Quinn reveals elusive appointment to local-investment board

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is now the only obstacle standing in the way of the city’s new local-investment law.

The Responsible Banking Act, designed to prod more community lending by banks that hold city government money, created an eight-person advisory board, with one representative of the banking industry appointed by Bloomberg, and two advocates appointed by City Council Speaker Christine Quinn to represent consumers and small businesses, respectively.

Christopher Kui is executive director of Asian Americans for Equality — and now a member of a banking board in limbo. Photo: U.S. Department of Labor

Christopher Kui is executive director of Asian Americans for Equality — and now a member of a banking board in limbo. Photo: U.S. Department of Labor

Passed in the spring of 2012, the law gave Bloomberg and Quinn a 60-day deadline in which to make their appointments to the board.

Quinn named one member — housing advocate Bernell Grier — but missed the deadline for the second. Bloomberg appears not to have made his lone appointment, and his press office did not respond to an email inquiry about whether or when he would do so.

On Thursday, Quinn’s spokesman released the name of the speaker’s second representative. It is Christopher Kui, the executive director of Asian Americans for Equality, an advocacy and housing development group that through an affiliate lends to small businesses in immigrant communities. He is a former member of the City Planning Commission.

Kui did not respond to a request for comment, and Quinn’s spokesman did not indicate when Kui was named.

Quinn’s move puts the onus on Bloomberg to round out the advisory board with his appointment. The announcement comes a week after the Council Speaker called on Bloomberg to quit dragging his feet on choosing a representative of the banking industry.

In a letter to Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Steel, Quinn urged the administration to make its selection “immediately,” noting that the advisory board had already missed a March 1, 2013, deadline for filing a report.

“While I understand that it can take time to select a qualified candidate to appoint to the board,” Quinn wrote, “it is regrettable that the Bloomberg Administration has made no attempt to fulfill this legal requirement and continues to imply that doing so is not a priority any time soon.”

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