Every single candidate running for Mayor thus far has some sort of personality. Certainly Marty Markowitz is up on the top of the list for his outgoing behavior. Weiner is "Congressman," Quinn plays the "Speaker" and Catsimatidis is the "grocer" (I'm missing a few but thats o.k. for now). If any one of these candidates can be put next to the "reformer" label, it would be Tony Avella. Tony announced his candidacy last month and has vowed to fight hard despite the lack of large sums of special interest money. In an upcoming interview he is bringing that fight to Quinn and addressing the scandal that has enveloped her office.
From The NY Daily News:
Queens Councilman Tony Avella has some more sharp words for his potential 2009 Democratic mayoral primary opponent, Council Speaker Christine Quinn, and her handling of the ongoing slush fund scandal in this Sunday's News Forum interview with WNBC's Gabe Pressman.
Avella, who has formally announced his candidacy (whereas Quinn has not), calls the practice of parking taxpayer cash with phantom organizations to be used at a later date "a disgrace," alleging that the subsequent doling out of those dollars (some of which went to the Donna Reid Fund and were misspent) was done "to promote political agendas."
Avella declined to place too much blame on the Bloomberg administration, allowing only that the mayor's people "should have been looking into what the Council was proposing, adding:
"The blame really sticks with the speaker and the central staff. When you think about it, the speaker hired these individuals. She can fire them at a moment's notice with no reason whatsoever. If she told them not to do this, why would they continue to do it? It just doesn't add up."
No Tony, it doesn't....and Quinn still hasn't answered why she didn't fix this problem from the start.
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