Fernando Mateo

In September 1998, after a spate of murders perpetrated against taxicab drivers in Brooklyn and The Bronx, Mateo was appointed president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers. As president, he successfully lobbied the New York City Council to install bulletproof partitions in the city's cabs.[5] He continues to hold the position as of 2021, frequently acting as a spokesman for the city's taxi drivers as well as for the employees of ridesharing companies such as Uber.[8][9][10]

Mateo is a spokesman for United Bodegas of America, an organization which advocates for the owners of bodegas (small, owner-operated convenience stores which are especially common in New York).[11] In 2010, Mateo helped run a campaign to encourage New York's bodega owners to buy handguns as a deterrent to robbery.[12]

In the mid-2000s, Mateo emerged as a leading Republican activist and fundraiser. In 2002, he raised $400,000 for New York Governor George Pataki's re-election campaign. In 2003, he was a major fundraiser for President George W. Bush, who named him to the White House Commission on Presidential Scholars.[13] In 2004, he spoke at the Republican National Convention.[14] In 2005, Mateo served as Hispanic Director for the re-election campaign of then-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.[15]

In 2012, Mateo supported Texas Governor Rick Perry's presidential campaign, organizing a fundraiser for Perry in Manhattan's Inwood neighborhood.[16]

In June 2016, the New York Post claimed Mateo had admitted to illegally donating $18,800 to Mayor Bill de Blasio's re-election campaign.[17] The incident was part of a larger controversy around de Blasio's campaign fundraising activities; the same year, Mateo was questioned by the FBI about his role in introducing de Blasio associates Jona Rechnitz and Jeremy Reichberg to Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino,[18] all of whom subsequently became embroiled in a corruption scandal.[19] While Mateo's stated motivation for donating to de Blasio was to help an acquaintance find a city job,[17] the Post would speculate that Mateo expected "a lot of access and influence with the [Mayor's] office" in exchange for the donations.[20] Mateo was not charged with a crime for these activities, and blames de Blasio for the scheme.[21]

In 2007, Mateo was part of a group that bid on a New York City Parks Department concession license to renovate and operate a marina and restaurant on parkland near Dyckman street in Upper Manhattan. The group proposed the name "La Marina" in their proposal.[22] After losing the bid, Mateo later bought a controlling interest in the winning operator in 2011, which was in the process of building a restaurant to be called "Costera".[23]

The restaurant was duly renamed La Marina and opened in 2012. The actual marina never opened as promised—its grounds were instead converted to a massive outdoor event space for concerts attended by thousands of people every summer weekend. As the concession license and agency approvals forbid concerts, amplified music past 10 pm and a capacity above 500 patrons the residents of the surrounding neighborhoods began to complain about the impacts and questioned why Mateo and his associates routinely violated the terms of the contract, including seizing multiple blocks of city land for unapproved "rogue" valet-parking services that drew enormous traffic and gridlocked the area.[24] Geoffrey Croft of the advocacy group NYC Park Advocates accused Mateo of using his political connections to prevent the contract from being enforced.[25]

The dock was built years behind schedule using a federal grant, but violated the terms of that grant by not offering the promised services and access to boaters, according to a report by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.[26] The grant terms were later modified for a marina of smaller size but even so never had a single paying overnight customer or seasonal mooring according to a New York City comptroller audit [27] The concession license had to eventually be cancelled and the marina taken over by NYC Parks to operate directly.[28]

In July 2018, responding to community complaints, the NYPD led a multi-agency raid on Mateo's restaurant and found a large number of sanitary violations.[20] In November of that year, an employee was arrested for selling illegal drugs on La Marina's premises, and the following month, the restaurant's liquor license was suspended. In February 2019, La Marina filed for bankruptcy,[25] and was bought out later that year by restaurateur Jimmy Goldman.[29]

Mateo himself later claimed that he had been "set up" and "assaulted by every city agency" and that most of the violations found in the 2018 raid had been based on false pretenses,[30] characterizing the raid as "retaliation against me personally" from "certain people at the NYPD".[20]

Mateo is involved in several different businesses. He is Vice President of San Mateo Construction and a partner at Penserra Securities. He also owns and operates Zona de Cuba, a Cuban restaurant in The Bronx.[42]