An organization that teaches Chinese hotel workers “English jargon” is among hundreds of politically connected nonprofits getting a cut of a $50 million city taxpayer-financed slush fund.
Last week, the City Council revealed the recipients of its “member items,” pork-barrel funds that lawmakers are allowed to dole out to their pet causes — a practice that has been mired in corruption and scandal in recent years.
Three former councilmen — Larry Seabrook, Miguel Martinez and Hiram Monserrate — have been convicted and jailed for misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars in such discretionary funds.
This year, the council vowed to clean up the graft. It restricted members to $400,000 in spending, with an extra $100,000 for the five most impoverished city districts.
But even if every member item is legal, many of the causes they fund border on the ridiculous. Among them:
The Hotel Chinese Association of New York will take in $3,500 to fund “job training, hotel English jargon training,” seminars and an anniversary gala.
Founded in 2007, the group says its mission is to provide a forum to explain hotel job policies in Chinese and inform Chinese-speaking workers of their rights in the industry.
The earmark is sponsored by Queens Democrat Daniel Dromm.
Among the English-language nuances the group conveys to its members is the difference between a vacant hotel room and an occupied one, and the different sizes of towels.
“There are many different kinds of towels,” said the group’s president, Steven Wong. “We teach them what kinds of towels to use.”
The Brooklyn-based Enrico Caruso Foundation will receive $1,500 in funding sponsored by Councilman Vincent Gentile, a Democrat from the borough.
The nonprofit plans to use the money to “build awareness” of the legendary tenor, who died in 1921, among “community groups, the public, seniors and young people.”
Aldo Mancusi, the group’s cavaliere ufficiale — a title bestowed upon him by the Italian government — said the funds will go to programs on the composers Giacomo Puccini and George Gershwin and on the tenor Luciano Pavarotti and to “transportation, because I teach at Brooklyn College to adult citizens.”
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles nonprofit founded by the Austrian Nazi hunter, will receive $305,000 for a program to provide law-enforcement members with “tools to hone their ethical decision-making skills.”
The group is not hard up for cash. It took in $23 million in contributions and grants, its latest tax filing shows. The city member item funds are sponsored by eight council members.
Harlem Needle Arts will receive $3,500 to put on a lecture series “on fiber and needle arts in the African diaspora.”
The nonprofit, founded in 2005, provides instruction in quilting, knitting and crocheting. According to its incorporation filings, it promotes African-American contributions to “the needle arts.”
Councilwoman Inez Dickens (D-Harlem) sponsored the funding.
Hosh Yoga, a 4-year-old Brooklyn nonprofit that promotes yoga, will get $7,500 to conduct yoga programs for preschoolers.
Councilman Antonio Reynoso (D-Brooklyn) sponsored the cash.
A Hosh Yoga spokesman said the group helps 500 children every week and plans to use the money to encourage “yoga, mindfulness and meditation” among preschoolers.
The New York Board of Rabbis will take in $19,000 to fund seminars on how to recognize the signs of sexual abuse in children.
The funding is sponsored by Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-Manhattan) and five other council members
Gabriela Mistral Foundation, named for the Chilean Nobel literature laureate, will receive $5,000 to go toward a documentary about “the American Revolution.”
Ydanis Rodriguez (D-Manhattan) sponsored the cash.
Additional reporting by Stephanie Pagones