TV Ad : Did Christine Quinn Take Campaign Donations To Approve Rudin Luxury Condos ?

The latest ad by New York City is Not for Sale 2013 blames Christine Quinn for her role in St. Vincent’s Hospital closure.

A group of citizen activists has previewed an advance look at a new TV advertisement that blames New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn for the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

The TV ad, released by the group known as NYC Is Not For Sale 2013, exposes how there has been an appearance of a quid-pro-quo between Speaker Quinn and Rudin Management Company, the real estate developer, which foreclosed on St. Vincent's Hospital. Members of the Rudin family, who own the billion-dollar Rudin Management Company enterprise, donated $30,000 to Speaker Quinn, who conveniently later supported a zoning change that paved the way for the Greenwich Village hospital to close.

Read more : SEE IT: New ad blasts Christine Quinn for role in closing of St. Vincent’s Hospital

In exchange for $30,000 in campaign donations, did New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn sell out her community ?

Do the political campaign donations by Beth R. DeWoody, Madeleine R. Johnson, Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine Rudin, and William C. Rudin, who each donated $4,950 to Christine Quinn's presumed 2013 mayoral campaign, amount to influence peddling ? After all, since even before St. Vincent's Hospital closed, Speaker Quinn has been toeing the Rudin family line : close down St. Vincent's and replace it with an inferior urgent care center.

Not only did Speaker Quinn say that we only needed an urgent care center to replace St. Vincent's, but she approved the Rudin family's plan, allowing St. Vincent's Hospital to be rezoned into luxury condos. Since 2010, the Rudin family has been trying to get approval for a billion-dollar real estate development plan for the buildings that belong to the bankruptcy estate of St. Vincent's Hospital. Since the Rudin family wants to build luxury high-rise condos on the site of St. Vincent's, and since they needed City Council approval from Speaker Quinn, do these large campaign donations explain why Speaker Quinn did nothing to restore a Level I trauma center and full-service hospital to the former St. Vincent's site ? Does Speaker Quinn's official acts come as a result of sizable campaign donations from the likes of the Rudin family ?

To Preet Bharara : Do @chriscquinn's official acts come as a result of campaign donations ? christine-quinn-sold-out.blogspot.com/2011/02/rudin-… #StVincentsHospital

— Stop Christine Quinn (@stopchrisquinn) April 4, 2013

Rudin Political Donation Hedging

When both Anthony Weiner and Christine Quinn were the front-running mayoral candidates, the Rudin Family made sizable campaign donations.

Do the Rudin Family's $70,000 in political donations to Christine Quinn, Peter Vallone, and Anthony Weiner constitute a corrupt effort to make sure that the Family gets approval for their controversial luxury condo conversion of St. Vincent's Hospital ?

The Family's equal total donations to each of former Congressman Weiner and Speaker Quinn were calculating, because now that Mr. Weiner is out of the mayoral race, they had a Plan B in Speaker Quinn.

Councilmember Vallone is chair of the Public Safety Committee : now, there will likely be no councilmember, who will be allowed to speak out to the irresponsible public health aspect of closing charity hospitals, privatising their real estate, and doing nothing as luxury condos are built on the former site of St. Vincent's Hospital.

You can confirm the sources of the funding from these links : (i) Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine L. Rudin, and William C. ("Bill") Rudin ; (ii) Beth R. DeWoody ; and (iii) Madeline R. Johnson.

The Rudin family has spent almost $70,000 in political donations, and another $500,000 in lobbying expenses -- all in a desperate attempt to get approval for the luxury condo conversion scheme for St. Vincent's, because there is profit that is valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars at stake.

Hospital Corruption in New York State ?

Bribes Versus Political Campaign Donations : Who Decides When Money Corrupts The Healthcare System Of New York State ?

Healthcare activists, who are fighting for a restoration of a new Level 1 Trauma Center and full-servi e hospital to replace St. Vincent's, are discovering that the larger healthcare system across New York State is broken. Here's how.

Activists are beginning to demand a single-payer healthcare system in New York to put an end to the constant healthcare cuts, layoffs, hospital closings, and corruption that is endemic in the state’s broken healthcare system. Just this year alone, witness the bribery cases against MediSys chief executive David P. Rosen and New York State Senator Carl Kruger, each of whom were involved in hospital-related corruption. Two other state assemblymen, William F. Boyland, Jr., of Brooklyn and Anthony S. Seminerio of Queens, are also implicated, according to The New York Times.

The Rudin family head a lobbying group that calls itself the Association for a Better New York. They use it as political cover to portray their billion-dollar real estate deals as “civic-minded” projects. There’s nothing “civic” about closing a hospital in order to convert it to luxury condos. Bill Rudin is just another modern-day “Robber Baron.”

In respect of the shady closing of St. Vincent's Hospital, our politicians have failed to restore a full-service hospital. Instead, politicians want to replace St. Vincent’s with an urgent care center. This is a Band-Aid approach to healthcare, and it is unacceptable !

In spite of the corruption that exists in the state funding of hospitals, operatives for Billionaire Bill Rudin claim that Mr. Rudin owes the public nothing in terms of private support, to make up for lack of public funding to support a replacement hospital for St. Vincent's. There are resources available : Go to Wikipedia, and look up the Hill-Burton Act, which provides federal grants and guaranteed loans to improve the nation’s hospital system. Money was designated to states to achieve 4.5 beds per 1,000 people.

Did Christine Quinn Give Up On Saving St. Vincent's In Exchange for Campaign Donations From The Rudin Family ?

In an apparent conflict of interest, Beth R. DeWoody, Madeleine R. Johnson, Eric C. Rudin, Jack Rudin, Katherine Rudin, and William C. Rudin each donated $4,950 to Christine Quinn's presumed 2013 mayoral campaign. During this time, the Rudin family has been trying to salvage a multi-million dollar real estate purchase of the buildings that belong to the bankruptcy estate of St. Vincent's Hospital. Since the Rudin family wants to build luxury high-rise condos on the site of St. Vincent's, do these large campaign donations explain why Speaker Quinn has done nothing to restore a hospital to the former St. Vincent's site ?

At what point do bribes mix-and-match with political campaign contributions ?

Quid Pro Quo : After City Council Speaker Christine Quinn renames the Queensboro Bridge after former Mayor Ed Koch, the former mayor all of a sudden turns up as the temp-to-hire chairman of an astroturf-front group being paid for by the Rudin family, not unlike evil Wisconsin front groups that are union-busters.

In a brilliant YouTube video, the artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy compares former mayor Ed Koch to Snooki, seeing as how each celebrity can be hired to show up at night club parties -- or at luxury condo conversions of St. Vincent's Hospital -- if the price is right.

If you haven't yet checked it out, look at how the Rudin family has already managed to rent Christine Quinn.