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July 26, 2006
Yankee Lobbyists on Taxpayers' Tab
The Village Voice
By Neil deMause
File this under "unbelievable, but true," in the category "Public Funding of Stadiums:"
City documents newly uncovered by the Voice reveal that the New York Yankees billed city tax-payers hundreds of thousands of dollars for the salaries of team execs and high-powered consultants to lobby the city and state, thanks to the team's sweetheart lease deal engineered by the Giuliani administration.
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The Yankees are apparently taking advantage of a clause in their lease with the city that allows "planning costs" of their new $1.3 billion stadium—groundbreaking for which could take place as soon as next week—to be deducted from the team's rent.
Amazingly, one of these taxpayer-funded lobbyist has also worked for Ratner:
The city even apparently paid the Yankees to lobby the city itself. Another recipient of city money, via the Yankees, was the law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, which, according to the New York City clerk's lobbyist database, has served as a registered lobbyist for both Tishman Speyer, the Yankees' project managers for the stadium, and the Yankees themselves. (Tishman's $1.9 million in 2004 was the number one billable item in the stadium planning account.) Working on the Yankee account, the documents show, was land-use lawyer and lobbyist Stephen Lefkowitz: The son of longtime state attorney general Louis Lefkowitz, he has been involved with nearly every major development project in recent city history, including Battery Park City, the Time Warner Center, the attempts to build a new New York Stock Exchange and a Manhattan Jets stadium, and Bruce Ratner's Metrotech and Atlantic Yards projects.
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Skeezy as all this may be, lobbying experts say it's unlikely that any of it is illegal.
Posted by lumi at July 26, 2006 8:15 AM