What! you’re asking? How did Mitt Romney get involved in Naomi’s lawsuit against the Skush-O’Briens?
Here’s how:
More than a year ago, when I was telling you how I got unhappily entangled with the Skush-O’Brien family, I wrote a piece called Omens, in which I mentioned a couple of statements the Skush-O’Briens had made, statements the veracity of which I had reason later to question.
One of them, an utterly gratuitous profession, concerned the two major political party lines, and which one the Skush-O’Briens generally voted on. Later, Chaz Skush-O’Brien directly contradicted what his father had told me.
Now, put that all in the back of your mind and flash forward to a week or so ago. I pulled an envelope addressed to the Little Crooked House Tenants Corp., the co-op name, off the foyer bulletin board. As a shareholder of the co-op, I am entitled to open the envelope (which I did) and read its contents (which I also did). What were the contents? A dunning letter from a collection agency over to whom the NYC Department of Buildings had handed a big DOB violation and fine of $8000 that dated from August 2010.
Problem: the DOB had violated the co-op for impermissable work not done in the public spaces in the building, which would have been the co-op’s responsibility, but for work done in Chaz’s own apartment renovation.
So it’s Chaz who personally owes the $8,816.66 (the collection agency apparently adds on interest, or their fee or something). The co-op does not owe this money. Chaz has known about this violation and fine for two years and I reminded him of it in Housing Court a few months ago, but apparently has done nothing to take care of it.
One of the many reasons I’ve sued the Skush-O’Briens is their habit of charging the co-op for their own expenses. Another reason? Doing work that requires DOB permits without those permits.
So I made copies of the collection agency letter, because I intend to do things with it. Then, a week later, what appeared on the foyer bulletin board? A notice from the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. And what did the DEP have to report? The co-op owes more than six months of water bills! Yes, $2,574.08, a bill by the way which came via the NYC DEP Collection Department.
All these collection people! My my. Now, this bill is indeed owed by the co-op, although not all of it. There are late fees accumulated because the Skush-O’Briens have failed to have the water bills paid on a timely basis, and those late fees will be added to the substantial and growing debts the Skush-O’Briens owe the Little Crooked House Tenants Corp.
I made a few copies of the water bill and then, just on a lark, went into the NYC DOF (Department of Finance) data base to take a look at the current real estate tax bill. On October 15, it will be over $41,000. Six months of real estate taxes unpaid. That’s counting late fees, blah blah blah, all owed by the Skush-O’Briens.
You may recall I reported that a year or so ago the City placed a lien on the building for failing to pay, oh, a couple of years of real estate taxes, and the State of New York dissolved the co-op for failing to pay the corporate taxes and, and…
You get it, right? The Skush-O’Briens, even while seriously dented by the critical revelations that have emerged from the lawsuit, just go right on ignoring their legal and financial obligations. Yet, by their own admission during a deposition, they take almost $14,000 a month out of this building. While they don’t pay their bills.
So what does Mitt Romney have to do with this?
Yesterday — again in the foyer of my building — I saw on the floor a pile of mail that hadn’t been placed in the mailboxes. On the top of it was a rather elegant envelope, addressed to Chaz Skush-O’Brien, from … Mitt Romney.
There is no way that the Romney campaign sent out mailers to every voter in the 10014 area code. The West Village, one of the five most leftist districts in the United States. If Chaz Skush-O’Brien got a Romney mailer, it must be because he’s given Romney encouragement.
So Chaz, who made a big deal out of pasting a 2008 Obama bumper sticker on his car, has now openly joined his parents on the dark side, solicited by the party of no taxes for the rich (or for rich wanna-bes), the party of let’s have a couple of wars without paying for or dying for them, the party of let’s get rid of all those troublesome governmental agencies, the party of get outta my face. The party of it’s my money and I’ll do what I want with it.
GOP and the Skush-O’Briens, out of the closet together at long last.
Yup.