Giuliani's Paranoid Secrecy as NYC Mayor ---pix--->>>

Stephanie

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Thu Dec-20-07 09:16 PM
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Giuliani's Paranoid Secrecy as NYC Mayor ---pix--->>>

Edited on Thu Dec-20-07 09:20 PM by Stephanie

If I haven't told you recently, here in New York we can't stand Giuliani.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071221/ap_on_re_us/giuliani_secrecy_7

AP IMPACT: Giuliani secretive as mayor
By MICHAEL R. BLOOD, Associated Press Writer

When a mayor of New York leaves office, little goes out the door but memories � unless he's Rudy Giuliani. Government rules discourage the city's most powerful officeholder from departing with more than token gifts collected on the job.

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When Giuliani stepped down, he needed a warehouse.

Under an unprecedented agreement that didn't become public until after he left office, Giuliani secreted out of City Hall the written, photographic and electronic record of his eight years in office � more than 2,000 boxes

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The litany of questions Giuliani has faced in recent weeks about undisclosed business clients and furtive billing practices for police security during trysts with then-girlfriend Judith Nathan are reminiscent of the dozens of lawsuits filed by news organizations to obtain public records, of the numerous state Freedom of Information Law requests that nonprofits like the Coalition for the Homeless were forced to file, of access to City Hall steps denied to protesters.

At times, the number of working water fountains in city parks was hard to ascertain without making a formal request. Under Giuliani, it became more difficult to determine the number of complaints filed against the city's home care program, the number of firearms discharged by police and the number of inspectors in the housing and buildings departments. Even details about the city's recycling program were hard to come by.

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Giuliani depicted himself as a round-the-clock mayor, but his whereabouts were often fiercely shielded by his staff, particularly in the later years of his mayoralty when he was cheating on his wife with Nathan, using decoy vehicles and surrounding himself with a Secret Service-esque security team that traveled in a caravans of SUVs.

His personal life became a public riddle. In mid-2001, Giuliani fled the mayor's residence and began bunking with friends, a gay couple � an arrangement eventually disclosed by the Daily News.

***

When Village Voice reporter Tom Robbins sought expense records for a city housing agency headed by the son of one of Giuliani's closest political advisers, he was told they had been lost. Finally released to the Voice more than a year later, after Giuliani left office, the documents led to an investigation that ended with the guilty plea of Russell Harding, who embezzled more than $400,000 in city funds to finance a personal spending spree and download child pornography onto his computer.

AIDS demonstrators were forced to hold a City Hall protest in a steel pen, as police sharpshooters patrolled the roof, an NYPD helicopter thumped overhead, and dozens of police kept watch on foot and motorcycles. Giuliani called the extraordinary security justified.

<much more at link>