Mayor de Blasio’s patronage mill is churning out junk jobs funded with taxpayer money for longtime pals, campaign grunts and acolytes.
In addition to creating a $150,000 post for Stephanie Yazgi — the longtime girlfriend of his top strategist, Emma Wolfe — de Blasio has created positions to amp up his progressive agenda and national profile and spread propaganda touting his “transcendent” accomplishments.
The city’s television station — led by de Blasio buddy Janet Choi — devotes much of its taxpayer-funded $5.7 million budget to broadcasting his ribbon-cuttings, announcements and features about his friends, including his wedding singer.
His $105,000 digital director, Jessica Singleton, shapes his social-media image while his $69,000 media analyst, Mahen Gunaratna, measures the influence of his messages.
But the bulk of his buddies land jobs at City Hall in the mayor’s Community Affairs Unit.
The CAU traditionally had staffers represent the mayor at community-board and civic-group meetings across the city, reporting back to the administration on neighborhood concerns.
“The CAU has now turned into a four-year organizing arm of the de Blasio campaign,” said a former liaison with the unit.
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Stephanie Yazgi, Emma Wolfe, Janet Choi and Jessica SingletonPhoto: Facebook ; Rob Bennett for the Office of Mayor Bill de Blasio (2) ; Assoc. Commissioner at New York City Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment
The unit now employs Pinny Ringel, a $65,000-a-year liaison to the Jewish community and a former Public Advocate’s Office staffer under de Blasio.
Sarah Sayeed is a liaison who specializes in the Muslim community. And Jonathan Soto is senior community liaison to the Clergy Advisory Council, another de Blasio creation.
Kicy Motley, a de Blasio campaign worker who tweeted “F- -k. The. Police.” in 2012, found a home in the CAU office as $55,000-a-year Brooklyn borough director.
And Rebecca Lynch, a Teamsters union lobbyist who backed de Blasio’s campaign, landed a gig as an $85,000-a-year special assistant in the CAU before taking a leave of absence to launch a bid for City Council in Queens.
De Blasio’s politicized CAU failed him in the Legionnaire’s disease outbreak, when there was a disconnect between City Hall and South Bronx community leaders.
“The CAU is supposed to know everything happening in the boroughs in every community,” said political consultant George Arzt. “There should have been briefings on what is going on and what they hear on the ground.”
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Pinny Ringel, Sarah Sayeed, Jonathan Soto, Rebecca Lynch and Kicy MotleyPhoto: Twitter ; Paul Martinka ; Facebook
Promoting his national agenda, de Blasio formed an Office of Sustainability whose director, Nilda Mesa, hauls in $179,870 per year.
She is supposed to advance “sustainability initiatives and green investments” and reduce the city’s greenhouse-gas emissions, according to a mayoral release.
And he is still looking for an organizer for the urban agenda he’s touting to other mayors, including raising the minimum wage and reducing “income inequality.”
To ensure the smooth rollout of his pre-K initiative — the cornerstone of his campaign — de Blasio beefed up the Department of Education’s early-education office with allies like Joshua Wallack.
A former aide from de Blasio’s City Council days, Wallack started at $185,000 and is now a deputy chancellor.
Many former Public Advocate’s Office employees under de Blasio glided into City Hall with hefty raises.
Avi Fink, another liaison to the Jewish community, boosted his pay from $70,000 to $93,600 when he switched jobs from deputy chief of staff to deputy director of intergovernmental affairs.
Ellyn Canfield, deputy director to the Mayor’s Office of Special Projects, doubled her pay to $80,000 a year when she left the Public Advocate’s Office as de Blasio’s scheduler and joined City Hall.
And Edith Sharp, a mayoral assistant, doubled her salary to $100,000 after serving as an assistant to the public advocate.
Campaign fund-raisers got well-paying gigs.
Izabella Vais, a $120,000-a-year assistant commissioner at the Taxi and Limousine Commission, had a knack for extracting cash from the taxi industry as a key campaign fund-raiser.
The city government is not supposed to serve the mayor’s political ambitions, critics say.
“Services will suffer, and you’ll have institutions that supposedly exist to benefit the many that are in fact benefiting the few — the mayor himself and his political allies,” said Manhattan Institute senior fellow Stephen Eide.
“It looks like ideology is the greater concern than hackery or incompetence.”
De Blasio administration officials defended their hiring practices and insisted their Community Affairs Unit is “as big as Bloomberg’s.”
Mayoral spokeswoman Karen Hinton defended her boss. “When this administration hires without posting, we are hiring qualified candidates who are committed to ending income inequality and ensuring a government that looks like and serves all New Yorkers,” she said.
Additional reporting by Stephanie Pagones
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