Revealed! Vito’s $64,000 Pension by Aaron Short • The Brooklyn Paper

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“What is Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s annual state pension” — now has a $64,000 answer.

The scandal-plagued legislator is collecting a monthly pension of $5,386.16 — or $64,634 per year — on top of his $92,000 yearly salary, according to state records that were released to this newspaper under the Freedom of Information Law.

In other words, Lopez is earning time-and-a-half while on the job as the people’s representative in Albany.

He’ll close out 2011 with an income topping $156,000.

And it’s all legal.

Lopez, 69, is one of 10 lawmakers who filed his “retirement” papers on Dec. 31 in order to collect the extra moolah — thanks to a little-known state loophole that allows officeholders over the age of 64 to legally collect their pensions while still on the job.

The cancer-stricken lawmaker defended the practice in an exclusive interview with The Brooklyn Paper last year, explaining that he applied for his pension to take care of his family if his health rapidly declined.

“I’m very comfortable with my rationale and I’ve explained that to you,” said Lopez. “My obligation is to my family and to my health.”

Lopez has been combatting a recurrence of cancer since last summer— forcing him to take a brief leave of absence to treat the illness in October.

But he came back stronger than ever introducing more than 20 bills, fighting for affordable housing, and to stave off Gov. Cuomo’s threat to close scores of senior centers.

And he’s done it all in the shadow of two exhaustive federal probes and a widening city investigation into the finances and board of the nonprofit he founded

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‘Civil’ Obedience! State Designates Wallabout as an Historic District by Thomas Tracy - The Brooklyn Paper

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A portion of Wallabout will become a new historic district, preserving Civil War-era homes like these on Vanderbilt Avenue. Community Newspaper Group / Andy Campbell

The historic beauty of a swath of Civil War-era homes in an isolated corner of Fort Greene has finally been recognized.

More than 200 properties located within five blocks of Wallabout bounded by Myrtle, Park Washington and Clermont avenues were added to the New York State Register of Historic Places this week — a pivotal step for building owners hoping to tap into public preservation grants that will help them refurbish and restore the 150-year-old structures many in the area cherish.

“[The Wallabout area] is one of the oldest communities in Brooklyn,” said resident Gary Hattem. “It’s a history and a story that we want to pass on to future generations.”

Hattem’s right to say that Wallabout has a lot of history: it’s filled with homes from early 19th-century Brooklyn as well as brownstone additions from borough legend Charles Pratt (the same Pratt who gave his name — and money — to found Pratt Institute a few blocks away). Many residences were built between 1830 and 1930.

Several Greek and Gothic Revival townhouses — replete with porch swings — can also be found along the quiet tree-lined streets that give Wallabout its charm.

The neighborhood’s addition to the state register may be a boon to those who own a historic home, but it does nothing to protect the area from out-of-scale construction — only city landmarking can do that.

If the city designates the area as a historic district, all new buildings must contribute to “a coherent streetscape [and] a distinct sense of place” — language that restricts the 10-story modern condo.

“[The landmarking] would great for the block — it means we won’t have any more of that,” longtime resident Bill Washington told us, pointing to a seven-story black and gray steel condo at 122 Vanderbilt Ave., which he considers a modern eyesore. “This block has come a long way in the last 30 years, and we want to keep it that way.”

The city has yet to make Wallabout a historic district, although a public hearing on it was held last fall and a decision is expected by the summer.

Until then, the state grant money should help the local economy.

“We see it as a job creator,” said Michael Blaise Backer, executive director of the Myrtle Avenue Revitalization Project. “This will be a huge opportunity for local laborers when these brick buildings and brownstones start getting restored.”

The Wallabout neighborhood was initially built to accommodate laborers who moved eastward to work at the nearby Brooklyn Navy Yard, which has its own unique history.

But that piece of Brooklyn’s past may soon disappear. Despite a long fought battle to get the Army National Guard to preserve two 19th-century buildings on the Flushing Avenue side of the Navy Yard, the Army has backed away from its promise.

Andy Disses Vito! Cuomo’s New Housing Czar is No Fan of Lopez • The Brooklyn Paper

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Gov. Cuomo slapped Brooklyn Democratic Party boss Vito Lopez, picking a longtime rival of the powerful Assemblyman to run the state’s housing agency.

Cuomo nominated Assemblyman Darryl Towns (D–Bedford-Stuyvesant) last week to run an agency in charge of affordable housing — Lopez’s passion — in an effort to antagonize him.

He also believes that the cancer-stricken Lopez’s career as a housing advocate and lawmaker, in its fifth decade, is winding down, sources familiar with the appointment said.

Once he takes over the agency next month, Towns will control the funding spigot for affordable housing projects — including Lopez’s political base, the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, which received four contracts worth $811,000 last year.

Lopez (D–Bushwick) has exerted tremendous influence over the state’s Department of Housing and Community Renewal over the years — he orchestrated the appointment of a former staffer, Deborah Van Amerongen, as its commissioner in 2007.

Publicly, everyone is playing nice — but Cuomo is known to be wary of Lopez. As attorney general, Cuomo led the audits into the Lopez-founded Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, investigations that briefly caused the state to freeze funding to the nonprofit.

Lopez has called allies in Albany to complain about Cuomo’s appointment of Towns, said one source, and Towns recently told one public official that he “hated” Vito and was willing to work with insurgent political clubs who opposed him.

The bad blood stems from more than a decade of political brinkmanship between the Towns family and Lopez’s clique.

Lopez recruited and ran former Councilman, now state senator, Martin Dilan against Towns in an Assembly primary 1998 and 2000 — even though Dilan was once Towns’s campaign manager.

And about three years ago, Lopez demanded that pharmaceutical giant Pfizer fire its lobbyist, Karen Boykin-Towns, Towns’s wife, because the company did not set aside the property of its former headquarters for affordable housing.

Enraged, Towns confronted Lopez in Albany demanding an apology, according to several sources.

“They argued, they confronted each other in the hallways, and Towns said, ‘What’s up with that and my wife? You crossed a boundary. How dare you?’” said a source.

Towns later said that Lopez’s demand was “an attack on the corporation,” not on his wife. Boykin-Towns was later promoted.

Debra Feinberg, a Lopez spokeswoman, said that chatter over the appointment of Towns does not change the essential fact that “Assemblyman Vito Lopez has been an outspoken voice in Albany in advocating for restorations and increases in allocations for affordable housing programs in the budget. He looks forward to working closely with Assemblyman Towns … and hopes that by working together, well-established and vital programs continue to be able to be funded throughout the state of New York.”

It’s almost as if Towns put out the same statement.

“Assemblyman [Lopez] and I have a history of being very successful when we work together,” said Towns. “There have been times when we have differed on opinions.”