Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has transformed the lower Manhattan rebuilding agency into his own multimillion-dollar piggy bank, critics charge.
In the last two years, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. has shelled out nearly $12 million to many of the same community and cultural groups that Silver has steered pork money to, an analysis by The Post has found.
“The allocations look more like [Silver’s] ‘member items’ these days,” fumed an LMDC board member, using the Albany term for pet pork projects.
Critics, who asked not to be identified because they feared retribution from Silver, said the only reason the LMDC hasn’t been disbanded despite calls to do so is because of Silver, who represents downtown Manhattan.
“Now that [former Gov. Eliot] Spitzer’s gone, it’s Shelly Silver who’s keeping the agency going,” a rebuilding official said.
Even as the LMDC’s overall funding has shrunk, grants from the agency to local groups supported by Silver have more than tripled in just two years.
In 2006, the LMDC awarded $2.29 million in grants to four cultural organizations backed by Silver.
Last year, the agency gave $9.5 million in grants to eight community organizations that also benefit from the lawmaker’s largesse, records show.
Groups getting money from the LMDC and Silver are social-service, recreation and cultural organizations. The grants range from $1.9 million for Manhattan Youth, a recreation and after-school program, to $140,000 for Asian Americans for Equality.
Mayor Bloomberg – who has a frosty relationship with Silver – this year called on Gov. Paterson to shut the agency down, saying that with the bulk of its work complete, it is now an unneeded layer of bureaucracy.
A spokesman for Silver said that the grants were made by the LMDC’s board, appointed by the governor and mayor, and that, by federal law, the money had to go to groups serving lower Manhattan.
“Speaker Silver is proud to support community groups and institutions that have played a critical role in the revitalization and rebuilding of lower Manhattan,” Dan Weiller said.
The LMDC was given $2.8 billion in federal funds to plan the reconstruction of the World Trade Center and help revive the surrounding downtown neighborhood in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
The LMDC was once slated to be closed. In 2006, then-Gov. George Pataki said the LMDC would shut down at the end of that year.
The LMDC was revived under Spitzer in early 2007, when he appointed his deputy Avi Schick as the board’s chairman. Schick has remained in charge despite Spitzer’s resignation early this year.
LMDC officials insist that the grants were awarded without any political influence under a process mandated by the federal government.
“Proposals were reviewed by an advisory panel composed of representatives of the city, state and lower Manhattan community, and the grants were unanimously approved by our board of directors and announced by Mayor Bloomberg and then-Governor Spitzer,” spokesman Michael Murphy said.
“The grantees all play an important role in the revitalization of lower Manhattan, and we are not surprised that they have enjoyed the support of city, state and federal officials.”