Public Voices for the New York City Carriage Horses

Too cute for own good (December 13, 2016: New York Daily News)

Kew Gardens: Pay to play is as natural as rain in politics. It’s a quid pro quo in not so subtle form. But when you connect the dots, like the Daily News investigation shows, it becomes clear that people with business before the city who are donors are rewarded. Then we have others, with no immediate business before the city, who make contributions to further a cause. In the case of horse carriages, money went to Mayor de Blasio only after Christine Quinn rebuked the money because it was presented as a quid pro quo. De Blasio, who never publicly expressed any distress over the horse carriage industry, suddenly became an animal activist. The de Blasio administration was too cute for its own good. It skirted existing laws by creating a now-defunct nonprofit façade, approved projects of large donors, and now wants us to believe that all this was a coincidence. The News, under the maxim of “follow the money,” has proven otherwise. Let’s hope the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York sees it the same way. Phil Serpico