

A side note...

I found this interesting:

Other measurements seemingly have nothing to do with the mental health of New Yorkers. For instance, Thrive calculates how many mayors attended a national conference on mental health — just seven when New York City hosted it in 2017.

I would be interested to know which 7 mayors attended and how much was spent on the "Conference" by Thrive, where it was held, what money was spent on food, entertainment, hotel accommodations, etc. Seven! Wow! You would think that the "conference" would have been cancelled if more than 7 hadn't RSVP'd.

It was held at New York Law School, Dec 4-5.

Videos are available to alumni or students of New York Law School but not us... yet.

Cities Thrive 2017 NY Conference

Just throwing it here as a bookmark... back to Matt Klien.

originally posted by: queenofswords


SO MANY OF THE WIVES ARE INVOLVED AND THEY ALL USE THEIR MAIDEN NAMES OR SOME PREVIOUS NAME.
(Yes, I put that in all caps on purpose.)

NOTE: Jerrold Nadler's wife, Joyce MILLER, is/was/may still be on the Board of Directors of Empire State Development.

Joyce Miller
Appointed May 4, 2010
Additional Position(s): Tier One Public Strategies, CEO

a856-gbol.nyc.gov...

To add a little spice here...

Nadler's wife and DeBlasio's wife were both employed by a New York politician named Carl McCall who was the state's treasurer. After McCall failed to become Governor he retired from the political life and moved on to being a compensated board member for lots of different bloated organizations.

Including one that also happens to be unable to account for huge amounts of money.

Oh New York... all you need is a dollar and no ethics.

a reply to: NewYawk

What keeps New Yorkers from just picking up the "pitch forks" and confronting these corrupt useless inept thieves and scoundrels?

They get away with this crap because those who they have to answer to are buddies, relatives, fellow criminals, and evidently New Yorkers like their politicians to be corrupt as long as they "say" the right things.

a reply to: queenofswords

The politicians (especially the local ones) in NYC are phenomenal at exploiting their communities and even better at pandering.

I'd go into vast detail but I don't want to move this thread too far off topic.

I'll just drop one name as an example and you can look him on up wikipedia for some quick background:

Senator Pedro Espada

This dude's corruption was epic. It was publicly known that he was stealing money from his own health clinic, didn't live in the district he served, took bribes, got his family jobs and benefits and an astonishing list of other offenses you can read about. And yet he kept getting reelected without fail every two years.

Why? How?

Well, pollsters were interested too. Answers included "he's one of our own" or "we know him" or my personal favorite "every Christmas his office gives out turkeys." Yes, New York City voters kept putting a criminal in office because he gave them poultry.

I could give you hundreds of examples. I did this # for a living for decades. DeBlasio and the Mrs. are not the exception, they're the norm here.

We deserve what we get.

a reply to: Lumenari

Thank you, I was trying to figure out which specific event this was referring to myself and had pretty much decided it was this one you link here.

First Lady Chirlane McCray delivers a Call to Action at the second annual Cities Thrive Conference marking the end of the two-day event. The First Lady is joined by Mayor de Blasio and Former Administrator of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Mr. Slavitt, who both deliver remarks. New York Law School, Manhattan. Tuesday, December 05, 2017. Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.

NY Law School photo album

a reply to: NewYawk

a reply to: NewYawk

Solid day one contributions, thank you very much!

No surprise, really; tangled webs and all with the spinning spiders.

My main question is why the law enforcement authorities of new York not going after mayor for fraud . Also why does a city m as York anywhere in USA have authority to dispatch almost 1 billion dollars in city funds with out there being an immediate emergency situation . Why has city council not immediately removed him from office or suspended him till this case is resolved?

Chirlane McCray was interviewed regarding the Thrive initiative:

“Some people have said there’s no accountability for the money that was spent — $850 million going to hit $1 billion within five years and we’re still seeing lots of homeless on the street and apparently not a lot of bookkeeping from your office,” anchor Rosanna Scotto asked McCray, the city’s first lady.

“Well that’s not true, that is absolutely not true,” McCray answered. “We have so many measures in place and I uh, uh, so many measures in place.”

Co-host Lori Stokes pressed McCray about the “accomplishments thus far of ThriveNYC” and “how can we be able to tell that $850 mil has actually been well spent?”

McCray claimed the program will have spent only $560 million by the end of June.

“That’s a lot of bucks,” Stokes countered.

“Those bucks have been well spent,” McCray said, adding, “The kinds of things people are looking for we’re not going to see for many years because that’s just not the way it works. When you get vaccinated, you don’t immediately become immune.”

Chirlane McCray grilled over ‘Thrive’ initiative - New York Post

So, they have, "many measures in place," but "we're not going to see," what the actual results are of these measures for many years?

Convenient, that.

Many programs being paid for in New Yory by the city are due to have their funding cut, with one notable exception:

Although Mayor Bill de Blasio is asking agencies citywide to tighten their belts to find $750 million in savings to help balance his $92.2 billion budget for fiscal 2020, Thrive NYC is not earmarked for cuts.

During a hearing two weeks ago, Thrive director Susan Herman admitted the program is budgeted to receive $250 million a year over the next four years, including $2 million to cover its 21 office staffers.

Johnson, however, said the council would indeed examine the program for potential cuts as “part of the budget [review] process.”

“Thrive NYC is not different than any other program,” he said. “We have to look at it in a thoughtful, meaningful way.”

The mayor’s office Monday night said the city has spent $564 million on Thrive – $344.1 million in the first three years and a projected $220 million in the current fiscal year. But Thrive NYC’s own documents say there’s a commitment to spend $850 million.

Corey Johnson shades Chirlane McCray’s ‘Thrive NYC’ initiative - New York Post