It’s something of an open secret: political incumbency serving as an entryway for incumbents to poke into matters happening within the district they seek to represent in the near future.

And it’s a controversial tact that Councilman Fernando Cabrera, the 14th Council District representative, appears to have adopted, with one questionable trick in his employ.

Cabrera is now seeking the 14th Congressional District seat occupied by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who, given her massive campaign war chest and national popularity with uber-left Democrats (Ocasio-Cortez is now in Iowa to campaign with Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders), gives her a well-defined competitive advantage over Cabrera. Geographically, the two districts don’t overlap, offering little cover for Cabrera to peg himself as a lawmaker concerned with matters touching his district.

Even so, in recent weeks, Cabrera has inserted himself into issues that have a direct impact on both sides of Ocasio-Cortez’s district. That includes championing opposition toward the beleaguered expansion of the La Guardia AirTrain, which would be extended to the existing #7 subway line at the Mets-Willets Point station to the tune of $2 billion.

Cabrera called the process to see the expanded service, which falls under federal oversight, opaque and “absolutely unacceptable.”

“As chairperson of the City Council committee that oversees and supports our community boards, I am shocked and outraged by the failure to engage the local community board in this important discussion,” said Cabrera in a statement released shortly after his participation in a rally against the project on Jan. 13 in Queens. “There are too many unanswered questions. Yesterday, I called for the Air Train project to be subject to the scrutiny of New York City’s ULURP process. There is no transparency here. No public comment, no community input, no environmental impact study, no alternatives analysis. No Air Train.”

Cabrera’s involvement on the LaGuardia AirTrain project is running concurrently with safety issues he’s addressing off the coast of City Island, the easternmost neighborhood of the Bronx. Luana Malavolta, a member of the City Island Civic Association’s Water Committee, wrote in an email to members that the association is directly “getting legislation written for every borough to have a permanent Harbor Patrol.” Despite City Island having its own representative in Councilman Mark Gjonaj—who was long in the midst of brainstorming legislation on the harbor unit, calling the lack of patrols “an injustice to waterfront communities”—it was Cabrera’s chief of staff who communicated the prospect of Cabrera introducing legislation for a harbor patrol provided no similar bill was introduced before.

Cabrera’s spokeswoman, Claire McLeveighn, noted that Cabrera and Gjonaj are working jointly to draft the bill, saying it’s a borough-wide issue that impacts his district that touches the waterfront. In his 11 years in office, Cabrera never expressed concern for the waterfront. McLeveighn mentioned that the impending Fordham Landing project in his district prompted such concern.

The prospect of legislation created for the unit—which involves adding a line item to the NYPD budget—was praised by Malavolta.

“Our meeting with Councilman Cabrera was fruitful in soliciting the Bronx Caucus to vote in our favor when the time comes. Since three approached council members in our Bronx Caucus are in favor, Cabrera has reached out to the Speaker of the Council who has agreed to meet with the City Island Civic Association,” wrote Malavolta.

Malavolta’s reference of Johnson’s interest in meeting with the association was initially relayed to her from an email she received from a Gmail address belonging to Cabrera on Dec. 14. “I have good news. The Speaker has agreed to go and meet with the City Island Civic Association. His office will let us know which date works for him,” wrote Cabrera.

The email came the day after Cabrera’s legislative director alerted Malavolta of Cabrera’s intent on drafting legislation.

Cabrera’s method of ingratiation is nothing new. In recent months, Assemblyman Michael Blake and Council Members Ritchie Torres and Ydanis Rodriguez, candidates for the hotly contested 15th Congressional District, have picked up on causes that have no direct impact on the districts they represent but rather the congressional district seat they look to occupy.

“I think that when you’re running for office and you don’t have the resources to do polling, which is very costly … you’re gonna have to go with your gut and choose hot-button issues. The question is why your sudden concern for this issue which is what you should ask and is it really ambition that drives your concern and that’s what constituents will ask,” said George Artz, a Democratic strategist. “Other times if you’re running for a geographic area that’s much greater than your current position, you’re going to go into the area trying to get a handle on the issues in the area and put something out that touches on your new district, your potential new district.”

And while the practice of using private emails to communicate city matters is not illegal, it does raise issues with good government that have blasted the use, arguing it does little to maintain a level of transparency government officials should espouse.

“That is a real problem and a real issue,” said Alex Camarda of Reinvent Albany, adding such a practice is complicated when seeking to obtain those emails through a request via the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). “If a government official or an elected official is doing government work, that private email account is subject to FOIL. At the same time, the FOIL Records Officer for the City Council who can access and search government emails…is going to be much harder for them to locate records that are requested on a private account because they don’t know what’s there.”

The method of using private emails on matters related to a legislator’s official public duties has been increasingly adopted in recent years from all levels of government, most notoriously by Mayor Bill de Blasio, who exchanged emails about city business with non-government officials using a private account. “It’s a growing and emerging issue and we don’t believe any elected official should be using a non-governmental device of any kind or account when communicating on government matters,” said Camarda.

McLeveighn said in a statement that the issues Cabrera’s has taken on—the harbor unit and LaGuardia AirTrain project—have an interest in the 14th Council District.

“All Council members are trustees of New York City.  Council Member Cabrera is exercising the responsibilities of trusteeship, as is his, and other Council members’ responsibility,” said McLeveighn.