Good Government

City Councilman Ben Kallos asked First Deputy Mayor Anthony Shorris if he would say on the record why he could only testify for a limited time.

"Something went very wrong here," said Councilmember Ben Kallos, Chair of the Council Committee on Governmental Operations. "We must address the issues of mismanagement, communication failure and outside influence."

The miscommunication today played out in “real-time,” as City Councilman Ben Kallos, the chairman of the committee on governmental operations put it, when, during the hearing, he asked Shorris why he had to leave—”for the record.”

Councilman Ben Kallos, a Manhattan Democrat and chairman of the hearing, pointed out that Mr. Shorris is responsible for about 30 different agencies, making it difficult for him to know exactly what each is doing.

Councilman Ben Kallos of Manhattan asked why Mr. Shorris had not followed up to make sure his decision — that the center should remain a nursing home — had been observed.

Council Member Ben Kallos (photo: John McCarten for the City Council)

Council Members Ben Kallos, Rory Lancman, and Elizabeth Crowley - all Democrats like de Blasio - have each submitted a request that legislation be crafted around regulating 501(c)(4) nonprofits. Kallos’ bill drafting request is “on point” with a recent proposal made by Citizens Union, a government reform group. That proposal would require that 501(c)(4) and 501(c)(3) organizations created at the behest of elected officials to promote their own image or agenda be treated like political committees under the city’s campaign finance laws. This would entail detailed disclosure of contributions and expenditures, limits on contributions similar to those for political candidates, and oversight by the Campaign Finance Board.

But there is no protocol for communication between the attorney general’s office and the Council, and transparency records show that in December 2015, Hospital Audiences received additional funding from the Council.

The Council did not raise red flags until April 2016 when, in a letter obtained by POLITICO New York, Dyer contacted Councilman Ben Kallos to explain the situation.

Hospital Audiences had been awarded $123,100 in the 2016 fiscal year through several different grants from seven Council members: Kallos, Peter Koo, Daneek Miller, Karen Koslowitz, Jimmy Van Bramer, Inez Dickens and Mark Treyger.

In effect, the public was paying to give the bundlers even more clout.

“The city should not be providing public dollars to amplify the already strong voices of special interests,” said Ben Kallos, a Democratic councilman who is the chairman of the committee on governmental operations. In May, he held a hearing on a bill that would eliminate the matching contributions for money bundled by someone doing city business. Mr. de Blasio’s counsel, Henry Berger, testified in favor.

“Lobbyists play a number of roles in city government, some of which are very, very important,” Mr. Berger said. “Their influence on the electoral process as demonstrated in the 2013 campaign is significant, and can be reduced by this, and we think it is appropriate to do so.”

A bill introduced in the City Council on Tuesday seeks to expand on and codify the practice of optimizing city websites based on the analytics of their visitors.

Councilman Ben Kallos, chair of the Committee on Government Operations, introduced the legislation. It would require the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications to ensure that all agencies use web analytics in maintaining and designing their websites.

“I have one job. That job is to vote,” said City Council Member Ben Kallos, who has not abstained on a vote since joining the Council in 2014. “It is the one power, the one privilege that I have that no one else has and I take it seriously, and come to a decision every time. I was elected by the people to vote and for constituents to know where I stand on these issues.”