Christine Quinn’s trying her hardest to control the damage from this month’s slush fun scandal. The openly lesbianic New York City council speaker found herself in the spotlight after NY Post reported that millions of city funds had been stashed in phony organizations and distributed at the council’s discretion. On Friday, as calls for her head grew louder, Quinn announced sweeping reforms, saying that she and her staff would limit discretionary funds, thus giving much of the power to the Mayor’s office.
While Quinn’s announcement was meant to quell criticism, some of her peers still aren’t having it:
Brooklyn Councilman Charles Barron has called for Quinn to step down, and although other members tossed around the word coup yesterday, they said there were no plots to oust her from her post.
Quinn spokesman Jamie McShane said the speaker acknowledges the hurt feelings and is calling and meeting with her colleagues to address them.
“Chris acknowledges that she should have consulted her members prior to announcing the reforms,” McShane said. “She’s reaching out, seeking feedback and suggestions, and she’ll continue to do so throughout the week.”
Speaking of reaching out, Speaker Quinn also upped her defense by hiring defense attorney Lee S. Richards III. Richards will no doubt come in handy as federal and state authorities dig deeper into her involvement in the scandal.
tommy
She committed fraud if not outright theft.
damascene
Eh, she’s the McGreevey of New York city. I remember when she was an activist; now she is just another politician.
Jaroslaw
What she did was bizarre and wrong but I haven’t heard anyone say she stole the money or spent it on herself. Proof please…..
Joe
I’m just gonna post a copy of the comment I posted on Joe.My.God’s blog:
Well, Quinn has been very busy throwing her weight around to squelch groups like Radical Homosexual Agenda’s right to gather in public spaces. I suppose a little thing like the fraudulent allocation of millions of dollars to dummy organizations (money laundering?) was bound to happen.
PuddyKatz
Charles Baron is a pariah on the Council for a variety of reasons, one of which being supporting one of his staff members when she called for the assassination of another Councilman. Quinn has removed him from any position of power (and extra funds), so of course he will call for her resignation at the first possible moment.
This will only have wings when others do the same. In some sense Baron being out front on this helps Quinn, no one wants to associate with him.
By the way there is plenty of evidence that this has been a widespread practice. Is that why other Councilpeople are unwilling to make a stink about that. All that people said it certainly looks bad for her mayoral run.
Steve
Lots of city councils do this. The way it works is that the council establishes a corporation. The directors of the corporation are, coincidently, the council members. The council then allocates funds to the corporation for some general purpose. Then the corporation actually disburses the funds, mostly for that purpose. In the process, the details of the operation can be kept out of the public meetings, and the corporation can do some things that the council could not do. Among the things that the corporation may do are: borrow money without a bond election; hire people without rigorous process; sign contracts without bids; and generally expedite matters. Those things are all legitimate. The problems, if they occur, come from some other things the corporation might do, such as: hire relatives of the directors; pay the directors excessive fees; or buy things from companies that the directors own.
Roxanne Delgado
Quinn lose my support when she tried to eliminate pedicabs in favor of the inhumane horse drawn industry that is a public and health safety issue. Intro 658 to ban the horse drawn industry would have ended this travesty but Quinn does not vote in behalf of the city but for her own ambitions. SHAME on her and KARMA is a good thing.
Earning a living does not justify horse suffering and endangering the public safety. 4 persons including 2 children were hurt in this year St Patrick parade in Queens when a horse bolted in panic. A 8 year old horse was recently found dead in Clinton Stable. when will this end when an actual person dies and the taxpayer hold the liability for the lawsuit.
WHAT A TRAVESTY. the lobbyist run the city like WALTER MCCAFFREY