Margerita Lopez loses borough president bid
tikk
Scott M. Stringer [Dem] 37663 25.77%
Eva S. Moskowitz [Dem] 24288 16.62%
Margarita Lopez [Dem] 19192 13.13%
Brian Ellner [Dem] 16973 11.61%
Bill Perkins [Dem] 16020 10.96%
Adriano Espaillat [Dem] 13355 9.14%
Keith L. T. Wright [Dem]7996 5.47%
Stanley Michels [Dem] 5587 3.82%
Carlos Manzano [Dem] 5058 3.46%
Reporting: 1232 of 1241 precincts - 99.27 percent
So the "big dividends" weren't realized for the out-of-state
Scientologists who contributed over $130k to her campaign, unless we
consider the detox center the dividend in advance of payment. But at
least she's no longer in a position to help Scientology, at least for
the moment.
~ tikk
moontaco
Thanks for posting this. I hadn't heard it on the news yet.
mt
GarryS
know about it:
Lopez talks about finances and Scientology
By Lincoln Anderson
Margarita Lopez is under fire for taking contributions from Scientology
while giving funds to the group's Downtown detox center, and is also
at risk of losing public matching funds because of unresolved problems
with her 2001 funds. Yet, the East Side councilmember, in a lengthy
telephone interview on Monday, claimed she has done no wrong and
expressed confidence in her campaign for borough president.
Lopez blasted back at the New York Post - which broke the story of
her Scientology contributions and has editorialized against her about
it - calling it a "destructive" newspaper out to get her because
she is a progressive.
"I know there is a big effort not to allow me to run," she said.
"These articles the Post put out are just witch hunting, allegations,
innuendos. My politics is progressive politics and the Post has the
opposite position. Everything they publish is about destroying
people's lives. I care less about their opinion."
In addition, while she said she didn't know of Scientology having any
antigay bias, as gay and lesbian groups contend, it can't be worse
than that of most traditional organized religions.
"You need to ask that to the organization, not to me," she said.
"And you need to ask that to the Catholic Church, Pentecostal Church,
Lutheran Church and all the churches that are antigay."
Starting Aug. 1, the Post has gone after Lopez in a series of three
articles about the Scientology funds and detoxification center,
accusing Lopez of a quid pro quo. As if that wasn't enough, the
Campaign Finance Board last Friday denied Lopez her matching funds,
saying she owes them a "significant amount" of money for
undocumented expenses and unspent funds from her 2001 reelection
campaign. Lopez says her lawyers plan to talk with C.F.B. about it and
hopefully work things out.
On Aug. 1, the Post reported Scientology members had made contributions
to Lopez's campaign totaling a quarter of her funds. The Post
reported Lopez had received almost $100,000 from 84 Scientology
members, with $38,000 of that from a January Florida fundraiser at
which the donors were all Scientologists.
The Post accused Lopez of, in return, "steering" $630,000 in
taxpayer funds to the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project, a
formerly privately funded facility on Fulton St. Co-founded by
Scientologist superstar Tom Cruise, the center uses long saunas,
vitamins and exercise to allegedly detox firefighters and others who
worked at ground zero.
In June 2004, Lopez, who is chairperson of the City Council's
Committee on Mental Health, personally allocated $30,000 in public
funds for the detoxification center, according to the Post. The center
later received two additional $300,000 allocations of city money.
This June, Lopez participated with actor Cruise in a ribbon-cutting for
a similar Scientology detox center in Williston Park, L.I.
Asked about the Scientology funds flap, Lopez said, first of all, the
donations to her were from individuals and that people are free to
practice whatever religion they choose.
"I never asked what their religious beliefs are," she said. "The
Constitution protects the rights of people to believe in whatever they
want to. The religious beliefs of people are their business.
"The money that I got came from individuals, and every individual has
a right to give. I do not raise money from groups - that's
illegal," she added.
Gay and lesbian groups have noted that some early teachings of L. Ron
Hubbard, Scientology's founder, were antigay. In one of these,
Hubbard said gays should immediately be taken out of society and
institutionalized. However, Lopez - who is a lesbian - countered
that many traditional religions are homophobic.
Lopez said she didn't know much about Scientology's beliefs, such
as about homosexuality, for example, before she supported funding for
the group's Fulton St. detox center or went to her Florida
fundraiser.
"I don't know their position," she said. "I know the Catholic
Church because I was Catholic when I was a child. As a child, I was
told that the Catholic Church hates gay people and we should
disappear."
Scientology claims it does not discriminate against people based on
their sexuality.
In a follow-up article, the Post reported on an e-mail by a
Scientology-affiliated group that said it would "definitely pay
dividends" for members to donate to Lopez, whom they noted had been
supportive of the Fulton St. detox center.
Asked if there was any quid pro quo between her and the Scientologists,
Lopez flatly denied it.
"Anybody who knows me knows that's not true," she said.
"Period."
The Post also reported that Assemblymember Deborah Glick, who is also a
lesbian, warned Lopez not to take funds from the Scientologists because
of concerns over their alleged antigay attitudes.
"That's not true," Lopez said. Glick did not return calls for
comment.
Lopez said the conservative tabloid has it in for her because of her
politics. Lopez said the Post never congratulates her on positive
things she does for the community. For example, she said, she got $1
million in city funds allocated for detoxification programs for
methamphetamine - a drug currently posing dire health risks in the
gay community - with $100,000 each allocated to such providers as St.
Vincent's and St. Luke's/Roosevelt hospitals, Callen-Lorde Center
and Greenwich House.
"I got funding for detox for methamphetamine for St.
Luke's/Roosevelt and St. Vincent's - that isn't news, right?"
Lopez asked in frustration. "That is not published. Nobody cares
about the detoxification of crystal meth."
Asked if she thinks the Scientology detox center actually does detox
people, Lopez said she thinks it's effective.
"I believe that 500 firefighters, E.M.S. personnel, have benefited
from that program and they believe that program saved their life,"
she said. "And I've seen them sick and I've seen them healthy."
On Jan. 26, The Villager, a sister publication of Downtown Express, was
the first to report Lopez's Miami fundraising trip, though at the
time she referred to it only as being with a "mental health group."
Lopez said she didn't talk much with Cruise at the opening of the
Long Island Scientology detox center - "You know, I'm shy," she
said. However, asked about Cruise's recent public pronouncements
against psychiatry as a way to treat mental illness, Lopez, a former
homeless outreach worker, spoke of her own track record helping the
mentally ill.
"I worked for 20 years of my life with mentally ill people helping
them get psychiatric care," she said. "I stopped the closing of the
Bronx Psychiatric Center. I'm fighting to keep the V.A. hospital [on
E. 23rd St.] from taking away 300 beds for the mentally ill.
Asked how she feels about her campaign after recent developments, Lopez
expressed confidence.
"I feel good," she said. "No matter how much they attack me."
She said the Post doesn't want a borough president who cares about
issues that she does, like "affordable housing, speaking against drug
abuse or making sure New York City doesn't displace working
people."
In addition, last Friday, the New York Campaign Finance Board withheld
public matching funds from Lopez. Under city election regulations,
candidates can qualify for up to $4 of matching public funds for every
$1 they raise. A B.P. candidate can receive up to $709,000 in matching
funds if he or she has maxed out on their fundraising. According to
Lopez's filings, Lopez is claiming she has more than $115,000 in
matchable funds, meaning she'd be eligible for more than $460,000
under the 4-to-1 bonus. However, Tanya Domi, a C.F.B. spokesperson,
said Lopez has unresolved issues with her 2001 funds. Lopez received
$143,682 in public matching funds for her reelection campaign that
year.
"She basically has not been able to provide documents that back up
her expenditures," Domi said. According to Domi, C.F.B. has a
monetary claim against Lopez for undocumented qualified expenses and
unspent campaign funds.
(Qualified expenses typically include items such as staff salaries,
postage for mailings, charges for creating campaign literature,
consultants' salaries, insurance, utility bills and the like.)
"It's a significant amount. She owes us money. She still has to pay
us back," Domi said, declining to specify the amount. "The process
has been going on for months, years without being cleared up," she
said. "The complexity of the issues and seriousness of the issues -
we've had to go to third parties for information - that's why
it's taken so long."
Domi said Lopez received notice in March that she wouldn't get
matching funds this time around unless the matters were cleared up.
"At this moment, I can't give you any details," Lopez said.
"I'm waiting for the Campaign Finance Board and my attorneys to
talk to each other. From 2001, the Campaign Finance Board and us have
been going through a long process and going back and forth. It's a
long process."
In one of the most notable cases of a politician being punished for
flouting campaign finance laws, the C.F.B. a few years ago sued former
Councilmember Sheldon Leffler over $40,000 he should have returned to
them from his Queens borough president campaign. In December 2004, he
was found guilty of attempted grand larceny to defraud the C.F.B. and
received five years probation, 540 hours of community service and a
$500,000 fine.
"We sued him. That is one of the options," Domi said.
barb
She's still a member of the city council, isn't she?
--
--barb
Chaplain,ARSCC
xenu...@netscape.net
"Imagine a church so dangerous, you must sign a release
form before you can receive its "spiritual assistance."
This assistance might involve holding you against your
will for an indefinite period, isolating you from
friends and family, and denying you access to
appropriate medical care. You will of course be billed
for this treatment - assuming you survive it. If not,
the release form absolves your caretakers of all
responsibility for your suffering and death.
Welcome to the Church of Scientology."
--Dr. Dave Touretzky
Peter Alexander
tikk
> tikk wrote:
>
>> Borough President Manhattan
>> Scott M. Stringer [Dem] 37663 25.77%
>> Eva S. Moskowitz [Dem] 24288 16.62%
>> Margarita Lopez [Dem] 19192 13.13%
>> Brian Ellner [Dem] 16973 11.61%
>> Bill Perkins [Dem] 16020 10.96%
>> Adriano Espaillat [Dem] 13355 9.14%
>> Keith L. T. Wright [Dem]7996 5.47%
>> Stanley Michels [Dem] 5587 3.82%
>> Carlos Manzano [Dem] 5058 3.46%
>> Reporting: 1232 of 1241 precincts - 99.27 percent
>>
>> So the "big dividends" weren't realized for the out-of-state
>> Scientologists who contributed over $130k to her campaign, unless we
>> consider the detox center the dividend in advance of payment. But at
>> least she's no longer in a position to help Scientology, at least for
>> the moment.
>>
>> ~ tikk
>
>
> She's still a member of the city council, isn't she?
Only for a few more months. To run for Borough President, you have to
relinquish your council seat. Thus, someone else was elected to her
vacated District 2 Council seat in last night's elections.
~ tikk
mail.com
The next step: putting her in prison. Bribery ought to be against
the law, and more so when it results in hurting people.
> ~ tikk
---
http://lastliberal.org / I support privatization of religion.
Free random & sequential signature changer http://holysmoke.org/sig
roger gonnet
<desertphile@hot mail.com (David Rice, Esq.)> a écrit dans le message de news:
4328...@news2.lightlink.com...
> On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 23:45:13 -0400, tikk <tr...@tikk.net> wrote:
>
>> Borough President Manhattan
>> Scott M. Stringer [Dem] 37663 25.77%
>> Eva S. Moskowitz [Dem] 24288 16.62%
>> Margarita Lopez [Dem] 19192 13.13%
>> Brian Ellner [Dem] 16973 11.61%
>> Bill Perkins [Dem] 16020 10.96%
>> Adriano Espaillat [Dem] 13355 9.14%
>> Keith L. T. Wright [Dem]7996 5.47%
>> Stanley Michels [Dem] 5587 3.82%
>> Carlos Manzano [Dem] 5058 3.46%
>> Reporting: 1232 of 1241 precincts - 99.27 percent
>>
>> So the "big dividends" weren't realized for the out-of-state
>> Scientologists who contributed over $130k to her campaign, unless we
>> consider the detox center the dividend in advance of payment. But at
>> least she's no longer in a position to help Scientology, at least for
>> the moment.
>
> The next step: putting her in prison. Bribery ought to be against
> the law, and more so when it results in hurting people.
I dunno if she should be put in prison, but for sure, one should dig out to see
if she has been a scieno, in fact.
The reason why this could be a possibility is her "handling" of the press after
her financial affairs were discovered.
r