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Map: Quinn's City Council Dollars Flood Some Areas But Avoid Much Of Brooklyn
By
Aaron Marks
Published Feb 20, 2013
Modified Feb 20, 2013
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By
Aaron Marks
Published Feb 20, 2013
Modified Feb 20, 2013
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The City Council has $50 million of discretionary funding to spend throughout NYC. And while the funds, which are dispersed by Council Speaker Quinn, are supposedly distributed based on each area's need, our interactive map suggests that some areas are surprisingly needier than others. Using data made public by the city, this map shows how much discretionary funding was distributed per capita in each zip code from 2009-2013.
Quinn's constituents in Chelsea and Hell's Kitchen received the most funding out of any in the city. While the majority of zip codes in the city received $10-100 per capita, Quinn's zip codes received $396-696 in the past four years—more than 10 times what most of the city got. The district was such an outlier that we actually had to tweak our map settings, lest all of the city beyond Chelsea look like a sea of red!
Long Island City, Brooklyn Heights and the Financial District were the other big winners of funds over the past four years, receiving $103, $146 and $348 per capita, respectively. $103 over the past four years may not seem excessive, but compared to the $3 that Canarsie, Ozone Park and Elmhurst residents receive, the numbers look astronomical.
Yesterday, anonymous council members opened up to DNA Info about the funds' allocation, saying that "discretionary funds will be wielded as a weapon in the fight for endorsements." One council member added, "It’s a legal form of blackmail."
To complicate matters, the mayoral primary currently set for September may be moved up to June—right around the time when most discretionary funds are allocated. A Quinn spokesman denied the favoritism in funding, saying "Campaign politics play no role whatsoever in funding allocations."
Note: This map was created using discretionary spending records assigned to a specific council member and zip code. A small portion of funds are not assigned to a specific council member or zip code, and were not included in our analysis.
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