Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Grover Park Group, $2,617,982 - a UFT Slush Fund for Clinton?

The most recent LM2 annual expense report posted on the US Department of Labor web site by the UFT covers 2006. It includes a payment of - gulp - $2,617,982 to Grover Park consultants, led by Howard Wolfson, a major Hillary Clinton advisor. (How's that working out, Howard?) It's probably due to his advice that improvement in teachers' working conditions going so well.

What's intriguing about this astronomical number just for giving advice - hey, I'll give advice for half the amount: buy high, sell low – is that there is no accounting for the work Grover Park did for the UFT.

The Grover Park Group web site says this about Wolfson:
At Glover Park, Howard focuses on crisis management, complex intergrated campaigns, and political advertising and communications. The firm's New York clients have included Cablevision, Verizon, the New School, Newscorp, and the United Federation of Teachers.
Howard has helped direct the campaigns of Senator Hillary Clinton, New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson and newly elected U.S. Representatives Kirsten Gillibrand and Michael Arcuri.


Ahhh! It's all about how to manage the membership. The UFT payed Wolfson to advise them on how to use massive UFT resources in Hillary's campaign without having to go through an endorsement by the members or even hold a discussion where Obama supporters might get to raise a stink.

And follow the bouncing ball in the next year or two as Wolfson gets paid enormous sums to guides the UFT on how to sell mayoral candidate Bill Thompson to the membership while using dirty tricks to degrade serious challengers like Anthony Weiner.

Or is this a simple matter of the UFT leadership finding a sneaky way to funnel money to the Clinton campaign by "hiring" Wolfson?


And UFT High School VP Leo Casey is listed as a vendor for over $16000. I didn't know the UFT had an ice cream truck. Or maybe the money was for selling half-baked ideas.

The LM-2 for 2006 (there's always a year or more lag and the UFT is always late in sending it in - this one was signed by Randi in December '07 when it was due in May '07) will be posted on the ICE website soon. If you can't wait to see how those special reps make 140 grand shoot me an email and I'll send you the pdf.

7 comments:

Chaz said...

Maybe he can sell ice cream in Darfur

Anonymous said...

Yes, the Glover Park price tag is high, but don't forget that this is the firm that buys radio and TV commercials for the UFT, so the $2.6 million figure associated with Glover Park on the LM-2 includes the cost of all the union's radio and TV ads that year. Check out the cost of advertising. It's over the top and through the roof.

Anonymous said...

If this were true then let's see the invoices for all the bills.
Grover Park must pull a certain % for sure.

Jeff Kaufman said...

The LM2 has been posted. Go to
http://www.ice-uft.org/UFTLM2_july2006.pdf

Anonymous said...

Howard Wolfson is soon going to be under oath in the Los Angeles civil trial, Paul v Clinton. Peter Paul spent over $1.6 million on Hillary's 2000 Senate campaign. When it was discovered he had a felony record from two decades earlier, Hillary sent him out to deny the relationship. On Aug. 12, 2000, Wolfson lied the the WASHPOST and to all the voters when he vowed that her campaign would take no money from Peter Paul. The lie has continued to this day. The discovery in the civil trial will reveal Hillary's role in an illegal hard money donation of over a million dollars, false FEC reporting, and obstruction of justice. She is going to finally be under oath in August. HILLARY! UNCENSORED

Anonymous said...

it's GLOVER PARK. not gROVER.

Anonymous said...

it's GLOVER PARK. not gROVER.