Under New York City laws that aim to curb the potential for or appearance of pay-to-play corruption, nobody on the city’s official list of companies and individuals doing or even seeking business with the city can give more than $400 to a citywide candidate in any election cycle.

But there’s another option: so-called independent expenditure committees, New York’s version of super PACS, that allow deep-pocketed players to spend unlimited amounts of money backing one candidate. And this election cycle, the overwhelming beneficiary of such spending has been former Gov. Andrew Cuomo — and those seeking to influence the vote in his favor. 

Case in point: donor Scott Rechler, chairman and CEO of RXR Realty, a major player in New York City’s ultra-competitive real estate market.

Rechler and his company are on the “doing business” list for a host of reasons, including his firm’s pending request for a zoning change to turn a massive warehouse complex located on Hall Street in an industrial Brooklyn neighborhood into a mixed-use residential building. The project is opposed by Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso.

On March 13, Rechler wrote a $2,100 check to Cuomo’s campaign. The campaign promptly refunded him $1,700, bringing his donation in line with the $400 limit on “doing business” donors. Rechler had landed on the list two months earlier regarding the Hall Street project.

But Rechler wasn’t finished. The very next day he wrote a much more impressive check of $250,000 to Fix the City, an independent expenditure committee that is aggressively ing Cuomo’s bid for City Hall.

Rechler did not respond to THE CITY’s questions about whether anyone involved in Cuomo’s campaign had mentioned the existence of Fix The City to him before he made his six-figure donation. 

And Rechler wasn’t the only double donor to Cuomo and Fix The City. Alex Arker is an owner of the Arker Companies, a developer that has for years obtained millions of dollars in city and state financing to build affordable housing across the city. More recently, Arker Companies was chosen by NYCHA to upgrade and then run three public housing developments under the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program. As a result, Arker and his firm are on the “doing business” list.

On April 22, Alex Arker wrote a $400 check to the Cuomo campaign, listing himself as “self employed” in the occupation of “real estate.” 

Arker also owns a company called Progressive Management of New York and a limited liability corporation called Chateau GC LLC. On April 23, the day after Arker wrote his $400 check to the Cuomo campaign, Progressive and Chateau each wrote $25,000 checks to Fix The City. Arker did not respond to THE CITY’s inquiry about the timing of these donations.

Campaigns are strictly prohibited from encouraging their donors to also give to independent spending committees that their candidate. There’s no evidence that Cuomo’s campaign violated that rule, and these well-timed double donations could be purely coincidental.

But the Cuomo campaign and Fix The City have already been accused of improper coordination on the spending side. 

The city Campaign Finance Board made such an accusation last month when it withheld nearly $1.3 million in public matching funds from Cuomo’s campaign, finding that a Fix the City ad plugging Cuomo’s candidacy was nearly identical to language on the campaign’s official website.

Campaigns and independent expenditure committees can discuss the logistics of a candidate’s appearance at an event, as long as it’s not a fundraiser for either party. They can discuss the candidate’s endorsement process. And they can request, obtain or republish a candidate’s photo, bio, press releases and position papers that are already available to the public.

But independent spenders like Fix The City are not allowed to coordinate their efforts with the campaigns of the candidates they .

Asked by THE CITY about any communications between the donors and any representative of the campaign regarding the existence of and how to donate to Fix The City, campaign spokesman Rich Azzopardi stated, “We have no insight into what Fix The City does, and I refer questions to them.”

In response to questions about its protocol regarding communications with the Cuomo campaign, Angelo Genova, counsel for Fix The City said the committee “complies with all relevant Campaign Finance Board rules and encourages and expects our donors and vendors to strictly comply with the no coordination and other rules of the CFB. From its inception, Fix the City has retained counsel and fiscal professionals to ensure compliance on a daily basis.” 

$2.7 Million From ‘Doing Business’

Even short of coordination, the vast sums of money pouring in to Cuomo’s bid from people with business interests before the city inevitably raises questions about his istration’s fairness, should Cuomo become mayor. In addition to Fix The City, a landlord group, the New York Apartment Association, last week announced the formation of an independent expenditure committee called Housing For All, promising to spend $2.5 million to the former governor’s mayoral bid.

In fact, THE CITY found, 24 entities who are currently on the “doing business” list wrote checks to Fix The City ranging from $5,000 to $1 million, with most hovering in the $150,000 to $250,000 range. The “doing business” checks to Fix The City came to nearly $2.7 million.

They include corporations such as DoorDash ($1 million), Lyft ($25,000), Charter Communications ($125,000) and major real estate developers The Durst Organization ($100,000) and Two Trees Management ($250,000) — entities that are strictly prohibited from giving any amount to campaigns.

As for the individuals who gave, each would be restricted to only $400 if they gave directly to Cuomo’s campaign. In fact three donors on the “doing business list” did just that: Rechler, Barry Gosin of the real estate broker Newmark and Jeffrey Gural, chairman of GFP Real Estate. Gosin and Gural also each gave Fix The City $25,000.

So what are the motivations of these donors?

THE CITY found a range of interests by Fix The City donors pursuing favorable treatment from City Hall: Developers seeking long-term contracts to upgrade and run public housing developments (The Douglaston Group, Progressive Management of New York, and The Related Companies). A food delivery app (DoorDash) lobbying to avoid paying sick leave to gig drivers. An app (Lyft, which works with Citibike) concerned about micro-mobility device regulation. A communication firm (Charter Communications) fighting a bill that would require firms receiving government payments for economic development to pay prevailing wages.

Other entities are already receiving millions of dollars in city work and would likely want that to continue: America Works, a firm providing workers for city agencies (CEO Lee Bowes gave Fix The City $5,000); Jenner & Block, a law firm hired as an independent monitor of NYCHA (attorney Jeremy Creelan gave $10,000) and Northwell Health, a hospital network that does millions of dollars in lab testing for the city health department. Northwell’s Michael Dowling gave $10,000 to Fix the City.

Then there’s the case of Peter Fine, a veteran developer who wrote a $250,000 check to Fix The City on April 1, listing Atlantic Development Group as his employer. He’s been on the city’s “doing business” list since 2008 for Atlantic, which over the years netted millions of dollars in low interest loans and tax credits from the city to build affordable housing, mostly in the Bronx.

Fine was temporarily barred from participating in city-funded housing programs a few years back after an investigation revealed he’d recommended an architect he worked with to then-Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion to do work on Carrion’s City Island home. At the time Fine was seeking Carrion’s backing for a big Bronx development he was planning.

Carrion did not pay the architect until two years after the work was complete and only after he was confronted by a reporter. He wound up paying a $10,000 fine for violating city ethics rules, and one of Fine’s companies pleaded guilty to criminal tax fraud and filing false documents.

More recently Fine hired a lobbyist to handle various “real estate” matters involving city agencies on behalf of another of his companies, Bolivar Development, including pressing HPD on unspecified approvals and subsidies for various projects.

To date all of these donors have raised  $10.8 million for Fix The City, predominantly from deep pocket donors. In fact an analysis by THE CITY found some of the most powerful interests in New York dominated the roster, with 28.4% coming from real estate industry, 22.3% from Finance, 9.4% from ride share and delivery apps, 9% from entertainment interests, and 6.2% from unions — including the powerful carpenters union that endorsed his candidacy in March. 

To date Fix The City has spent $5.6 million in of Cuomo’s City Hall bid and has more recently launched negative ads against his main rival Zohran Mamdani. That includes $1.29 million to air a video ad that included text the CFB found mirrored text that existed on an obscure page within the Cuomo campaign’s website.

During its May 30th meeting, Board Member Richard Davis stated that based on the findings of the board’s investigation “thus far, it continues to find a reason to believe that the expenditure was not independent of the Cuomo campaign.” The investigation, Davis added, is continuing.

The campaign’s spokesperson, Azzopardi, has said the campaign is contesting the board’s finding, insisting that there was no coordination with Fix The City, which was organized by Steve Cohen, Cuomo’s chief of staff when he was governor.