We have momentum in the fight to remove Christine Quinn from power!
The New York Times reported that Christine Quinn "barely mustered a majority" and a day later, remarked that it was a "surprisingly close primary."
NY1 reported that she "managed a win, but she got just 52 percent of the vote against two little known challengers."
In a "Winners and Losers" post-primary round-up in Crain's New York Business, Christine Quinn came in first...as a loser!
MSNBC reports that Quinn's power is "undermined."
The Daily News noted that the primary "whittled down the Speaker's power base."
And Wayne Barrett, in his blog for the Village Voice, characterized her showing as a "surprisingly weak victory."
Before the primary, the press insisted that she was a "shoo in" who would win in a landslide. Under normal circumstances, they would have been right. Afterall, Quinn...
is the Speaker of the City Council
is a 10-year incumbent with tremendous name recognition in her district
gave a huge percent of the city's discretionary funds to organizations in her district in exchange for votes
had over 30 city employees campaigning for her
had the big endorsements (it's all about money, not the best candidate)
had massive campaign contributions from business people who need favors
has the unconditional support of thousands of gay people who don't know or don't care about her stunning lack of ethics
Who can compete with that?We can, and we did!
In fact, Quinn had just 643 more votes than her competitors out of 88,000 registered democrats and more than 132,000 registered voters in the district. This is the FIRST race for her seat in which she's actually faced an opponent...and she nearly lost!
This is a BIG victory for us for several reasons:
It sends a message to her colleagues that Quinn's hold on power is weakening...now the the perfect time for a stronger City Council leader to step in and take over
It dims her political future
It demonstrates that our campaign was very effective...and that ordinary citizens, spending their own money on their own time can make a difference.
MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL...it's all the motivation we need to continue the fight against's Quinn's reign of errors, misdeeds and narcissistic disregard for her constituents! Over the past couple of months, we have had discussions with hundreds of New Yorkers who stopped to look at our provocative posters in the streets. Many people thanked us for speaking out; several people spontaneously joined us; and a few people started anti-Quinn campaigns on their own.
On the flip side, other people criticized us for being "negative," but I remain confident that speaking truth to power is always the right thing to do.
On several occasions, Quinn supporters called us "homophobes," which is particularly ironic because Donny Moss and I -- and many, many of the activists who joined shoulder-to-shoulder with us -- are gay and feel betrayed by Quinn precisely for that reason.
At least two people who we recognized as Quinn's staffers cursed at us, ripped up our materials and accused us of breaking the law. A couple of people actually spit on us. (I found myself wondering if this is the level of discourse that's fostered in the Quinn Camp.)
Reactions to The Quinn Report, which was mailed daily in the week before the primary, were more favorable than not. Those who were critical never once responded when we offered to correct and publish anything that was not factually accurate.
But these attacks only served to demonstrate that our efforts were effective, and they inspired us to work harder now and in the future to expose the truth about Christine Quinn:
She has lost her way.
She has fallen in love with the money and the power.
She has placed herself and her ambitions before the residents of Council District 3.
And most important of all....
Christine Quinn should be sent back to her Councilwoman's office for some attitude adjustment. By refusing to speak on behalf of her constituents, she has lost her right to Speak on behalf of her colleagues on the City Council.
Recently, a group of New Yorkers who do not believe that Christine Quinn should be re-elected to her City Council seat representing Council District 3 gathered to express their First Amendment rights to free speech. As the Quinntessa herself has said, "That's democracy!"
But what struck me is the way she strode into the residential building in which one of her appointees to a Community Board was hosting a fundraising on her behalf: head hung. She looked embarrassed, actually; ashamed even.
So, Miss Quinn, I am writing to suggest that the next time you are protested, you would be wise to turn to the gathered rabble, smile and wave. Because you should look as though you actually believe in all the bad things that you are doing to your constituents.
This hang dog thing makes me worry that even you know you've sold your soul to the devil.
The Villager's endorsement of Christine Quinn for a third (effectively stolen) term works so hard to communicate balance and yet fails so miserably.
Though I am proudly lesbian, I grow tired of this notion that Quinn’s hold on office is a referendum on our futures; we will not be fully free until we are able to throw out the gay and lesbian bums just as readily as we are the ones who don’t look or think like us.
Quinn makes much of her stand for Gay Marriage, but the simple reality is that the City Council has not been in a position to affect this issue since the City’s Gay Rights bill passed in the ‘80s (an effort for which I was a part).Like most of what Quinn does, it’s a lot of PR over an issue that she cannot lose since she cannot substantively affect.
She hasn’t adequately addressed issues of housing for people with HIV and AIDS, nor has she been particularly protective of gay youth on the West Village piers – troublesome kids, yes, but mostly there because support networks that provide them with safer, more productive outlets aren’t available because no one advocates for their budget items.
She has declined to take the administration to Court over DOE’s refusal to implement fully the Dignity in All Schools Act, which the Council passed over the Mayor’s veto. Despite this clear signal from the legislative body that she is supposed to represent, she instead collaborated with the Mayor’s office to implement a watered-down version, “Respect for All,” which has failed to control bullying and (anti-gay) biased-based harassment in our public schools. Nor has she addressed the DOE’s willful disregard after the Chancellor issued regulation A-832 to address bullying and harassment.
She has supported a Police Department-promulgated law to prohibit public assemblies of 50 people or more, though the right to free assembly is a cornerstone of our Constitutional democracy and despite the fact that there is a strong tradition of group assembly as a means to progress in the gay and lesbian community. Simply, it is a part of our heritage and any gay politician who would deny that right to others is turning her back on our history of progress.
And infamously, she refused to stand shoulder to shoulder with gay men as they were falsely arrested in nuisance abatement sting operations, even when State Senator Tom Duane and Councilmember Rosie Menendez had the mettle to do so.
Of course, as a lesbian, I am still a New Yorker with concerns that go beyond this narrow field of vision, and Christine Quinn has failed me there, too.
Though she pledged never to take money from developers (an admittedly naive pledge at the time), she has not simply taken their money; she has allowed their money to affect —nay, drive— her actions at the City Council. For example, not long after $34,650 in contributions from the Walentas family, she pushed through approval of their Dock Street Project, which will obscure views of a national historic landmark, the Brooklyn Bridge, despite the objections of the relevant Council members (deBlasio, Yassky and Avella) as well as relevant preservation group in the City, including the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Municipal Arts Society, and the Historic Districts Council, among others.
She has also refused to take a firm stand against the preposterously proportioned tower targeting 437 West 13th Street, which will overwhelm the Meatpacking District and the new High Line, for which she enjoys taking a great deal of credit.
And though she smiled proudly when naming a stretch of Hudson Street “Jane Jacobs Way,” she has consistently pushed through development that does not ensure the vitality of city life, instead championing oversized developments that create large profits for their developers but at the same time, very, very large burdens on taxpayers, who must pay the costs of retroactively building infrastructure to support these dense developments. And yes, Quinn did address this at the CD 3 debate, but I will not be the first to report that the development bubble is over and her concern is very much closing the barn door long after the horse has run free in the developers’ capacious Hamptons estates.
While I can applaud The Villager's comments with regard to the DSNY garage and salt shed slated for Spring Street, the Editors failed to acknowledge how little she has done to put this project on a proper track. Despite the fact that facilities for six of Manhattan’s 12 sanitation districts are located in her district and irrespective of the undeniable fact that she could stop this half-billion dollar, over-sized and environmentally abusive plan from going forth, she has not done so. Instead, she has pitted Community Board against Community Board, and hidden behind a settlement between the City and the Friends of Hudson River Park related to Gansevoort Pier – though even the FOHP have said they will not enforce its provisions to allow time for a better solution!
The two-district Hudson Rise proposal, the only impediment to which is a place to site the third district, would be a Quinn legacy (and I could argue, a stepping stone to higher office, since it has been many, many years since a New York City politician has done something so elevating for the City and our citizens). Instead, she has opted to surrender (again) to Mr. Bloomberg, just as she did on term limits, though (again) she pledged she would not. That her caprice was “legal” does not, in fact, make it the right thing to do.
Her suggestion that the City’s dire financial circumstances made the question of overturning the will of the people on term limits acceptable is such a damning example of situational ethics, and all that is wrong with our leaders today.
In The Villager's endorsement, the Editors suggest that only Quinn knows how the City “really works,” but what I fear that means is that they accept that situational ethics and selling off one’s integrity to grease the wheels of progress is reasonable. Sadly, the City’s method of gathering community input and gauging the real impact of large scale developments is so compromised; the lead agency oversees its own EIS, and therefore judges if what they want to do is okay. (We see where self-policing has gotten the financial services industry.) Communities may participate in public hearings, but are limited to minutes before public sector employees who work hardest of all not to appear too bored by what’s being said.
Ultimately, all that communities really have is the advocacy of their City Council representative, a process that has been abandoned by Quinn and generally explained away as result of the pressures of her role as Speaker. But we CD3 residents didn’t elect her as Speaker; we elected her (and yes, I did vote for her the last time around) to be our representative to the City Council.
In that role, she has failed. She is unavailable and haughty; as a matter of fact, although I pay income taxes, real estate taxes and business taxes in this City and have been actively engaged for two years in the effort to bring the Sanitation facility to a place that will actually improve the life of the lower west side instead of destroy it, Quinn’s staff actually threatened to cancel a meeting on September 2nd if I attended because I have been outspoken in my criticism. That is not something that I would have done without the full knowledge and authority of my principal, when I worked in City Hall, nor do I believe that her staff is operating independently of her intent.
This election confronts us with the opportunity to eliminate the further harm that Christine Quinn will do with an undeserved third term and, we can hope, reinvigorate the City Council to serve in its power-balancing role against a Mayor who is willing to spend any amount of money to buy support or at minimum, silence. That Christine Quinn is the City’s “second most powerful politician” is meaningless, since in Mr. Bloomberg’s world, we are all number 2 behind him.
There is no doubt that Christine Quinn is the best "politician" in the race; but I want a leader with vision and integrity who at least gives a notional nod to “public service.” She is all that is wrong with politics: yet to find a principle she is unwilling to abandon though righteous and confirmed in her right to lead.
The August 13th Council District 3 debate didn't reveal anything we didn't already know about Quinn: she is going to have it her way, regardless of community concerns. Watch the public trying to get in to hear the debate.
The various people doing the Quinnster's dirty work all said it was simply a matter of room capacity. What they didn't mention was that John Sutter, the publisher of the sponsoring newspapers (The Villager, Downtown Express, Gay City News and Chelsea News) colluded with the Quinn campaign to cook up a last minute ticketing procedure that he only shared with the Quinn campaign!
Thus, the Passanante-Derr and Kurland campaigns had to hear about it second-hand, and didn't have time to get most of their supporters out two hours earlier. (I arrived at 4:15 and members of Quinn staff were already in line...which begs the question of how this fit in with their City Hall responsibilities, but that's a question for a different day.)
When it came time to turn district 3 residents away, the composition of the crowd inside was opposite to the crowd outside. 70% inside were Quinn supporters, 70% outside were Kurland and Passanante-Derr supporters.
You can't really blame the ol' Quinnster, though: packing the room is probably the only way she can assure a receptive audience.
SHE DELIVERS FOR YOU, MR MAYOR! Here's an example of our esteemed City Councilmember -- and Speaker, don't forget! -- at work:
There are 59 Sanitation Districts in New York City (12 in Manhattan, referred to as MN1 to MN12), and there are 51 City Council Districts. That means that "Fair Share" should be 1 (or maybe 2, for a particularly large district). But anything more than that does not rise to the definition of "fair share."
Have a look at the maps to the left: The smaller map represents Quinn's district: mostly, the West Side, from Canal Street to 54th Street. Within her district are part or all of 3 sanitation districts: about half of MN2, MN4 & MN5.
Get this! There are facilities that serve 6-- yes, that's right, SIX -- garbage facilities in Quinn's council district. Now how's that for bringing home the bacon?! The only problem is, of course, that the bacon she's bringing home to her district is left-over from this morning's breakfast.
Then there's an even more scorching fact: most of them are in Hudson Square and Chelsea, the latter supposedly being her home base, her source of power, the power in her pumps. What's even more despicable is the way that Quinn works so hard to keep Community Board 2 (Hudson Square) and CB 4 (Chelsea) at each other's throats: by suggesting that one of us simply wants to dump on the other.
Remember Robert Trentlyon? During the City Council hearings on the 3-district Sanitation facility that Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler, Dan Klein from the Department of Sanitation and -- yes, you guessed the Third Mouseketeer! -- Christine Quinn wants to ram down the neighborhood's collective throats, old (really old) Bob just couldn't say enough bad things about CB 2 -- he even had the audacity to say that we didn't really need any more park space (mind you, CB 2 has the second lowest green space to resident ratio in the City)! At the time, this really angered me.
But now that I've been around the divisive politics of Christine Quinn, I understand that he's a puppet! Reports are that Dan Klein from DSNY, with Quinn's "blessing" (a thought that runs chills up my spine, mind you), has met with CB 4 members to tell them that "the community" (meaning, the people opposing this obscenely expensive facility) is trying to foist the third district (that would be MN5) onto them! Of course, the truth is that we have presented dozens of options that are in or very near to MN5. Dan Klein, however, has nixed them all! The only option that remains viable is on 51st Street, in a lot that the owner would like to sell.
Yes, 51st Street is in MN4 - by three blocks. But moving the MN5 facility there would save 4,200 truck miles per year!
Don't think that matters? INFORM, the national environmental research organization, states that diesel garbage trucks get the lowest fuel efficiency of any vehicle on the road: 2.8 miles per gallon.
Diesel garbage trucks are a major source of air pollution, including smog-forming compounds, particulate matter, and toxic chemical constituents. Heavy-duty diesel-powered vehicles, including garbage trucks, make up only 7 percent of vehicles on the road, but they contribute 69 percent of on-road fine particulate pollution and 40 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions.
And diesel garbage trucks are notoriously loud, generating noise levels of up to 100 decibels, which can cause serious hearing damage. So, by not driving those 4,200 miles each year, the City will save $11,000 anually in fuel costs (at current diesel prices) and more important, will improve the quality of the air breathed by the people who live in MN 2, where the trucks would have been based, in MN4, because the trucks will drive through that neighborhood to get to MN5, and yes, in MN5, whose garbage is being hauled.
The real injustice is that MN5 doesn't have to host its own facility (not to mention MN1, our friends below Canal Street)...and that's what CB2 and CB4 should join together to protest. But instead, we are being divided by people like Quinn and Klein and Skyler, who are more interested in the politics and in keeping their own jobs.
Slush funds and secret kitties: The Quinnberg Saga With the recent revelation that the Mayor's Office has its own secret kitty for "discretionary disbursements" (not legal ones, mind you), we know that Quinn's Slush Funds were just part of a pattern of secret kitties in City Hall on both sides, and that better explains why we haven't seen any reports from either the federal or the City "investigation" into Speaker Quinn's misdeeds. Mike has to do something to keep the Quinnster quiet while he piles yesterday's trash all over her district.
Man, this whole thing stinks...and that's why the Quinnster Must Go.
The letter above was sent to Quinn supporters recently and made its way to me. At first, I was thrilled at my own ability to infer fear on the Quinnster's part. The Chelsea Reform Democratic Club is Quinn's home club -- her proverbial "seat of power." I guess they must have liked her up there at some point, though it appears that members' support may not be as fulsome as it once was. What I believe is just as likely true is that their support is, and has always been, more blind "identity politics," as Bill Dobbs would say, than anything else. ("Heck, let's get some gay folks in power! Yeah, that's the ticket!") Maybe all the light that my colleagues in politics and I have been shining on the emptiness of Christine Quinn has started them thinking about who they are supporting...any why.
Honestly, in the late 1980s, when we were fighting for a Gay Rights Bill in the City, getting gay people elected was the ticket. We just needed to get some gay men and/or lesbians into office, so they could show the other office-holders that gay people were not a whole lot different than they were. We knew then that having gay people in office would have the same effect as having a gay brother/sister/son/daughter. To know us is to love us!
Well, okay -- not all of us. I definitely don't love Chris Quinn. But the reason that I oppose the reelection of Christine Quinn, The Moll of Pols, is because she has betrayed the public trust. It's that simple: she assumes she will have my vote (and the votes of all gay Democrats) but she does damn little to earn it.
Yes, she has directed funds to the Gay Community Center. But her ability to do that was part of a shameful slush fund scandal that she's never really explained or answered for. In fact, there isn't a doubt in my mind that her "two bugs in a rug" closeness with Mr. Bloomberg has a lot to do with why we've not heard much from the various ethics investigators who jumped on the bandwagon when her hidden funds first caught the light of day. And in a city with a $60 billion-plus budget (plus billions more in capital funds), a few million to rebuild what began as a falling down school and has been in renovation for 25 years isn't enough pork to buy my loyalty. In fact, it pre-supposes that all I care about is those issues that are strictly gay.
But that's nonsense! I care about the City's infrastructure, because this City is my home -- and it's home to the largest community of gay people outside of San Francisco. So, infrastructure is a gay issue.
Do you know what else is a gay issue? Intregrity in government. Gay people have been abused by government for just about as long as we've had government. Think about Bowers v. Hardwick: as recently as 1986, the Supreme Court determined that it was a-okay to criminalize sex between consenting adult males. And to drive home the point, think about the California Supreme Court upholding the right of a Mormon-financed referendum to overturn the rights of gay Americans to marry...and think about our own "progressive" state, in which we cannot marry still. (And that doesn't count most of the other states in the nation -- just the ones where you'd think it'd be a no brainer.)
But here's the thing: if our politicians would embrace integrity in government, each and every one of them, things would change. The Christian fundamentalists would admit that it's treasonous not to support the separation of church and state. The white people would admit that it's immoral that the West Village has good public schools but Flatbush has terrible, failing public schools, and that the color of the children's skin is the biggest reason why.
And if politicians like Christine Quinn, who have seen the effects of violence against gay people, who have watched trail-blazing gay politicians like Tom Duane take the heat of being openly gay in office -- who have seen (if not herself, felt) the impact of oppression, committed themselves (HERSELF) to delivering the system to integrity, government would improve.
Yes, I do hold gay politicians and black and Latino politicians to a higher standard: because we have felt the sting of bad government, and we should know better. SHE should know better.
During the course of the struggle to demand that Christine Quinn actually represent the 3rd district in our fight against The Bloomberg Administration's plan to destroy the lower west side and more than 25 years of redevelopment, we have been told again and again and again that these things are better fought "inside the system."
[Now here's a funny aside: I sent a letter to my community after Quinn sent a letter that was so filled with lies and self-serving BS that I could not let it stand. About an hour after it landed, a big booster of Miss Quinn's, Brad Hoylman, called to (a) correct a typo on my part: "My name is Brad." (b) to disavow his highly documented commitment to Quinn "I'm not so 'vitally' committed to her." (c) to tell me that I should really work within the system because it's better that way, and (d) to advise me to back off because she's tough and she could just as well decide not to help because of what you're doing. So, it seems that Brad thought that she would punish the entire district with this half-billion dollar facility if I didn't work within the system. I asked him if he thought that was something that the entire district would like to learn about her: that's she's so tough and such a hothead that all 150,000 democrats in her district --including the Chelsea Reform Democrats, I presume-- would be punished because of my letter.]
But here's the dirty truth about working "inside the system:" it has come to mean delivering money --lots of money-- to the candidate. And frankly, I am just enough a child of Camelot (literally -- I was 5 when JFK was assassinated) that I think of government service as public service -- and politicans as public servants. We don't elect them to get rich: we elect them to do the right thing.
Christine Quinn has not done the right thing: she has absorbed everything that's bad about government. In fact, she frequently notes in her biographical materials that she was named by the New York Post "one of the 50 most powerful women in New York." She likes that: she likes the power but she doesn't use it for good. She uses it for herself.
You may feel that this post has been somewhat circuitous: but I started out talking about identity politics, which so often lack substance and reason. Identity politics likes the power of an openly lesbian Speaker of the City Council, too. But it doesn't ask what the power has done for us lately. Because that answer to that would be nothing. Because Christine Quinn likes the power so much that she doesn't want to use it in any way that would risk losing it. And as much as I enjoy poking her with sharp rhetorical objects, the truth is that she's a savvy pol: she knows that her power is derived not from the City Council that elected her Speaker (God bless them...they try) but from the Mayor in whose good graces she keeps herself. Keep in mind, the City Charter gave her office some power to swing around for the cause of good, but it can't compare with what the richest man in New York City can offer her in terms of access and the feeling that this kid from Queens has come a long way.
What I like best about President Obama is not that he's brilliant (which he is) or successful (clearly) or committed to his family (yes, again). What I most fundamentally appreciate is that he has never forgotten where he came from, and the backs that served as bridges for his journey. Identity politics may have been responsible for his uber-majority showing in the black community, but something much greater than that earned him the votes of whites of every class, of Latinos, of Asians.
The City Council race in the third district is a tiny microcosm of that race, and I call on all gay New Yorkers who consider the 3rd District the "seat of gay power" to ask themselves: For what is this power being used? Can we find a better way than the Shelly Silver model of "my way or the highway"? A way other than the "We get what we want because we are rich" approach that dominates City Council decisions, not least of which are those related to land use and budgets? A way other than Slush Funds and stolen third terms and budgets that avoid a "millionaire's tax" but heaps on taxes for small businesses and ratchets up city revenue with parking tickets and sidewalk sweeping infractions?
Can we keep this city on a track that's livable? that's decent? that really is the great city it's always been, welcoming every person who has escaped an oppressive regime in Africa or an economy that lacks opportunity in eastern Europe or a homophobic community in the midwest with the promise of opportunity -- nothing more, but not a thing less, either?
Chris Quinn learned all the bad things about unions from her father, and has ignored the good. She has learned about all the corrupting aspects of wealth from Mr. Bloomberg, without studying the power of money to do good. She has learned about pork from, among others, a politician whose religious traditions proscribe its consumption.
I do not support Christine Quinn because she is bad for New York City -- and because she dishonors a gay history that reaches back to the Mattachine Society to make her possible.
My only hope is that the reason she has to beg her home club, Chelsea Reform Democratic Club, to come out and help her carry home the third term that she believes she has stolen "fair and square" is because they, too, recognize the dishonor she brings to us. They, too, recognize that she has wasted the opportunity that New York City gave her to be the first openly gay/lesbian Speaker and one of the "50 most powerful women" not to fulfill the mission she proposed to lead, but to feed her own ego. She has rendered herself irrelevant to the cause of full gay equality, and for that, we must accept that she is not our future...she is a symbol of What Might Have Been.
There are rumors afoot that the Quinnster is polling to test her support in the upcoming primary. (That's September 15th, for all of you who want to get out there and Get Her Out!) Now, the juicy part of this rumor is that her "intent to vote" numbers have dropped from 46% of those polled -- to 38%. Of course, these are rumors--since I'm not a Quinnsider, I can't be sure. But the very fact that Boss Quinn even wonders about her popularity is cause for...well, CELEBRATION!
But here's what I am wondering: The US Census study for 2000 indicates that there were 151,507 people living in CD 3, which increased 0.7% over 1990. Of these, 11,952 are under 18 years of age, for a total of 139,579 possible voters in the district.
Just to be fair, let's say that the rate of increase between 1990 and 2000 is about the same between 2000 and now. (We'll round up to an even decade -- out of fairness for poor old Chris.) So, 0.7% population growth would mean an increase in the number of eligible voters to 140,556.
Okay, stay with me now! Of those eligible voters, we can project that 65% of them are democrats. That's low, mind you, because it's based on citywide percentages. But still...We want to be fair. So, that gets us to 91,361 democrats..."each and every one of us."
Here's my point: the Quinnster, the Speaker Herself, had just 90 volunteers helping her to petition. That's 90 people who actually care enough to help her get on the ballot. Gosh: that's less than 1% of probably democratic, eligible voters in the district! That's even lower numbers that George W. Bush, the most hated politician in America (well, maybe the second, now that I think of it).
Bye-bye, Chrissy. At least you know there's some nice developer somewhere who will probably want to employ you.
Sometimes a person just has to wonder about what she reads...This picture is from the May 2009 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. They're celebrating the famous Grille Room at The Four Seasons Restaurant, and the "regulars" among the Power Lunchers. You may notice that our very own Speaker of The Mayor's Council...oops! The City Council...is pictured power-suited-up at the top left. Aside from the fact that she's the only person under about 50 years old (and one of the scant few women), she's also the only one who's still purportedly living on a public sector wage.
(Remember...Ray Kelly, the other public sector personality in her row, has been in and out of the private sector for years.)
As flattering as the article appears to be, what it doesn't say is that the lunchtime offering is "well seasoned" in money most of all. Not saying it's not worth it...just noting that a working girl might find it a little pricey on a regular basis. And this article isn't about a nice splurge with Kim and the pooches...nope. It's about being a little power tool at Power Lunch Central.
So, let's think for a minute about the "well seasoned" (or well oiled?) Christine Quinn. The Speaker is paid by you and me -- and the rest of the taxpayers -- an annual BASE salary of $112,500 -- which represents a raise that the Council (including Quinn) voted themselves in 2006 -- right after they elected Quinn Speaker (how's that for a coincidence?!). Not to say that $112,500 is shabby, mind you, but this is New York City, the Ultimate High Cost Hometown.
Okay, okay...I know that there are Lulus and additional committee payments plus I am sure a little kicker for the Very Special Role of Speaker -- not to mention the special Slush Fund that she likes to hold aside for her own special needs. [Note to self: examine budget for line items called...Grille Room, Four Seasons, Lunch Program for the Under-Appreciated...]But still. the City Council passed its own ban on all gifts in 2006. So, I guess that means that Chris is picking up the daily lunch tab. Somebody has to...and The Rules forbid her from being the guest. Best guess, that's about $135 - $175 for two, assuming no one is drinking heavily -- and we certainly are not suggesting that particular concern -- we know that what she's drunk on is Power.
So, let's say that's once or twice a week, year 'round. Heck...that's $11,000 or $12,000 after tax income!
Okay...well, it's true. According to Quinn's online bio, her life partner is Kim Catullo, a product liability and employment law litigator...on the wrong side of the equation, by the way, from the point of view of a good liberal who thinks that products really shouldn't hurt consumers, and employers really shouldn't exploit workers, dismiss older employees or discriminate on the basis of race or gender -- just for instance. So maybe Kim's kicking in for the lunches. That'd be swell.
But I'd like to know for sure. Because when you look at Quinn's list of contributors over the years, there are a lot of people who are getting even better treatment before the City than they once did. And I am wondering if maybe there's something more than martinis and club sandwiches being traded over the white linens.
I'll be telling you more about the Donor's List over the next couple months. Because I think people should know and will find it interesting...but I also know that the politicians don't make it easy to get this information and not everyone will spend the time that I've spent. So, I will consider it my public duty to share my knowledge.
Oh, and by the way...if you have knowledge that you'd like to share, let's meet at The Grille Room. My treat...it's such good people watching.
