Prosecutors are looking into why the new White House urban affairs director hasn't paid an architect for house designs made two years ago — the same time he recommended the architect for a lucrative city contract.The Administration thinks that if Carrion pays all is well. That's not the case. Even architects are wondering about how this deal got done.
Adolfo Carrion, the former Bronx borough president, has said he would pay when he received the bill. But industry experts say the delay of payment is unusual.
"Normally after a project is completed, we get paid," said Chris Thomas, project manager and architect at AENArchitects in New York City. "I don't understand why he waited. That doesn't make sense."
It would be illegal for an elected official to accept renovation plans as a gift from an architect doing business with the city. And if Carrion pays less than fair-market value, his relationship with the architect, Hugo Subotovsky, would be a conflict of interest.
"The facts, as reported, raise questions we are attempting to get answers to," Steven Reed, a spokesman for District Attorney Robert Johnson, said Thursday.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said at a briefing Thursday that the White House expects Carrion to pay for the work.
Burton Roslyn, president of New York State's American Institute of Architects and founder of Roslyn Consultants, said it was hard to say why it why it took so long to bill Carrion. He said the arrangement sounded plausible, but unusual.Carrión has approved three of Subotovsky's projects over the past two years.
"Is it typical? No. Is it possible? Yes, depending on the architect's practice and how he's billed. It's entirely possible and feasible that was the business arrangement between the architect and the owner of the property."
Good-government advocates said they were troubled by Carrion's failure to pay the architect promptly.
Shortly after the architect finished work on Carrión's house, the ex-beep signed off on a major Subotovsky project called Boricua Village.Even Democratic good-government watchdog groups are demanding answers, including CREW. Also keep in mind the most curious pattern of donations that ended up in Carrión's coffers. The kicker to all this is that Obama is creating this position of urban policy czar out of whole cloth and is wholly unnecessary given that the Department of Housing and Urban Development does all of the same tasks. Instead, we get this whole new bureaucracy answerable directly to the President.
The News has found at least two more Subotovsky projects Carrión approved in the time he owed Subotovsky for work on his house.
In a second case, Carrión recommended approval of a housing development on St. Ann's Ave. May 27, 2008. Two months later, he announced he was sponsoring $3 million in taxpayer funds for the project.
Carrión approved a third project, an 8-story, 128-unit housing complex called Shakespeare Place, on Oct. 24, 2007.
A representative of Subotovsky's office testified in favor of the project a week after Carrión's approval, and the city planning commission approved it soon after.
It is nice to see that media outlets beyond the Daily News are starting to look into this. Still, the national news and even local papers are downplaying the significance of this story.
However, note that this contrasts with the way the media covered the dealings of Sen. Ted Stevens or CT Gov. John Rowland (both Republicans), who each were involved in similar dealings - getting free home improvements from contractors or others while those individuals had business before the Senate or CT governor.
UPDATE:
Paying the cost for the work does not absolve Carrión of criminal intent or ethics violations. Had he never been chosen by the Administration to run the newly created urban policy czar position, Carrion would likely never have been forced to admit that he never paid for the architectural services in the first place.
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