Gov. Spitzer and his top aides unleashed a verbal assault on Council Speaker Christine Quinn and her staff over a disagreement about the Javits Center, The Post has learned.
Sources said Quinn’s aides reached out to Spitzer’s office to report that she would oppose his sale of portions of land adjacent to the Javits Center during her State of the City speech last week – and were berated as “f- – -ing idiots” by Spitzer’s aides.
Spitzer himself then called Quinn.
“He was angry and screaming,” one source said of Spitzer’s conduct during a phone call to Quinn.
In her State of the City speech later, Quinn (D-Manhattan) told a roomful of city powerbrokers that “until we, as a city, decide to officially give up on the Javits expansion, I will fight any shortsighted effort to sell those two adjacent properties.”
Sources said that night, Spitzer called Quinn again and lambasted her. “It was a very tense conversation but she stood her ground,” one Quinn aide said.
Spitzer and Quinn met last Friday and the problems were smoothed over.
Spitzer’s communications director, Christine Anderson, yesterday called the allegations against the governor “inaccurate and irresponsible.”
Quinn’s chief spokesman Jamie McShane said, “We don’t divulge private conversations in the press,” but he added that the two “had a very productive meeting on Friday.”
Frederic U. Dicker contributed to this report.