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Several nonprofits held a press conference in Inwood Mon., July 19 to defend Assembly Member Adriano Espaillat after a New York Post story suggested he has used his influence to fill positions at Northern Manhattan Coalition for Economic Development (NMCED), an organization that he founded to help local small businesses.
The July 18 piece by long-time Post reporter David Seifman noted that several political and personal allies of Espaillat had received paychecks from the nonprofit.
Espaillat, who after 14 years in the Assembly is running for the state Senate seat being vacated by Eric Schneiderman, said he has nothing to do with hiring or contracts at NMCED.
At the rally in front of the Assembly member’s offices on Sherman Avenue in Inwood, Barbara Lowery, executive director of Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, the area’s largest nonprofit, said she’s never been asked to give a job to a friend of Espaillat.
On average, she said, her organization, which has a $12 million budget, receives approximately $100,000 a year from the Assembly member.
“He cares about the programs and he knows we use the money responsibly,” Lowery said.
Espaillat, who did not attend the nonprofit rally, released a statement saying: “I am very proud of the work I have done in obtaining resources for the non-profits in our community. From senior centers to citizenship classes, non-profit staff work very hard with scarce funding. I don't get involved in their hiring decisions.”
Also on Monday, Espaillat’s chief opponent in the race for Senate, community activist and nonprofit leader Mark Levine, held a press conference with local supporters on the steps of City Hall calling on New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate possible wrongdoing and impropriety in Espaillat’s relationship with NMCED.
“All too often we see news accounts of the dysfunction and corruption that is business as usual in Albany,” Levine said. “People have the right to know if the allegations waged against Espaillat in relationship to the non-profit agency he established are true.”
During a phone conversation Laura Kavanagh a spokesperson for the Levine campaign, said the campaign was reacting to the Post story, which it learned about on Sunday, and made it clear that “there is no presumption of guilt.”
Espaillat responded to Levine through a statement saying: “My opponent knows my record. I am more interested in having a debate on the issues affecting the neighbors of the 31st District – the rising deficit, improving our education system, fighting for tenants rights and changing dysfunction in Albany.”
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