The man of the moment for virtually the New York Times and the entire New York-based elite media is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the promoter of the Cordoba Initiative Mosque--oops, I mean Park51 "community center"-- near Ground Zero. So busy are they defending the religious freedom of Imam Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan (never mind the fact that not one critic of the proposed project--NOT ONE--has challenged it on religious grounds), and attacking mosque opponents (except for Harry Reid and Howard Dean, who are given a pass) as intolerant Islamophobes, the legacy media has willfully avoided asking questions about the political views or the character of the promoters themselves.
Well, across the Hudson River from the New York Times building--worldwide headquarters of erudite opinion-- the editors of the Bergen County Record have found the time and energy to do a little digging, and found that the good Imam owns several taxpayer-subsidized apartments in northern New Jersey which are, shall we say, not exactly maintained as luxury flats
In conjunction with others, Rauf is now taking on the largest project of his life with a track record showing that, despite government subsidies, he has had trouble maintaining small apartment buildings in North Bergen, Palisades Park and Union City. Page after page of municipal health records examined by The Record show repeated complaints ranging from failure to pick up garbage, to rat and bedbug infestations and no heat and hot water...
Cynthia Balko, 48, of Union City — a longtime tenant of Rauf’s — said she’s had to live with rats, leaks and no heat: “I don’t have anything nice to say about the man.”
She finds it hard to believe Rauf’s going to build a world-class Islamic community center, with fitness facilities, auditorium, restaurant, library, culinary school and art studios, as well as a Sept. 11 memorial and space for Muslim prayer services.
“He can’t even repair the bells in the hallway. He doesn’t take care of his properties. But he’s going to take care of a mosque?
The Record asked for a response from Daisy Khan, who replied that the Imam's track record as a landlord has no bearing on his promotion of the mosque. “He invests in real estate, much as someone would invest in stocks, bonds or other assets to secure one’s future and provide an income stream. He has dedicated his life to helping others working as an Imam.” By suggesting that her husband is merely a passive investor in a variety of assets, Khan is unwittingly confirming the allegations of the Imam's New Jersey tenants, to wit: the Imam's "passivity" seems to extend to taking care of his properties for the people who pay him (i.e., the tenants and the taxpayers who subsidize them) to do so.
Whatever this says about his fitness to run the mosque project, it gives the lie to any claims by Daisy or the Imam that Muslims in general and the Rauf-Khans in particular have suffered from anti-Muslim discrimination. By apparently securing millions in taxpayer funding for renovations that he either never completed or failed to maintain, the Imam seems to have reaped the benefits enjoyed by many a big-city slumlord and political operator--slurping at the government trough while flipping the bird to the rest of us.
If indeed the taxpayers of New York subsidize $70 million in tax-exempt industrial bonds to help finance the Ground Zero mosque as reported Friday, then Imam Rauf's taxpayer ripoffs in New Jersey will seem like child's play.
Jesse Jackson could learn a few things about public extortion from Imam Rauf.
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