Katz on the Role of Comptroller
April 15th, 2009
Councilmember Melinda Katz says she has been losing friends.
First, she became a mergers and acquisitions attorney (insert proper legal joke here) and became a little less popular. Then she was a member of the State Assembly. More friends lost. Next came a seven-year stint on the City Council (pariah yet?), followed by a bid for city comptroller.
“Now, I can’t even get a date,” Katz quipped at a Citizens Union sponsored breakfast this morning.
All jokes aside, Katz went through what she wants to do with the comptroller’s office if she wins the seat this fall, from using a portion of the city’s pension funds for distressed debt funding for New York City-based companies to creating more oversight of the Department of Education’s contracts. Katz, like other candidates have suggested, wants to track stimulus funds the city receives and how many jobs they create.
She will also ensure the contracts awarded for city projects actually go to the lowest bidder and not someone who moves decibel points over once the papers have been signed.
Katz is hinging her candidacy on her experience — upstate, as an attorney and as chair of the City Council’s land use committee (arguably its most powerful) since 2002. As chair, Katz helped steer through much of the major rezonings the Bloomberg administration proposed over the last several years — some of which have been seriously controversial (Harlem, Willets Point, etc.).
There is no drought of candidates for city comptroller. Katz and fellow councilmembers David Yassky and David Weprin been running for the post for quite some time, while John Liu more recently joined the fray.
“I think my opponents are good candidates,” said Katz. “I think the city could have worse problems.”
But, Katz said, she is the one with the experience and who identifies with the common New Yorker.
“I am dealing with the same issues as any mother, father who is sitting around the kitchen table today,” she said.
By Courtney Gross on April 15, 2009, 3:01 pmIn category: Gotham City, Governing, Public Finance, nextNY | No Comments »


