As a follow-up to yesterday's post (that FY 2007 Schedule C was missing), we have turned up a copy, and now all eight years' worth of Schedules C's during Christine Quinn's speakership of the New York City Council are now uploaded onto Scribd. These are public documents, yet FY 2007 was not publicly available. Maybe it was because the FY 2007 Schedule C was used by The New York Post to expose the fact that Speaker Quinn had used fake charity groups to hide a political slush fund to dole out to her supporters. (This $$ Is Hers For The Faking * NYPost)
BREAKING : The leader of yet another charity group that receives discretionary funds from Christine Quinn's political slush fund has resigned today from an organization due to an impending investigation into financial improprieties. This morning, the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty issued a statement announcing the immediate termination of its chief executive and president, William Rapfogel. (Attorney General Investigating Power Broker William Rapfogel) Under Mr. Rapfogel, Speaker Quinn has consistently funneled money to the Met Council, even when those allocations came under scrutiny for their regularity. (Christine Quinn Grants Slush Funds to Metropolitan Council) According to WNBC, "Sources familiar with the investigation said the probe is examining what happened to some of the organization’s funds and whether any of that money might have been improperly funneled into the political campaigns of some New York City mayoral candidates." (William Rapfogel Jewish Charities Metropolitan Council Investigation) We know from prior reports from the Daily News that Speaker Quinn has awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in discretionary funds to nonprofit groups that have helped her mayoral campaign. (Christine Quinn Grants Slush Funds To Nonprofits Which Donated Campaign Contributions To Her Political Campaign)
Indeed, just last month, when Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign was in trouble because of Anthony Weiner's ascendant, insurgent campaign, Speaker Quinn's closest political advisers were invited to an emergency strategy meeting to help fluff up her then-troubled mayoral campaign. The invitees to this emergency strategy session included Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty CEO William Rapfogel. (Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty CEO William Rapfogel Participated In Emergency Secret Strategy Session To Fluff Christine Quinn's Struggling Mayoral Campaign) What kind of role was Mr. Rapfogel and the Met Council playing as a result of Speaker Quinn's emergency campaign strategy session ? How could there be an arm's length distance between Speaker Quinn and the Met Council if the charity group was helping her strategize her electioneering strategy ? Were slush funds payments or kickback campaign donations part of this emergency strategy ? Hmmmmmmmm......?
According to The New York Times, "Investigators are, among other angles, looking at the relationship between Mr. Rapfogel and Century Coverage Corporation, an insurance company based in Valley Stream, N.Y., according to people familiar with the investigation. Investigators are focusing in particular on generous contributions that the company’s chief executive, Joseph Ross, and other employees have made to candidates for New York City offices. The company’s employees have given almost $120,000 to various candidates since the late 1990s, including $26,175 to several candidates in 2013. Company officials could not immediately be reached for comment."
But a report generated today from the Campaign Finance Board shows not campaign donations from 2013. This report was generated from a search by employer that begins with, "Century Coverage." Were the 2013 campaign contributions deliberately not fully disclosed to the Campaign Finance Board ?
The Slush Fund Legacy and the Future of Member Items
"Given her current standing as a leading candidate to be New York City’s next mayor, it’s hard to believe that five years ago City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s political future was on life support. In April 2008 The New York Post reported that Quinn and her staff in the Speaker’s office had hidden millions of taxpayer dollars by allocating grants to a “slush fund” with phantom organizations, alleging that Quinn would later use the money to dole out political favors." (City & State)
Head of Huntley-linked charity surrenders in 88G ‘scam’ : "Van Holmes, president of the Young Leaders Institute in Laurelton, was arrested as he walked up Austin Street towards the 112th Precinct in Queens at 5:50 a.m.," Sally Goldenberg of The New York Post reported this morning. "Charges by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman are expected to include grand larceny, forgery and falsifying business records. He faces up to 15 years in prison if found guilty, sources said. Holmes allegedly stole money directly from his nonprofit — funds that were allocated by Huntley and City Council members." Christine Quinn continues to insist that her slush fund is being used for community empowerment, but every time that City Council discretionary funds make the news, those funds are tied to corruption arrests. Meanwhile, there are very worthy community groups that go unfunded. If we want to empower the community through discretionary funds, then the allocation of those funds should be determined by the community, and not by corrupt politicians.
Christine Quinn and Her On-Going Slush Fund Scandal ... Six Years Later
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s opponents in the mayoral race are trying to resurrect the “slush fund scandal”, when the Council allegedly assigned millions of dollars to fictitious organizations, The Wall Street Journal writes (via City & State) : Campaigns Hit Quinn on 'Slush Fund'
Last week, in a sign of desperation, Christine Quinn's Twitter account jumped by 20,000 followers overnight. City & State reviewed the sock-puppet Twitter accounts, and this was their analysis before Quinn's campaign people were forced to get rid of these fake followers after the negative publicity.
Some of the fake Twitter accounts, which was pointed out by City & State, included "Mary DeBoos (@deecohunk0106), Sergio Andres (@deecohunk0105), Tiffany Stone (@deecohunk0104), Quy Sin (@deecohunk0102), Osmany Adrian (@deecohunk0100), Mukhtar Bako (@deecohunk0099), Nick Afriza (@deecohunk0098), et cetera, ad infinitum. Then there is the whole series of followers who coincidentally picked some permutation of @byhnoleda0080 as their user name like Rona Ghotra (@byhnoleda0078), Vija Kumar (@byhnoleda0074) and Kelly Batista (@byhnoleda0072)."
The 20,000 fake Twitter accounts is reminiscent of the umpteen fake charity accounts, which Speaker Quinn used to use, to divert her slush funds for years, until her shady practise was exposed.
At the time the slush fund scandal broke, The New York Post reported about the fake slush fund charity account names used by Speaker Quinn : "Among the dozens of fabricated groups that were slated to receive funds were the Immigration Improvement Project of New York ($300,000), the Coalition for a Strong Special Education ($400,000) and the American Association of Concerned Veterans ($422,763)."
Mayor Bloomberg-Christine Quinn-Britney Spears "Stop Picking On Me" parody!
After Mayor Michael Bloomberg begged for people to "Leave Christine Alone !", the blogger-activist-artist Suzannah B. Troy has produced a hilarious parody YouTube video based on Chris Rocker's "Leave Britney Alone !" video.
Suzannah B. Troy dressed up in drag, first as Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and then as New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. In a hilarious send-up of the "Leave Britney Alone !" video, Ms. Troy weeps and whines the way that Mr. Rocker did, only the subjects of Ms. Troy's complaints have to do with serious public issues, like the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital and the massive fraud in connection with the doomed CityTime project.
From The New York Post :
The mayor yesterday launched an impassioned defense of his longtime ally and suggested she was getting unfairly pounded for a corruption scandal involving another member of the council.
“I’ve always said that I think Speaker Quinn, who is getting criticized for this, is a person of enormous integrity, and I think she has done an excellent job of running the city,” Bloomberg declared.
“It’s not an easy job, and I think she’d done it well.”
Mayor Bloomberg was angry at critics of Speaker Quinn, like Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who has called for the elimination of Speaker Quinn's slush fund after Queens Republican Councilmember Daniel Halloran was arrested in bribery and corruption charges in connection to Speaker Quinn's slush fund.
The Appellate Court ruled that each of (i) the U.S. Attorney's Office headed by Preet Bharara and (ii) the New York City Department of Investigation headed by Rose Gill Hearn were sufficient supervision for Christine Quinn's use of fictitious accounts to hide her City Council slush fund.
But as we have seen, Preet Bharara and Rose Gill Hearn have done nothing to hold Speaker Quinn accountable for the slush fund scandal even though former New York City Council Members Hiram Monserrate (New York Post) Larry Seabrook, and Miguel Martinez were convicted for their role in the slush fund scandal (The Wall Street Journal) and political aides to former Council Member Kendall Stewart also pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the scandal (USA Today).
Preet Bharara is such a disappointment, and so is Rose Gill Hearn. Meanwhile, the corruption-enabler Ms. Hearn is one of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's main political puppets, and it is under her laissez-faire watch that Christine Quinn wants to bury the newly proposed Inspector General of the NYPD. Can we see how corruption is allowed to continue unchecked, when it is impossible for the Bloomberg-Quinn administration to police themselves when Ms. Hearn is fast asleep as a bought-and-paid-for watchdog ? Gimme a break.
Is Phil Monaco trying to protect his boss, Christine Quinn ?
Phil Monaco, a staff attorney in the New York City Council general counsel’s office, is warning Councilmembers about an e-mail from a staffer “who works for the Gothamist,” who is following up on a Freedom of Information Law (or FOIL) request.
The FOIL request was being made as part of an investigation by Gothamist into the "finances of City Council members," reported the local news blog Politicker.
Gothamist is investigating how Councilmembers are paid their reimbursable expenses and their standard office expense allowances, but Mr. Monaco is trying to shut down any attempts to investigate City Council payments. In his e-mail to Councilmembers, Mr. Monaco was trying to reassure Councilmembers that he was trying his best to shut down the Gothamist's investigation. "These emails are NOT legitimate FOIL requests. And they do not require a response, as they are not proper requests under the law," Mr. Monaco wrote. "There is nothing your offices need to do at this time."
In the Politicker report, the publisher and co-founder of Gothamist, Jake Dobkin, confirmed that Gothamist had “about 40 FOILs open right now.”
How much longer before the Gothamist turns up more evidence of how Speaker Quinn has become a total political boss with all the attendant misuse of political power and taxpayer money ?
After facing unrelenting criticism and protests, are Team Quinn close to firing Josh Isay and hiring school teacher ?
After her many shady deals in City Council, Speaker Christine Quinn has angered many different communities. Activists concerned with stop-and-frisk, animal rights, healthcare, term limits, Progressive reforms, campaign and electoral reforms, and sustainability and infrastructure issues have been working in a loose collective to vote Speaker Quinn out of office.
Speaker Quinn's current political consultant, Josh Isay, has been caught off guard by the desperation in which Speaker Quinn's mayoral campaign has found itself, and he has managed to underestimate voter anger and has tripped over his own spin.
Now, after DNAinfo has published an article about the looming activism that Speaker Quinn's campaign faces, it has been announced that Speaker Quinn is hiring a campaign manager, Matt Tepper, to help her bail out her sinking political ship. Mr. Tepper is a former school teacher, and it is hoped that his presence will help Speaker Quinn relate with the working classes of New York City.
Speaker Quinn has been the leader of the City Council since 2006. But her move to the hard right since she came into office, in order to garner support from the business community, has arguably made her lose touch with reality.
In a further effort to possibly ease out Mr. Isay and to help her reconnect with the "little people," Speaker Quinn is also hiring another senior political advisor, Michael DeLoach, to help Speaker Quinn get a pulse of the city over which she has governed.
Mr. DeLoach is a former Howard Dean field organiser (pre-scream) and a former political coordinator for the union 1199.
Hank Sheinkopf, an advisor to Bill Thompson, predicts that the growing grassroots movement against Christine Quinn, and her political doctrine of corruption and neoliberalism, will fail. What do you think ?
Democratic Party political consultant Hank Sheinkopf said that he thinks most of the protesters’ arguments against Christine Quinn are bogus.
Among the lone few truly real Progressive voices in New York City, one person spoke up to question the outrageous statements by Mr. Sheinkopf. Gerson Borrero took to Twitter to express his dissent to Mr. Sheinkopf's lack of any political ethics.
Despite the ongoing protests, political insiders say the [growing grassroots] movement [against Christine Quinn] probably won’t gain enough traction to affect the November mayoral primary.
“There’s always unusual things that occur in every mayoral election, and this is the first unusual thing that’s occurring here,” said Democratic Party political consultant Hank Sheinkopf, who added that he thinks most of the protesters’ arguments are bogus.
“The speaker makes deals,” he said. “That’s the nature of legislative government. Her job is to make deals.”
Sheinkopf, who is serving as an advisor to mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, also downplayed Quinn’s status as the Democratic front-runner. A recent poll has her far ahead of the pack, with 35 percent of likely voters pulling the lever for her as compared with 11 percent for Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and 10 percent for Thompson.
Have we reached a low point in New York City politics, where campaign consultants cannot attach the most corrupt mayoral candidate for fear of exposing the shared, underlying political corruption that exists amongst all of the mayoral candidates ?
Christine Quinn - Plaza Hotel - Gays Against Quinn (Protest Video)
Over 20 activists gathered outside the Plaza Hotel in a demonstration against City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Watch as protesters speak against Christine Quinn to former Mayor David Dinkins' entourage and hand anti-Quinn literature to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Some of us were there because of Speaker Quinn's use of a $50 million slush fund during a time when we live under constant threat by Mayor Bloomberg, that he is going to lay off teachers and close down fire houses. Others were there, because Speaker Quinn pushed through a controversial extension of term limits, allowing Mayor Bloomberg, herself, and others, to run for a third term in office. Still yet others were there because of Speaker Quinn's complete abdication of full civil rights for LGBT New Yorkers, do-nothing record over hospital closings, horrible animal rights record, and use of city staff for campaign work.
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer Blasts Mayor's Race Opponent Chris Quinn
Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer took an apparent swipe at his mayor's race opponent, calling for an end to pork spending by local lawmakers.
"We have a system where some districts get a lot more than others and politics is the only reason," Stringer told reporters yesterday.
Quinn is an early frontrunner in the mayoral election with the largest war chest of more than $4 million. Yet one of her major challenges in her expected run is the so-called slush fund scandal that erupted in 2007.
-- Excerpted from the Daily Politics blog by Celeste Katz on The New York Daily News.
It was noted in this space last week how well Brooklyn Democratic boss Vito Lopez fares in City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s annual tax-dollar giveaway.
There have been developments.
Lopez, a state assemblyman and the subject of a federal corruption investigation, needed a front-end loader to haul away the so-called member-item cash lavished on him in the new city budget by Quinn — who used four pliant council members as cutouts.
But it turns out that Quinn took a fire ax to Queens Councilman Peter Vallone’s share of the boodle.
Vallone is a truly singular council member, in the sense that he has thus far managed to avoid attracting the attention of federal prosecutors, and it seems unlikely that he ever will.
But he irked Quinn by vocally opposing the renaming of the Queensboro Bridge in honor of former Mayor Ed Koch — so the speaker slashed his member-item take by 42%, or roughly $600,000.
Let’s be clear: Nobody should be getting member-item money.
These are lump-sum appropriations that corrupt the political process by giving incumbents cash to curry unfair favor with constituents; simultaneously, these cash goodies give bullying council bosses undue leverage over their underlings.
And Vallone — who apparently irritated Quinn and had his cash yanked as an example — proves the point.
Yet Quinn is cool with Lopez, who attracts the FBI like overripe pork attracts flies. Quinn channeled $4.4 million this year to his Brooklyn power base — the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council — through Brooklyn council members Domenic Recchia, Erik Dilan, Stephen Levin and Elizabeth Crowley.
While some $3.75 million is earmarked for alleged “capital construction,” the rest neatly covers salary and benefits for:
* Chris Fisher, Ridgewood executive director/Lopez campaign treasurer ($607,000).
(Quinn also managed to find $2 million for the United Federation of Teachers’ academically shaky charter school — but that’s a tale for another day.)
One final note: Quinn is many things — brash, personable, ambitious, maybe New York City’s next mayor.
But we’ve never thought her to be petty.
Until now.
Because she wasn’t content with punishing just Vallone for his temerity. She also took it out on the councilman’s father — former Council Speaker Peter Vallone Sr., arguably the last person to perform the office’s duties with decorum and dignity.
Cut from the budget was $6 million for a City University public-policy program named in his honor.
That’s the Vallones’ loss, to be sure.
But mostly it’s the city’s.
Christine Quinn should be ashamed.
Meanwhile, check out what other blogs are saying about this latest disgraceful turn about Speaker Quinn's slush fund scandal :
Op-Ed Bonus ! What a disgrace. How does Christine Quinn find hundreds of thousands of dollars for an indicted political slime ball, and millions in aggregate monies for member items, but she could not find $1 to save St. Vincent's Hospital in her very own city council district? This is sick and twisted. When are the over-taxed, over-fined, over-ticketed, over-tolled, over-run people of New York City going to wake up and vote Christine Quinn out of office? I realise that LGBTQ people want to rally around a leader, but damn, can't we pick one with a little bit of integrity? How about just a minimal standard of integrity? Is there a lowest common denominator of integrity we can demand out of LGBTQ leaders? How about a lowest expectations of integrity? If we scraped the bottom of Christine Quinn's diluted soup pan of weakened integrity broth, would we find any integrity sediment at all?
In 2008, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced that all groups petitioning for slush funds would need to submit their solicitations through the Request for Proposal (RFP) process. At the end of 2010, Speaker Quinn was still doling out slush funds, and she alone had the final say.
Speaker Christine Quinn announced on April 11, 2008, that all groups that want money from the approximately $20 million speaker's discretionary slush fund will have to go through the Request for Proposal (RFP) process.
In an act that The New York Post is calling, ''spiteful,'' City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has reetaliated against a fellow Democrat Councilmember.
Suzannah B. Troy has already blogged about how City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has abused her power to dole out slush funds to punish Liz Crowley, but here is the entire New York Post story, quoted in its entirety :
Spiteful Quinn $laps mouthy Qns. Dem
By SALLY GOLDENBERG and GINGER ADAMS OTIS
Last Updated: 10:56 AM, July 4, 2010
Posted: 3:00 AM, July 4, 2010
"Freshman City Councilwoman Liz Crowley played with fire and got burned.
The Queens Democrat learned a hard lesson during recent negotiations for the 2011 city budget: Don't anger Council Speaker Christine Quinn.
Crowley got the least amount of member-item money in the 2011 budget -- approximately $358,000 -- as punishment for prematurely sending out a press release two weeks ago announcing 20 firehouses had been saved, and hogging all the credit, sources told the Post.
"It showed that [Crowley] doesn't understand the deference she needs to pay to the speaker of the council. She knows it now. Lesson learned," said a City Council source.
Tempers flared between Quinn and Crowley when Crowley's staff sent out a press release in the middle of a tense session of budget negotiations. It touted the Queens lawmaker as the central figure in helping "save" the firehouses.
It was a costly error for the rookie legislator, who has since gotten the "absurdly low" amount of pork-barrel spending, said a City Hall insider."
