Is Christine Quinn Beefing Up the Staffs of Political Allies?

In the two years since she has become City Council Speaker, Christine Quinn has used funds from the central budget to provide 14 council members (including herself) with 18 additional staffers. The Post claims that those receiving the extra staff tend to have close ties to Quinn and says that her office would not disclose what the reasoning was behind the bolstered help for certain councilmen. "It's rewarding political loyalty, by and large. It's something I think should be out in the open. It's not the right way to do things," one anonymous council member told the paper (does any griping politician allow themselves to be quoted these days?) A spokesman for Simcha Felder, one Quinn ally on the council who has received two extra staffers justified it by saying, "Simcha's proud to have extra staff members, and he has a large concentration of Holocaust survivors and immigrants. A lot of these people go to this council office for help and wouldn't go to a government office for help."