Greg Meeks has been in the hot seat recently because of his suspicious Hurricane Katrina charity.
But now, he wants us to feel bad for him because, despite a new house that rivals the Growing Up Gotti homestead and dinners at oyster bars and an expensive wardrobe (who can forget that Coogi sweater?!), Mr. Meeks is saying he’s actually sort of poor. Maybe he isn’t as out of touch as originally thought.
The New York Times ran a story this week highlighting the Queens congressman’s financial woes. Despite making $174,000 a year, Meeks says he barely has a few thousand dollars in the bank. Why? He put his two daughters through college, debt-free, and also just had a brand new house built in St. Albans, after deciding his old house in Far Rockaway (which he inherited from his parents) wasn’t big enough. He sold that house and combined it with a JP Morgan mortgage to develop land he already owned on mainland Queens.
The home was built in 2006 by Richard Dennis, who also was a hefty campaign contributor. Many local appraisers are saying the $830,000 price tag was low for the area and size of the house (one local neighbor said he thought it was going to be four houses during construction).
The Times contaced an independent appraiser, Kevin Donegan, who said, “At $830,000, anyway you slice it, it was substantially below market. He appears to have gotten a very, very good deal.”
Another good deal? The $1,000-a-month Lexus he drives (leased by the Government), the dinners at Docks Seafood (lobster roll appetizer: $24; organic Scottish Salmon: $26), and his stays at the Ritz-Carlton while on business in Miami. Meeks defends his high-rolling status by saying he needs to play the game in order to make it in Washington. With eyes clearly on a higher seat than the one he’s in now, his expensive fund raisers make sense. He couldn’t even began to raise the amount of money he has by looking for it in his district (OpenSecrets reports he raised close to $500,000 in 2009-2010, with close to $128,000 now on hand).
Like so many representatives, he represents a weird mix–living like a King while representing some of the most struggling areas of Queens. The argument can always be made that in order to get the funds to help your area, you have to think beyond the people living there. But with a house like the one he’s living in now, it begs the question for those he works for: Representative Greg Meeks is a lot better off since we’ve elected him, but are we?
ALSO: A recent article in the Daily News points to a similarly-shady real estate deal with friend of Meeks State Senator Malcolm Smith.