|
The New York Times
NYC Pol Caught in
Slush Fund Probe
By AP from
nytimes.com on the Web, April 5, 2008
NEW YORK -- Christine Quinn
was widely thought to have a shot at becoming New York's first female and openly
gay mayor. But that bid may be complicated by revelations that the city
council, under her leadership, allocated millions of dollars to fake
organizations.
Quinn admitted this week that the council has appropriated some $17.4 million
dollars since 2001 to groups that didn't exist, listed in the budget under
made-up names like the Coalition for Strong Special Education and Senior
Citizens for Equality.
Quinn, who is considered a likely Democratic mayoral candidate for the race to
succeed Mayor Michael Bloomberg next year, has tried to make open government a
hallmark of her agenda. With federal and city investigators now looking
into the fake funding and other council finance issues, she could end up paying
the political consequences.
Political analysts said the scandal would let opponents raise questions about
her leadership and fiscal competence. Those are traits that will be
particularly important as city voters elect a successor to take over from
Bloomberg, a billionaire businessman who has been praised for his handling of
the city's finances and who has enjoyed high approval ratings in his second
term.
Doug Muzzio, professor of public affairs at Baruch College, said Quinn's
opponents could have a potentially powerful weapon to use against her.
''They're going to say, implicitly or explicitly, 'How can she expect to run an
operation with a $60 billion budget plus a couple hundred thousand employees if
she can't control her own shop?''' he said.
The Democratic field is expected to be crowded next year, with a potential mix
that includes U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, City Comptroller William Thompson Jr.
and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. Possible independent and
Republican challengers include Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and billionaire
businessman John Catsimatidis.
Quinn, who is in her third year as speaker of the 51-member council, is the
third council speaker since 1989, when the position was created. It is
widely considered to be the second-most powerful seat in city government,
largely because of its influence over budget matters.
In addition to possible attacks from political opponents, Quinn may get heat
from other directions. A nonpartisan budget watchdog group on Friday said
there was ''no excuse'' for hiding public funding, and laid the responsibility
on Quinn.
''All elected officials bear responsibility for the budgets that they adopt, and
Speaker Quinn, in particular, should be held accountable for the City Council's
fiscal practices,'' the Citizens Budget Commission said in a statement.
After the story was first reported in the New York Post on Thursday, Quinn said
she first learned about the practice of faking budget appropriations last spring
while working on the fiscal 2008 budget plan.
The maneuver of setting aside what she called ''reserve funds,'' which could
then be doled out later in the year, dates back at least 20 years, she said.
Using phony names to conceal where the money was going goes back to 2001, she
said.
She insisted that she ordered an end to the reserve fund practice when she
learned of it, but said her staff kept doing it anyway.
She said she did not know it was still going on, and that bogus names had been
faked in the budget, until a few months ago when the council was pulling
together information at the request of federal and city investigators for a
broader probe into council finances.
''I was obviously deeply troubled when I found out about this information.
I had no knowledge of it,'' she said. ''It's something that I believe is
completely inappropriate and should not have gone on and will no longer go on.''
Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said she was smart to cast herself as
trying to halt the shady budgeting practice, and if her story ultimately proves
true, it lessens the political fallout for her in a mayor's race.
''If she's successful in portraying herself as the one who blew the whistle, she
will be well-positioned,'' Sheinkopf said. ''A year in politics is a long
time -- the public may very well forget about this and see her as a victim of a
staff that didn't listen.''
|
