By Nina Mandell
DNAInfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — A former deputy chief of staff for City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was fined Tuesday for improperly soliciting campaign contributions in 2007.
Maura Keaney was slapped with a $2,500 fine by the city's Conflicts of Interest Board for making between six and 12 phone calls to union representatives to ask if they would help out on a fundraising event — a role which required a contribution to Quinn’s campaign.
For Keaney, it was the only bad mark on a week when she was awarded a six-figure job as the executive director of external affairs for the city's Department of Education. She will oversee legislative and government affairs, media relations, community relations, and family engagement and advocacy.
"Maura is an innovative thinker and advocate with a record of serving the interest of New Yorkers from positions both in and outside of government,” School Chancellor Joel Klein said in a press release.
The announcement of the fine came hours before Klein announced Keaney's new post.
In an e-mail to the New York Times, Keany’s lawyer, Arnold N. Kriss, said “Maura had no intention to violate the City Charter when she made a small number of volunteer fund-raising calls on her own time, not on city property” and “using her personal telephone.”
Keaney said in a statement to the board that she had not been aware of the campaign laws, and promised the donations hadn’t affected the Speaker’s legislative agenda.
She left Quinn’s office to run field operations for Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s reelection campaign, where she received a six-figure bonus after he won, the Times reported.
Quinn's office did not immediately return calls for comment, but the Speaker told the Times that “Maura has been a committed and energetic public servant and was a valued employee of the City Council."
