NY Post: 'Assassin' Council Gal Suspended By Frankie Edozien
June 29, 2007 -- A City Council aide who raised the specter of "assassination" of a lawmaker was suspended without pay yesterday for six weeks, Speaker Christine Quinn said.
Quinn (D-Manhattan) also has asked the aide, Viola Plummer, chief-of-staff to Brooklyn Councilman Charles Barron, to sign a document within three days promising to "conduct herself appropriately in the future and to cease being disruptive in the council chambers."
After a bid to name a street after racist black activist Sonny Carson failed, Plummer called for the end of Councilman Leroy Comrie's political career, even "if it takes an assassination of his ass."
Comrie, of Queens, who some sources said had pledged to support the Carson measure, abstained.
Plummer insisted she was talking about "character" assassination.
Sources said that Quinn's top lieutenants had been crafting a punishment they hoped would actually force Plummer to resign.
New York Times Blog: Suspended Council Aide Refuses to Sign Letter By Michael M. Grynbaum
The strange case of Viola Plummer began with an incendiary choice of words, and the fiery language has not let up.
Ms. Plummer, the chief of staff to Councilman Charles Barron, a Brooklyn Democrat, called for the “assassination” of Councilman Leroy G. Comrie’s political career on May 30. Mr. Comrie, a Queens Democrat, had helped block a bill that would have named a section of Bedford-Stuyvesant after the activist Sonny Carson, who died in 2002.
On June 28, Ms. Plummer was suspended without pay for six weeks by Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, who happens to be Mr. Barron’s political nemesis.
More than a month and a lawsuit later, Ms. Plummer faces a 5 p.m. deadline today to sign a letter pledging to refrain from “disorderly and disruptive conduct” to keep from losing her job.
Neither she nor Mr. Barron gave any indication that they planned to comply. “You said Viola has to sign this by 5 o’clock? Well, her supervisor says she doesn’t have a letter to sign,” Mr. Barron said at a news conference this morning, tearing the letter in half. “This is what I think of your letter.”
The language of the letter had been toned down from a previous version, which Mr. Barron also rejected and tore up, at a similar downtown news conference that took place on Monday.
Today, Mr. Barron and Ms. Plummer asked a federal judge, William H. Pauley, for a temporary restraining order blocking Ms. Quinn’s suspension order and Ms. Quinn’s requirement that Ms. Plummer sign the letter to return to her job. Judge Pauley denied the request, so the suspension stands.
Mr. Barron and Ms. Plummer have filed a lawsuit, asserting that Ms. Quinn does not have the authority to terminate (in the proverbial sense) a member of another council member’s staff. Ms. Quinn’s action would be par for the course at the State Legislature in Albany, but breaks with past tradition at City Hall.
“The underlying issue in this case, which will be resolved in trial, is that Christine Quinn does not have the authority under any New York State legislation or City Council rules, to do what she did,” said Roger S. Wareham, the lead lawyer for Ms. Plummer and Mr. Barron.
At the news conference, Mr. Barron did not mince words, saying that he would allow Ms. Plummer to work on a volunteer basis and that the lawsuit calls for her to receive lost pay.
“She has a blatant disrespect for black people,” he said, referring to Ms. Quinn. “A blatant disrespect for black heroes. A blatant disrespect for the black community, and the black community will remember her at the polls when she tries to come to our churches to get some votes when she’s running for mayor.”
A spokeswoman for Ms. Quinn said the speaker would not blink.
“If we do not receive a signed copy of the letter, Ms. Plummer will be subject to termination, and we will be moving forward with that process,” Maria Alvarado, Ms. Quinn’s spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail message.
A reporter at the news conference asked Ms. Plummer if she thought she used the wrong word.
“In my heart, I believe the words that I used are the words that I said, straight up,” Ms. Plummer replied. “I believe Leroy Comrie, who purports to represent the community from which I come from, treacherously turned his back on us.”
Mr. Comrie was traveling and was not available for comment, according to a spokesman.
