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September 9, 2013- Opinion
Our local advertising flier, The Broadsheet, published by Robert Simko, has outdone themselves this time. Their Editor in Chief, Matthew Fenton, has a piece in the online version today that paints a rosy picture of mayoral candidate Bill Thompson as a successful leader of the BPCA.
Despite the New York Times, City&State, New York World, The Daily News, The Post, and others reporting one scathing muckraking story after the other about Bill Thompson’s abuse of power as City Comptroller and BPCA Chairman, Mr. Fenton describes his tenure as, “(Thompson) instituted a series of governance procedures that helped the agency recover from charges of cronyism and lavish spending that were sparked by alleged misconduct under a previous administration. And, in retrospect, the BPCA is perceived as having maintained a comparatively high level of responsiveness to community concerns during Mr. Thompson’s tenure.”
Mr. Fenton makes no reference at all to the fact that Mr. Thompson abruptly “resigned” after he was caught with his hands in the cookie jar, doling out favors to big real estate companies that do business with the BPCA, who then, in turn, donated to Mr. Thompson’s campaign. The article also failed to mention how Mr. Thompson’s hand-selected CEO from his previous administrations, Gayle Horwitz, also abruptly “resigned” from the BPCA one day after BatteryPark.TV exposed a scandal.
Most importantly, the Broadsheet never lists the conflicts of interest created by the fact that the BPCA gives tens of thousands of dollars to the Broadsheet. Anne Fenton, the BPCA’s head of operations who approves the payments to the Broadsheet owes her career to Bill Thompson having worked for him at the comptroller’s office. That conflict of interest was also unmentioned in the The Broadsheet’s glowing review of Bill Thompson’s tenure as BPCA Chairman.