Public Advocate Bill de Blasio has tossed in the towel in a two-year battle over more than $300,000 in fines accumulated by his campaign for putting up posters illegally on city property in 2009.
“We’re paying all the fines and interest,” de Blasio said yesterday.
“There’s a lot of work to do in this city. I have a lot of work to do, and this felt more and more like a distraction.”
De Blasio’s payment would be the largest received by the city for the violation since Mayor Bloomberg anted up about the same amount after his 2005 election.
A mayoral contender in 2013, de Blasio cleared the decks of the debt and removed it as a potential issue from his campaign.
Another mayoral candidate, Comptroller John Liu, continues to fight more than $500,000 in poster fines.
Sources said he’s challenging thousands of summonses that were served a second time after a hearing officer dismissed them for improper service by the Sanitation Department the first time.
The sources said Liu’s lawyer has argued that the summonses should have been sent to the campaign treasurer at an address in New York City, not Albany.
Even though he’s settling, de Blasio argued that it’s time to change the system.