In Private, Quinn Acts Like A Spoiled Brat- Caning Colleagues With Taxpayers Money

The City's Mayoral front-runner may have a nice story to tell and a personal charm to sell, but indoors she's a spoiled rotten brat, the NY Times reports. Speaking to the NY Times, some of Christine Quinn's friends and colleagues have confessed about the other side of Ms. Quinn: "controlling, temperamental and surprisingly volatile, with a habit of hair-trigger eruptions of unchecked, face-to-face wrath."

"She has threatened, repeatedly, to slice off the private parts of those who cross her. She is sensitive to slights: When a Queens councilwoman neglected to credit Ms. Quinn in a news release, the speaker retaliated by cutting money for programs in her district," writes Michael Grynbaum. "Ms. Quinn’s staff, concerned that angry tirades could be overheard by outsiders, added soundproofing to her City Hall office. Wary of her temper, they are known to ask one another: “Did she throw up on you today?”."

According to the Times, "more than two dozen current and former city officials, lobbyists and political operatives recounted being berated by Ms. Quinn, but few would speak for the record, citing a fear of retaliation. They offered nearly identical accounts of their altercations, describing a rapid escalation of voice and vitriol, occasionally laced with vulgarity."

 “Her eyes get really wide, she points her fingers,” one official told the Times. “She gets really close to you. It’s really in your face.” A former campaign donor who had been called to Ms. Quinn’s office to discuss a legislative proposal said: “She screamed at me for 10 minutes, uninterrupted, and used the ‘F’-word at least 20 times. I was just so startled, I didn’t know what to do.”

Queens Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley's entire district felt on hand Ms. Quinn’s anger extend beyond conversation. According to the times, when Councilwoman issued a statement to community newspapers in her Queens district that took credit for saving local firehouses from the annual budget ax, she failed to praise Ms. Quinn. Within an hour, Ms. Crowley was called into a room at City Hall, where a livid Ms. Quinn began to shout at her, demanding to know who had authorized what she considered to be a premature and poorly worded release. 

"A few days later, I realized her retaliation was her cutting my budget significantly. I forget the amounts I had, but if you look at the difference, it was significant,Crowley recounted in a conversation with Azi Paybarah. 

Crowley also added a more recent incident when she ran for Congress in 2012. "When I decided to run for Congress I asked her for her support and she said she was not supporting me," Crowley recalled. "And I carried on with my role as a Council member and ran for Congress and my election happened to be on June 26, the day after we were dolling out discretionary funds, she was doling out discretionary funds. "I was at City Hall at midnight, the night before my primary. I might have left at 12:30. It took me so long to figure out which groups were going to get the cuts," Crowley said. "Now these are senior centers and youth programs. When she cuts my district, she's not hurting me. She's hurting programs that are in need." Crowley said