Embattled City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has hired a criminal defense attorney, Lee S. Richards II, to represent her in the continuing investigations into the Council’s budget practice of allocating funds to nonexistent organizations, and then spending the cash set aside at different times and for different projects. Richards and Sullivan & Cromwell, another firm hired by the Speaker, will be paid with tax-payer dollars.
Also at a press conference last Friday, Quinn outlined a set of four reforms to the spending practices of the Council:
- Funds set aside by the Speaker will be distributed through a competitive merit-based process. Groups hoping to obtain Council funding will compete within a set of categories overseen by the Mayor’s Office of Contract Services.
- An Independent Compliance Office would be established to ensure that Council members follow all rules for doling out funds.
- Organizations receiving Council funding will be subject to a stricter set of eligibility requirements and accounting disclosures.
- An online searchable database would be created. Modeled after Attorney General Cuomo’s Project Sunlight, it would publish all applications from any organization that applies for Council funding. The database would be updated within ten business days of approval of any funding allocation.
