A website called Off Plan Property Exchange, which I am unfamiliar with, published an article called New York’s Top Lobbyists Revealed: Real Estate and Gambling Industries Take Center Stage
I was curious so I clicked on it and saw this!
Lobbying efforts also focused on the gambling industry. The state budget included provisions that streamlined the process for authorizing three casino licenses in and around New York City. Some of the companies competing for these licenses, such as SL Green Realty and the Genting Group, were among the top real estate spenders.
Point72 Asset Management, owned by Mets owner Steve Cohen, along with the Seminole Hard Rock, also engaged in lobbying activities for a casino near the team’s stadium. Meanwhile, Silverstein Properties, which recently announced its intention to compete for a gaming license, focused on “strengthening relationships” related to its proposed casino site and other development projects.
and this
– Point72 Asset Management: $727,318 (casinos, affordable housing, mass transportation, Willets Point)
The article sources: Annual Lobbying Activities Report of the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics for 2022.
That encouraged me to google “Steve Cohen Lobbying” which brought me to the Times Union which wrote
New York Mets owner Steve Cohen enlisted the recently departed state Budget Director Robert F. Mujica Jr. in his effort to push for a casino near the baseball team’s stadium in Queens.
Mujica was paid $105,000 over a five-month period for consulting services, according to new lobbying filings. The monthly installments were made weeks after Mujica left his state position and months after Cohen’s group had lobbied the longtime budget director about its casino plans.
Cohen’s group advocating for the casino plan, “New Green Willets,” said Mujica is not a lobbyist for them and the work he is doing is “strategic advice” that’s in line with state regulations.
That’s interesting. Then I kept reading and saw the Times Union wrote this:
State employees are banned from lobbying their former agency for two years after their employment ends; there is a lifetime ban on work related to matters they directly were involved in while working for the state.
Government watchdogs said the type of work Mujica is doing is in a murky area of the law.
Anyway, that’s what I read this morning. What have you been reading?
