4 THE QUEENS COURIER • APRIL 11, 2013 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com scandal fallout HALLORAN STAFFERS QUIT BY MELISSA CHAN [email protected] Embattled Councilmember Dan Halloran’s two top aides have jumped ship. Chrissy Voskerichian, the legislator’s chief of staff, announced her immediate resignation on April 8. John Mulvey, Halloran’s legislative director, also announced he is quitting as of April 12. “In leaving, I remain hopeful that the community will remember all of the hard work that went into preserving s our neighborhoods and serving northeast Queens,” Voskerichian said in a letter. Their boss was one of six offi cials arrested by the FBI last week for conspiring to rig the mayoral election, authorities said. Halloran played a key part, offi cials said, in a bribery scheme to get Democratic State Senator Malcolm Smith on the Republican ticket for mayor. According to the U.S. Attorney, he set up meetings between Smith and GOP county leaders while negotiating payouts. Halloran pocketed nearly $21,000 in cash in exchange for his help, offi cials said. Voskerichian, 51, had worked for Halloran for close to four years. She spent the last two years as his chief of staff. “I am incredibly proud of the work that the offi ce has done,” Voskerichian said. “We resolved thousands of constituent cases, allocated millions of dollars in funding to local groups and worked hard to make the 19th Council District a better place to live.” The former staffer makes no reference to Halloran’s scandal, which also involved the arrest of Smith, Queens County GOP vice chair Vincent Tabone, Bronx County GOP chair Joseph Savino and two upstate leaders. Halloran’s offi cial City Council website no longer lists the names of his staff members. According to Kevin Ryan, Halloran’s spokesperson, the councilmember does not plan on resigning and looks forward to clearing his name. “The councilmember greatly appreciates the hard work in service to the district that his entire staff has put forward, especially his chief of staff,” Ryan said. “Times like these can cause some staff members to reevaluate their career paths. He is sincerely grateful for every staff member’s service.” THE COURIER/File photo Chrissy Voskerichian has quit her job as chief of staff to embattled Councilmember Dan Halloran. Leaders call for changing of the guard in Queens GOP BY TERENCE M. CULLEN [email protected] Former Republican Councilmember Thomas Ognibene says there needs to be a change-up in the Queens GOP after years of infi ghting and what he called a negative infl uence from former vice chair Vince Tabone. “I’ve believed for the last three to four years that it leadership had to be changed,” said Ognibene, who served in the Council from 1991 to 2001 and was the minority leader. Tabone is charged with accepting $40,000 in bribes to sign the Wilson Pakula certifi cate, to greenlight State Senator Malcolm Smith as a Republican candidate for mayor. He resigned as vice chair on Wednesday, April 3, a day after his arrest. Phil Ragusa currently chairs the Queens GOP. The ideal person to replace Ragusa, were he to step down, Ognibene and others have said, would be former Congressmember Bob Turner, who lost a Republican U.S. Senate primary last summer and whose congressional district was divided due to redistricting. On calls to step down, Ragusa said he does not plan on giving up his position, as he’s not linked to the charges. “We’re just moving ahead,” he said. “One person should not be able to affect the whole Queens GOP.” Ognibene, now practicing law on Long Island, said the allegation that Tabone frisked a cooperating witness for a microphone was proof he was up to no good. “That’s evidence of a guilty conscience,” Ognibene said. Ragusa and Ognibene came into a leadership battle two years ago when a sect of the party voted THE COURIER/File photo Former Queens GOP vice chair Vince Tabone. to elect the latter as the GOP chair. A separate pact voted for Ragusa at the same time, with a judge fi nally ruling that Ragusa won leadership of the party. While he was saddened by the allegations against Councilmember Dan Halloran, Ognibene said “the Party will go on.” A replacement for Tabone has not yet been named, Ragusa said. “We’re going through our process and we haven’t named anybody right now,” he said. MONEY GRAB Halloran stripped of funding powers BY MELISSA CHAN [email protected] The City Council has voted to strip disgraced Councilmember Dan Halloran of his committee assignments and power to allocate all funding. Halloran faces federal charges for allegedly playing a key role in a conspiracy and bribery scheme to rig the mayoral election, authorities said. Power to distribute funds in the 19th District now falls to Speaker Christine Quinn’s offi ce and the Council’s entire Queens Delegation, according to Councilmember Leroy Comrie, the delegation’s chair. “The entire delegation will be working closely, regarding funding, in consultation with his staff and all of the groups,” Comrie said. “It will be a collaborative effort, working with the community and all the groups that have requested funding.” Bayside and College Point residents in Halloran’s district recently voted to create kayak and canoe launches in Little Bay Park and restore a cultural institute as part of the city’s participatory budgeting process. Halloran’s spokesperson Kevin Ryan said the Council will “most likely honor” the votes despite the funding freeze. But sources said the $1 million initiative could be in jeopardy. “We’ll try to do as much as we can to keep the participatory budgeting,” said Comrie. Meanwhile, a handful of state elected offi cials are fi ghting for a hand in allocating the district’s city funds. “I have a real problem with someone from outside the district placing money,” said State Senator Tony Avella. “That’s not okay in my opinion. None of them know the groups in this district.” Avella and three assemblymembers who represent parts of the district have placed calls to the Speaker to be part of the decision making process. The three groups leading the participatory budget project — Community Voices Heard, the Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center and the Participatory Budgeting Project — also shared the same sentiment. “Councilmember Halloran’s arrest should not impede the participatory budgeting process and his constituents should not be punished,” they said in a joint statement, “especially when participatory budgeting is a proven method for injecting transparency, accountability and democracy into the budget process and can ward off the risk of corruption that plagues the member item system.”
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