New York's Green Speaker: Christine Quinn
By Denise Penn
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn has been taken the lead in passing Green legislation setting new standards in recycling. In January 2008, the New York City Council passed a law creating the most expansive plastic bag recycling program in the nation. The bill she fought for would require stores larger than 5,000 square feet to create special bag-recycling areas, and met opposition from supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis, who argued that recycling dirty bags was “repulsive.”
Along with Mayor Bloomberg, last October, Quinn successfully saw that a total of 105 new blue and green recycling bins were installed in public areas in order to decrease the amount of recyclables that are tossed into conventional litter containers.
New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is Green in more ways than her passion for recycling: She is an Irish American lesbian who is considered to be an international hero. In 2006, the Members of the New York City Council overwhelmingly chose Quinn as their Speaker. She became the first woman, and the first openly gay and Irish Speaker. Since then, she has been rated as 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. There is speculation that she may be the next Mayor.
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.
In 2007, Quinn announced that she intended to march in the LGBT section of Dublin, Ireland’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade. But due to the policy against gays and lesbians marching and displaying overt symbols of their sexual orientation in the New York parade, there was a problem. She has tried to work with the organizers but has failed to convince them to allow her to wear a gay pride pin in the parade, so she has boycotted the event ever since.
She is known in Ireland, the country of her ancestors and has visited there several times. Last year, she visited Northern Ireland and has nurtured the bond between New York City and Ireland. In a visit last year, she said she wanted to see Belfast become an international business center. In December, she was named the Irish Echo’s Irish American of the Year for 2008.