The wife of the chairman of the state Independence Party solicited and received a $10,000 business loan from a candidate who got the party’s coveted endorsement days later, The Post has learned.
John Tabacco, who was running for the Staten Island City Council seat vacated last year by Mike McMahon, said he agreed to make the loan to Kristin MacKay’s firm, Government Response Inc. (GRI), because of his friendship at the time with her husband, party leader Frank MacKay.
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A few days later, Tabacco said, he was surprised that the Independence Party backing he had sought suddenly came through.
Word of the possible pay-to-play conduct by the Independence Party comes amid an ongoing probe by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., who is looking at the party’s role in funneling money from Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign to a former aide, John Haggerty, who has since been indicted on grand-larceny charges.
“I implore the chair to explain to [party] members statewide if contracting with GRI is a prerequisite to the political-patronage machine called the New York State Independence Party,” Tabacco said.
The loan was repaid with interest three months ago, said Tabacco, after he rejected Kristin MacKay’s plea for a six-month extension.
Tabacco lost the Feb. 24, 2009, election and says he can’t get MacKay to return any of his calls as he explores a challenge to McMahon, now a congressman.
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“I have a great deal of respect for the hardworking rank-and-file members of the Independence Party,” Tabacco told The Post. “But in my view, the party leadership has been corrupted, and members across the state deserve better.”
He said he decided to tell what he knows because he was outraged by MacKay’s recent claim in The Post that his wife had severed her ties to GRI.
Tabacco produced evidence proving otherwise — an April 9, 2010, e-mail from Kristin MacKay requesting the loan extension, saying: “GRI has not been generating any revenues since late last year primarily due to a development project that we took on that caused us to lose money and tied up all our development and client-service sources.”
Tabacco demanded that MacKay explain GRI’s ties to the party.
The Post has previously reported that the firm landed a contract with the state Senate soon after the Independence Party formed an alliance with the Republicans who controlled it.
Yesterday, The Post disclosed that Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, who is allied with the Independence Party, paid Kristin MacKay’s firm $40,000 in 2006.
Frank MacKay insisted the $10,000 loan was strictly business, noting that Tabacco runs his own computer company and had discussed possible ties with his wife’s firm.
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He further pointed out that the special election last year was nonpartisan, so Tabacco didn’t need the party’s backing to run.
Finally, MacKay said he and his wife repaid the loan with 12 percent interest from their personal account “although it wasn’t our obligation to pay it. It was a business loan.”
Tabacco wasn’t the only Independence Party member to question the leadership yesterday.
Frank Morano, a one-time MacKay ally, resigned from the party’s executive committee saying he was disgusted with its practices.
Morano said the “final straw” came when MacKay reneged on a promise to back Nicole Malliotakis for a Staten Island Assembly seat and switched support suddenly to Democratic incumbent Janele Hyer-Spencer.
“The Independence Party has become the Jerry Seinfeld party — the party of nothing,” he said.
Source: https://t-tees.com
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