New York Post – by TARA PALMERI
Mayor Bloomberg is spending city cash and resources on his pet project to toughen US gun laws through his national organization, The Post has learned.
City employee Christopher Kocher was sent to Nevada as a representative of Mayors Against Illegal Guns to lobby for a bill that enforces background checks on all firearm sales in that state.
But Kocher, who works as a special counsel to the mayor’s office, apparently didn’t want his role to be known and scrubbed his City Hall e-mail address from the state of Nevada lobbying-registration Web site early this month.
“It doesn’t seem kosher to me,” said Gene Russianoff of the New York Public Interest Research Group.
“It’s hard to see how gun control in Nevada makes the city safer in New York.”
The billionaire mayor has dumped his own money into the advocacy group, his primary vehicle for promoting stronger gun-control laws around the country.
A Bloomberg aide argued that city governments frequently lobby state and national leaders to push legislation related to the city’s well-being for issues ranging from mass transit to health care.
But Russianoff said Nevada isn’t in the same league as Albany and Washington, which have direct connections to what happens in New York City.
“They deal with jurisdictions that have sway over our future, and Nevada does not,” he said.
Sources say MAIG staffers are using the ninth floor of the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services at 253 Broadway to advance the causes of the mayor’s fund.
Domain names for the group’s Web site were registered by the New York City Department of Information and Technology, Politico reported last week. The sites have remained on official city Web servers since 2006.
A City Hall spokesperson argued the coalition was able to use city resources because gun control is in the best interests of the city.
“With 85 percent of guns used in crimes here coming from out of state, gun policy everywhere has an impact on the safety of New Yorkers,” John McCarthy told The Post. “The mayor’s top priority is keeping New Yorkers safe, and that includes seeking sane gun laws in other states . . . to help reduce the flow of illegal guns to New York.”
But political insiders can’t understand why Bloomberg would use city resources to advance his interests when he has near-unlimited personal wealth on this issue.
“With Bloomberg, one of his strengths is that, because money is no object, he could just go rent office space,” a city lobbyist said.“It seems like they’re being sloppy.”
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