Thread: Imam a Slum Lord? Received City money under Menendez

The imam seems to take advantage of the poor and non-English speaking as tenents. That was my impression after I watched the video at the second link

[quote]Imam in mosque debate has history of tenant troubles
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Last updated: Monday August 30, 2010, 11:05 AM
BY PETER J. SAMPSON AND JEAN RIMBACH
The Record
STAFF WRITERS


The Muslim cleric at the center of the proposed mosque and community center near Ground Zero is also a New Jersey landlord who got more than $2 million in public financing to renovate low-income apartments and has been beset for years by tenant complaints and financial problems.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Imam Feisal A. Rauf won support for his Hudson County projects from powerful politicians, among them Robert C. Janiszewski, the disgraced former county executive. He also was awarded grants from Union City when U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez was mayor.
The proposed $100 million development two blocks north of Ground Zero has sparked a firestorm of emotions. Menendez recently added his name to the list of prominent supporters, which includes New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Rauf forged ties with Fred Daibes, the prominent waterfront developer and bank chairman. Additionally, Rauf is a onetime business ally of a Daibes associate who sued the imam for alleged mortgage fraud. The 2008 suit was quietly settled in June.

The revelations about Rauf, who lives in North Bergen, add another dimension to the public profile of a man both lauded as a builder of bridges between diverse religions and cultures and vilified as being insensitive to the survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack by proposing a mosque near the World Trade Center site.

Kelly: If imam can build bridges, why can’t he get rid of the rats?

Best known as the religious face of the controversial proposal, called Park51, Rauf, the revelations show, has had some success navigating the realm of secular power — in this case the rough-and-tumble world of Hudson County government.

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.

[b]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.â€

Wonder if anyone's looked into all of Menendez' rental properties in NJ?