The CEO of a local super PAC spending big money to support City Council candidate Wil López has fallen flat in an unprecedented effort to knock five competing candidates off of the ballot — including a member of the Central Park Five, Raymond Santana, hoping to join fellow exoneree Yusuf Salaam on the Council.
On Thursday appellate judges dismissed the group’s challenges to Santana and Nicholas Reyes over what the group claimed were fraudulent signatures on their ballot petitions, putting the last of the five suits to rest.
But the challenges filed by Tomás Ramos, the CEO of Ending Homelessness & Building a Better NYC, and another plaintiff have drained money and time from the five Democratic candidates, who also include Elsie Encarnacion, Federico Colon and Clarisa Alayeto, while highlighting a way outside money can sway elections despite the city’s campaign finance system meant to empower small New York City donations and limit total spending in these races.
Over the last few weeks, Ramos, whose independent political spending group is backed by retired Wall Street financier Michael Jenkins, submitted legal challenges to the petitions of those five candidates vying in the City Council primary election to replace term-limited Diana Ayala in District 8, encompassing Mott Haven in The Bronx, East Harlem in Manhattan and Randall’s Island.
All five of those Democrats are participating in the city’s campaign finance system, which provides an 8-to-1 match to regular New Yorkers’ contributions while capping their total spending, and had to expend time and resources to keep their ballot lines.
THE CITY previously reported that Alayeto will appear on the ballot after an appellate court overturned a judge’s decision to remove her from it.
A South Bronx business displayed candidates in the City Council District 8 race, May 15, 2025. Credit: Alex Krales/THE CITY
It’s common for candidates to have their petitions challenged by other candidates, but candidate lawyers say this is the first time an independent expenditure group has been associated with targeting multiple rivals to its preferred candidate.
There are no limits of what IE groups can spend, and while spending on a legal defense of challenged petitions is not counted towards the $228,000 expense cap for Council races for candidates participating in the city’s matching funds program, the move nonetheless drains time and resources.
Notably, EHBB filed a legal document about Reyes’ petitions in an attempt to get more information about them that’s reserved for an “aggrieved candidate” in New York City election law — essentially presenting the independent expenditure operation, which is allowed to support a candidate but not to coordinate with their campaign, as a candidate in its own right.
“This whole thing was absurd and frivolous. They lost all five matters,” said attorney Paul Newell, who represented Reyes. “The entire purpose of the whole endeavor was to waste opposing candidates’ time and money.”
The IE and the candidates all have a deadline of May 23 to report on their spending, including legal bills, since those challenges were filed.
Michael Brady, a spokesperson for Ending Homelessness & Building a Better NYC, said that challenges were reasonable.
“EHBB takes the integrity of the election process very seriously and it is clear that several candidates knowingly submitted non-compliant petitions,” Brady told THE CITY. “Our organization challenged every candidate that had credible and significant errors which violated the parameters of the Board of Elections including fraud.”
But Sarah Steiner, an attorney who has been practicing election law since 1993 and is not involved in the Council District 8 race, said that “I’ve really never seen this much money spent in such a targeted way with so little substance behind it” on challenges she said were “borderline frivolous.”
Ending Homelessness & Building a Better NYC has repeatedly raised eyebrows with its spending, with voter communications so far totaling more than $207,000 on t-shirts, tote bags, mailers and internet ads.
Longtime East Harlem resident Kaliris Salas filed a complaint with the CFB, first reported by the Mott Haven Herald, regarding unreported spending on food distributions that placed literature promoting López’s campaign atop egg cartons.
It did not disclose its spending to the Campaign Finance Board for two months, Politico first reported, an omission it attributed to a clerical error. According to Politico, it has also paid for not-yet-disclosed open bar events promoting him.
Steiner said that she hopes that the ballot attacks were a one-time deal and not a tactic other independent expenditure groups start utilizing.
“I hope this isn’t the beginning of a trend,” she said. “This was very ugly.”
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