Dozens of e-mails between Mayor Bloomberg’s aides and developers of the proposed mosque near Ground Zero reveal a cordial, if not downright cozy, relationship and the length to which a top city staffer went to help the project -- even drafting a letter for the group soliciting support from the community board, and providing the fax number to send it.
In one exchange, Community Affairs Commissioner Nazli Parvizi penned the draft of a letter to be sent by Daisy Khan, a key sponsor of the project known alternately as Cordoba House or Park51, to the chairperson of Community Board 1, Julie Menin, as the panel prepared to vote on its recommendation on the project.
The letter drafted by Parvizi thanked Menin for being open-minded about the plan for a mosque and cultural center -- which by then had become a flashpoint issue around the nation.
Parvizi e-mailed the draft to Khan and her husband, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf -- ending with the salutation, “Best, Daisy,” indicating that she actually was preparing Khan’s letter to a city agency.
She also included the fax number and mailing address for CB1 -- which ultimately voted in favor of the project in May -- and offered further assistance.
The letter -- which Menin said she never received -- thanked her personally for “giving us an audience to share our vision of the Cordoba Center in Manhattan.”
“We are incredibly saddened by the media distortion on what this project actually is and to whom it serves,” Parvizi went on to write, according to a May 14 e-mail the Mayor’s Office made public yesterday.
Opponents of the plan were furious.
“The mayor was touting, ironically, government not being involved in religion, and here you have the mayor’s staffer assisting in a public-relations campaign on behalf of a mosque and Islamic center,” said Debra Burlingame, whose brother was a pilot of one of the hijacked planes on 9/11.
“I think this is highly improper.”