Mayoral hopefuls slam real estate industry while taking its cash

From left: Bill Thompson, Christine Quinn and Bill de Blasio
From left: Bill Thompson, Christine Quinn and Bill de Blasio

Mayoral hopefuls in the Democratic primary continue to criticize runaway real estate development across the city, while still collecting $2.2 million total in donations from major players in the real estate industry.

Executives and employees at real estate firms are among those contributing about $30 million to the Dems as of late August. City Council Speaker and candidate Christine Quinn collected more than $716,700 from them, while her opponent Anthony Weiner, the former Congressman, brought in $643,550.

“Candidates are using this particular issue as a way of distancing themselves from the Bloomberg administration,” Fordham University political scientist Costas Panagopoulos told the New York Times, regarding the Democratic candidates. “There is a difference between the kinds of things you have to say and do to win elections, and the kinds of things you have to say and do to attract campaign donations.”

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Bill de Blasio, for example, held a rally called Hospitals not Condos outside the former St. Vincent’s Hospital, the Greenwich Village site that Rudin Management is converting to a massive condo complex with the moniker Greenwich Lane. However, de Blasio has held meetings with real estate lobbyists, as Quinn and mayoral candidate Bill Thompson’s campaigns have noted, and received $215,300 from the industry, the fourth most.

Common Cause New York, a watchdog group, studied contributions from executives at top real estate companies such as Extell Development and Rudin Management. Quinn collected the most in total, while Thompson received the highest amount. [NYT]Mark Maurer