NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, April 30, 2014, 12:01 AM
With a verbal swipe at her predecessor, City Council speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito on Tuesday introduced sweeping changes to the Council’s rules that would clip her own wings.
Under the change, each Council members will receive the same annual allocation for so-called “member items,” discretionary spending doled out to local non-profit groups.
Members in poorer districts will receive an additional allocation of up to 25%.
The changes will “take the politics out of member items,” ending a system used by Council speakers to slash the funding of members who defied them, Mark Viverito said, criticizing her predecessor, Christine Quinn.
“I know first hand what it is to suffer under rules that make no sense,” added Councilman Fernando Cabrera (D-Bronx), who saw his funding cut after clashing with Quinn on issues like letting churches use public school space.
“I was penalized. It actually wasn’t me who got penalized, it was the constituents,” he said. “It was kind of a divide and conquer approach.”
Other rules changes will require city officials to swear to tell the truth before testifying at the Council, and prohibit booting a committee chair from his or her post without a two-thirds vote.
The new rules will also create an independent unit outside the speaker’s office to draft bills.
Mayor de Blasio campaigned on abolishing member items altogether, but has made no public move to strip them out of this year’s budget.
Mark-Viverito said she’d fight to keep the money. “I’ve been a very, very strong defender…of the discretionary allocations. We see it as a reinvestment of taxpayer dollars in our districts,” she said.
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