Apparently Council Member Maria Baez, who represents University Heights (14th Council District), will let her record talk for her, no matter how bad it looks.

After Council Member Helen Foster quite conspicuously missed an important congestion-pricing vote a few weeks ago, the New York Times did a study of Council member attendance records. What they found was that four out of the worst six attendance records were from Council members who represent the Bronx.

The absolute worst record of all 51 members belonged to Baez, who has missed literally a third of all Council hearings and full meetings since 2004. According to the Times, Baez, who chairs the Council’s State and Federal Legislation Committee and is the head of the Bronx delegation to the council, was recorded absent at 203 out of 608 meetings during that time span.

We tried unsuccessfully to get in contact with Baez over the past two weeks in order to give her the opportunity to explain her absences. When calling either her legislative office in Manhattan, or her district office in the Bronx, we were told, “someone would get back to” us, or that “Ms. Baez’s secretary will call back.”

Although no one ever managed to call us back, last week a man who asked only to be identified as “a spokesperson for her office” answered our latest attempt at contact. He finally gave comment, saying briskly, “Ms. Baez does not have comment on that.” He also said that “you’re going to write what you write,” and added that he “does not read the New York Times” so he hasn’t seen the report.

When asked why Baez didn’t feel the need to explain her absences, of which only 19 were officially considered excused, the spokesperson replied, “Ms. Baez’s constituents know what she has done for the community.”

One of those constituents, Haile Rivera, who is running for Baez’s soon-to-be-vacant City Council seat (her term is up in 2009), said he was disappointed but not surprised to hear about his representative’s poor attendance record.

“That’s a shame and an embarrassment for those that elected her,” said Rivera. “First of all, every elected official should have a public schedule. [Elected officials] should be open and subject to open meetings laws. If she has reasons [for being absent], we should know what they are.”

At the unveiling of a newly-renovated Monroe College building in the middle of her district on Jerome Avenue, several Bronx lawmakers showed up, including Council Member Jimmy Vacca (east Bronx) and Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz (northwest Bronx).

Baez sent a representative.