New York City Comptroller John Liu announced yesterday a record settlement of $2.35 million on behalf of 24 construction workers who were cheated out of wages and benefits for work at city sites. An investigation into Paramount Rental Equities revealed that the vendor withheld payments for overtime, night
shift differentials and weekend pay for 24 workers. The comptroller’s office negotiated a settlement with
Paramount in which Paramount paid $2.35 million in restitution to
the workers and $117,674 to the city’s general fund as a civil penalty.
In addition, the company was put on notice that any future violations
would result in Paramount being barred from bidding on city projects. TRD [more]

Four Sheepshead Bay businesses, including a United Artists movie theater and a TGI Friday’s, have been accused of illegally dumping raw sewage into Shell Bank Creek despite repeated warnings by the city, according to the Daily News. Rather than directing their waste into lines that connect to a city sewage treatment center, the businesses allegedly dumped refuse directly into the creek, which flows into Jamaica Bay, over the course of seven years. [more]

The Times Square subway station is one project involved in the fraud for which Schiavone Construction is paying a $20 million settlement.

Schiavone Construction Company, a firm that has been involved in some of New York’s largest infrastructure projects, agreed to pay $20 million for crimes it committed while performing $691 million in public contracts, according to the New York Times. Schiavone, a Secaucus, N.J.-based company, signed a nonprosecution agreement and consented to the payment to avoid criminal charges, after admitting yesterday to defrauding government programs by committing wire fraud and evading requirements to hire a certain percentage of minority- or women-owned subcontractors. [more]

Brooklyn’s Community Board 18 has only two employees — state Sen. Carl Kruger’s girlfriend and sister — but that isn’t holding it back from receiving a brand-new $7 million, 4,000-square-foot office building, courtesy of city taxpayers, according to the Post. The new digs are thanks to a deal that the Dinkins administration cut in the early 1990s with then-CB 18 Chairman Kruger, who pledged his support for a Department of Environmental Protection sewage-overflow storage plant at Paerdegat Basin in return. The delayed, $357 million plant is just now under construction, and meanwhile, Kruger is the subject of a probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for alleged influence peddling. Most community boards rent offices of less than 1,500 square feet and hold larger, public meetings elsewhere, city officials said. Kruger and his girlfriend, CB 18 District Manager Dorothy Turano, said the board, which consists of Turano and Kruger’s sister, secretary Marlene Berger, has been operating out of a small apartment in the low-income Glenwood Houses in Canarsie since 1977. [Post]

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Two new public school buildings slated for World Wide Group’s mixed-use complex on Second Avenue between 56th and 57th streets are to be constructed with the help of $53 million in city-backed bonds, for which the marketing effort kicks off today. But the Department of Environmental Protection’s plans to build a secondary water main under East 56th Street, from Sutton Place to Third Avenue, have neighbors panicking about the potential “war zone” that could come of two simultaneous megaprojects on the block. World Wide Group’s plans call for a 350-unit luxury apartment tower at 250 East 57th Street and a Whole Foods store in addition to the two schools. The debt offering that launched today is through the New York City Education Construction Fund. The DEP said its plans for the water main are not final and that work would not begin until at least 2013, but several local politicians and co-op boards have urged the DEP to relocate its project. [Post]

Manhattan’s East Siders are getting shafted when it comes to being able to enjoy the island’s waterfront, according to William Oddo, a longtime Stuyvesant Town resident and former Community Board 6 member. Whereas West Siders have gained an array of water access points in recent years, from Hudson River Park to Riverside Park and their adjacent piers, the East Side has seen little development to match. Oddo, who is also an engineer, has been working to change that. After founding Stuyvesant Cove Park, which opened in 2002 between 18th and 23rd streets on the East River, Oddo has set his sights on a small pier 100 feet offshore, connected by gangways. He has applied for $825,000 in funding from the Environmental Protection Fund through the city. Oddo envisions a place where East Siders can escape from the city and from the noise of the highways. [Villager]