Mayor Jared Kraham: The Incompetent Con-Man Series, Part 5

DON’T FALL FOR IT: KRAHAM’S DEAL WITH ANZAROOT WAS COSTLY, DUMB, AND RECKLESS

When asked about his record on slumlords, Mayor Jared Kraham suddenly stands taller as he marches through his talking points on how he took down the city’s most notorious slumlord, Isaac Anzaroot:

From a public relations perspective, that’s an effective way to frame Kraham’s multi-year, expensive lawsuit against Anzaroot for maximum, political benefit.

However, as a good government and national expert on how to prevent and address vacant and deteriorated properties who is allergic to bullshit and prefers a more honest accounting, I might frame it differently.

More like this: “Notorious con-man real estate developer and slumlord outplays Mayor Kraham and gets $1 million taxpayer bailout in exchange for a portfolio of garbage.”

Mayor Kraham and I agree on one thing: Isaac Anzaroot is a con-man and a slumlord. But when you peel back Kraham’s PR layer of soundbites and smokescreen, this “deal” was costly to taxpayers, let Anzaroot walk away with his pockets full of cash, and will do nothing to prevent the ‘next’ Anzaroots from causing another decade of harm to tenants, neighborhoods, and our rental housing inventory.

Most of Anzaroot’s properties were in serious disrepair, vacant, and/or ready for demolition. Most were saddled with mortgage debt and facing private foreclosure actions. Most also had tens of thousands in public debt from unpaid water bills, code violation fees, and delinquent property taxes. Anzaroot’s entire portfolio, held by a network of shady limited liability companies (LLCs), was basically worthless junk.

There was a select subset of 26 properties free and clear of mortgage debt or third-party liens, and these were the properties Kraham negotiated taking ownership of as part of the “historic settlement.”

Not for free, mind you. Kraham agreed to pay this “notorious slumlord” $1,068,170 to acquire 26 of his vacant, seriously dilapidated properties. After deducting the public debt he owed on these 26 properties (unpaid water bills, code fines and fees, and unpaid property tax bills), Anzaroot still walked away with $750,569 in cash, thanks to Binghamton taxpayers.

The deal Kraham made was irresponsible and dumb on so many levels. Here are four:

#1. TAXPAYERS OVERPAID FOR GARBAGE. For many of these 26 properties, Kraham agreed to pay Anzaroot more than what he had paid to purchase the properties just a few years ago.

For example, in January 2021, Anzaroot bought 193 Matthews Street for $65,000. Anzaroot let this multi-unit rental property sit vacant and deteriorate for years. As part of his “historic settlement,” Kraham agreed to pay Anzaroot $135,000 for this property, netting the “notorious slumlord” a 100%+ return on his investment. Kraham then spent more than $50,000 in tax dollars to demolish the deteriorated property (Jan 2025) and quickly sold the vacant lot to the homeowner next door for $500 to expand their yard.

Can somebody please tell me why we’re supposed to be cheering this?

#2. DOZENS OF ANZAROOT PROPERTIES CONTINUE TO HARM NEIGHBORHOODS. Anzaroot, like most landlords, uses a number of shell limited liability corporations (LLCs) to hide his ownership identity and limit his personal liability. He probably has a whole rolodex of LLCs registered as owners of his rental properties. Some of the LLC names are well-known, others less so. But when one searches the Broome County Property Database for even his most well-known LLCs (like AJEM LLC), one finds he still owns a number of properties in Binghamton.

I understand that many of these are caught in mortgage foreclosure actions, but these vacant properties are still harming neighbors and neighborhoods. One of them is on my block, at 3 Tremont, and it’s fire-damaged, trash-strewn, and often had three-foot high weeds this summer that were only addressed (slowly) when I reported the violation to Code. The Mayor acts like the settlement ended the harm Anzaroot caused neighbors. That’s not true; it persists today and will continue for years.

Figure 3. I have lived on Tremont since 2011, and over the years, witnessed both good and bad trends on our short block. This is one of two Anzaroot properties on our block and shows the inevitable march to demolition of substandard rental properties when a City refuses to implement a proactive rental inspection and licensing program. Kraham’s “victory lap” seems a bit odd for folks like us on Tremont Avenue, when we still endure Anzaroot’s legacy of harm on a daily basis.

#3. ANZAROOT SOLD SOME OF HIS PROPERTIES TO OTHER LLCs–PERHAPS JUST RESTARTING THE CYCLE OF DECLINE AND HARM. Since the settlement, Anzaroot has sold batches of his portfolio of substandard rentals, vacant lots, or vacant properties to other LLCs. For example, an LLC from California bought a batch of his garbage, and then resold some properties to another LLC registered to an address in Binghamton.

The swapping of real estate between LLCs is ongoing and I can promise you that out-of-state LLCs don’t care too much for the health and safety of our residents. I can also promise you that we don’t know for sure which local LLCs are buying up Anzaroot’s former real estate assets, and whether they’ll be any better than him. Or maybe they are him.

That’s the problem with LLCs: you don’t always know who is behind the corporate veil and whether they’ll be a partner or a problem in advancing safe, healthy affordable housing for all. Kraham’s settlement may have very well just restarted the clock on the old story: slumlords hiding behind LLCs to extract as much profit as possible from our housing units without any regard for how that business model can harm tenants, taxpayers, and neighborhoods.  

#4. THERE ARE CHEAPER, MORE EFFECTIVE APPROACHES TO SLUMLORDS AND PREVENTING VACANCY. Anzaroot extracted high rents from vulnerable tenants who were willing to deal with unsafe, unhealthy conditions because of the area’s acute housing crisis. He also speculated and purchased many vacant properties, letting them decline and slide toward demolition.

The two most effective policies to protect tenants and prevent deterioration—of rental properties and vacant properties—is a (1) proactive rental inspection and licensing program and (2) a vacant property registration program.

For four years, Kraham has actively opposed implementing the former that is critical to ensuring healthy rental housing for all residents. Kraham has also completely mismanaged the City’s longstanding vacant property registration program (see article here). It’s hard to take serious Kraham’s media soundbites about his commitment to safety and health when he refuses or botches the policy solutions that can best achieve that, and instead relies on a slick, public relations campaign of a “win” against one slumlord (even though a closer look proves the mayor’s settlement was nothing but a taxpayer bailout of a con-man).

Moreover, an expensive lawsuit might not have been the best choice. New York communities have a tool to acquire abandoned properties, called Article 19A, Abandonment Proceedings. It has become widely used across the state the last five years. For example, the Greater Mohawk Valley Land Bank has been providing this as a service for years to many of the rural communities in its geographic area. Rochester has a long track record of successfully using this legal tool to acquire dozens of blighted, problem properties over the last eight years. Other municipalities across the state have started to utilize this tool selectively against the most harmful abandoned properties in their communities. This legal procedure costs about $5,000 to $10,000 a property, and can result in local government acquiring the deed and owning the property free and clear in about six months. For four years I have encouraged Jared to use it. He hasn’t. It might be because he is already looking for his third Corporation Counsel and can’t seem to recruit and retain a competent executive team (see article here).

FINAL THOUGHTS

Kraham relies on the “Anzaroot” story as a core element of his success as a mayor.

I would say it is just the opposite: an indictment of the incompetence of Kraham’s administration and his penchant to rely on PR spin, omissions, and outright lies to dupe Binghamton residents (and voters). In the end, this political theatre–with Anzaroot as the villain and Kraham as the hero–will have cost taxpayers at least $2 million in legal fees, acquisition costs of a couple dozen junk properties, and demolition costs. The outcomes? Mostly vacant lots, a slumlord with pockets full of cash, many Anzaroot properties still harming neighbors and neighborhoods, a new generation of slumlords free to let rental properties slide into decline, and the stage set for a sequel of this rivteing franchise, “Kraham Slays Slumlords.”

This whole case—the core of his campaign—is a perfect demonstration of how behind Kraham’s wizardy of words and political pageantry are irresponsible, costly, and ineffective approaches to serious problems.

Given the current and pending federal cuts will present major problems to cities across the country over the next few years, we deserve far better than a PR magician in the mayor’s office. Fortunately, voters can make Kraham go poof on Election Day, November 4^th.