Frank Padavan Scores Independence Line For State Senate Race In Queens, But Anthony Como Is Blocked By Chris Bragg - City Hall News

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In his attempt to hold off former New York City Council Member Tony Avella this year, State Sen. Frank Padavan will have the crucial Independence Party line.

But fellow Queens Republican Anthony Como, who is running against State Sen. Joe Addabbo, will not.

The party’s executive committee officially submitted its endorsements on Monday.

Both riled members of the State Independence Party by using members of the party’s rival New York City faction to gatherer their petition signatures. Padavan was pulled from the precipice thanks to his longstanding ties with party chair Frank MacKay and his close relationship with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an Independence ally and benefactor.

But in Como’s race, the line went to Addabbo.

“I was able to keep one of them off,” said Michael Zumbluskus, a downstate executive committee member who was upset with the campaigns’ use of rival signature gatherers, and claimed victory from keeping Como off the line.

Zumbluskus said that the decision was also helped by Addabbo’s campaign carrying petitions for Independence Party state committee members, while Como’s had not.

Como campaign spokesman James McClelland sought to downplay the development, which could make it difficult for Como to win in a Queens district with a heavy Democratic enrollment advantage. McClelland said that Como’s campaign met Sunday night after learning of the news and decided they still would be viable going forward.

“It’s not a blow to the campaign, because this year the anti-incumbent sentiment is so strong,” he said. “In the past, the Independence Party was more of an asset.”

Though Padavan is seen as having a close relationship with Bloomberg, Como does not. After losing a Council election in 2008, Como voted against the term-limits extension. He says he was later offered a job by the Bloomberg administration as a commissioner at the New York City Housing Authority, which prompted him to skip a planned reelection bid for his old Council seat. But the job never materialized.

To those watching the situation, Bloomberg’s fingerprints are on some other party endorsements as well. According to Zumbluskus, Mark Pollard—a pro-charter school candidate running a Democratic primary gainst State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery in Brooklyn—also got the Independence nod.

State. Sen Toby Ann Stavisky, meanwhile, got the Independence nod despite the support of Queens County executive committee member Michael Niebauer for Democratic challenger Isaac Sasson.

Niebauer is one of a number of executive committee members around the state disheartened that local candidate picks got trumped by state party leadership.

“They never make us look good here in Queens,” Niebauer said. “We’ll see what happens. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer Launches Re-Election Campaign

Assemblywoman Audrey I. Pheffer (D-Queens) is happy to announce that her campaign for re-election to the New York State Assembly has begun. She has received the nomination of the Democratic Party and will be the endorsed candidate for the Working Families Party and Independence Party lines.

She is a long time champion for the many working men and women in the district. Job creation and improving the local economy are amongst Assemblywoman Pheffer’s top legislative priorities. That is why many organizations and unions have endorsed Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer’s re-election.

• “Your untiring dedication and professionalism that you have shown us over the past years, as well as your commitment for future years have secured you our endorsement,” stated the Sanitation Officers Association.

• “Your outstanding record as a legislator is beyond reproach. Your support on issues which affect the working men and women of this state has been unwavering,” said the New York State Supreme Court Officers Association.

• “The firefighters of this city are confident that you will continue to be an asset to the residents in your District,” said the Uniformed Firefighters Association.

Assemblywoman Pheffer also received the endorsement of the Plumbers & Gasfitters Local Union No. 1 and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association Local 854.

Assemblywoman Pheffer has been a resident of the 23^rd Assembly District for over 50 years and continues to work on behalf of all the constituents she represents.

Senator Joseph Addabbo Wins Official Designation of Independence Party

Citing His Independent Voice and Commitment to Reform, Party Awards Line to Senator

In the first major victory of his re-election campaign, State Senator Joe Addabbo has won the formal backing of the Independence Party of New York. The support comes after Joe Addabbo spent much of the petition season meeting individual Independence Party members in his district and gaining their support through a grass-roots outreach.

“I am honored to have earned the support of the Independence Party in my campaign for State Senate,” said Addabbo. “In representing the people of my district on the City Council and in the Senate, I have always tried to do so in a strong and independent way. I am committed to fixing our state government, by sponsoring and supporting major reforms. The support of the Independence Party and its many members in my district recognizes that effort, and I am grateful for the designation.”

The Independence Party designation was made official on Monday when the Independence Party filed the authorization form, known as a Wilson-Pakula, with the board of elections allowing a non-party member to appear on the party’s line in November.

The Independence Party designation is a major victory for Addabbo’s re-election effort whose campaign has demonstrated early signs of the strong organization and community support that will lead to victory in November.

Bloomberg's Million-Dollar Ripoff by Tom Robbins - villagevoice.com

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The Mayor's 'Crime'

Michael Bloomberg never once complained about the million-plus dollars that District Attorney Cy Vance says was plucked from the mayor's pocket during last year's election. He gets outright nasty when asked about it: "I'm sorry that my English isn't good enough for you," barked the mayor when reporters pressed him last week about how this crime occurred.

Previously, the only robbery victims known to clam up and get all defensive like this were drug dealers and mobsters, who understandably don't gripe about the loss of ill-gotten gains. We now add to this category mega-millionaire politicians whose campaigns are cloaked in secrecy and who would rather take a seven-figure hit than suffer the spotlight of a criminal inquiry.

Right now, the man accused of conning the mayor out of $1.1 million is also keeping mum. The only public comment so far from John Haggerty Jr., a second-generation Republican political power, was at his arraignment on grand larceny charges. "Not guilty," he said.

If he could safely do so, Haggerty would have a great many interesting things to say. It may be true, as Vance's indictment alleges, that he misled Bloomberg's campaign into believing that he would field an army of poll watchers. It may also be true that his goal in this scheme, as also alleged, was to get the money he needed to buy out his siblings' interest in the graceful brick home in Forest Hills that belonged to their late father, Jack Haggerty, the former leader of the Queens Republican party.

But it's also true that, right up to that fateful election day, John Haggerty Jr. had worked his heart out for the Bloomberg cause with no apparent payment by the most generous political candidate in municipal history. Other top officials of Team Bloomberg scored the biggest paydays of their lives. Haggerty worked for free—at least as far as filings show. Yet his tasks were just as crucial, if not more so. He played the leading role in persuading five cranky Republican county leaders to get over their hurt feelings and give Bloomberg their nomination, even though the mayor had jilted them two years earlier by quitting their party. Take a look at those photos of Bloomberg's pre-nomination meetings in which he pleaded with GOP officials to let bygones be bygones. There's John Haggerty, quietly at his side.

Without the GOP nod, Bloomberg would've been forced to slog it out as a third-party candidate against an African-American Democrat on his left and a Republican spoiler on his right. We know how that would have turned out: Even with the GOP in line, Bloomberg managed only a 4 percent win, despite spending more than $108 million. We'd be talking today about Mayor William C. Thompson. That seems like reason enough to want to throw Haggerty a million bucks worth of thank-yous.

"John was responsible for the mayor's election," says Tom Ognibene, the former Queens Republican Councilmember. "Without the Republican line, he was not getting re-elected."

Ognibene is now running for lieutenant governor with millionaire Carl Paladino, for whom Haggerty is handling a Republican petition drive. But the men were once antagonists. Back in 2005, Ognibene angrily denounced Bloomberg's Republican bona fides, and tried to mount a primary challenge against the mayor. Haggerty was one of those who helped Bloomberg knock him off the ballot. "He was in the Board of Elections, day in and day out, scrutinizing my filings," says Ognibene.

Again, there were no disclosed payments from Bloomberg's campaign to Haggerty. But Ognibene says he was told at the time by Robert Muir, one of Bloomberg's election lawyers, that he was paying Haggerty out of his own contract with the campaign.

Muir died in 2006, but this makes a lot of sense. For one thing, as the Daily News' Adam Lisberg has noted, Muir cashed in big from Bloomberg's 2005 re-election effort, taking in a total of $1.9 million for petition work and voter canvassing. Plus, Haggerty and Muir went way back together: Haggerty's first job out of college was working as a paralegal for Muir's Brooklyn law firm. The two worked side by side in the campaign of Ron Lauder, the millionaire who set the pre-Bloomberg record for mayoral campaign spending when he ran in 1989. In the 2005 campaign, Bloomberg was so appreciative of Muir's efforts that he kept paying his widow for several months after he died.

Ognibene says that after he filed suit to remain on the ballot, Muir encouraged him. "Bob said, 'You are doing me a favor. Keep going into federal court.' He said, 'I'm taking care of Haggerty.' He was candid about it."

That past history persuades Ognibene that the reason Bloomberg never cried thief last year is because there was no harm and no foul. "John got this money funneled to him," he says. "That's why there was no complaint filed. He never took a penny. He could've been making hundreds of thousands of dollars. This was John's bonus."

Then there's Bloomberg's own curious performance in all this. Vance says that he's had complete cooperation from the mayor and his campaign, and that neither are targets. For that, Bloomberg can thank the state's election laws, which are murkier than a Louisiana oil slick.

For one thing, there's the fact that when the mayor launched his re-election committee, he had to sign a sworn candidate's form agreeing to do all his campaign spending via his designated committee, Bloomberg for Mayor 2009. And he did. Except where it suited him not to. When it came time to wire $1.2 million to the Independence Party so it could hire Haggerty to handle Bloomberg's election-day poll-watching chores, the mayor dipped into his personal account. Exactly why he did this remains a mystery. It was one of the questions that sent the mayor into his royal snit last week with reporters.

The most obvious explanation is secrecy. If the mayor did it through his campaign, the big-bucks contract would have been an instant news story since it would've been publicly disclosed just before voters hit the polls. It's easy to envision the headline, something along the lines of "Mayor Mike's Million Dollar Thank-You for Indy Party Endorsement."

By routing it through his own checking account, the mayor guaranteed that it would stay secret until mid-January, the party's next required public filing. That much of the scheme Haggerty was clearly involved in. In a note to Bloomberg's campaign staff cited in Vance's legal papers, Haggerty wrote that the payment for the operation should be funded with "a Housekeeping contribution that will not be reported until January 15, 2010."

Not that Mayor Mike needed help figuring that out. He did the exact same thing the year before, when he ran another million-plus dollars through his compliant friends at the Independence Party so that they could pay a secret Bloomberg campaign squad to work for Republican state senatorial candidates. Those payments didn't become public until weeks later. By then, only the Voice thought they were a big deal.

Right now, it's the Independence Party that's on the hot seat. Last week, the D.A. took the rare step of putting the party's lawyer in front of a grand jury to ask where the records are from this debacle. Party officials said they've already given what little they have. If so, it puts the spotlight back on City Hall. That's one more thing the billionaire media mogul who still nurtures White House dreams would rather not talk about.

Bloomberg Scolds Reporters Again by David Chen - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

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Mayor Bloomberg is really one of the most arrogant men on the face of this earth...

On some days, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg can be quite charming and courteous with the press, congratulating reporters who have gotten married or given birth.

Monday was not one of those days.

When asked his reaction to the indictment of John F. Haggerty Jr., a Queens political operative who had become close to Mr. Bloomberg, the mayor was curt and prickly.

First, he said that the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., had asked him not to talk about the case.

“There’s nothing else I can say about this,” he said.

When asked about reaction to critics of his contributions to the state’s Independence Party, which were at the heart of Mr. Haggerty’s legal woes, Mr. Bloomberg said: “I have a right to make donations to support people and parties that I think will help this city and this country and this state, and I’ll continue to do it.”

And about the question of why he hired poll watchers on Election Day?

“Miss!” Mr. Bloomberg began. “I’m sorry that my English isn’t apparently good enough for you.”

Finally, when asked how the case had affected him personally, since he and Mr. Haggerty had, by all accounts, developed a close bond, Mr. Bloomberg began: “Miss, I just said ——”

“What will you say to him next time ——”

“You’re not listening to the words, and the district attorney, Cy Vance, who I think is a very good district attorney, asked us not to talk and we’re not going to talk,” the mayor answered.

Mr. Bloomberg looked at another reporter and said, “We will take a legitimate question from you.”

Top Republican Indicted Over Bloomberg Campaign Funds by David Chen - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

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A top campaign operative for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is expected to be indicted on Monday by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office in connection with charges that he stole $1 million in campaign funds, according to people familiar with the case.

The operative, John F. Haggerty Jr., 41, is expected to be charged with two counts of grand larceny and money laundering, according to people familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to upstage a new conference Monday morning by Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan District Attorney.

Mr. Haggerty’s attorney, Dennis C. Vacco, could not be reached for comment on Monday morning. But during apparent plea negotiations over the past few weeks, he has declined to discuss the case.

The exact details of the financial theft prosecutors claim Mr. Haggerty committed were not immediately available.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Vance declined to comment.
A spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg also declined to comment. But one person close to the mayor said that a plea deal or an indictment had been anticipated for some time. “I had expected it to be done by now so maybe the fact that it hasn’t happened yet means they’re negotiating,” this person said.

The indictment culminates an investigation by Mr. Vance’s office into what became of a $750,000 campaign payment from Mr. Bloomberg that went to a company established by Mr. Haggerty, a veteran Queens Republican leader.

Mr. Bloomberg paid the state Independence Party, whose endorsement he had won, $1.2 million last year. The party then paid $750,000 of that money to Special Election Operations L.L.C., a company established by Mr. Haggerty, to bankroll an Election Day operation in northern Queens, with up to 300 workers reportedly paid $500 each.

But the party and the Bloomberg campaign believe that operation cost considerably less than $750,000, and they say that if Mr. Haggerty kept any extra money, he was not entitled to do so.

The investigation, which has been going on for months, has already raised questions about the unusual way Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign directed the payment, using personal checks from the mayor rather than the campaign’s official account.

And while people close to the case say neither the mayor nor the campaign is a target of the investigation, an indictment could be embarrassing for Mr. Bloomberg, who is said to have trusted Mr. Haggerty as a key liaison to the city’s Republicans.

On Friday, in a sign that the case was taking a more serious turn, a Manhattan judge ordered the lawyer for the state’s Independence Party to testify before a grand jury after prosecutors argued that the party was not cooperating with the investigation.

Top Queens Republican - John Haggerty - Mired in Inquiry by David W. Chen - NYTimes.com

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John F. Haggerty Jr. has endeared himself to many top Republicans over the last two decades, working for a mayor named Bloomberg and a governor named Pataki, as well as an attorney general, a comptroller and an Assembly minority leader.

But if Mr. Haggerty’s résumé is deep, his public profile has been almost nonexistent. He is said to be so discreet that few people even know that he got married last year — and to a state commissioner, no less.

Soon, however, Mr. Haggerty, the veteran Queens political operative, could find his name in the worst sort of headline.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office is investigating what became of a $750,000 campaign payment from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg that went to a company Mr. Haggerty set up. And within the next week or two, according to lawyers and political officials familiar with the matter, the investigation could be coming to a conclusion, perhaps with an indictment, perhaps with a plea agreement.

The investigation, which has been going on for months, has already raised questions about the unusual way Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign directed the payment, using personal checks from the mayor rather than the campaign’s official account. And while people close to the case say neither the mayor nor the campaign is a target of the investigation, an indictment could be embarrassing for Mr. Bloomberg, who is said to have trusted Mr. Haggerty as a key liaison to the city’s Republicans.

Mr. Bloomberg paid the state Independence Party, whose endorsement he had won, $1.2 million last year. The party then paid $750,000 of that money to Special Election Operations L.L.C., a company established by Mr. Haggerty, to bankroll an Election Day operation in northern Queens, with up to 300 workers reportedly paid $500 each.

But the party and the Bloomberg campaign believe that operation fell considerably short of $750,000, and they say that if Mr. Haggerty kept any extra money, he was not entitled to do so.

“I doubt that the mayor had any idea any of this was happening,” said an administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the investigation.

Mr. Haggerty, 41, comes from a family steeped in politics, one whose members were longtime fixtures in Forest Hills Gardens. His father, John F. Haggerty, was an Albany insider and lawyer who worked for the former Senate majority leader Warren M. Anderson. Mr. Haggerty, according to those who know him and his family, intended to follow in his father’s footsteps. He attended Archbishop Molloy High School and Fordham University, a solid athlete and a devoted Catholic from his time as an altar boy.

He worked for the campaign of Ronald S. Lauder in the 1989 Republican primary for mayor against Rudolph W. Giuliani, and for a former Assembly minority leader, Clarence D. Rappleyea. In 1994, Mr. Haggerty was a candidate, coming in a distant third to Melinda R. Katz in a special election for an Assembly seat.

Later, Mr. Haggerty worked as a close aide and driver for Attorney General Dennis C. Vacco; Mr. Vacco is now Mr. Haggerty’s lawyer, and he declined to comment for this article.

Efforts to reach Mr. Haggerty through intermediaries were not successful.

Mr. Haggerty was later the head of Gov. George E. Pataki’s legislative affairs office, making just under $100,000 a year, but he also found time to help on two notable campaigns — in 2004, the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign in Nevada; and in 2006, Jeanine F. Pirro’s campaign for attorney general.

Thanks to his deep network of Republican power brokers throughout the state, Mr. Haggerty developed a reputation as an expert at the arcane business of the signatures on petitions required to qualify for a ballot — both how to get them and how to deprive his opponents of them. “He lives, breathes and dies politics,” one longtime friend said.

He also cut a very serious figure as a diehard conservative, according to Republican colleagues.

Closer to home, Mr. Haggerty was quite active, together with his brother, Bart, in a long-brewing internecine battle over control of the Queens Republican Party. Suffice it to say, the battle continues.

“I always respected his father, but I’m disappointed in the way he turned out,” said Phil Ragusa, the chairman of the Queens party and Mr. Haggerty’s rival in the borough.

Mr. Haggerty was married last summer to Noreen Healey, a commissioner of the State Liquor Authority, who had been appointed by Governor Pataki. Ms. Pirro was among those who attended.

“After he got married, people wanted to congratulate him, and he’d say he didn’t get married,” one Republican said. “He’s got this thing about keeping everything secret.”

Mr. Haggerty has been described as deferential to his political mentors. He is now working on the insurgent campaign for governor of Carl Paladino.

Mr. Haggerty has also become close to Mr. Bloomberg, who came to like and trust Mr. Haggerty. The feeling was mutual, and was evident as recently as January. Mr. Bloomberg was the host of a breakfast at Gracie Mansion welcoming Republican City Council members. And there, with Mr. Bloomberg, was Mr. Haggerty.