Vallone Rewards Councilmembers Who Sold Out on Lead

City Council Speaker Peter Vallone has rewarded three key Councilmembers who voted for last year’s law gutting the city’s lead-paint regulations, by giving them subcommittee chairmanships that also boost their salaries. According to Crain’s Insider, Vallone created three new subcommittees and gave the chairmanships as follows:

Adolpho Carrion, Jr. of the Bronx was picked to head the Subcommittee on Census 2000. Opponents of the law picked him as one of their “A-list” Councilmembers to lobby to preserve and he turned on them very publicly, by declaring to the press that he would support the bill. He’ll get a $4,000 raise.

Angel Rodriquez of Brooklyn got the Subcommittee on Small Business, Retail and Emerging Technologies. Rodriquez backed the bill despite the high rates of lead poisoning in his Sunset Park district. He’ll receive $4,000.

Annette Robinson of Brooklyn, whose Bedford-Stuyvesant district also has high rates of lead poisoning, got the Select Committee on Police Performance and Community Relations. At the Council vote on the bill last year, she zipped in, claimed she had to leave for a “family emergency,” but insisted on giving her vote for the bill before the roll call was held—indeed, before the debate on the bill had even started. She’ll get $2,500.