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September 5, 2011
REPORT CARD: Our Fake School Board
The Brooklyn Rail
by Liza Featherstone
Yet another installment in the Bloomberg realpolitik playbook: a report on New York City's effed-up excuse for oversight of the education system (inevitably) winds its way through everyone's favorite megaproject boondoggle.
Joe Chan has perhaps the most egregious conflict of interest as the president of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP), which works to develop businesses in Brooklyn, not only depends on city funding—at one point, a $6 million no-bid contract—but was created by the city in 2006, with Chan, who was already part of the Bloomberg administration, installed to do its bidding. So Chan has not only worked for Bloomberg but also got his current job from the mayor. His job at DBP is to keep the mayor happy—as has been widely reported, this has meant that it’s impossible for him to have working relationships with many of Brooklyn’s own elected officials.
Not only does the position of “Bloomberg lackey” take up most of Chan’s resume, but as head of the DBP, he’s a central player in the squintingly shady Atlantic Yards project. He has been investigated by the state attorney general for misuse of city funding for using city money to lobby city officials, which is, under state law, not allowed. As the New York Times reported in 2009, Chan spent $200,000 on lobbying for the Atlantic Yards construction. Neither the DBP nor the attorney general’s office will say whether this investigation is still ongoing, but “Report Card” assumes that if it had been cheerfully resolved, either body would be happy to tell us so. (Of course, since the DBP was created by Bloomberg to advance Bloomberg’s agenda, it matters only slightly whether or not the DBP “lobbied” anyone.) Given this historically casual relationship to public funds, it’s particularly rich that as head of the PEP committee that oversees DOE contracts, Chan decided it no longer needed to meet.
Posted by eric at September 5, 2011 9:29 PM