May 4, 2009
Finance Official’s Husband Was City’s Highest-Paid Parking Judge
By JO CRAVEN McGINTY and RALPH BLUMENTHAL, New York Times

The highest-paid parking judge in New York City in 2006 and 2007 is the husband of the first deputy commissioner for the Finance Department, the agency that hires the judges.

According to city records, the judge, Allan J. Patricof, earned $110,472 in 2006, the same year that city investigators found that he had submitted time sheets for some hours when he was not at work. Mr. Patricof is married to Rochelle Patricof, the deputy finance commissioner.

Mr. Patricof’s earnings were $20,000 more than any of the other 145 administrative law judges who hear ticket cases for the agency. In 2007, Mr. Patricof earned $84,687.24, also more than any other parking judge.

The department said it had yet to calculate how much the judges earned in 2008. It has said the deputy commissioner does not have a role in overseeing the hours assigned to parking judges.

In 2006, the city’s Department of Investigation compared the sign-in book at the Queens Business Center, where Mr. Patricof worked, with his E-ZPass records and other material. The investigators found more than 100 discrepancies and recommended that the city ask Mr. Patricof to return $8,645.

Finance Commissioner Martha E. Stark defended Mr. Patricof at the time, saying he had worked the extra hours from his home or his car. But in March, as questions resurfaced about the matter, she announced the agency would no longer use him as a judge.

It was the first in a series of events that raised questions about Ms. Stark’s stewardship of the Finance Department and ultimately resulted in her resignation on Tuesday.

In response to a Freedom of Information Law request in March, the Department of Investigation released documents showing that it had received several complaints over the years from parking judges about the potential conflict of interest in having Mr. Patricof provide services to an agency largely supervised by his wife. Parking judges are technically not employees of the agency but are paid an hourly wage to preside at hearings.

Agency officials have said that the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board did not object to Mr. Patricof’s work as a judge as long as his wife had no role in any matters involving him.

The Queens district attorney’s office recently asked city investigators for their records on the Patricof case so as to conduct its own review, according to people briefed on the inquiry who said they could not speak publicly because of the nature of the investigation.

Mr. Patricof declined comment for this article. However, a spokesman for the Department of Finance said that Mr. Patricof had not earned any more than the salaried agency employees who typically do the job that he did, as the managing judge at a hearing center.

Managing judges in 2006 earned between $88,000 and $113,000, according to the agency. For reasons that remain unclear, Mr. Patricof was allowed to serve as a managing judge in Queens, a supervisory position. Administrative law judges are independent contractors, rather than full-time city employees, so as to preserve their independence.

In earning $110,000 in 2006, Mr. Patricof put in for 2,315 hours of work, an average of 8.9 hours a day every weekday of the year, including holidays.

The second-highest-paid judge billed for 381 fewer hours. The average judge billed for 847 hours and collected roughly $33,000 for the year.

The city’s records indicate that investigators first began reviewing Mr. Patricof’s service for the Finance Department in 2003, when, in response to a complaint, the investigators determined that Rochelle Patricof should have recused herself from a matter that related to her husband’s employment.

Though the conflicts board had approved Mr. Patricof’s work for the agency, the investigators said Mrs. Patricof had participated in a meeting in which she and her subordinates discussed the criteria for promoting judges. Mrs. Patricof told investigators she played no role in selecting the judges who were promoted. The investigators, in a memo, did not dispute that, but noted that Mr. Patricof had been one of 11 judges promoted after the meeting.

The conflicts board found that Mrs. Patricof’s actions did not warrant discipline. But in 2007, the Department of Investigation reiterated that having Mr. Patricof as a managing judge while his wife served as a deputy finance commissioner “continues to be a lightning rod for criticism and allegations.”

Department of Investigation officials said they chose not to pursue their findings about Mr. Patricof’s billings because Ms. Stark found that the judge had not acted inappropriately. Ms. Stark said that while the judge’s time sheets did not accurately reflect the time he was physically present at the Queens hearing office, they accurately reflected the amount of time he had worked.

This year, though, when questions about the matter resurfaced, Ms. Stark said she would seek to reassign Mr. Patricof.

Within weeks, Ms. Stark began to draw fire for her outside work on the board of a private real estate company; her romantic relationship with a former subordinate; and the employment of relatives in her department. When it became clear last week that she no longer had the support of the mayor, Ms. Stark turned in her resignation.

Monday, May 4, 2009
Michael Bloomberg, Mayor and CEO of Bloomberg L.P., is Sued by 80 Women For Discrimination
NYC Rubber Room Reporter
LINK

The alleged actions of the Mayor of New York City would put him out of the running for any office in a normal political world. New York City is not in that category, so probably nothing will happen to distract Mike Bloomberg's winning a third term.

In the New York City Board of Education, allegations such as those given by 80 female Plaintiffs in their Federal lawsuit against Mayor Bloomberg would put him in a "rubber room" until the charges are substantiated or disproved.Mr. Bloomberg's propaganda machine will be getting hefty raises for their work on this, that's for sure.

The last paragraph says that this federal discrimination case will impact Mike Bloomberg's political career only if we, the public, Bill Thompson and the media, allow it to. Let's do that.

I suggest that Mayor Bloomberg be placed in a temporary re-assignment center until the case against him is resolved.

Deposing Mike: The Bloomberg L.P. discrimination suit returns to bedevil the mayor. Will it affect his reelection?
By Geoffrey Gray, New York magazine, May 1, 2009

When government lawyers filed a lawsuit against Bloomberg L.P., alleging widespread discrimination against employees who went on maternity leave, Mayor Bloomberg more or less called the whole thing a publicity stunt. “What’s happening,” he told reporters, “is that because I’m so visible, that obviously I’m a target.” And, in fact, his office banter, as alleged in lawsuits, was what made the headlines: Who would have thought that behind his carefully crafted technocratic image might be someone so crude and fratty? Now, as Bloomberg rolls out his reelection effort, he will have to answer all these allegations yet again. More interesting, Bloomberg might also have to shed light on how much he continues to control the company he founded.

On the morning of May 14, Bloomberg is scheduled to appear at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission offices for a deposition, according to sources close to the case. A deposition of a company boss is standard procedure in lawsuits like this, but the federal case, which is now being brought on behalf of 80 women, stands to be a campaign distraction. If it goes to trial next year, it could also haunt the start of his third term. Bloomberg would not confirm the deposition date and declined to comment on the allegations.

According to the lawsuit and claims made in other discrimination suits, Bloomberg L.P. was a company that “prizes physical image” and “People Product”; where female employees were encouraged to wear “short skirts” and “?‘fuck me’ shoes”; where bosses said, “I’m not having any pregnant bitches working for me”; and where Bloomberg allegedly once told a senior sales executive, “Kill it! Kill it!” (And apologized afterward.) Bloomberg L.P. claims it has a generous maternity policy, but the Feds are now charging in amended papers filed in March that it not only discriminates against pregnant women but retaliates too, by docking pay or threatening termination.

Bloomberg, who acquired Merrill Lynch’s 20 percent stake in his own company last July and now owns more than he did before becoming mayor (88 percent, worth roughly $20 billion), can’t be looking forward to Thursday morning. At first, he seemingly couldn’t believe he was getting dragged into the mess. (“As you know, I haven’t worked there in an awful long time.”) Later he admitted that he’d discussed the allegations with company execs (“I am the majority owner … I’m absolutely entitled to talk to the senior people … I’ve been doing that since I became mayor”). One of the last times a reporter asked him about the case, he lashed out, saying, “You’ll have to ask the company, and next time don’t bother to ask us a question.”

He’ll have to answer these questions under oath, however. When Bloomberg ran for office, and allegations surfaced of the discrimination and his obnoxious office talk, they didn’t make much of an impact. They were never proven and he rarely addressed them. Voters also seemed to understand that the business world could be like that. Today, Bloomberg is a politician, and what he says will be indicative of how he’s changed.

“It’s a minor variable that will only be effective if placed in the greater message of ‘Mike Bloomberg doesn’t feel your pain, and he doesn’t want to,’?” says Baruch College professor Doug Muzzio. The question is whether his presumptive opponent, Bill Thompson, is capable of making that charge stick.
Posted by Betsy at 4:24 AM