BY COLIN MIXSON
The fallout from a botched phone campaign to boost support for a controversial Downtown zoning change has claimed its first casualty.
Political Connection, the phone-bank subcontractor, has taken responsibility for calling a member of Community Board 1 with a fake Caller ID purporting to come from Councilmember Margaret Chin’s office to solicit support for a divisive plan to allow retail development of public arcades along Water St. — a measure Chin doesn’t even endorse.
The phone-banking firm is taking the fall for Global Strategy Group, a high-powered PR firm that was running the promotion campaign on behalf of the Downtown Alliance, the leading booster of the Water St. proposal, which has faced unexpected pushback from the Council and some local residents.
“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,” read a statement from Political Connection, which was sent through Global Strategy Group’s communications office. “Political Connection takes full responsibility for this terrible mistake.”
Downtown Express broke the story last week that Paul Hovitz, a long-serving member of CB1, had received a call that showed Chin’s name in the Caller ID and the number of her district office, and the caller asked him if he wanted to register his support for the Water St. text amendment. Being an opponent of the proposal to hand control of 110,000 square feet of public space to building owners for development, he asked instead to register his disapproval, and the caller promptly hung up.
Both the Downtown Alliance and Global Strategy Group denied any prior knowledge of the illicit call after Hovitz complained to Chin’s office about the fishy survey, which sparked an investigation by the councilmember’s staff that led them to Downtown Alliance and its contractor, Global Strategy Group.
The PR firm first categorically denied that the fraudulent call could possibly have happened at all, but after an internal audit revealed Political Connection as the call’s originator, Global Strategy Group announced that it was severing all ties with the phone-bank subcontractor.
“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,” said Global Strategy Group in a statement. “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 Councilmember Chin. … We have zero tolerance for this kind of egregious mistake and thus have terminated our relationship with the firm.”
The bogus Caller ID purportedly arose from a malfunction related to the call’s expressed intent of forwarding supporters of the zoning proposal to Chin’s Park Row district office to leave messages, and that the technical error caused the forwarding number to be displayed as the Caller ID, according to an official at Global Strategy Group.
A technical glitch may explain the false Caller ID, but Hovitz contends that there was active deception by the caller to appear to be representing Chin, rather than calling for the Alliance, as Global Strategy Group contends its calling script specifies.
“They identified themselves as calling from Margaret Chin’s office,” said Hovitz. “There’s no question. There was no talk about the Alliance.”
That claim also was denied by both the Alliance and Global Strategy Group. Downtown Alliance spokesman Andy Breslau asserted that the phone-bankers employed by Global Strategy Group work off of pre-approved scripts, which begin by announcing the caller’s affiliation with the Alliance.
Global Strategy Group said that there’s no way its callers went off script, and claimed to have the phone records to prove it, according to spokesman Glen Caplin.
“GSG adheres to the highest standards of transparency and ethics,” said Caplin. “Phone calls are monitored for quality purposes throughout the campaign and we have been assured by our subcontractor that not one caller deviated from the script that clearly states Downtown Alliance as the client in the opening line.”
Global Strategy refused to provide Downtown Express with the recording of Hovitz’s call, citing reasons of confidentiality.
Hovitz was offered the chance to review the recording, but declined, saying that he’s confident in his memory of the event, and that, given Global Strategy’s strenuous denial, he’s sure that any recording he receives will have been doctored to reflect the firm’s claim.
“I don’t need the recording,” said Hovitz. “I know what happened and, based on what they’re saying, any recording I receive from them is suspect.”
Chin denounced Political Connection specifically for its role in the scandal, and is currently consulting with Council lawyers to find a way to prevent this kind of deceptive telephone lobbying from reoccurring.
“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 St. text amendment,” said Chin. “At no point was my office aware of misrepresentation by any group about this important issue. 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.”
The councilmember went on to say that any testimony suspected of being solicited through questionable means will not be considered.
“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.”
Chin’s office is considering taking further action, such as formalizing their complaint with a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, according to Chin spokesman Paul Leonard.
“We are weighing our options, which would include submitting a compliant to the FCC about these tactics,” Leonard said.
This isn’t the first time Global Strategy Group has ruffled feathers Downtown for conducting phone surveys on contentious development issues that locals complain are skewed to produce one-sided results.
In 2014, when Howard Hughes Corporation was pushing back against local opposition to its now-defunct plans for a 500-foot residential tower at the South Street Seaport, the developer hired Global Strategy Group to do a phone survey that suggested 84-percent support for the tower.
But locals who received those calls said it resembled a “push poll” in which the questions are worded specifically to prompt a particular response — similar to Hovitz’s more recent experience being asked to support a zoning change the caller said would “enliven” Water St.
Likewise, Howard Hughes said that locals’ characterizations of the callers’ questions did not match the script it provided — just as the Alliance said what Hovitz reported hearing was not what its callers were supposed to say.
If you’ve gotten a call from someone asking you to support the Water St. arcade infill plan, please let us know what the caller said and whether the Caller ID said it was from Chin’s office: news@downtownexpress.com.
