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Early Addition
According to the NY Post, the City Council Speaker's office has, since 1988, had the tradition of granting money to "phantom" (as in fake) groups. A source explained it gave the speaker "a stash of cash with which to thank or pay off politically important allies or cooperative council members."
During 2007 and 2008, $4.7 million has been set aside for thirty different phantom groups. City Council Speaker Quinn told the Post while she knew some money was being held, she only found out the groups were fake a few months ago. She also said she told her staff to stop funneling money to the fake groups, but they didn't, "I was kind of sick over the fact that there were things listed in the budget that were not accurate and that my instructions to the staff were disregarded."
Quinn says she turned over information to city and state authorities. But the Post's sources believe "authorities have been investigating some aspect of the council's finances since last year."
Quinn became Speaker in 2006, succeeding after Gifford Miller left office due to term limits. Before Miller, Peter Vallone Sr. was the speaker. Update: Vallone Sr. denies this practice occurred during his term to the NY Sun, "There would never be any practice in my administration which would involve allocating money to a false organization.”
Graphic from the NY Post
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Quinn has been horrible. She is the queen of the backroom deal. This comes as absolutely no surprise and I hope it puts an end to any speculation of a mayoral bid.
Here's hoping Quinn gets convicted of some kind of major crime, so we can guard the liberties she wants taken away!
politician = criminal. C'mon does anyone believe that anyone would want to serve the public trust and good. People become politicians for power and money.
In a development that sources said was tied to the scandal, two of Quinn's top finance aides were either forced out or resigned earlier this year.
Quinn is too low on the overlord totem pole to get away with having peons fall on the sword for her. The following weeks will prove or disprove how influential her backers are.
If my boss said: "my instructions to the staff were disregarded." I'd be firedI
Come on, doesn't anyone watch The Wire? She can beat this! Shiiiiiiiiiit.
Christine Quinn is an advocate for congestion pricing. She has been assisting Bloomberg with getting the measure pushed through. Remember the City Council members were persuaded with money for pork projects in their districts by Quinn and Bloomberg. Some of that money will come from these bogus groups Quinn has set up.
Totally unrelated, but I have to say I love babyhitler's new picture.
I thought the same thing, blabla....some of this slushy money went to either directly support congestion pricing advertising and public relations, or for pork to persuade council members to change their votes. The Post editorial board supports congestion pricing so I wouldn't be surprised if they had this story a while ago and sat on it until today so as to not undermine lobbying efforts.
I was almost willing to cut Quinn some slack on this one but according to the Post, Quinn says "she knew some funds were being held in reserve, but learned only several months ago they had been allocated to sham organizations, and that "she ordered that the shady practice be abolished and only recently discovered her staff had not complied."
First of all, bullshit that her staff didn't comply, and if they didn't then shame on her.
But more importantly, by law the funds are supposed to be allocated at the start of the fiscal year and NOT be held in reserve, whether it's in a sham organization's name or not. So...which illegal practice exactly did she ordered stopped? Was it keeping money in reserve or keeping it in the name of bogus organizations? Unless she ordered the end to BOTH, she's GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY.
In other words, if she knew that money was being held in reserve but only acted against the bogus organization part, THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
Quinn is our very own Elliot Spitzer. They are both huge, corrupt disappointments who don't belong in office.