Officials Urge City To Oppose Plan for Fulani Group

The New York Sun/September 12, 2006
By Elizabeth Solomont

Elected officials lined up yesterday to urge the city to oppose a multimillion-dollar refinancing proposal for a group founded by a former Independence Party leader, Lenora Fulani.

In a letter, lawmakers urged the city's Industrial Development Agency to vote against a proposal to provide refinancing to the All Stars Project, the nonprofit after-school program founded by Ms. Fulani. The vote, scheduled for today, takes up a proposal to provide $12.5 million in tax-free refinancing for the group, which previously has come under fire for its leaders' inflammatory comments and accusations that they funneled funds toward personal causes.

Criticizing Ms. Fulani and her stated mentor, Fred Newman, who resigned from the nonprofit last year, officials wrote: "This group reportedly has a long and close relationship with a cult whose leaders have made statements and taken positions that are misogynistic and Anti-Semitic. Providing discretionary financial assistance for this project will be tantamount to providing public validation and support for these ideas."

In the past, Ms. Fulani has come under fire for making anti-Semitic statements, while Dr. Newman's stated support of psycho-sexualized social therapy has caused controversy.

"Given Newman and Fulani's history of bigoted remarks and their history of using companies they set up to fund their political activities, the city should not provide them with tax breaks to pursue their agenda," the state comptroller, Alan Hevesi, said.

If the refinancing is approved, All Stars would be exempt from mortgage reporting taxes, and could sell tax-free bonds. The proceeds of those bonds reportedly would pay for a renovation of their headquarters in Midtown and would allow them to refinance their debt from previous debt offerings.

The value of the tax-free financing amounts to what the city would otherwise collect in income taxes on those bonds, and on the mortgage recording taxes, a research analyst with Good Jobs New York, Dan Steinberg, said. "What's at stake literally is a little over $200,000 in forgone tax revenue," he said.

Yesterday, lawmakers cited the group's connection to Ms. Fulani and Dr. Newman in voicing their opposition. "The city should not legitimize Fulani and Newman's Anti-Semitic and misogynistic positions by providing them with tax breaks," Rep. Jerrold Nadler said. In a statement, the City Council speaker, Christine Quinn, said: "Public funds should never be provided to an organization that has faced countless accusations of financial misconduct and workplace harassment. Further, a group that has close business and ideological ties to the bigotry of Fred Newman and Lenora Fulani is certainly not worthy of our City, nor of the IDA's support."

Calls to All Stars and to sources close to Ms. Fulani were not immediately returned last night.

Meanwhile, IDA officials said the agency evaluates applications extremely carefully, and noted that two separate reviews of All Stars by the state attorney general's office did not find any reason to take action.