Councilman Mark Weprin is in the running to be the next Council speaker.
As Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s (D-Manhattan) tenure in office nears its end, behind-the-scenes political campaigning and maneuvering has heated up, both in Queens and across the city.
The speaker, as the head of the city council, is the second most powerful public servant in the city, behind the mayor. The basic duties of the speaker include setting the council’s agenda, presiding over meetings and acting as a conduit for council-proposed legislation.
Despite the fact that the speaker will be elected solely by the 51-member council itself, and not by city voters, the speaker candidates have been going borough to borough, appearing at public forums in an effort to drum up support among fellow council members and party leaders.
Quinn’s term as speaker will end officially on Dec. 31, and the council is set to elect a new speaker in early January.
In Queens, support for longtime progressive Councilman Mark Weprin (D-Oakland Gardens), a leading contender for the speaker spot, is strong.
“Mark Weprin would be a good choice for speaker,” said Bob Holden, president of the Juniper Park Civic Association, which largely backed Republican Joe Lhota for mayor.
“Queens has long been treated like a stepchild under the leadership of Christine Quinn,” he said. “I believe Mark Weprin would be fairer when it comes to allocating funds to Queens.”
At a recent speaker candidates’ forum in Jackson Heights, Weprin, along with fellow candidates Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito (D-Manhattan) and Councilman Dan Garodnick (D-Manhattan) supported ending the speaker’s power to determine discretionary funding for all council members. Political insiders said Quinn often used the power in a punitive fashion – something about which Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Maspeth) has long complained.
Other speaker candidates include Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx), Councilwoman Annabel Palma (D-Bronx), and Councilwoman Inez Dickens (D-Manhattan).
Queens’ Council members Karen Koslowitz (D-Forest Hills) and Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park) declined to comment on the race.
However, Koslowitz recently commented to Capital New York, regarding a past controversy surrounding Mark-Viverito and her recent refusal to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of council meetings.
Controversy centered upon whether or not Mark-Viverito was not reciting the pledge as a form of protest for Puerto Rican independence or if the councilwoman was simply, as she stated, “unfamiliar” with the pledge because she grew up in Puerto Rico, where they do not recite it.
In addition, Koslowitz recently told Crain’s Insider, a political blog, that Mark-Viverito’s refusal to recite the pledge was “ideological” and not unfamiliarity.
Queens’ College Political Science Professor Michael Krasner weighed in with his thoughts on what a Queens-based council speaker might mean.
“Well, to state the obvious, it’s a good thing for Queens if Weprin gets the job,” Krasner said. “It would mean that the interests of the borough had the strongest possible spokesperson short of the mayor and that Queens’ concerns would be represented automatically instead of having to be plead at one remove.” Asked about the speaker’s power to allocate discretionary funding for the 51 Council Members, Krasner was decisive.
“It’s clearly too much power in the hands of the speaker to determine discretionary funding,” he said. “I’m not in favor of doing away with it completely because I think, contrary to the stereotype, that the great bulk of it is spent for good purposes such as after school programs and senior centers,” Krasner added.
“Maybe a system in which some is guaranteed and some is at the discretion of the speaker is a reasonable compromise,” Krasner continued.
Community Board 6 District Manager Frank Gulluscio was cautious in showing partisanship for any speaker candidate, though he did express a preference for Weprin.
“I’d love to have somebody who’s homegrown. Queens would have a little bit of a leg-up,” said Gulluscio, whose board covers Forest Hills and Rego Park.
“It’s only normal to expect someone who lives in your borough to have the area’s best interests at heart,” he continued.
By Alan Krawitz
