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November 3, 2011
Reisman: Michael Spano's salvo answers Yonkers mayoral rivals' prodding on Ridge Hill
LoHud.com
by Phil Reisman
The Ridge Hill bribery scandal is playing a starring role in the Yonkers mayoral race.
Mike Spano was exasperated. Fed up.
At candidate debates and forums, the ordinarily genial Democrat who would be mayor of Yonkers has been dogged by hints and allegations — really just hints — that he has something to hide about his role in the city's $630 million Ridge Hill development.
Barbs have been hurled by both his opponents, the Republican John Murtagh and Carlo Calvi, the Independence Party candidate. Murtagh has been especially vocal, demanding that Spano "come clean" on Ridge Hill, which is the subject of a federal public corruption probe.
To put it plainly, they're trying to paint Spano as a crook without actually coming out and saying it, relying instead on the power of suggestion, i.e., where there's smoke there must be fire.
Spano is now firing back, charging that Murtagh and Calvi are repeating a lie with the hope that it will stick.
...For many years, Spano has served as an assemblyman, but the contretemps centers on a two-year period starting in 2004 when he temporarily left the Legislature to work for the Patricia Lynch Associates lobbying firm whose clients included Ridge Hill's developers, Forest City Ratner.
According to his own account, Spano in 2005 was asked to hold "strictly informational" meetings with three key Yonkers City Council members — Dee Barbato, Sandy Annabi and Murtagh — all of whom had opposed the project. He said he didn't lobby the elected officials, but merely recorded their concerns and reported back to his firm.
The project was approved in July 2006 when Annabi, who had previously voted against it, changed her mind and cast the deciding vote.
An FBI investigation resulted later in a indictment against Annabi, charging her with selling her vote to Zehy Jereis, a former chairman of the Yonkers Republican Party who was given a $60,000 "no show" consultant's job by the developer.
Jereis was also a longtime crony and factotum for Nick Spano, the former state senator and older brother of Mike Spano. Annabi is Jereis' cousin.
Anthony Mangone, a lawyer who had served as Nick Spano's counsel and, like Jereis, has a history of getting into hot water, was also charged with extorting the developer of another project involving two closed Yonkers public schools.
Mike Spano, who by this time was back in the Assembly, was called to testify before a federal grand jury. He said he was told he was not a target of the investigation.
Neither Spano has been implicated. Nor has Forest City Ratner.
Posted by eric at November 3, 2011 11:43 AM