Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer
Aug. 19, 2019 By Allie Griffin
It’s taken nearly 10 months and an article in the Daily News but Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer has returned a series of real estate campaign contributions as promised.
In November, Van Bramer pledged to give back between $15,000 and $20,000 to developers and landlords by January 2019, according to the Daily News. At the time, he also said that he was no longer going to accept any real estate money going forward.
He said that he’d been inspired by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez whose policy to reject corporate money has resonated with progressives.
“I don’t want there to be any doubt in people’s minds about where my loyalties lie, and so we won’t accept anything going forward — but we’re also going to return anything we’ve raised in this [election] cycle,” Van Bramer said.
However, the News reported Saturday that he had not returned a penny.
Today, two days after the News story ran, Van Bramer tweeted photos of checks written out to the real estate firms and wrote “returned all real estate contributions mentioned” in the article and more.
This morning my campaign returned all real estate contributions mentioned in the @emma_a_whitford story. And we caught a few not mentioned that we returned as well. Inexcusable that it wasn’t done sooner but I’ve honored my pledge and we will continue to return any others found. pic.twitter.com/1pNxBoAMHa
— Jimmy Van Bramer (@JimmyVanBramer) August 19, 2019
Van Bramer had received contributions from a number of real estate firms in 2018 prior to making his pledge. These included $3,950 from John Werwaiss of Werwaiss & Co Inc. in March 2018; $1,000 from Henry Elghanayan of Rockrose Development Corp. in April 2018; $3,950 each from Kenneth and Winston Fisher of Fisher Brothers in May 2018; and $2,500 from Daniel Brodsky of the Brodsky Organization in June 2018.
In his tweet, Van Bramer said it was “inexcusable that it wasn’t done sooner but I’ve honored my pledge.”
Van Bramer has announced that he wants to be the next Queens Borough President, a position that will be vacant should Melinda Katz, the incumbent, be elected the Queens District Attorney in November.
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13 Comments
Why did it take soooo long.
What about all the money he received from businesses like this .
Give me a brake
Jimmy has got to go, period. I used to support the guy, but no more. amazon was bad enough and now these money payments? how much hasn’t he returned????
When will he refund taxpayers the $25,000 he spent on the Drag Queen Story Hour? Never heard of DQSH? Jimmy believes it is healthy, natural, normal & acceptable to have men dressed as women read books to library children. What Jimmy doesn’t know is Drag Queens are a distortion and mockery of and an exaggeration of ALL women. Drag Queens are an insult to every woman. He blew $25,00 on Drag Queens and now he is begging for Back to School Supplies and Donations –the $25k should have been better spent. Down with Jimmy
I’m proud of my city and my former mayor. You should try it.
This guy needs to go. He’s a nice man and should be proud of himself for a variety of reasons, but he used his power in the wrong way and drove away tremendous opportunity for the neighborhood. And now he speaks nothing of what he plans to do for us now that the opportunity is gone.
Jimmy is a joke – clearly would have kept the money if not “reminded” by the press… JVB must go!
Fire No Jobs for LIC Jimmy!
Nice politician but won’t last long
Note to editorial team. Time to update your last para – Katz has secured the DA’s office with a 55-vote margin. No need for conditional. Also a question for the reporting team – have any of those real estate developers built any projects in Queens and if so, what are they? Thank you.
No, she won the primary and has not yet been elected to office.
How are you going to be Queens borough president? You can’t write a check on time, let alone build a library.
Bramer is corrupt and needs to go asap!
That’s great, as a longtime supporter of JVB I’m glad to see someone can stand up to the developers. Obviously it’s not going to be me, I voted for one for president!
Haha