A $76 million windfall intended to help Harlem residents is in limbo — and may never be paid — because the politician-backed nonprofit in charge of distributing the money is in disarray, The Post has learned.
Although it formed four years ago, the West Harlem Local Development Corp. lacks a mission statement, has yet to get tax-exempt status from the IRS and doesn’t even have a phone number.
The group already has received $500,000 from Columbia University — part of a 16-year payout designed to assuage community fears over the school’s expansion — yet hasn’t spent a cent on the neighborhood.
At least five people have quit the nonprofit, alleging that it was becoming a “slush fund” for Manhattan politicians.
The delay “threatens to undermine” the agreement and leave Harlem with nothing, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer charged in a scathing letter to the group.
The organization hasn’t set up any guidelines for doling out the cash and ensuring accountability, yet its four-member executive committee is itching to write checks without “a formal application process, without public notices, without protocols for selection, without advice from a community advisory committee,” Stringer said in the letter, addressed to then-West Harlem President Julio Batista.
Stringer appoints a representative to the West Harlem board, as do other politicians, including Rep. Charles Rangel, state Assemblyman Keith Wright and City Councilman Robert Jackson.
Stringer further blasted Batista, saying the lack of action could jeopardize the $76 million Columbia has pledged.
Batista recently resigned.
The nonprofit was formed in March 2006 to negotiate a community benefits agreement with Columbia — money the university would give to local groups as part of its controversial $6.3 billion expansion into the Manhattanville neighborhood.
Concerns about the agreement surfaced even before it was drafted in December 2007. Five West Harlem board members resigned, upset over the heavy-handedness of the politicians involved in negotiating with Columbia.
“The LDC sacrificed good development because it wanted to control a slush fund,” Tom DeMott, one of the former board members, told The Post.
Another former board member, the Rev. Earl Kooperkamp, said the politicians “dominated the LDC.”
Kooperkamp, the rector of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Harlem, said the pols “whittled down” the community initiatives, which included better housing and subsidized transportation for seniors.
The deal hammered out by the organization at the end of 2007 required Columbia to build a public school, contribute to a housing fund and create the $76 million fund for unspecified community programs.
The agreement was finalized in 2009, and Columbia cut the first check to the West Harlem group last September.
Susan Russell, a member of West Harlem’s executive committee and Jackson’s rep, denied the group was in disarray.
Columbia University would not comment. A spokesman for Rangel would not talk about the organization.