Council members apparently are allowed to take trips sponsored by third parties:N.Y. City Council Members in Israel Experience Rocket Attack
"The trip to Israel was meant to give the New York council members a better understanding of life in Israel."
They now make $112,000 apiece, funded by NYC taxpayer dollars, and these bozos are wasting that money studying the problems of a foreign country? They should be back at City Hall, studying and improving the quality of life of their constituents.
Now there's a novel idea.
11 comments:
"The New York delegation...is scheduled to return on Thursday"...Delegation?...WHO are the other $112,000.00 per annum "bozos" besides Quinn?...WHO paid for this junket?...Do the CM's write this voyage off on their tax returns?
The article indicates that the UJA paid for the trip. I am curious to find out who the other members of the delegation are as well.
How is it that a private organization can pay for trips for politicians and that's not considered buying influence?
I bet this UJA is one of those "charities" that is really a political lobby.
There's nothing illegal about traveling abroad. If someone paid for my trip to a foreign country, I'd take it. How many chances do you get in life to visit another country... for free?
On the other hand, if Christine Quinn wants to get involved in international affairs, she should run for Congress. With term limits in effect, she'll soon be looking for another job anyway.
For the record, I am Jewish, but this Council trip to Israel will not affect how I vote.
If you are an elected official, you'd best not take anything from anyone for free. That's called bribetaking.
Undoubtably one of the travellers with Speaker Quinn was CM Simcha Felder, one of the most out-spoken supporters of Israel in the Council (and the hatchet man for the 184 Kent Avenue landmark debacle last year as well as the death of the Elmhurst Jamaica Savings Bank) and a supporter of Quinn for Speaker (along with the late Tom Manton). Now here's the interesting part: Quinn goes to Israel, most probably with Felder (who has gone to Israel with Bloomberg before on his private jet) to wave the Israeli/Jewish interest flag - when Felder actually refused to vote for her for Speaker for fear of alienating his constituency by voting for a lesbian! Instead he took a bathroom break when the vote was called. Only in New York, ladies and gentlemen. Felder's Private Office
There were a lot of "folks" from Flushing, who took trips to Taiwan during Donald Manes & Tommy Huang era about 25 years ago. I wonder what purpose this served or what might have been discussed.
There are a lot of Israeli developers who are busy building in NYC (i.e. Boymelgreen is just one). Is any particular nationality attempting to curry favor here? Who knows!
I think all publicly elected municipal officials should be barred from taking any paid junkets abroad. It's not part of their job description. On their own alloted vacation time, however, they may travel wherever they please (provided they pay for it from their own pockets). Anything else could be considered a possible corruptive influence! The only exception to this rule might be, if a city official has to examine an overseas project that has direct bearing on something similar that NYC is considering undertaking (to see how successfully or unsuccessfully another municipality had handled it).
It's being said by John Liu's own Asian constituents that they're angry about his poor record of providing constituent services. They're (quietly) calling him "Mr. Showbusiness" (I think I've got the Mandarin translation correct). I guess that they're tired of seeing him always "mugging" for the cameras (often out of his own district) and doing little to solve their real day to day problems! He certainly does the "talk" but he don't do the "walk"!
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