Jimmy Vaccca

The only thing that has gotten City Council members more angry than when they found out Christine Quinn’s staff hid millions of dollars in the city budget by assigning it to phony organizations are the reforms she proposed last week to prevent the same thing from happening again.

Quinn proposed Friday to give the executive branch power over $20 million in the speaker's discretionary fund, which many Council members think gives up some of the relatively little power they have.

Today, Quinn faced an unhappy crowd of City Council members who “universally panned,” her plan, according to Peter Vallone, Jr., who spoke to reporters after leaving the nearly hour-long, closed-door meeting. “If we move forward on this, which probably is a good idea, I think we can improve things, we won’t be giving up power to the executive branch,” he said.

“Did anything that the speaker said change my mind? No,” said City Councilman Jimmy Vacca of the Bronx, who issued a critical statement as the meeting began. “I think that is a very significant consensus,” he told reporters.  read more »