With Patience and Fortitude: A Memoir by Christine Quinn Page B

supporters, press, and elected officials. It was packed. At some point Tom arrived and was surrounded by a sea of people. I watched from the back of the room.
    On election night you’re on adrenaline, so you’re thrilled and exhausted and exhilarated all at the same time. It was an incredible high, especially because I knew how much Tom’s win meant to so many people whose voices hadn’t been heard in city government before. His election was a turning point. This was the third or fourth time a gay person had run for that particular City Council seat, but it was the first time a gay person had won. After all this effort and all this time, it felt like a ceiling had cracked. The community had battled the government for recognition and for the gay rights bill, and were still fighting for better funding for HIV and AIDS. They had waged so many battles, and they would fight many more, but this was a great victory. We had no illusions that the trials were over, but now at least we’d have somebody on the inside helping the fight. And as Tom’s new chief of staff, I’d have a chance to help with all these efforts.
    C hief of staff to a City Council member” may sound like a big title, but in truth I was the chief cook and bottle washer. The offices for councilmembers were, and still are, not big. We had a staff of three or four. My job was to manage the staff, oversee the legislative and budget work, coordinate the press and the scheduler, and oversee the staff’s work with constituents and the local community boards.
    New York City has a total of fifty-nine community boards with about fifty members each. Community boards have an advisory role on everything from transportation to zoning. In our district, we basically had three community boards (and small pieces of two others—community board and City Council districts don’t cover exactly the same territory), and we were expected to have staff people at all their meetings. There are a lot of community board and other community meetings, and if we failed to send somebody to a meeting, it would not go unnoticed.
    My father, who often volunteered to answer the phone at our district office, tells the story of a community board member who called to complain. They’d had a subcommittee meeting of some kind the night before, and the board member said, “Duane’s office wasn’t there.”
    “No, you’re mistaken, I know we were there,” my father said.
    “I have the attendance list right here in front of me, and you weren’t !” the caller replied. It was that kind of district, so you did your best to make sure you had a staffer at every meeting and every place they needed to be. People really care, and they demand and should get attention. That’s what makes our city great.
    A flood of letters came in from constituents, and to deal with them, I developed a system to make sure that nothing slipped through the cracks. In those days, constituent complaints and requests came by regular mail, and there were thousands of them. A staff member would photocopy the front cover of every piece of mail that got forwarded to them, and that copy would go into its own folder for the staff person to deal with. We’d meet once a week to go through the folders. If the constituent’s problem had been addressed, we’d take the copy out of the folder and close the case. If there were still issues, we’d write ways to deal with the problem on the copy. The designated staff person would follow up that week. The next week we’d go through the folders again, so that ultimately everything would be addressed in some way or another.
    I’ve always said to staff who work with constituents that even if you don’t have an immediate answer, it’s better to call that person back or write to them and say, for example, “I’m waiting to hear from the Department of Buildings, and I share your frustration over the delay.” Because what the constituent wants, besides an answer to his or her