“‘Many City Council members are wary of endorsing candidates in the 2013 mayoral race until after budget season because they’re afraid a vengeful Speaker Christine Quinn will cut their share of $50 million in discretionary funds, DNAinfo.com New York has learned. ‘It’s a legal form of blackmail,’ said a Council Member.”

“This is not ineptitude or dishonesty due to lack of intelligence or know how. Instead, it is the result of a common pattern of cynicism. Christine Quinn puts her political ambitions ahead of the public good again and again and no one challenges her for this.”

Jumaane Williams has two things in mind when it comes to Quinn, “Keeping Council Speaker Christine Quinn and her mayoral ambitions insulated from attacks by progressives who want to push hot-button issues like paid sick leave… Not ticking off Quinn, who controls the money members get for use in their own districts.”

“Council Member Fernando Cabrera of the Bronx, who was toward the bottom of the pack with roughly $550,000, said Ms. Quinn uses the [discretionary] funds to reward her allies. He said wide disparities show ‘we are not attending to the poor and the needy in an equitable way.  What’s the point of some members getting more than others?  That’s the way they control the council. A system shouldn’t operate on the basis of fear.'”

Member item funds 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.”

Excerpt from a NY Times article about Quinn’s friendship with lobbyist Emily Giske of Bolton St. James: “The Council has done well by many of Bolton-St. Johns’ clients in recent years. Ms. Quinn and other council members have directed hundreds of thousands of dollars to nonprofit organizations that Bolton-St. Johns represents, including most recently Care for the Homeless; the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center; and the Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation. Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, also represented by Ms. Giske, has received capital financing from the Council in the last two budgets.”

“Awards of lulus (bonuses given by the Speaker to Council Members)— and the threat of removing them — are blatant vote-buying tools. Good government groups rail against them.”

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer on Quinn’s efforts to silence her critics, “Both the mayor and the council leadership have been complicit in this attempt to silence independent elected officeholders by going after our budget . . . and, you know something, there was no slush fund in my office.”

“Council Speaker Christine Quinn is about to move into a luxury condo building where she used taxpayer dollars to resolve a conflict with a neighboring building over garbage.”