Pol: My colleague and kin planted false reports
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
This will make for an awkward
Thanksgiving dinner.
A Bensonhurst councilman
accused his cousin-in-law, who
represents Sheepshead Bay in
Council, of feeding the media
false reports about his wife being
denied a job with the city’s
public advocate, days after the
former introduced legislation
to axe the watchdog offi ce.
Councilman Kalman
Yeger (D–Bensonhurst)
blamed Councilman Chaim
Deutsch (D–Sheepshead Bay),
who is married to his cousin
Sara , for the anonymously
sourced reports in publications
including the New York
Post that claimed Yeger’s wife,
Jennifer Berger, didn’t get a
job with current Public Advocate
Letitia “Tish” James’s
offi ce earlier this year, which
led him to introduce the bill as
payback.
Rather, Berger declined a
job offer from James’s offi ce
after being let go from her previous
position as legislative
assistant to former Council
Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito
when current Speaker
Cory Johnson (D–Manhattan)
assumed the role, according
to Yeger’s spokesman.
“She has her own professional
career. Earlier this
year, she was recruited and offered
a position, which she declined,”
said Jay Ackerman.
And the claim that Berger
didn’t get the gig with James
doesn’t hold water considering
her previous work on
James’s campaign for public
advocate — an offi ce voters
reelected her to last year after
fi rst appointing her to the
position in 2013 — and the fact
that the former Fort Greene
Councilwoman and Yeger are
old friends, according to Ackerman.
“Tish and Kalman are
friends for well over a decade,
and he thinks the world of
Tish and her public service,”
Ackerman said.
Yeger on Nov. 14 introduced
a bill in Council that, if
passed, would let voters decide
via a future ballot whether to
keep or abolish the offi ce of
public advocate, and on Nov.
16 he rejected the idea that the
legislation is in any way connected
to his wife.
“The bill has nothing to do
with her interaction with the
offi ce,” he said.
The legislation has been
in the works for some time,
according to Yeger, who said
he chose to introduce it following
James’s victory in the
general-election race for New
York State attorney general,
because she must now vacate
the offi ce in January to move
to Albany.
“I’ve been working on
this bill for a long time and
I wanted to wait until after
Tish’s election,” Yeger said.
“Now seemed like an opportune
moment to talk about this
position because it was about
to become vacant,” he said.
Berger currently works as
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Kalman Yeger
a special assistant in the mayor’s
offi ce, a role she assumed
in August and earns $115,000 a
year for, according to city records.
A rep for the public advocate’s
offi ce refused to comment
on whether James previously
offered Berger a
position, or if she applied for a
job there.
“The public advocate’s offi
ce does not discuss personnel
matters,” said Delaney
Kempner.
The anonymously sourced
reports published on Nov. 15
in the Post and on the website
Kings County Politics alleged
that Berger applied to
be James’s liaison to the Jewish
community, but didn’t get
File photo by Jon Farina
the job because she demanded
$40,000 in extra pay and fl exible
hours.
But Deutsch — who did not
comment to the Post about
Berger’s history with the public
advocate’s offi ce, but did
tell the paper he thought the
watchdog role should stay in
tact — vehemently denied being
the source.
“This is false. My only conversation
with the Post about
this subject was when a reporter
called me to ask for a
comment. I declined to comment,
as was accurately reported
in the Post article,”
he said. “This has nothing to
do with me, and I respect the
right to privacy of all of my
colleagues.”
PARTY LINE
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FEUDING FAMILY: Councilman Kalman Yeger (left) and his colleague and
cousin-in-law Chaim Deutsch.
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