Christine Quinn
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Christine Quinn (d) Born July 25, 1966 New York City Council President New York, New York |
Career Overview Elected New York City Council 1998
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In January 2006, the Members of the City Council overwhelmingly chose Christine C. Quinn to be Speaker. As the first woman, openly gay, and Irish Speaker, she brings a new perspective to the diverse challenges facing each of New York City’s distinct communities. Speaker Quinn has set a proactive agenda for the Council as an initiator of legislative and policy initiatives that improve people’s lives. In short, she is working to make government more accessible to New Yorkers in all five boroughs.
Speaker Quinn has made reform a top priority. From limiting lobbyists’ influence in City Hall to putting forth landmark campaign finance reform legislation to increasing transparency in government, she has made significant strides in improving the way the City does business.
In her first year and a half as Speaker, she has had numerous accomplishments including achieving laws and policies in such areas as public safety, early childhood education, relief for small businesses, hunger and nutrition and affordable housing.
Her accomplishments and ongoing efforts include:
* Protecting the lives of New York City’s police officers by successfully campaigning for nearly 18,000 new State-of-the-Art bulletproof vests for all our men and women in blue.
* Working with Mayor Bloomberg to secure a 7% property tax cut for homeowners.
* Restoring 6 days a week library service allowing seniors, students and working families to access literacy programs, tutoring and job training, and enabling the City to return to the service levels that were in place before the economic downturn caused by September 11.
* Making our homes safer through pushing for an overhaul of the City’s building code and proposing and passing the Safer Housing Act, a law that forces landlords of the City’s worst buildings to make needed structural repairs.
* Working with Council Members and the Bloomberg administration on the Solid Waste Management Plan, a first-ever garbage solution for New York City, which will ensure that low income communities don’t bear the brunt of the City’s garbage transportation and disposal issues.
* Passing laws to control the spread of illegal firearms.
* Championing full day Pre-kindergarten for 4 year-olds, leading to 2,000 new full day slots in her first year in office.
* Making sure low income New Yorkers have better access to food stamps and have access to healthier options through Food Today, Healthy Tomorrow, a nutrition and anti-hunger campaign.
* Protecting summer jobs by securing annually recurring funding. This enables employment programs to plan for summer hiring and young people to plan for summer jobs.
* Also securing annual funding for parks, family day care, trash pick up, libraries and the Citizens Complaint Review Board, preventing them from routinely being targeted for cuts in each year’s budget.
* Leading Council efforts to strengthen nightclub safety by creating a package of laws that requires more rigorous identification checks for nightclub entry, security cameras at club entrances, and nightclub staff training. Problem clubs are also required to hire independent monitors at their own expense.
* Lobbying Albany for tax relief for small businesses and tax relief for renters.
Since 1999, Speaker Quinn has served as the representative for the 3rd Council District of Manhattan. She has been a long time pioneer for equal rights, comprehensive health care, improved schools, tenants’ rights and affordable housing. Prior to becoming Speaker, she was Chair of the Council’s Health Committee and worked vigilantly to pass the ban on smoking in all workplaces, expand access to emergency contraception for rape survivors and other women in need, increase the availability of mammograms citywide, preserve school nurses, and secure millions of dollars for HIV prevention services.
Before being elected to the City Council, Speaker Quinn served for five years as Chief of Staff to Council Member Thomas K. Duane. She then worked as Executive Director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. During her time with the Anti-Violence Project, Mayor Guiliani appointed her to be a member of the New York City Police/Community Relations Task Force.
Speaker Quinn has been rated one of the fifty most powerful women in New York City by the New York Post, and one of the most influential New Yorkers by New York Magazine.
She and her partner, Kim Catullo, live in Chelsea.
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