Apparently even Michael Bloomberg doesn’t have enough money.
Despite his considerable means, the mayor is asking you to subsidize his pet cause — outlawing guns. But he doesn’t want you to know about it.
As The Post recently reported, Chris Kocher, counsel in the mayor’s office, traveled to Nevada this year to lobby for a background-check bill for that state. As a representative of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the tax-exempt organization co-founded by Bloomberg, Kocher escorted Newtown survivors to meet Nevada legislators.
City Hall had Kocher’s official e-mail scrubbed off Nevada’s lobby-registration page after claiming it was “mistakenly” added.
As for the mayors’ organization, Politico has reported that its Web site, registered in 2006 by New York City’s Department of Information and Technology, is hosted on city servers and run by city staffers. MAIG is organized under section 501(c)4 of the tax code — the same section that led to Tea Party groups finding themselves subjected to extra IRS scrutiny.
But unlike Tea Party and other 501(c)4 groups, MAIG has found both federal and city government most cooperative. So at the time it benefits from a federal tax exemption, New York City taxpayers are subsidizing it by paying for its support staff and technological resources.
The city claims this arrangement’s kosher because stopping illegal guns is part of the mayor’s legislative priorities and in the interests of city residents. But it refuses to say whether the Conflicts of Interest Board signed off on this intermingling of private, government and political resources.
In other words, the issue isn’t whether the aims of the mayors’ organization are worthy or not. Brad Lander, head of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus, supports the goals, but wonders about the lack of transparency. “How would we know that NYC tax dollars are being spent on/contributed to MAIG’s Web site? Shouldn’t we?” Lander asks. Good question.
Here’s another: The mayor has a nice personal Web site, mikebloomberg.com, which promotes his various political, personal and philanthropic interests. Why not make that the home for Mayors Against Illegal Guns?