Wednesday, August 19, 2009

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Passannante-Derr Comes Out Swinging Against Quinn

City Council speaker unshaken by attacks; challenger Kurland mounts lower-key critique

Published: Tuesday, August 18, 2009 2:28 PM CDT
BY DUNCAN OSBORNE 
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While City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn’s campaign experience showed in a debate among three of the Democrats vying for her seat, it was Maria Passannante-Derr who brought the heat to the August 13 event.

“You’re the second most powerful official in New York City,” Passannante-Derr said to Quinn when the candidates were discussing a 2005 lawsuit brought by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg that successfully appealed a state court decision allowing same-sex marriage. “You could have used your influence to stop that lawsuit. If you did, there would be same-sex marriage in New York today.”

Quinn, who was unfazed by the attacks from Passannante-Derr and milder shots from Yetta Kurland during the 90-minute debate, countered that she had opposed that suit.

“I think the lawsuit that Mayor Bloomberg brought was outrageous and I spoke out against it,” she said. Quinn, an out lesbian, noted that she had lobbied Republican state senators in an effort to enact same-sex marriage in New York.

The debate, at New York University and sponsored by Gay City News and its sister newspaper, The Villager, allowed the three a minute-and-a-half each to respond to questions.



Quinn typically gave complete answers while using the entire time. A veteran campaigner, Quinn was first elected to the City Council in 1999 and was chosen speaker by her colleagues in 2006. Passannante-Derr just as often ended her answers with time left over. Kurland, also an out lesbian, frequently was unable to finish her responses before one of the two moderators called time.

While Quinn remains popular in the district, which runs from Greenwich Village up to Hell’s Kitchen on Manhattan’s West Side, some recent moves have inflamed some residents.

Quinn’s support for the mayor’s successful effort to alter the city’s term limits law to allow officeholders to serve three four-year terms instead of two enraged some New Yorkers. Passannante-Derr began the evening by lashing Quinn on that issue.

“This election is about an arrogant incumbent that has sold out our community for a right-wing Republican mayor,” the attorney and longtime Community Board 2 member said.

Kurland struck a similar though less confrontational note.

“I’m running because I think we need change in City Hall,” said Kurland, an attorney. “We need a fresh voice... We need somebody who is willing to stand up to the powers that be.”

Quinn is perceived in some circles as being too close to Bloomberg and unwilling to challenge the mayor, who is also running for a third term, on important issues.

During a “lightning round” of questions that came at the end of the debate, the candidates were asked to give yes or no answers to questions. Kurland and Passannante-Derr both said “yes” when asked if they would commit to endorsing the Democratic nominee for mayor, presumably William C. Thompson, Jr., the city comptroller. Quinn’s “no” drew gasps and howls of protest from some in the audience.

Passannante-Derr’s comments during a discussion of LGBT youth who congregate in the West Village will surely rankle advocates for those young people. She complained that a solution must be found to their urinating, “defecating,” and having sex on the streets late at night.

Quinn, for her part, repeatedly cited what she saw as her left-leaning credentials and reminded the audience, which was filled almost entirely with partisans from the three campaigns, of the battles she had fought alongside them.

“I have been proud to continue the progressive struggles that define the West Side,” she said during her opening remarks. In her closing statement, Quinn cited her endorsements by progressive groups, such as pro-choice organizations, a tenant’s group, and “the city’s major labor unions” as evidence of her continued allegiance to the left.

With major development projects proposed for the district, including a new Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers facility and a waste transfer station for the city’s sanitation department, Quinn was rapped for being insufficiently forceful in defending her district.

“This is a perfect example of how our current city councilmember cannot stand up for our community,” Kurland said.

Passannante-Derr, who never missed a chance to take a swipe at the speaker, said of the sanitation facility, “This sanitation garage will be Christine Quinn’s legacy to the community.”

Quinn, as speaker, clearly sees her role as being more expansive than simply representing just one district. She noted that nearby communities would also be served by the sanitation garage.

“We’re working with those who are opposed to try and come up with an idea,” she said.

If Quinn can be said to have stumbled at all during the debate, that moment came when she was asked about the “slush fund” scandal that continues to roil the City Council.

In 2008, revelations that the Council had for years allocated funds to phantom groups in the city budget so members could later distribute that cash to organizations in their districts nearly cost Quinn her speaker position.

During the debate, Quinn insisted she only learned about the “slush fund” last year and immediately asked the city’s Department of Investigations and the US Department of Justice to investigate. Quinn said she instituted reforms.

“We asked both of them to look into this,” she said. “We didn’t wait for them. We put changes in place.”

The problem for Quinn is that a sizable portion of that cash went to groups in her district. Passannante-Derr said, “You had to know about it because a quarter of the slush fund money went to your district.”

Kurland said, “I do think the people of the Third District are owed some answers... Where is the investigation?”

The full debate will be available online at GayCityNews.com beginning on Tuesday, August 18.


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