What Happens in Bermuda Stays in Bermuda
September 28th, 2011
In case there ever was any doubt, the City Council will not require that Mayor Michael Bloomberg reveal his personal travels, the Wall Street Journal reports. And once again the mayor has City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to thank.
City Councilmember Peter Vallone has told the Journal’s Michael Howard Saul that Quinn will not allow a hearing to be held on his bill that would require travel disclosure. Vallone proposed the measure after the botched city response to the December blizzard. It later became known that, as snow pelted the city, Bloomberg was in Bermuda, then Deputy Mayor of Operation Stephen Goldsmith was in Washington, D.C. and Deputy Mayor Patricia Harris was – somewhere.
Quinn, of course, has frequently pushed bill the mayor likes and blocked ones he doesn’t — though not usually ones where he has such a personal stake. Last year, for example she essentially killed a measure that would require paid sick leave for city workers.
And last week, Vallone, who seems to have an increasingly prickly relationship with Quinn, and the speaker clashed over a bill on homeless animals. With the city facing a lawsuit for not complying with city law on services for animals, the council bill, supported by Quinn (or else, of course, it never would have passed) was seen by Vallone and others as removing those laws and so letting the city renege on its obligations.
“I don’t think you have to be smarter than Bonzo the chimp to figure out what’s going on,” Vallone said at the time.
By Gail Robinson on September 28, 2011, 6:06 pmIn category: City Hall,Gotham City | 7 Comments »