NYC Council’s Italian-American caucus lodges ethics complaint against Councilman Chi Ossé, cites ethnic slights [New York Daily News]

New York Daily News, The (NY)

The New York City Council’s Italian-American caucus has filed a formal complaint with the lawmaking body’s Standards and Ethics Committee over remarks made by Councilman Chi Ossé that they claim are bigoted.

Councilman Joe Borelli, a Staten Island Republican and a member of the caucus, said he emailed the complaint to Councilman Kalman Yeger, the chairman of the Council’s Standards and Ethics Committee, and an attorney for the Council, on Thursday.

“The members of the Italian Caucus categorically condemn the comments Council member Chi Ossé made on the record during a budget hearing this week, in which he suggested that an Italian surname that branded a company should have led to its disqualification from ever getting a contract with the City of New York,” the caucus said in a written statement.

“There is absolutely no excuse for any Council member, let alone the Chair of the Council’s Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries and International Intergroup Relations, to make remarks that disparage an entire ethnic group and advance hurtful stereotypes.”

Ossé, a Brooklyn Democrat, is under fire for remarks he made Monday at a Council budget hearing on the city’s Parks Department. Discussion had turned to Dragonetti Brothers Landscaping, a city contractor that was ordered to cough up more than $1 million in restitution last year after pleading guilty to insurance fraud.

According to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Dragonetti Brothers falsely classified 217 laborers, foremen and heavy-equipment operators as florists, office workers, or sales representatives — and in doing so evaded more than $1.1 million in insurance premiums between 2017 and 2019.

“I just want to say on Dragonetti — that name alone should have been the first red flag in terms of contracting with the city,” Ossé said.

The remarks came after Councilman Shekar Krishnan had asked Parks Department officials about the number of contracts the agency has with Dragonetti, which was banned from doing business with the city’s Department of Design and Construction for three years as part of its guilty plea.

When contacted by the Daily News on Thursday to respond to criticisms about his remarks, Ossé said the statement “had nothing to do with Italians.”

“It had everything to do with the fact that the company has already been tarnished,” he said.

But members of the Italian-American caucus aren’t buying it. The caucus, made up of Democrats and Republicans, includes seven members. Only one, Councilman James Gennaro (D-Queens), declined to sign onto the group’s statement criticizing Ossé.

“The Council member’s feeble defense of his defamatory statement — that it was made in reference to a reputation that the company gained long after it had received city contracts — does not stand up to reason,” the group said.

When asked about the ethics complaint, Ossé suggested that Republicans and the press were to blame for his predicament.

“This isn’t about me or my words,” he said. “This is about Republicans getting press at my expense and using Italian-American heritage as both a sword and a shield.”

Borelli believes Ossé’s statement about Dragonetti is part of a broader pattern, giving several examples from over the years as proof.

During his Council campaign, Ossé tweeted: “Bro … your girl smells like a halal cart.”

In another tweet, posted in 2019, he wrote that the then-15-year-old British actress Millie Bobbie Brown could “fit 37 pistachios up her a—.”

In a third tweet, which is accompanied by a white woman doing a goofy dance, Ossé wrote, “Is this white culture?”

Borelli said that the complaint conveyed to the Ethics Committee and the Council’s lawyer cited that pattern.

“I didn’t create the woke-everyone-is-offended atmosphere,” he said. “But if people like Councilman Ossé demand we follow those rules, then he has to follow those rules too.”

Two Council sources, who agreed to speak under the condition of anonymity, told The News that they have direct knowledge of Ossé privately being admonished by Council leaders in the past for his rhetoric.

The Brooklyn Dem and Council Republicans have a history of sparring over identity politics.

Last year, he slammed Republican Councilwoman Vickie Paladino for remarks she made about the transgender community, comments viewed by many as offensive. Paladino, who represents parts of Queens, had attacked a city-funded program where drag queens read stories to elementary school kids, labeling it as “drag queen degeneracy.”

Ossé called the remarks “bigoted,” and months later, Paladino was stripped of her position on the Council’s Committee on Mental Health, Disabilities, and Addiction.

But on Friday, it was Paladino going on the offensive. She described Ossé’s remarks as “vile slander” and “disqualifying.”

“That the Council Member harbors such bigoted views is bad enough; that he feels free to openly express them in Council chambers is totally unacceptable,” she said. “Council Member Ossé was among the first to call for my removal from a mental health committee when a staffer ‘liked’ a joke tweet on my personal Twitter. Now we have engaged in open racism on the floor of the Council. Let’s see if the new standard applies.”