By Howard Koplowitz
“It's very serious. It's extremely unethical, if not criminal. That's for the investigators to determine,” said City Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside), referring to Quinn's acknowledgement that her staffers used fake organizations as a slush fund.Quinn said she alerted authorities last spring about her staffers setting aside reserve funds in the budget by using so-called “holding codes,” which she categorized as “a longstanding Council practice dating back to at least 1988.”She told her aides to stop the practice, only to later discover that it continued in this year's budget. At the same time, Quinn said, she found that budget money was being kept in reserve by making allocations to phony community groups. She claimed that method of holding onto funds “dates back to at least 2001,” when Peter Vallone, Sr. was speaker. “I was obviously deeply troubled when I found out about this information,” Quinn told a news conference last week in Manhattan. “I had no knowledge of it. I did not know this was the practice. It's something that I believe is completely inappropriate and should not have gone on and will no longer go on.”She said both practices were uncovered as part of an unrelated federal investigation which Quinn said she was not a target of.But Avella said he does not believe Quinn after she said she was not aware of her staff's actions.”I think she turned a blind eye to it,” he said.If budget funds needed to be doled out at a later time, Avella said, the speaker could have set up a contingency fund with the mayor's and council's approval instead of funneling the money through fake organizations.Although federal investigators and the city Investigation Department are looking into the matter, Avella said he still felt a need to contact Cuomo's office.”I think we need an outside entity beyond the city to investigate this,” Avella said. He said he has yet to hear back from Cuomo's office.When money from the budget is doled out to community organizations, known as member items, the group's name, address and taxpayer identification number are supposed to be listed in budget documents, Avella said.He warned that federal laws may have been broken if fake tax identification numbers were used.Avella said he was disappointed that council members were not notified about the investigations from Quinn.Reach reporter Howard Koplowitz by e-mail at hkoplowitz@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 173.
