REMARKS
Council Member Restler details the 14 Wall Street lease controversy
0:03:28
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44 sec
Council Member Restler describes a controversial decision by Jesse Hamilton to change the recipient of an 80,000 square foot lease from the winning bidder to 14 Wall Street, owned by one of the mayor's top donors. This decision has raised significant ethical concerns.
- Hamilton allegedly intervened to shift the lease to a building owned by a major donor to the mayor
- The contract was worth tens of millions of dollars
- Former agency leadership, including the general counsel, had advised against this decision
- The controversial decision was implemented after the resignation of the commissioner and general counsel
Lincoln Restler
0:03:28
Last week, it was reported that Mister Hamilton intervened to shift an 80,000 square foot lease from the building that won a competitive selection process to 14 Wall Street, a building owned by one of the mayor's top donors.
0:03:40
Thanks to Mister Hamilton, a contract worth tens of 1,000,000 of dollars was taken away from the bid that performed best under DeCast's rules and instead was given to the bidder that donated the most to the mayor.
0:03:52
At the time, the agency's former leadership, including the general counsel, advised against this unilateral decision by Mister Hamilton, successfully delaying an apparently corrupt decision.
0:04:03
But when both the commissioner and general counsel resigned this summer, Mister Hamilton was free to seemingly to seemingly prioritize rewarding a political donor over public integrity.
