Meeks Cut Donor a $100,000 Pork Slice

Rep. Gregory Meeks secured a $100,000 federal payout for a Far Rockaway community group whose executive director is a frequent campaign contributor.

The Queens Democrat — now facing scrutiny for his ties to a controversial Hurricane Katrina charity — earmarked the funds for Ocean Bay Community Development Corp.’s job-training program in the 2010 spending bills, while his campaign pocketed $1,500 from Ocean Bay’s executive director, Patricia Simon.

Simon has given the campaign $3,850 since 2006 — including a $1,500 contribution in September, when the taxpayer money Meeks requested for her business headed toward approval, that was nearly double her usual donation to the lawmaker’s war chest.

Meeks’ office declined to comment.

Simon said the money went toward tickets that she gave public-housing residents to attend Meeks’ annual fund-raising dinner

“I never once thought about it in terms of inappropriate,” she said.

The taxpayer dollars for Ocean Bay went toward a “work-force preparation program” that offers 17- to 24-year-old public-housing residents GED classes, job-skills training, internships and job placement.

Read more: (S.A. Miller, “Rep. Cut Donor a $100,000 Pork Slice,” New York Post, 2/22/10)