Call Center Acknowledges Falsely Using City Council Member’s Name in Water Street Outreach

The proposal, known as the Water Street text amendment, seeks to convert to commercial, retail use more than 100,000 square feet of public space in arcades along Water Street. It is controversial because the storefronts created by this move would be enormously valuable, but the building owners who reap this benefit would pay nothing for the additional space. Instead, these developers would be required to upgrade the open plazas in front of their towers, and invest in resiliency measures that would harden the skyscrapers against flooding. (Both the arcades and the plazas were created decades ago, when the buildings were constructed, in exchange for allowing the structures to rise higher, with more floor space, than otherwise would have been legally permitted.) Supporters of the Water Street proposal view this as a pragmatic and equitable quid pro quo. Critics decry it as a giveaway of public space for private profit.

The Downtown Alliance helped formulate this proposal (along with the Department of City Planning and the City’s Economic Development Corporation), and is now seeking to catalyze public support for it. As part of this effort, in May, the Alliance retained Global Strategy Group — a public relations and polling research firm that specializes in public affairs, issues management, and advocacy services. Among its clients are Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo.

Global Strategies says that it then hired (as a subcontractor) a company called Political Connection, and tasked that firm with making calls to Lower Manhattan residents, to spell out the benefits of the Water Street proposal, and then offer to connect to Ms. Chin’s office any call recipient who seemed persuaded.

Multiple residents who received these calls allege that their Caller Identification units displayed the name “Margaret Chin” during these calls, along with the number for Ms. Chin’s office in Lower Manhattan. Among them was Community Board 1 (CB1) member Paul Hovitz, who shared an account of his experience at that panel’s monthly meeting on May 28.

	Margaret Chin

“It said ‘Margaret Chin’ on my television,” he recalled. “It said ‘Margaret Chin’ on my phone, and the phone number was Margaret’s district office. I know, because I called that number afterward, and it picked up in Margaret’s office.”

“My concern, and the reason this seems to have credence,” Mr. Hovitz continued, “is because the person, after giving me this whole pitch about the Water Street text amendment and asking me if I was in favor, said to me, ‘do you want to be put through to the office to register your support? I told them that I had actually testified against it, and that I’d like to be put through to register my opposition, and I was disconnected.”

This description appears to be consistent with so-called “spoofing” technology, which uses computer software in conjunction with telephone equipment to falsify the information transmitted to a Caller ID display, in order to disguise the caller’s identity.

Mr. Hovitz’s account was initially disputed by Global Strategies and questioned by the Downtown Alliance, although both expressed regret for any misunderstanding. On Wednesday, however, Ms. Chin issued a statement verifying the allegations that her name and number had been used without authorization. She said, “I am incredibly troubled by reports that Political Connection, a firm hired to conduct outreach to my constituents, used misleading information in order to solicit support for the Water Street text amendment.”

“At no point was my office aware of misrepresentation by any group about this important issue,” Ms. Chin continued. “Upon learning about this solicitation, my office consulted with legal counsel about possible enforcement action to ensure that these kinds of misleading tactics do not happen again. I would like to assure the dozens of people that wrote letters, testified, and attended meetings on both sides of this issue that it is their voices — not those purporting to represent a City Council office — that will be heeded as the process of determining the future of Water Street continues.”

	Paul Hovitz

Ms. Chin’s confirmation of the claims that somebody had hijacked her telephone number was then verified by the Downtown Alliance, Global Strategies, and (apparently) Political Connection.

“The Alliance has been advocating a new vision for Water Street for many years now,” said Andrew Breslau, the Alliance’s senior vice president for communications. “A part of that vision is a zoning text amendment now under consideration by the City Council. To support that amendment the Alliance sought to marshal supporters to make their voices heard to our Council member. We did that a number of different ways — email contacts, calls generated from our office directly and we engaged a firm for a few days of phone banks to keep up the momentum. Unfortunately, a subcontractor who executed those calls did so in a fashion that we find unprofessional, unethical and unbecoming of the seriousness and standards we hold ourselves to. Once we discovered something might be amiss, we demanded an investigation by the firm we contracted with and committed to transparency about what happened. Once it was established that calls’ origins were misrepresented by the subcontractor, we severed ties with the firm and demanded that they publicly apologize. We have apologized to the Council member for their methods and, as always, want the public and its representatives to weigh the proposal on its merits.”

A spokesman for Global Strategies said in a statement, “we thank Mr. Hovitz for bringing this issue to our attention and for working with us over the last several days to get to the bottom of this matter. With his assistance, we have discovered today that our subcontractor made an unintended error causing calls from the phone bank to be shown as coming from Council member Chin. This outcome is completely counter to the goals of the program and came without any direction or knowledge by Global Strategies or our client. We apologize deeply to Council member Chin and the community. We have zero tolerance for this kind of egregious mistake and thus have terminated our relationship with the firm.”

Global Strategy also circulated a statement on behalf of its subcontractor, Political Connection. This statement said, “Political Connection, which is a wholly independent subcontractor, operates the phone bank from which the calls originated. At Global Strategy Group’s insistence, we conducted an audit and discovered Political Connection made a terrible mistake, which resulted in the phone number of Council member Chin being listed as the Caller ID. To be clear, Global Strategy Group and the Alliance for Downtown New York had no knowledge of this issue nor did they instruct us to do so.  Political Connection takes full responsibility for this terrible mistake. We apologize to the Alliance for Downtown New York, Council member Chin, and Global Strategy Group.”

When the Broadsheet attempted to contact Political Connection, to verify this statement and request additional information, a web search found no website and no working telephone number for any business with that name anywhere in the United States. A spokesman for Global Strategy supplied an office telephone number in Pennsylvania that connected (after business hours) to a voice mailbox with an outgoing message that said, “you have reached Political Connection” and asked callers to try again later. A now-disconnected phone number for a business with the name Political Connection does appear in a web search of businesses in South Carolina. Under this listing, somebody claiming to be a former employee posted a comment raising ethical questions about the company.

Under the federal Truth in Calling Act, telephone spoofing is generally illegal, and carries fines of up to $10,000 per violation. The law specifically prohibits spoofing with intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongly obtain anything of value. In this case, public support (or the appearance of support) that might help persuade elected officials such as Ms. Chin to vote in favor of a measure like the Water Street text amendment, which is currently before the City Council, could arguably constitute such a value, particularly because the retail space that will be created by enclosing the pedestrian arcades may be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and could generate tens of millions of dollars in rental income per year.