Tag Archives: Christine Quinn

Charter Revision: Hints of What’s to Come

Matthew Goldstein

Past practice suggests that charter revision chair Matthew Goldstein will use the commission’s June 24 forum on Land Use to signal what his panel will focus on as it moves into summer.

We — and others — have criticized the NYC Charter Revision Commission’s calendar, which delays publication of land use proposals until July. This is too late for most community boards to draw residents to public hearings to comment on any proposed changes. The commission must submit its final proposals to the City Clerk by Labor Day to get them on November’s ballot. Continue reading

Who is Brad Hoylman?

Brad Hoylman

The strongest push to hobble NYC’s community boards by forcing them to hire dedicated planners and revert to a narrower “planning board” role (an idea we strongly oppose) came not from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, but from the former chairman of Manhattan Community Board 2, Brad Hoylman, who was one of five invited “experts” who spoke at the Charter Revision Commission’s June 10 session on Government Structure in Staten Island. Why the commission chose Hoylman as a featured guest became evident upon examination of his credentials. Continue reading

NY Post: Keep the Council Kosher!

We try not to miss  Queens Crap, which continues to be entertaining, timely, and informative, even though it lacks some of the anti-Bloomberg focus it had before its favored candidate for mayor, Tony Avella, lost his bid last fall.

But even this popular and populist website, which describes itself as “focused on the overdevelopment and ‘tweeding’ of the borough of Queens in the City of New York,” occasionally fails to read between the lines.  We were surprised when those lines had appeared in the pro-Bloomberg NY Post.

When a Post editorial tried to link instances of corruption by individual legislators with City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s use of “pork” to keep members in line, Queens Crap asked about Quinn, “Will she really reform the council?” The Crapper seemed to forget who would benefit most if the Post got its wish and the Council suddenly went Kosher.

Eliminate “pork” and “lulus,” the extra compensation that the Speaker hands out to loyal Council members for chairing committees, and you’ll end up with a Speaker who is less able to unite her members when it comes time for the Council to say “no” to something the mayor wants to do. What would happen to overdevelopment and “tweeding” then?