No Land Grab

You Can?t Buy Mayor? So Give To 2012 Games.

by Ben Smith

At first, the rich-guy thing looked like a political liability for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. But the magnate has turned his wealth into a selling point, using it to declare his independence from the usual forms of sordid City Hall influence peddling. He likes to emphasize that he doesn?t have to raise money to run for re-election and, therefore, doesn?t have any contributors seeking favors or government contracts?a practice known in the political trade as "pay to play."

"I challenge every elected official to join us in ending pay-to-play," Mr. Bloomberg said in his State of the City address earlier this month. "Pay-to-play taints policy decisions ?. It isn?t about how much money you can spend. It?s about what you owe if you take the money."

But when the Campaign Finance Board begins hearing testimony on pay-to-play on Jan. 31, the focus won?t solely be on the relationships between contributors and elected officials. The board is also awaiting testimony on a fund-raising niche that may cut closer to the Bloomberg administration: the nuanced world of philanthropy and the private charities dear to public officials.

"The board would appreciate hearing testimony on all of the potential avenues of influence, including contributions to candidates from people who do business with the city, as well as contributions to charities affiliated with political candidates or officeholders," the board?s spokeswoman, Molly Watkins, told The Observer.

That broad focus means the hearing could draw attention to what some observers and lobbyists see as a back door to influence in a City Hall that prides itself on the purity of its decision-making: contributions to charities favored by the Mayor and his top aides. Mr. Bloomberg himself hit the phones like a traditional politician to solicit donations to the Republican National Convention, which was held in the city last summer. More recently, the Daily News called attention to the Mayor?s Fund to Advance New York City, a charity that makes few public disclosures and whose contributors include, among others, top real-estate developers.

But the charity closest to the heart of one key City Hall player, Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff, is NYC2012, the vessel for Mr. Doctoroff?s decade-old dream of bringing the 2012 Summer Olympic Games to New York. Last year, the city?s Conflicts of Interest Board issued a formal opinion allowing Mr. Doctoroff and Mr. Bloomberg to raise money directly for NYC2012, something city officials are usually barred from doing. As far as many key business players are concerned, Mr. Doctoroff is the most important man in the city. Building an Olympic Stadium is atop the city?s development agenda. And Mr. Doctoroff?s favorite charity is prospering.

Contributions to NYC2012 nearly tripled from $4.5 million in 2002, Mr. Bloomberg?s first year in office, to $14.5 million in 2003, after the city advanced to the International Olympic Committee?s final round. According to NYC2012?s Web site, donors include virtually all the big names in city real estate and many major players in finance and construction. Among them are the recipients of six of the seven multimillion-dollar corporate-subsidy packages issued since Mr. Bloomberg took office, including the Hearst Corporation, Bank of America and Pfizer.

There?s also the growing perception among many involved in development that, in a general sense, if they want to stay in City Hall?s graces, they?d better support the Olympics bid.

"Support for the Olympic plan has become a real litmus test of whether city government responds to you," said Robert Yaro, the executive director of the Regional Plan Association, the nation?s oldest city-planning group.

More narrowly, that support means giving money to NYC2012, according to three lobbyists who spoke to The Observer on the condition of anonymity.

"It?s no different from political contributions?it may not help get you over the finish line, but it certainly can help the horse in the race," said one lobbyist who represents real-estate clients.

Said another: "If a client came to me and said, ?Look, I want to get in with this administration,? I?d say, ?Hey, give to the Olympics.?"

A call to Mr. Doctoroff was referred to Mr. Bloomberg?s communications director, William Cunningham, who vigorously objected to the suggestion that money buys anything in this City Hall.

"This is no different than raising money for a public-private partnership, the Fund to Advance New York City or the host committee for the Republican National Convention," Mr. Cunningham said of NYC2012. "Companies gave to all those entities and they received nothing in return."

He dismissed the apparent perception among lobbyists that the NYC2012 could constitute a back door to influence.

"These are things you do because you want to support the city," he said. "If you think you?re going to get anything else for your money, keep it."

Tricky Business

This is where identifying pay-to-play gets tricky. As with political contributions, there are two sides. On the one hand is a perception that contributions to NYC2012 are good for business. On the other hand, there?s no evidence that Mr. Doctoroff has done a single favor for an NYC2012 contributor. Contributors deny that they have received any special treatment from the city.

"For us, the two have nothing to do with each other," said Paula Zirinsky, a spokeswoman for the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft, which received subsidies worth more than $6 million to stay in lower Manhattan. The firm contributed at least $50,000 to NYC2012, according to the partial list of donors made public on the group?s Web site. "We would love to see the Olympics in New York, period."

In addition, NYC2012 was prospering well before Mr. Doctoroff got into City Hall. The Partnership for New York City, a top business group representing the finance industries, liked the Olympic idea, and its members wrote Mr. Doctoroff some of his first checks, said the executive director of NYC2012, Jay Kriegel. They also introduced Mr. Doctoroff to then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who made winning the Olympic bid official city policy.

Later, leaders in the real-estate industry came aboard, led by Lewis Rudin, Mr. Kriegel said. Big property owners, literally invested in the city?s future, now appear to make up the bulk of contributors, as they do for many city causes. The NYC2012 list includes many companies with properties whose value could rise if the planned Olympics-related parks and other improvements come to fruition. These companies include Park Tower Realty, which owns property near the Brooklyn waterfront, and the Related Companies, which own property on the West Side.

Mr. Kriegel attests to personally raising most of the money for the bid.

"I?m not aware of any way in which that has or would influence any decision of the city," he said. "There are people out there who have had the incredible backbone to say no to Kriegel, and they haven?t suffered any bizarre consequences. I haven?t put a hex on them, and they haven?t lost their business with the city."

It?s not clear how the list of contributors to NYC2012 has changed since Mr. Doctoroff joined city government. NYC2012 at first offered to make available a list of donors from 2001 for comparison with the current list, but its spokesman, Laz Benitez, later said his office was unable to assemble the list before The Observer?s deadline. A 2002 list of supporters includes many of the same companies backing NYC2012 today, though some have been added.

One of those is JC Decaux, a giant French company that specializes in outdoor advertising and street furniture?an odd donor considering that Paris is New York?s closest competitor in the race to snag the Olympics. Decaux is currently bidding on a contract for New York?s long-awaited public toilets, and it gave $50,000 to NYC2012. Its lawyer at Greenberg Traurig, former City Councilman Ed Wallace, said the donation was made because the company would play a role if the city winds up hosting the Olympics.

"The idea that the city is going to play favorites with this contract is preposterous," he said.

In his assault on pay-to-play, Mr. Bloomberg, like most reformers, has focused on eradicating the appearance of conflicts, without waiting for investigators to unearth outright bribes. The system which he has proposed, and which officials at the Campaign Finance Board seem inclined to accept, would bar companies that do business with the city from giving money to candidates for public office. To avoid overwhelming candidates, or creating unnecessary bureaucracy, that system would put the burden on the contractors, imposing fines on companies that give contributions.

It?s unclear how a system like that could extend to charities. Mr. Doctoroff has no formal connection to NYC2012, besides the Conflicts of Interest Board opinion permitting him to raise money for it. He is not a political candidate and, like Mr. Bloomberg, he?s not regulated by the Campaign Finance Board.

Still, a glance at NYC2012?s lengthy contributors list reveals many companies that, by the broad definition of pay-to-play being considered by the city, would be disqualified from giving to political candidates, though they?d still be allowed to give to NYC2012.

That long roster includes everyone from major real-estate players like the Rudin family, which gave $750,000, and Forest City Ratner, which gave $200,000, to Vollmer Associates, a planning and engineering firm that consults on projects around the city and gave $50,000 to NYC2012.

As the hearings on getting money out of city politics approach, Mr. Doctoroff?s critics talk about NYC2012 in much the same tone that Mr. Bloomberg reserves for donors to City Council Speaker Gifford Miller. When they talk about the charities, though, the Mayor?s critics and his supporters switch sides.

"I?m not sure if it?s easy to say that there?s tit-for-tat here, but it would also be naïve to think that contributing to the Deputy Mayor?s favorite cause doesn?t give you access that the rest of us don?t have," said Bettina Damiani, the project director of Good Jobs New York, a group critical of corporate subsidies.

NYC2012?s Mr. Kriegel, however, dismissed the notion that any implication could be drawn from the mere presence of city contractors on his list of donors.

"There ain?t no smoking gun anywhere," he said. "There?s no smoke."