Diana Reyna

The City Council’s budget negotiating team stayed late last night at City Hall, trying to hammer out a budget before the June 30 deadline. A handshake agreement is expected today or tomorrow.

In the meantime, it's a scene. Lobbyists have been a permanent fixture on the City Hall steps and in the City Hall rotunda for days, if not weeks, hounding lawmakers, staffers, and even reporters for any information.

Yesteday afternoon, I bumped into City Councilman Tony Avella across the street from City Hall. When I asked about the budget, he threw up his hands up--it seems he's waiting for information, just like the rest of us.  read more »

Councilman Eric Gioia grilled the city’s budget director about the slush fund scandal during a heated Council hearing in City Hall just now.

Gioia asked, pointedly, whose job is to make sure there are no phony organizations in the city budget and what guarantees exist to ensure there are no fake groups in this year’s budget.

The budget director, Mark Page, said at one point that he felt like he was “being grilled by a local prosecutor.” He added, “I’m not sure this is the forum for you to be asking me these questions.”

When pressed about whose job it was to catch the phony groups, Page said that his agency got a list from the City Council, implicitly laying the blame with the head of the City Council, Christine Quinn. (One of her top aides, Chuck Meara, was sitting in the front row in the City Council chambers during the hearing, taking note of the exchange.)

Page told Gioia, “Your question about assurance from me that there’s nothing fraudulent in the line items [of the budget], logistically, is -- looking backwards -- is a problem for me as to how to do it.”  read more »

A couple of developments to watch as City Council Speaker Christine Quinn gets closer to her likely mayoral bid, potentially affecting her relationships with the mayor and her members.  read more »

City Clerk nominee Hector Diaz is testifying right now in the City Council Rules Committee hearing, and this is easily the most well-attended committee meeting I recall (although I've missed a few).

Among the onlookers in the house is Bronx Democratic Leader Jose Rivera, who got himself a front-row seat by sitting next to Liz in the reporter's section.  read more »

That’s Bronx Democratic County Leader Jose Rivera talking to one of Christine Quinn’s top aides, Chuck Meara, by the side staircase in City Hall a few minutes ago.

Rivera is here, primarily, to oversee the vote on city clerk nominee Hector Diaz. The nomination is being considered by the Rules Committee, whose chairwoman, Diana Reyna, is part of the Brooklyn delegation that wants the position to continue to be held by someone from its borough.  read more »

The city’s Independence Party, which is currently rallying around Lenora Fulani’s 2009 citywide race, is looking for fund-raisers. A reader passed on this help wanted ad from Craigslist, which says, “The New York City Independence Party is seeking energetic callers for 6 week fundraising drive, with possibility of long-term work.”

Other jobs on that zany electronic message board:

Policy analyst for Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Communications Coordinator for Rory Lancman.

Communications Director for the Working Families Party.

Constituent liasion for Diana Reyna.

Part-time legislative director for Darlene Mealy.

A “Press/Community Relations/Legislative Intern” for Darlene Mealy.

And campaign staff for the Working Families Party.

Here's panelist and City Council member Diana Reyna pondering the rectitude of voting for Hillary Clinton based the fact that she's female:

"And then we would feel guilty because then, maybe, we want to vote for her because she is a woman," she said. "I mean, how do you explain that? And do we want to accept being guilty, because she is a woman--and we go vote because we have partisan loyalties. Do we have female loyalty?

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"At the end of the day, is it so bad to say we have gender loyalty? At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves, 'Is she the best person for the job?'"

The green outline shows Speaker Christine Quinn's proposed 421-a exclusion zone in northern Brooklyn--the area within which developers would need to include on-site affordable housing in order to qualify for tax breaks.

Currently, the exclusion zone covers only well-established neighborhoods (West Village, the Upper East and West Sides), where an automatic 421-a tax abatement for new multifamily housing (which is what the rest of the city currently enjoys) would seem too much of a giveaway. Adding in Billyburg makes sense (as well as Park Slope-Fort Greene-Downtown Brooklyn, of which you can see a greenish corner at the bottom).

But that two-block strip along Broadway, which goes through the southern part of Bushwick all the way to Eastern Parkway? Has that become a condo corrider? Or is anti-developer sentiment so strong in those parts that City Council members Diana Reyna and Eric Martin Dilan wanted a little piece of that green to cut into their districts?