Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn

Final Thoughts from Candidates Lander and Pechefsky

I got these auto-emails from two candidates for City Council in the 39th district: Democrat Brad Lander and Green David Pechefsky.

FROM BRAD:

Louise --

Three months ago, I wrote you an early morning e-mail from Foley Square in Lower Manhattan, where I was sleeping out as part of a vigil to end homelessness.

This morning, at home in Brooklyn, I'm restless again, waiting for Election Day.

Back in July, I wrote: "My campaign is based on the belief that when New Yorkers come together, when we take collective action, we can make a profound difference on the issues we care about. We won't end homelessness by sleeping out tonight, of course.  But I believe strongly that our actions together do make a difference."

We won't solve the problems we face simply by voting today, either. The road ahead is a hard one, with more neighbors losing jobs or having their hours cut. With more New Yorkers losing their homes, and yes, more sleeping on the streets or in shelters. With more worries about keeping our streets safe, our schools and subways and parks and libraries funded, our locally-owned small businesses open, our neighborhoods vibrant.   

But I believe -- as fervently as I did three months ago in Foley Square, as hopefully as I did a year ago before that truly momentous election day, as optimistically as I did when we launched this City Council campaign more than two years ago -- that by voting today we will put ourselves in a better position to try.

On Wednesday, I hope to wake up early again and get busy working with groups who are organizing to get us through the tough times ahead and to build a NYC rooted in our shared vision.  With parents organizing for better schools, neighborhood watch groups, tenant associations, and community-based sustainability efforts.  With workers, small business owners, and freelancers looking to create a better and fairer economy. With civic organizations and community groups that are the true measure of neighborhood strength.     

For today, please come out and vote. 

Polls open in just a few hours, at 6 am, and stay open until 9 pm.

Thanks,

Brad

FROM DAVID:

Thanks once again for all your support.  No matter the outcome tomorrow, we've made an impact and the campaign has been a good step in pushing our political system to be better.
 
Remember to vote and please remind all your friends - email them, call them, or use whatever other method you can think of.
 
Thanks,
David

Vote Tomorrow: Read About the Candidates, Again

You can read up on some of the candidates in the upcoming election on November 3rd. I conducted these interviews prior to the Democratic primary on September 15th. 

For Mayor: Thompson was the only candidate I was able to interview. I wanted to interview Rev. Billy but wasn't able to make that happen. And no go with Mayor Bloomberg.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Bill Thompson I asked Thompson how big a deal he's going to make out of the fact that Bloomberg overturned term limits: "New Yorkers are upset and frustrated by what he did. He said he would never go against what the voters wanted. And then he did. He lied to the people. And that resonates with them." And those are fightin' words. Thompson, who has been called the stealth candidate by the New York Times, has plenty to run on. He just needs to get his juices flowing and find some passion about other  issues that matter to New Yorkers.

For City Council in the 39th:
Breakfast-of-Candidates: Brad Lander, Lander has two master's degrees and a BA from the University of Chicago. He made his mark running community organizations like the Fifth Avenue Committee and Pratt Center for Community Development, advocating for affordable housing and community sustainablility.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: David Pechefsky. The Green Candidate, Pechefsky worked for 10 years in the central staff of the New York City Council. With a master's degree in public policy and experience advising local governments in Africa, Pechefsky knows how the City Council works from the inside out and has ideas about how it could better serve the people of New York City.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Joe Nardiello  He doesn't look like a Republican. I was expecting someone clean cut, non-ethnic and very middle America. But Nardiello, born and bred in Brooklyn, has dark eyes, dark hair and strong Italian good looks. He had the Brooklyn childhood of legend and is a very intriguing guy:  "All we needed was a ball. My life was constantly filled with sports, resourcefulness, spending time with friends."

For City Council in the 33rd:

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Stephen Levin.  A classics major at Brown University,  Levin has wonky good looks and a boyish, disarming manner. His father's cousins are Michigan's Senator Carl Levin and Congressman Sander Levin and he currently works as Vito Lopez's chief of staff. Lopez, who is often portrayed as a Darth Vader figure in Brooklyn politics taught the 29-year-old Levin about "knocking on doors, talking to as many people as possible, the importance of having a command of the issues, and having empathy for the people," Levin told me. A pragmatist, Levin believes "that for for every problem there is a solution that is not readily apparent."

Debate on Food Policy with 39th City Council Candidates

One week until the election and there's a  debate on Food Policy between the Candidates for City Council in the 39th District: Bensonhurst, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill,  Gowanus, Kensington, Park Slope, and Windsor Terrace. 

Find out about their positions on School Food and curriculum, public space for community gardens and farms, composting, labor rights for food workers, local healthy food sources, farmers' markets, CSAs and food coops. 

Ask questions. Let your voice be heard!

Where: P.S. 10,   511  7th Avenue between Prospect Ave. and 17th Street 

When: Thursday, Oct. 29, 7 pm

Co-sponsors: 

Healthy Steps Committee of PS 10 PTA 

Park Slope Food Circle  & Windsor Terrace/Kensington neighborhood groups of the

Brooklyn Food Coalition

for more information: info@brooklynfoodcoalition.org

Pechefsky Has The Money in the Final Week of Campaign

Have you decided who you're voting for for City Council in the 39th District? The race for Bill DiBlasio's seat has been a long, strange trip and the general election is on Tuesday, November 3rd. That's exactly one week from today.

A lot of people thought that the Democratic primary was the deciding election in a largely Democratic district. But the Green party has proven that this is a real democracy and voters really do have a choice in the 39th.

So here are your choices for City Council in the 39th: Brad Lander (Democrat), David Pechefsky (Green) and Joe Nardiello (Republican).

According to a press release from David Pechefsky today, Campaign Finance Board (CFB) records show the Pechefsky campaign with more cash on hand for the last week of the campaign than his Democratic rival: $35,599 to Lander's $26,648.

"Obviously, overall Brad will significantly outspend us, but by putting on a full court press this final week we think we can capture a lot of the votes of people who really want change in the City Council, those who didn't pay much attention to the Democratic primary, and those, including the 15,000 voters not registered with any party, who are glad to finally have a real choice come election day, " states Pechefsky.

It has to be said that Pechefsky has mounted a strong and innovative campaign with the help of CFB matching funds. 

His team of canvassers has been out knocking on doors and providing voters with his entertaining and informative "activity book" and this week the campaign will be launching an internet advertising campaign.  "Even Brad acknowledges that I have the best t-shirts" quips Pechefsky, "but I think people will vote for me based on my experience and independence."

Oct 19 at Noon: Lander, Pechefsky & Nardiello to Take Standardized Tests!

All three candidates for the City Council in the 39th district are public school parents. However, the current CFB Voter Guide, delivered to households this past week, misprinted information and said that  Brad Lander was the only public school parent of the bunch.

That was accurate of the candidates for the Democratic primary but not accurate of the three now facing the general election. In other words: Pechefsky (Green), Brad Lander (Democratic) and Nardiello (Republican) have kids in public school.

They will hold a press conference on Monday, October 19th at noon in JJ Byrne Park (3rd Street and Fifth Avenue) to set the record straight.

To dramatize the fact. all three candidates will take a standardized test while sitting in school desks. It should be quite a sight. The event is just one block from MS 51.

Mayoral Debate: Live & Kicking, Off Stage & On

Brooklyn Beat of the blog Deep in the Heart of Brooklyn was at the mayoral debate last night. Here's an excerpt. Go to his blog for more text and pix:

"When I arrived at El Museo Del Barrio,the building was ringed by police, media service trucks, and political supporters. Little groups of construction workers huddled on 5th avenue, clearly tired after a long day on the job, with Mayor Mike posters. On 104th street, a crowd of proud East Harlem pro-Thompson activists raised a pro- Bill, anti-Mike ruckus, breaking into cheers whenever passing motorists honked their horns in support."

Oh. That Was Rev Billy at Last Night's Mayoral Debate

I listened to the first half hour of Tuesday night's debate between NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg and mayoral candidate City Comptroller William Thompson on WNYC. 

"What are you doing here, Mike? We voted for term limits!" On the radio it sounded like it was quite a ruckus.

Turns out it was Green Party Candidate for Mayor Rev. Billy Talen.

Talen was not speaking from the stage, but from the fifth row in the audience. Though Talen will appear on the ballot in November along with six other candidates for Mayor he was not invited to participate in the debate. Only Mike Bloomberg and Democratic nominee Bill Thompson were allowed to participate in the one hour debate.

According to Talen: "the missing voice tonight was the voice of New York City's neighborhoods, which Bloomberg and the Democrats have victimized in their lust for the bubble-based economies of tourism, chain stores and Wall Street. We will not forget about Bloomberg's dismissal of term limits. He cannot spend enough to erase Democracy."

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Joe Nardiello (39th)

Yeah, I was curious to meet the Republican running for Bill deBlasio's City Council seat in the 39th district. I mean it's audacious being a Republican in the People's Republic of Park Slope.

And I was sort of missing my breakfasts with the candidates. It had been months since I'd met with any of the 39ers or the 33s.

So I told Joe Nardiello to meet me at one of my usual BOC haunts: Donuts on Seventh Avenue near 9th Street.

Of course Nardiello knew all about Donuts because he's a Brooklyn guy from way back.

I have to say he doesn't look like a Republican. I was expecting someone clean cut, non-ethnic and very middle America (sort of like 39er Gary Reilly, who happens to be ultra progressive. So much for cliches).

Wrong. Nardiello, born and bred in Brooklyn, has dark eyes, dark hair and strong Italian good looks.

He had the Brooklyn childhood of legend.  "All we needed was a ball. My life was constantly filled with sports, resourcefulness, spending time with friends."

There was football and wiffleball on the Brooklyn streets. "Punch the ball, off the point, off the wall, corks, skellies," Nardiello recited a litany of the games he played as a kid.

In elementary school,  Nardiello was plucked out of St. Agnes in Carroll Gardens for a progressive study junior high. "When I found out it was for underprivileged kids I didn't know what that meant. I had to look it up." 

Clearly, Nardiello did not view himself as having an underprivileged background. It was a good life with a good family on the good streets of Brooklyn. "But I didn't know anyone who went to college in my youth. People went into trades and became union carpenters, longshoreman at the docks like their fathers."

Later he was placed in a special "Higher Achievement Program" at Xavier High School in Manhattan. He went to college at NYU. While there, he also worked part time at Citibank as a bank teller. "I'm from a blue collar background. If you're not working there's something wrong with you."

Ever the busy—and social guy, Nardiello started the NYU Social and Athletic Club, a club for students who didn't like fraternities and sororities. "I don't like exclusion. Something for the few and not for the most." There were 500 members and it was a place to give commuter students a sense of belonging," he told me.

At NYU, Nardiello majored in journalism he says "because I was a child of the 1960's up to Watergate. I wanted to be Woodward and Bernstein."

After graduation, Nardiello decided to go into advertising, where he found that he enjoyed the creative side. "I was making money. In my neighborhood if you made your age in salary you were a success. I had superstar status in the neighborhood. A wunderkind."

But he was restless and wanted to do something else after a while. "Nothing is ever about money for me. It drives my wife crazy. It's the challenge," he told me.

So he worked for advertising agencies developing business for companies like American Airlines, the island of Curacao, fashion accounts and even a Donald Trump board game.

And then he tried something else. During the Dinkins administration Nardiello became a member of an economic "think tank" led by Dinkins' Deputy Mayor Barry Sullivan. The mission of the NYC Economic Policy & Marketing Group, was to brand New York City was to support and develop the NYC economy during the recession of the early 1990s and to aggressively increase  tourism to "hundreds of cultural institutions."

In this capacity, Nardiello worked with the Economic Development Corp and Small Business Services from 1992 until 1995, where it was his job to review the budget of the NYC Convention & Visitors Bureau for Deputy Mayors. 
"The idea was to apply a private-sector approach to efforts to promote NYC worldwide," Nardiello told me. He also managed the “Mayor’s Tourism Office” and recruited & directed seven of NY’s largest marketing agencies to highlight attractions in 10 designated “development zones."

Nardiello is proud of his work at NYC Economic Policy and Marketing Group: "We brought East and West Harlem together. They weren't communicating," he says. The group also helped Brighton Beach and introduced Big Apple Greeters and "New York City: Yours to Discover" program. "The idea was to focus on the city (and tourism) outside of Times Square."

After 9/11 it was this experience that inspired Nardiello to approach individual companies in Lower Manhattan to help them comeback from the devastation of the attacks.

Then I popped the million dollar question. Why is Nardiello, a Republican in a predominantly Democratic district, running for City Council? 

"I am giving people a choice. People  should understand that a man can be a strong candidate and look past the branding.

Looking at his website, I gather that Nardiello sees himself as a Theodore Roosevelt Republican, a Mike Bloomberg Republican, a Park Slope Food Coop Republican. He writes on the site:

"The GOP has to once again recognize support for social aspects, and drive causes. Locally, we have hospitals closing, immigration issues that are punted year after year, a 1-party system that’s fine with the status quo (which works for them) and it doesn’t necessarily have to solve problems as long as they keep saying they intend to. There’s also real mismanagement & carelessness about rates from public utilities and untouchable-Authorities that are affecting us – and we have to go full-bore right at the problems.

What would Teddy Roosevelt do with the MTA or even our NY State elected bodies?

Says Nardiello: "This is a moment in time in Brooklyn that we can finally focus on the underprivileged, the disconnected, those who need help who have no voice. People who need direction and assistance."

Funny, Nardiello doesn't sound like a Republican. But he is.

--I asked if he's pro-Choice and he said that he's 100% for women's rights. As to his actual view on abortion, he didn't say.
--I asked if he's for same sex marriage and he said "I don't think the government should decide what a family is."
-
-Did he vote for Barack Obama? Nope. He voted for McCain.

So Food Coop or no Food Coop he's a Republican, friends.

I asked Nardiello, who is likable, articulate and funny, about the  "Ah Ha" moment that inspired him to throw his hat into the ring.

So here's what happened: He went to the City Council candidate's forum at the Church of the Gethsemane in Park Slope in the Spring of 2009. Remember that? It was the one John Heyer refused to participate in because he was being "attacked" for his pro-life, anti-same sex marriage views.

But Nardiello was an audience member. When asked if they supported residential parking permits, which would require locals to pay for parking, all the candidates said "yes." He was shocked.

"This is year three of a great recession and these people have no connection to the recession. No business experience. No connection to what it's like to live in Brooklyn in these times," Nardiello told me. "You have to protect the people of your district. Everything has to be in the public interest."

Practically apoplectic, he decided there and then to run. And it wasn't easy in Brownstone Brooklyn to even find 400 Republicans who would sign the petition needed to get his name on the ballot.

About Atlantic Yards, Nardiello initially thought the plan to bring a professional basketball team to Brooklyn was a slam dunk on many levels, including branding and economic development. "However, I was surprised at the sheer size of the relating residences," he says.




From the sounds of it, Nardiello backs a more holistic approach to development. He believes that there must be a process of communication that includes the city and the councilperson and "not the developer, to share a comprehensive vision and address issues like the traffic on Atlantic Avenue," he wrote in an email.

At the end of 90-minutes I told Nardiello that it was time for me to go. My sister had dropped into Donuts and the three of us walked down to Third Street (it can be hard to shake a politician once they start talking).

It was fun to get to know this Food Coop Republican and the guy running against Democrat Brad Lander and Green party candidate David Pechefsky in the general election on November 3rd. 

As Nardiello told me in an email: "I'm running for our areas -- which I will always live in. People have a new, honest voice and the hardest working representative they'd ever meet -- if they want it. They have to vote the person, not the party to wash-away partisanship in thelr lifetime, here and now! ...I may have just appeared on the political radar, but I've been here and doing my best, day to day for quite some time."

photo of Joe Nardiello in Donuts on Seventh Avenue in Park Slope by Louise Crawford

Coming Soon: Breakfast-of-Candidates with Joe Nardiello

That's right, Joe Nardiello, the Republican running for City Council in the 39th district faced OTBKB's coffee cup at Donuts on Seventh Avenue last week. Stay tuned for the interview with this Republican who is a member of the Park Slope Food Coop.

Rev Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir Rocked the Brooklyn Lyceum

So often I post events on this blog but can't make it to them. But last night I made a point of getting over to the Brooklyn Lyceum's Benefit for a Garden Grown from Katrina with mayoral candidate Rev Billy to find  out for myself what this Rev Billy thing is all about.

I know he's running for mayor on the Green Party ticket. And I've heard that he's an activist and performance artist with a powerful political message against war and consumerism.

Friends have told me that he's an amazing performer. And recently a friend said that they'd heard him on the Brian Lehrer Show and that he was incredible. Still, I didn't really know if it was schtick or the real thing.

The evening began with a screening of "Mama Sue's Garden," a very promising work-in-progress by documentary filmmaker Susan Hamovitch about a feisty and watchable woman in St. Bernard's Parish in New Orleans who is coming back from the devastation and loss of Hurricane Katrina by creating a community garden.

Then it was time for Rev Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir and they rocked the house. The energy, the music, the humor of this group can not be understated.

And their message about democracy, consumerism and peace. A flyer that I got at the door states Rev Billy's reasons for running for mayor:

"It's called Democracy. My opponent Mike Bloomberg is buying his 3rd term, and now talks of a 4th. He's an old-fashioned strong man of the type we didn't think exicsted in America. His $300,000 a day keeps us consuming his little video performances about jobs, schools, the MATA or the Yankees—whatever ad is in rotation. But he is changing the subject The only issue is Democracy and all the other issue beomce importabot after we've talked out our facts and our positions in a democratic ways. That's because we are citizens, not consumer."

The Stop Shopping Gospel Choir was really at the heart of Rev Billy's Lyceum appearance. They are an all-ages choir comprised of a very appealing, talented and energetic group of people who make soaring gospel music. They make you want to clap along, sing, and stomp your feet. The music moves you to move as it moves you. And they're really fun to watch. As they say on the about page of rev Billy's website:

We are moms, activists, cyclists, worshippers, pagans, bakers, park-lovers, tech-geeks, tinkerers, campers, gardeners, nerds, actors, athletes, executives, hairdressers, designers, angels, devlis, and more.

In between songs, Rev Billy delivered  his message of peace and his core belief  that our neighborhoods, commons, stoops, parks, streets and libraries, are disappearing into the corporatized world of big boxes and chain stores. This is from his website:

We like independent shops where you know the person behind the counter or at least –you like them enough to share a story.We ask that local activists who are defending themselves against supermalls, nuke plants, gentrification – call us and we'll come and put on our "Fabulous Worship!"

His sermon for the night was about his experience at an "unpermitted" peace march at the G20 in Pittsburgh. "The only permit we had was the First Amendment," he said and the choir then broke into a singing of those 35 words.

Rev Billy then resumed his story about a group of approximately 700 peace activists ("and some 30-40 kids who wanted to get arrested," he said), who were surrounded by what he called DarthRoboCopVaders, in special riot gear, who created a menacing wall around them.

These "inscrutable" walls (cops at a demonstration, big box stores in a smal town), says Rev Billy,  are creating a new theory of social control called emptiness. " Reflected in those LA sunglasses there is the power of emptiness."

He came away from the demonstration thinking that consumerism and militarism—and even activism—are the same thing as he felt the activists imitate the Robocops "because we felt their tension and we forgot that we were arguing for peace."

While in Pittsburg, Rev Billy said he saw something he wasn't supposed to see: behind a a van he saw a group of Robocops getting into their bullet proof vests. "Toto pulled away the curtain and there were the cops looking like local young people, not too beefy, getting into their armour. They were stepping into that attitude, that ektoskelatal thing. And I realized if they can put it on, it can be reversed."

He went on to say: "We can return to softness," he said. "That is possible. We can stay soft, complex, articulate, sensual and interesting. Not like that wall."

This is complex, thoughtful stuff and I was very impressed by his way of speaking and the things he had to say. He's interesting and surprising and nuanced and smart. He is a very appealing guy who is, at heart, a performer and an artist who has devised an incredible way to get his message across.

After the show, I ran into a fellow blogger on Fifth Avenue. He told me that he'd never seen Rev Billy.

"So is it schtick or is it real?" he asked.

"It's schtick and it's for real. It's very sincere schtick," I told him. But I know that's only part of the story. That's why I will be doing a Breakfast-of-Candidates interview with Rev Billy so we can really go behind the scenes and find out what makes him tick. Stay Tuned.

Tonight: Mayoral Candidate Rev. Billy at the Brooklyn Lyceum

Tonight there's a Benefit for a Garden Grown from Katrina with mayoral candidate Rev. Billy, his choir and More!

Saturday, October 3rd. Doors at 7:00pm. $10
One for the Crop, One for the Crow: A Benefit Event
The Brooklyn Lyceum | 227 4th Avenue | Brooklyn, NY 11215 | R Train To
Union Street

Join activist and Green Party Candidate for Mayor of NYC Reverend Billy Talen and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir as we remember Katrina witha way forward.

The Rev and Choir will perform at 7:45pm, and the whole
evening is filled with music and films celebrating how communities have
survived and reinvented themselves in New Orleans after Katrina. We will
celebrate Mama Sue's Garden, created by Sue Boutwell LaGrange in one New
Orleans' most devastated parishes. Mama Sue-a-lujah!

The schedule of events:
7:30    Five minute short film on Hurricane Katrina
7:45    Reverend Billy and the Life After Shopping Gospel Choir
8:45    Anthony DeGregorio and his Jazz band
9:15    Susan Hamovitch introduces and shows 30 mins of new documentary
Mama Sue's Garden
10:00   The Amazing Mentalist Dr. Zenitram
10:30   Gary Fisher and his Jazz band

De Blasio Wins Run-off Against Green, Liu Beats Yassky for Comptroller

As reported by New York 1 News, the uncertified results of today's Primary Run-off Election for Public Advocate and Comptroller positions are:

Public Advocate - NYC
Bill de Blasio (Dem)	138736	62.50%
Mark Green (Dem)	83241	37.50%
Reporting: 6110 of 6110 precincts - 100.00 percent

Comptroller - NYC
John Liu (Dem)	127173	55.68%
David Yassky (Dem)	101215	44.32%
Reporting: 6110 of 6110 precincts - 100.00 percent

REMINDER: General Election is November 3, 2009.  (You can register to vote in the general election until October 9, 2009)

Click here for instructions on how to register, or use the following link:
http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/register.html

Click here to find your local polling place, or use the following link:
http://gis.nyc.gov/vote/ps/index.htm

There Are Republicans in Brooklyn, You Know

There's even a Young Republican Club and they're having a get together at the Montauk Club to discuss all the Republicans running for local office. Here are the deets (if you are so inclined):

Who: Alex Zablocki, Republican Candidate for NYC Public Advocate, Joe Mendola, Republican Candidate for NYC Comptroller , Joe Nardiello, Republican Candidate for City Council, 39th District, Gene Berardelli, Republican Candidate for City Council, 46th District, Kellen Giuda, NYC Tea Party Founder & Parcbench.com

What: The Brooklyn Young Republican Club will be hosting its September regular meeting at its new location, the beautiful and historic Montauk Club, located at 25 8th Avenue in Park Slope/Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn.  The location is quite fitting since the Montauk Club throughout its history has been host to numerous prominent American politicians of both parties.  We will be hosting local candidates as well as Kellen Giuda, founder of Parcbench.com and the NYC Tea Party movement, which just co-sponsored the massive Taxpayer Tea Party on September 12th in Washington, D.C.  

The meeting is free and open to the public; however, non-members are asked to RSVP on our website at http://www.brooklynyr.com/events_details.php?eventID=65.

Tuesday's Primary: Lowest Turnout in NYC History

The New York Times reports:

Though official records are incomplete, it appears that the turnout in Tuesday’s Democratic primary was the lowest in modern New York City history.

Despite pleasant weather and the efforts of candidates who crisscrossed the city for weeks, just 11 percent of enrolled Democrats went to the polls.

The primary was also marked by a political anomaly: more people cast their ballots for public advocate and comptroller than for mayor.

More than 347,000 Democrats voted in Tuesday’s five-way primary for public advocate and more than 352,000 in the four-way race for comptroller, but some 312,000 voted in the mayoral contest.

Bradford Lander to Represent the 39th District in the City Council

The voters—albeit a paltry number of them—have spoken and they've made an excellent choice for City Council in the 39th district by picking Brad Lander. As I said in my endorsement of Lander on Monday:

From early in the race, I admired Lander's intelligence, his enthusiasm, his ability to speak articulately about community development, affordable housing, education, transportation, quality of life and other issues of concern to the voters.

I think Lander has a statesmen-like quality and great leadership skills that inspire respect and optimism. I think he's a team player and a consensus builder. I know that he loves this district and has devoted practically his entire life to issues of urban planning and affordable housing.

While I admired Skaller's willingness to be forthright and intuitive about issues like Atlantic Yards and Superfund combined with his background in community activism, I think this is Lander's moment to lead. That is why I am endorsing Brad Lander in the 39th.

I wish Lander luck, learning, integrity and a willingness to speak truth to power as he embarks on what will almost certainly be a stellar career in the City Council.

Still, I was shocked that the race between Lander and Skaller wasn't closer. Lander got 5129 votes to Skaller's 3180. The Skaller camp was predicting that the race would be won by 200 votes. But in the end, it was more like 1,914 that gave Lander the edge.

In this way, the race was like 2001 when Bill di Blasio won by 2,000 votes against Steven diBrienza. 

I think everyone expected Lander and Skaller's numbers to be a lot closer. But it was Skaller and Heyer who were really close in this race. Heyer got 2753 votes to Skaller's 3180. 427 votes made all the difference.

 I imagine that Lander and Skaller were neck and neck in Park Slope. And in Boro Park Lander and Heyer may well have been very close. But what about Carroll Gardens, Windsor Terrace and Kensington?

Who took those votes?

Election Prep For Those Who Are Still Figuring It Out

• City Council Races in the 33rd and the 39th

Read: the Breakfast-of-Candidates Interviews

Read: Final Thoughts from John Heyer, Brad Lander, Bob Zuckerman, Josh Skaller and Gary Reilly

Read: OTBKB Endorsement in the 39th: Brad Lander

Read: OTBKB Endorsement in the 33rd: Doug Biviano

Sun: Brooklyn Celebrates Its Bookishness at Festival

The Brooklyn Book Festival is a huge, free public event presenting an array of literary stars and emerging authors. The festival, which is this Sunday in and around Brooklyn Borough Hall, is organized around themed readings and devoted to timely and lively panel discussions. The inclusion of top national and international authors and new partners has expanded the festival’s reach while continuing to celebrate and enhance Brooklyn’s contemporary and historic literary reputation.

There's much to do at the fest: panels, speakers, readings, tables full of books. And this, which I thought sounded interesting:

I wanted to let you know about my panel at 2pm on the International Stage outside. Would love a shout-out on your blog, to see you there, or help facilitate interviews with my fellow panelists. More info:

 

The Naked City: Urban Realism and the Global City in Fiction & Non-Fiction. A discussion exploring the gritty urban realism of the contemporary global city as seen through recent works of fiction and non-fiction about Delhi, New York, and Mexico City. Featuring David Lida (First Stop in the New World), Meera Nair (Video), and Hirsh Sawhney (ed., Delhi Noir). Moderated by Cheryl Harris Sharman (Nightshift NYC).

What It Took To Win the 39th (and other districts) in 2001

I just got this email with a link about the 2001 race.It was sent to me by a life-long Brooklyn resident who says that he tries to  to stay engaged with local issues and politics. He writes: "Admittedly, it is a little geeky to know that the New York City Board of Elections publishes vote tallies on its website..."

 I was living in south Park Slope in 2001 and of course remember that September well.  I recalled that the race had a crowded field and when you reported the 2,000 vote figure I was curious to check it out.

I very much apreciate your coverage of the local elections (along with your blogger colleagues all over Bklyn), and thought you might want to reference the link below; Bill diBlasio won in 2001 with about 1,600 votes over his nearest rival, taking just 32% of the total cast in a six-way race.

http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/pdf/results/2001/primaryelection/2001p.pdf (see pages 74 & 75 for the 39th's actual tally in 2001 Dem Primary)

What Will It Take To Win the Race in the 39th?

Some people are estimating that 200 votes will decide the election for Bill diBlasio's city council seat in the 39th district.

200 votes?  Wow. That's not a lot of votes.

In 2001, I heard that Bill diBlasio won by 2,000 votes. But that was 2001. It wasn't nearly as tight a race as this one.

So, 200 votes will make or break a candidate. That's why a voting block like Borough Park is so important. The Satmar community votes according to recommendations from its chief rabbi. Whatever the rabbi says...

That said, the candidates are running hard in Borough Park—and all over the rest of the district.

So who are the front runners?

Brad Lander and Josh Skaller are running neck in neck no doubt. At the moment, Lander is trying to distance himself from his Yiddish newspaper brouhaha. I'm not sure if voters in brownstone Brooklyn are aware of it or even care about it.

Bob Zuckerman is at their tail. He just came out with a very funny animated spot that shows cartoon versions of Lander and Skaller attacking each other.

John Heyer is running close to Zuckerman as he has a strong following among conservative democrats in Carroll Gardens and possibly Borough Park.

Gary Reilly, arguably the most honest and forthright is in last place.

In a local election like this every vote really does count. It is important that every Democrat in Park Slope take a long, hard look at all the candidates and get out there on Tuesday September 15th and vote.

Politics Requires Grains of Salt. Many.

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED: Many grains of salt. That's what you need in these last days of the City Council race in Brooklyn's 39th district. People are flinging all kinds of crazy accusations about and you have to be careful what you believe.

Politics: it's wild and crazy and nasty and strange. Strange. Strange. Strange. And there's a whole lot of curious stuff going on.

Much of it has to do with Borough Park, which is part of the 39th district. The candidates are vying for important votes in that community, which is largely made up of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews.

That said, who is fulminating this politics of attack? Is this sort of thing just par for the course during any race? I am assuming that the fake ad in a Yiddish newspaper and the following weird emails about the Dov Hikind Radio Show has nothing to do with the candidates and their campaigns.

Yesterday I got a very strange email from someone calling themselves Media Watch about Brad Lander. It was obviuosly ridiculous (the mispellings alone invalidate it in my opinion).

On Sunday (9-6-09) Josh Skaller and John Heyer bumped in to each other  on 13th Ave and 40 St... Guess who they were [laughing] talking about... Brad Lander

 

He told him that “Last night Brad Lander was in the studio of Dov Hikind Radio Show broad casting (sic) live and he [Josh Skaller] Walked in on them”… Lander Blushed… and it kept Lander Quite (sic) most of the half hour, Dov Hikind had to do all the talking.

 

Walking with Josh is a guy with a white beard, the Skaller campaign hired him for his bear (sic) to go door knocking in Borough-Park.

 

Please keep source anonymous

Clearly someone is sending weird emails to bloggers. Gatemouth of Room 8 received the following email on Labor Day. NOTE: Gatemouth has since concluded that the email was absolutely ridiculous. I could have told him that. Again, the mispellings... Who wrote it?  See Gatemouth's column at Room 8.

To: Gatemouthnyc(at)hotmail(dot)com

Brad Lander pledged to support getting public tax dollars for the
private schools.

Brad Lander pledged on-air to join Dov Hikind on a
Support-the-Settlements trip to Israel and the West-Bank.

They tried to play down Lander's position gay rights and play up the
position of for gay rights of John Heyer who is getting lots of local
Hassidic support and appropriate his position against gay marriage.

Brad Lander was on the Dov Hikind Radio Show Saturday night (9-5-09).

Gatemouth had this to say In the Huffington Post and on the blog Room 8 

lf this were indeed true it would qualify as pretty amazing stuff, since among other things, Mr. Lander's campaign has consistently maintained that Israel is not a legitimate issue in this race, but if this email is correct, the Mr. Lander has managed to evolve from the lunatic left to the rabid right in a matter of a few short months. The schools position would be news to his supporters at the UFT and the other stuff would imply Mr. Lander sees no difference between marriage and civil union.

Frankly, it is so mind-boggling as to make me dubious.

Therefore, I am laying down both an appeal for help, and a challenge. The appeal is to everyone out there. Can someone provide me with either a transcript or a recording of this interview?

The challenge is to Mr. Lander and Assemblyman Hikind.

I am asking that you provide me with either a recording or a transcript. I am forwarding a copy of this column to Liz Benjamin, Azi Paybarah and all the other candidates in this race. I believe at least some of these candidates will join me in this request.

If by Wednesday at 6:00 PM a transcript or recording is not provided to the public, I will assume that everything in this email is true and post an analysis. I trust others will be making similar inquiries shortly after I've posted.

And who was responsible for placing an unauthorized Brad Lander ad in the Yiddish language newspaper Der Blatt? The ad said it was "Paid for by Brad Lander for City Council,” and it falsely claimed that Lander is against gay marriage; the article used homophobic and extremely offensive language.  

Lander sent out this message almost immediately:

We did not authorize, place, see, or pay for the ad.  As soon as the campaign became aware of the ad last week, we publicly made clear we did not have anything to do with it, denounced its gross and outrageous content, and wrote letters to the NYC Campaign Finance Board calling for an investigation of how it was placed (available here) and to Der Blatt calling for a comparably-placed retraction.  I am extremely angry that these homophobic statements were, in any way, associated with me or my campaign. 

My consistent and strong support of marriage equality and LGBT rights are widely known, including in Borough Park.  It has been a public issue in the campaign, on our campaign website, and in multiple pieces in the Orthodox Jewish press and blogosphere. 

And Today City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle, sent out this press release to make it clear that Brad Lander had nothing to do with the ad in Der Blatt. Here's their press release:

For Immediate Release: Monday, September 7, 2009

Statement of Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle

New York -- Today New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn and Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle released the following statement regarding the campaign for the NYC Council 39th District seat. Both Quinn and Van Capelle have made no endorsement in the 39th District and are supporting no candidate.

“Homophobia has no place in our city and no place in any campaign for elective office. The content of the ad placed in Der Blatt is offensive to all New Yorkers. I know Brad Lander and am confident that he had absolutely nothing to do with the ad. I was pleased that he took immediate action to denounce it. Any attempt to use this ad against Brad is just plain wrong. I urge all candidates to stop using homophobia for any personal gain, and to engage in a discussion of the issues that are important to the daily lives of voters in the District,” said New York City Council Speaker Christine C. Quinn, New York City’s first openly gay City Council Speaker.

“The contents of the ad in Der Blatt are hateful and demeaning to our community, New York and especially our families. I have reviewed this matter closely and I have personally spoken with Brad. I believe his assertion that he and his campaign had no knowledge or participation in placing this ad. Political attacks against Brad, an ardent supporter of marriage equality, are unfair, unwarranted and have no place in this campaign. When we lob charges of homophobia that are without merit, we fundamentally undermine the meaning of term when it is actually warranted," said Alan Van Capelle, Executive Director of the Empire State Pride Agenda. ESPA and Alan Van Capelle have not endorsed in this race.

The Race for City Council in the 39th: A Stellar Group Sharp Elbows and All

What a long, strange trip the campaign for City Council in the 39th district has been. As has been said by me and others, it is quite stellar group of candidates that decided to run for Bill diBlasio's seat for a district that spans Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Kensington, and Borough Park. 

Look at them: Brad Lander, Josh Skaller, Bob Zuckerman, John Heyer, and Gary Reilly. Any one of them would be a fine City Councilman. But only one can have the 39th seat.

Things were very civilized back in April and May. The forums/debates were good humored and convivial. It was clear that this smart and likable group of candidates agreed on most issues.

Indeed, it was clear that they all had interesting backgrounds and experiences that qualified them for the City Council, a position that is perfect step into politics for non-politicians.

Of course, there were plenty of sharp elbows and moments of contention. Plenty. 

--John Heyer was attacked for being against abortion and gay marriage. He managed to get the endorsement of a key Carroll Gardens Democratic club and there was much sniping about the influence of Buddy Scotto, his mentor and employer at the Funeral Home (he is also assistant to Borough President Marty Markowtiz).

--Attacks between Lander and Skaller,  in my opinion, were gratuitous—and desperate—jabs (by each campaign) at two men who's views are more alike than different.

--Skaller proved himself to be an aggressive—and at times—a sharp elbowed candidate willing to play the politics of attack for points with the voters.

--Former presidential candidate and Chairman of the National Democratic Committee Dr. Howard Dean came to Park Slope to endorse Josh Skaller but ended up endorsing both Skaller and Lander.

--The Superfund for the Gowanus issue was briefly a contentious litmus test for the candiates who all (except Heyer) ultimately agreed it was the right way to go.

--Zuckerman and Reilly managed to stay out of the negative frey for the most part. They conducted themselves with grace and enthusiasm for much of the campaign and focused on the issues that mattered to them. That said, Zuckerman did lead the charge against Heyer's anti-gay marriage views and that, in my opinion, was worth noting in a district that is largely progressive and pro-gay marriage.

So here we are just a week and a half away from the election. We've seen these guys under pressure; we've seen what they're willing to do to win the race. We've seen them speak their hearts and minds, we've seen them on good days and bad. And now it's up to the voters in the 39th to decide.

The 39ers

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Gary Reilly. At 34 he's not quite the youngest of the 39th candidates (John Heyer beats him on that score) but this intelligent and likable man is plenty wet behind the ears and full of enthusiasm about public transportation and other issues that affect voters.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Bob Zuckerman. A long-time politico, Zuckerman is currently executive director of the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation and the Gowanus Canal Conservancy.  He remembers the night Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 (he was 7-years-old) and one of his heroes is Harvey Milk.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Brad Lander, Lander has two master's degrees and a BA from the University of Chicago. He made his mark running community organizations like the Fifth Avenue Committee and Pratt Center for Community Development, advocating for affordable housing and community sustainablility.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Josh  Skaller. A former computer music composer at Harvard, it was Howard Dean's presidential campaign that jumpstarted his interest in electoral politics. As president of the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, he learned to facilitiate dialogue  and manage strong personalities. Running on a community empowerment platform with a strong interest in the environment and smart development, Josh is proud to be refusing donations from  real estate developers.

Breakfast of Candidates: John Heyer: An assistant to Borough President Marty Markowitz, Heyer is the only candidate for City Council born in the 39th district. A fifth-generation Carroll Gardener, his twin passions are politics and theology. He works as a funeral director at Scotto's Funeral Home and his knowledge of the history of the neighborhood runs deep though he is only 27-years-old.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: David Pechefsky. The Green Candidate, Pechefsky worked for 10 years in the central staff of the New York City Council. With a master's degree in public policy and experience advising local governments in Africa, Pechefsky knows how the City Council works from the inside out and has ideas about how it could better serve the people of New York City.

NY Times Endorses David Yassky for Comptroller

This morning the New York TImes' endorsed David Yassky, currently City Councilman in the 33rd district, for City Comptroller. 

We are particularly impressed with Mr. Yassky’s ability to think creatively and then implement his ideas. Mr. Yassky, who taught at Brooklyn Law School earlier in his career, has a somewhat professorial manner. But in his years at City Hall, he has successfully fought to control guns in the city, to lessen pollution from taxis and to ban illegal dumping in the waters around the city.

He has pushed for help for small businesses and for more affordable housing. His campaign has set up an inventive Web site — ItsYourMoneyNYC.com — that opens the city budget to more scrutiny, a preview of his promise for more transparency for city finances.

The other main Democratic contenders are Council members from Queens, and all have sound records. David Weprin, who runs the Finance Committee, has been an able Council member but is less creative in his thinking about how to do this job effectively. John Liu has represented his constituents intelligently and with great eloquence, but too much of his strength is at the microphone. Melinda Katz has been a smart, dynamic leader of the Land Use Committee, but we are less enthusiastic about her connections to the real estate community.

Of the four, Mr. Yassky makes the best case for making better use of the powerful tools handed a city comptroller. He promises to use the audit powers — including new ones overseeing the city’s education contracts — to increase productivity and efficiency.

We have seen in New York State the temptations and corruption that come with managing a multibillion-dollar pension fund — with huge fees handed out to political cronies and contributors. Mr. Yassky has promised to stand up to special interests and has embraced new S.E.C. rules that would block campaign contributors from doing business with the fund. For all of these reasons, we endorse David Yassky for comptroller.

Register to Vote by Today For September 15th Primary Election

A friendly and urgent reminder from Park Slope Neighbors:

Dear Park Slope Neighbor,

If you're not already registered to vote in New York City, and you'd like to vote in the September 15th Primary Election, your voter registration application must be postmarked by Friday, August 21st.

For a list of the qualifications for voter eligibility, instructions on how to register, and to download a voter registration form, please visit http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/register.html.

Remember, if you wish to vote in a party primary on September 15th, you'll need to declare party affiliation on your registration form.  Of course, no party affiliation is necessary for voting in a General election.

Thanks to Community Board Six District Manager Craig Hammerman for the reminder about the deadline.

City Council, Comptroller and Public Advocate Candidates Debate on BCAT Next Week

BCAT is the place to watch the candidates for City Council Districts 33, 39, and 45, Comptroller and Public Advocate got at it. Organized by Ed Weintrob (publisher emeritus of the Brooklyn Paper) these debates are a collaboration between  Community Newspaper Group and  Brooklyn Independent Television on the BCAT TV Network.

All the major races will be cablecast on BCAT, which is channel 56 on Time Warner customers and channel 69 for Cablevision subscribers:

• City Council District 33 (currently held by David Yassky): Monday, Aug. 17.

• City Council District 39 (currently held by Bill DeBlasio): Tuesday, Aug. 18.

• City Council District 45 (currently held by Kendall Stewart): Wednesday, Aug. 19.

• Comptroller (featuring Yassky, John Liu, Melinda Katz and David Weprin): Thursday, Aug. 20.

• Public Advocate (featuring DeBlasio, Mark Green, Norman Siegel and Eric Gioia): Friday, Aug. 21 (repeated on Tuesday, Aug. 25).

All broadcasts will be at 9 pm. And all shows will be available online roughly 24 hours after its initial airing at www.bricartsmedia.org/BITspecials and the Community Newspaper Group’s new political Web site BoroPolitics.com.

Skaller Responds To Lander's Allegations About Campaign Finance Abuse

 39th district City Council candidates Josh Skaller and Brad Lander are playing am agressive game of tit for tat. In the last few days there's been a lot of nasty sniping between the two campaigns. A representative from Josh Skaller's campaign for City Council in the 39th district wrote in response to Lander's allegations that Skaller mislead the Campaign Finance Board about his campaign headquarters. 

The allegations are patently untrue -- they are solely intended to distract people from the real violation. And what a coincidence it was put out there one day Lander was connected to a huge scheme designed to circumvent the Campaign Finance Board, and just hours after Skaller called him on it.

In that email there was also a statement from Skaller's campaign manager, Chris Owens:

"The Lander campaign has now engaged in the ultimate slash and mask politics.  They've been caught violating the rules and they are engaging in distraction tactics.  I've seen this many times before and I know a bull when I see one.

“The Skaller campaign has an agreement with the landlord to use a portion of their living space.  It is a written agreement effective as of last December.  It was submitted to the CFB and the CFB conducted a site audit at the campaign office on June 29.  Everything has been thoroughly vetted and accounted for, and every step along the way was officially documented.

“The CFB and the campaign are in discussions as to whether or not the space should be treated as an in-kind contribution.  Originally, we were given advice that the space, if it had no commercial market rate, would not count.  After the audit, the CFB asked for more information about the space, which we have provided to them.  If the CFB deems the space to be a contribution, we will value it and list it as such.  But that final ruling has not been made at this time.

“But let’s be clear as to what this really is – another distraction from the Lander campaign, which is now up to its neck in deception and dirty politics.  Brooklynites want real reform, and they know that the only candidate with a record of transparency and independent leadership is Josh Skaller.”

Schumer Endorses City Council Candidate Stephen Levin at Borough Hall

At 11 am on the nose just as I crossed the street from the Borough Hall subway station at the  corner of Montague and Court Street to Borough Hall Plaza, I could hear Senator Chuck Schumer's voice in the distance.

So much for my mantra: the politician is always late.

"...together we saved affordable housing..."

I wanted to know who the we was. Was he talking about young Stephen Levin, who is running for City Council in the 33rd district and is chief of staff for Assemblyman Vito Lopez or Vito Lopez? Schumer continued...

"...creating new housing not letting developers run rough shod through our communities. You have to thread the needle. Some people say "yes." Some people say "no." I say neither is correct. You have to have a balanced and careful approach."

Senator Schumer, who was wearing a blue shirt and a green polka dotted tie, went on to to list some of Stephen Levin's endorsements. Levin, whose major endorsement far outnumber his opponents, has been endorsed by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan), the League of Conservation Voters, the United Federation of Teachers and DC37, and the Working Families Party.

Schumer also added that Levin is the cousin of "my good friend and colleague Senator Carl Levin. So if you put it all together I am proud to endorse him."

At the podium, Candidate Stephen Levin looked starstruck as his parents looked on.

Levin: I am deeply humbled, honored...

Schumer: "Let's not go overboard now..."

Levin: "I'd like to thank Senator Schumer for his endorsement and Vito Lopez for his support..."

Levin went on to talk about Schumer's support of Justice Sonia Sotomayer, the first Hispanic and third woman Supreme Court Justice.

Levin: "Schumer was her greatest champion in the Senate and he safely delivered her to the other side and that was the greatest gift to millions of children of NYC who can now look in the mirror and say: one day I can be a Supreme Court justice."

Levin talked about his familiarity with Senator Schumer's style of working. I gather he's worked with him as Lopez's chief of staff. "He identifies a problem, goes over it with his staff, comes up with a solution and then works like the Dickens. We are facing serious problems in this city and we will need that kind of creative problem solving," Levin said.

Finally, Levin thanked Schumer for taking time out of his busy schedule to come out. And then it was time for questions.

A man who seemed drunk asked Schumer about "the road over there." He pointed toward Atlantic Avenue.

"Fifith Avenue? Schumer said. "It's terrible. The road needs to be fixed. I just rode my bike on it today. It's awful."

"No the stadium," said the drunken fellow.

"What stadium?" Schumer said.

"The Nets Stadium," drunkman said.

"The Knicks stadium.." Schumer said.

"No, the Nets stadium," the drunkman said.

"The Brooklyn Nets stadium is moving forward. There are just some hearings about it. But it's going to happen and that's good," Schumer said.

A reporter from the Park Slope Courier asked whether Schumer's relationship with Senator Carl Levin inspired his endorsement of candidate Stephen Levin. Schumer waxed poetic about Carl Levin's work in the Senate.

"Carl Levin is the chair of the Armed Services Committee and he knocked out the F22s. Obama wanted that to happen but he couldn't have done it without Carl Levin in the Senate. Carl Levin created the Democrat's policy that will enable us to get out of Iraq with strength and fortitue and that was all because of the policy that Levin and Reid crafted. Stephen Levin is also first cousin once removed from Congressman Sandy Levin whom I also know and have worked with. If Steve can be 1/10th the public servant that Carl Levin is that'll be fine."

There were some questions about healthcare and then the press conference was over and there were photo ops for Stephen and his family with Senator Schumer

Surprisingly there were no television cameras on hand. Not even NY 1 or Channel 12—and Senator Schumer is a bit of a superstar. Oh well. Maybe Stephen Levin's people didn't get the work out early enough. Check out Homer Fink's video at the Brooklyn Heights Blog when he puts it up.

Gary Reilly on Bloomberg's F Train Express Plan

I just spoke to  Gary Reilly, one of the candidates for City Council in the 39th district about Bloomberg's support of an F train express in Brooklyn.

Reilly is a transportation wonk; he is passionate on the topic, which he knows inside and out. In 2007 he circulated a petition and got thousands of signatures to add express service to that crowded and busy line. Now two years later, Mayor Bloomberg has gotten on board. Reilly is happy to see that.

"That's our proposal," Gary told me. "He didn't mention that of course. But two years later he's on board.  The more support the better even though the mayor doesn't have control over that sort of thing," Reilly told me.

"Bloomberg is a bit of a headline grabber when it comes to transit improvement," Reilly said. "He could have put up the money when the MTA had a surplus a few years back. Instead he gave out a discretionary tax rebate when he could have put the money into much needed transportation improvements."

"Still I appreciate when city leaders put an emphasis on transportation. It should help. City officials drive the discussion about  what transportation improvements are needed.

According to Reilly, the V-line already runs express from Queens to Second Avenue. He hopes that it will be extended all the way to Church Avenue in Brooklyn. There is, he says, "More than enough capacity on that line to do this."

Here is an excerpt from Reilly's blog First and Court. about this issue:

Yesterday Mayor Bloomberg announced a number of proposals for improving transit service (which I'll get into in more detail later).

The headline for the city-wide media is the proposal for free cross-town bus service in Manhattan (a good idea). But the big news for Brooklynites is the Mayor's belated support for enhanced F/V service on the Culver Line in Brooklyn, which I and other transit advocates have been calling for for years. From the Brooklyn Paper,

“Closer to Downtown, you’re talking about a couple of minutes. As you get farther out towards Coney Island you’re talking about potentially saving 20 minutes — that’s huge. But it’s also about the possible alleviation of crowding everywhere,” said Gary Reilly, a Democratic candidate for City Council in Carroll Gardens, who has advocated for years on behalf of the F line. “We need this and we deserve it. It’s a low–hanging piece of fruit.”

Back in 2007, over 4,300 people signed on to my petition to restore F Express service and extend the V line out to Brooklyn. Ben from Second Avenue Sagas, Jen from KensingtonBrooklyn and I have kept the pressure on the MTA and elected officials over the years to ensure that Brooklyn gets these despeerately needed transit improvements when the Culver Viaduct reconstruction is complete - and we led the fight to ensure that the Viaduct reconstruction would include the necessary track and signal work to accommodate express service.

In the summer of 2007, I held a press conference at the Church Avenue F station with Councilmen Bill deBlasio, Simcha Felder and Domenic Recchia, along with Paul Steely White from Transportation Alternatives and Gene Russianoff from the Straphanger's Campaign to demand enhanced F/V service fro Brooklyn.

In these difficult times we need to make the most of our transit infrastructure. The restoration of express/local service on the F/V to Brooklyn is a relatively cheap and efficient way to not only improve the quality of life for tens of thousands of Brooklynites, but also to aid in the revitalization of Coney Island and South Brooklyn.

Brooklyn deserves enhanced F/V service. And our time is coming.

All posts on the F/V Petition

The battle for better transit service is what inspired me to run for City Council - if you care about improving the state of our transit system, visit my campaign website at www.garyreilly.org. Our team is growing every day, and you too can help to make our city a better place to live.

Tonight: Public Advocate's Candidates Forum at the Brown Memorial Baptist Church

I wish I could be at this forum. The race for public advocate is an interesting one. If anyone wants to report on this please do.

Following last year’s presidential election, which galvanized Brooklyn into record levels of civic engagement, local activists have turned inward to see how they can affect CHANGE in their communities.

In this spirit, two organizations, Brown Memorial Baptist Church and Brooklyn for Barack, are teaming up to host a Public Advocate Candidates Forum. Brown Memorial Baptist church under the dynamic leadership of Reverend Clinton M. Miller continues to develop its community organizing program, working within Central Brooklyn on issues of affordable housing, jobs, education, and senior issues.  Reverend Miller says: “The Public Advocate has an important role to play in helping to solve some of our community’s most intractable problems.  We believe that this forum will make clear that this community expects the next Public Advocate to be active and engaged around social issues and to be front and center in helping to solve critical problems that have resulted from the economic crisis”.

Brooklyn for Barack continues to provide opportunities for people who were activated by last year’s election, hosting two community service forums and canvassing around the issue of healthcare.  Jordan Thomas, co-founder of Brooklyn for Barack says: “ 600 people showed up at our first post-election event, looking for volunteer opportunities among 65 organizations.  It’s clear that people are still hungry to participate.  What we hope and expect is that folks who attend the candidate forum will not only walk away with a sense of who they are going to vote for, but also a sense of who they will actively support.”

Moderated by the distinguished Jonathan Hicks, formerly of the New York Times, the event will present an exciting opportunity for community leaders, grassroots activists and the general public to hear from an impressive array of candidates. In addition to a question and answer segment, the program will also include a brief overview of the Office of the Public Advocate.

3 of the 4 candidates are confirmed to attend.  Each candidate will remain for the full 90-minute program. Please join us for what will prove to be an informative and interesting evening in New York City politics.

WHO:        City Council Member Bill de Blasio
        City Council Member Eric Gioia
        Attorney Norman Siegel
        Moderator Jonathan Hicks
Reverend Clinton M. Miller
Brown Memorial Baptist Church
Brooklyn for Barack
WHAT:     PUBLIC ADVOCATE CANDIDATES FORUM
WHEN:      MONDAY, JULY 27th, 7:00-8:30pm (Doors open at 6:30pm)
WHERE:     BROWN MEMORIAL BAPTIST CHURCH
484 Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY  11216
(Entrance on Gates Ave between Washington and Waverly)
(Subway: C,G to Clinton/Washington)

Tidbits: City Council and Public Advocate

CITY COUNCIL

The Biv, that is, Doug Biviano, one of the 33s, accuses candidate Stephen Levin of backroom dealing in an email press release sent out today from his press office.

"Doug Biviano’s City Council campaign took an important step forward today, as the deadline to challenge ballot petitions passed. With this important procedural hurdle in his rearview mirror, “The Biv” continues his progressive campaign to improve our public schools, promote responsible real estate development, build infrastructure and express transit capacity, create environmentally sustainable communities, and make healthcare affordable and uniformly accessible for every New Yorker. 

At the same time, political opponent Steve Levin, with support from Albany politicians, has challenged two other potential candidates. Rather than encourage an open, democratic debate and election, Levin instead is playing politics as usual.

“I’m disappointed that Levin is resorting to the strong-arm tactics and backroom dealing that has defined the broken politics in our City Council and up in Albany,” said Biviano. “These challenges show that he is more concerned with serving the narrow political agenda of his bankrollers than the communities of the 33rd District.  We don’t need another puppet in office.”  

Jo Anne Simon, one of the 33s, wrote her supporters a big thank you note for the $100,000 in contributions she received and the 3,000 (approx.) petition sigs. She says she didn't take any developer money.

Because of you, we were able to surpass our goal and submitted nearly four times the amount of signatures required.

Because of you, we have raised over $100,000 dollars. We are the first in our race to cross that milestone and we did it without taking money from developers.

Mole 33, who seems to really have it in for Brad Lander has a piece in the Daily Gazette witht he terribly misleading headline "Ratner Puts a Downpayment on Brad Lander" He the

PUBLIC ADVOCATE

There's a Public Advocates' candidate's forum on July 27th at 7:30 sponsored by Brown Memorial Baptist and Brooklyn for Barack.

 Each candidate will remain for the full 90-minute program.  3 of the 4 candidates are confirmed to attend.

WHO:    City Council Member Bill de Blasio
              City Council Member Eric Gioia
              Attorney Norman Siegel
              Moderator Jonathan Hicks
              Reverend Clinton M. Miller
              Brown Memorial Baptist Church
              Brooklyn for Barack

WHAT: Public Advocate Candidates Forum

WHEN:  Monday, July 27th, 7:00-8:30pm

WHERE: Brown Memorial Baptist Church, 484 Washington  Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11216
               (Entrance on Gates Ave between Washington and Waverly)
               (Subway: C,G toClinton/Washington)

 

Tidbits: Mayoral and City Council

MAYORAL:

City Comptroller Bill C. Thompson was mentioned by President Obama during his speech at the NAACP centennial in NYC yesterday: 

“"We know that even as our economic crisis batters Americans of all races, African Americans are out of work more than just about anyone else – a gap that’s widening here in New York City, as detailed in a report this week by Comptroller Bill Thompson."

Rev. Billy Talen,  the Green Party candidate for mayor, is outraged that the Working Families Party didn't include him in their mayoral forum along with candidates Mike Bloomberg, Tony Avella and Bill C. Thompson on July 2nd. Tallen had this to say:

There is one mother of all issues. Democracy is it. Bloomberg arranged with his money to flout public votes for term limits and is now running against Democracy itself. His corruption of our right to free elections will be judged harshly in history, as a modern Tammany Hall. We must oppose his $90 million campaign not just to oppose his leadership as a person, but to show future generations that we had the guts and energy to rise up against big money’s imitation of democracy.

CITY COUNCIL:

The Democratic petitioning period is now over and the candidates are kvelling about  the number of signatures they were able to gather.

I heard from a pal on Seventh Avenue that Josh Skaller, one of the 39ers has 10,000 signatures on his ballot petition. Here from Mole 333 in Gotham Gazette, a Skaller supporter: Skaller running for City Council in the 39th district in Brooklyn, claims more than 10,000 signatures (he needed a minimum of about 1000 with about 3-5000 to play it safe) and more than $161,000 fundraising (more than enough to qualify for public matching funds).

Gary Reilly, also one of the 39ers wrote to say that "with the aid of a volunteers and staff I collected the last of our petitions and bound them for delivery to the Board of Elections.  The final tally was 1,389 signatures, or 50% more than the required 900.

He also said that he's thrilled because "my plea for help was met with such an amazing response that I actually felt like George Bailey at the end of my favorite film, It's A Wonderful Life.  Thanks to your generous support we raised the necessary contributions to qualify for city matching funds of $39,000.  Amazing!  I was beaming when I turned in my paperwork to the Campaign Finance Board yesterday."

You gotta love Gary!

Also according to Mole 333 in the Gotham Gazette, Ken Diamondstone, one of the 33s, has 5,000 sigs. "We collected more than 5,000 signatures without institutional support or backing from the big political clubs or party insiders," said Diamondstone, a Democrat from Boerum Hill..."

Brad Lander turns 40! Well, he turned 40 on July 8th and his parents wrote a sweet note on Lander's website:

Forty years ago this month, as the nation prepared for the launch of Apollo 11, there was excitement in the Lander household as well, as our son Brad was born on July 8th, 1969.

We worked hard to raise our kids with some basic values: Treat everyone fairly.  Read a lot, study hard, and ask a lot of questions.  Be a good listener.  Try to bring a bit more kindness and opportunity into the world.  

We hoped these values were embodied in our own lives as well.  At the time, David was the director of Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, helping tenants facing gas shutoffs and family farmers facing foreclosure.  Carole was a public school teacher (she later went on to a career as an elementary school guidance counselor).  

Check out:  "A Liberal Operator Runs Against the Brooklyn Machine", an informative profile of Evan Thies, one of the 33s, in the Politicker

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Comptroller Bill C. Thompson (Running for Mayor)

My breakfast-of-candidates (BOC) with Bill Thompson, the NYC Comptroller who is running for mayor, was more like a mid-day series of disjointed phone calls than a friendly breakfast at a divey Brooklyn coffee shop. Still, I appreciated the time he took to talk to me on the phone. 

The comptroller/mayoral candidate was scheduled to call me at 10 am on Saturday morning. I was told that he'd be calling from a car on the way to Brooklyn Borough Hall for the kickoff to his 5 Borough Tour. At 10 am I sipped coffee at my desk in the dining room with a sharpened pencil, a couple of working pnes and a digital sound recorder and waited for his call.

And waited reciting my mantra: the candidate is always late. 

It was closer to 10:30 when the candidate called and I launched into my usual line of BOC opening questions about birth, childhood and school days. This seems to loosen up the candidates—and the reporter—and creates an easy rapport.

"Hey, you're Brooklyn-born, aren't you?" I asked right off the bat.

"I've lived in Brooklyn all my life," Thompson told me.

Born in 1953, Thompson grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant. His mother was a Chicago-born public school teacher and his dad, who is from St. Kitts, was an attorney who later became the first African American state senator and later an Appellate Court judge.

Thompson attended PS 161 in Crown Heights and Hudde Junior High School and grew up in a 4-story brownstone on Vanderbilt Avenue that was purchased by his grandparents in 1939.

A self-described average kid who did "well enough in school", Thompson's parents and grandparents placed a high value on "education, working hard and earning the things you get. 'How did you do in school today?' That was always the question. They were very focused on achievement," he told me.

Thompson attended Tufts University where he majored in political science. "I wasn't the greatest college student," he told me. For him, the  most important aspect of his college experience was the opportunity "to meet people from all over the world and other backgrounds."

At Tufts, he says, he also learned how to take care of himself. In college he realized that "if you make the wrong choices, you pay."

Straight out of college, Thompson was hired to work on the congressional campaign of Fred Richmond and lived in various apartment in Park Slope (on 6th Avenue between Lincoln and St. Johns and on Carroll Street between 7th and 8th Avenues), which he describes as "a great place to live." 

Thompson eventually served as Congressman Richmond's chief of staff. It was this job that convinced him that he wanted to work in politics. "I liked constituent relations, policy, and dealing with health issues."

Somewhere in this chronology,  Thompson got married and had a daughter, now 30, who attended The Berkeley Carroll School, a private school in Park Slope, where she was "a lifer."  He also bought a brownstone on Vanderbilt and Prospect Place. He has since remarried and now has two stepchildren: 11-year old twins.

In 1983 Thompson became Deputy Borough President for Howard Golden. "I'm very proud of the work we did—if I do pat myself on the back,"  he told me. "It was important time for Brooklyn. I'm proud of the development of Metrotech, new housing, the professional focus. The Borough President's office had more authority then in terms of city-wide budget, land use and development contracts."

After ten years in the Borough President's office, Thompson went into the private financial sector "to do something different but I still had my hands in municipal finance." He says that another reason he left the Borough President office was because it was stripped of its power in the 1990's.

But public service beckoned. In March 1996 Thompson became head of the Board of Education (BOE), a part- time position, and stayed until 2001. Certainly it's a dubious distinction to be chairman of a famously dysfunctional boards. But Thompson manages to sing the praises of his time there. "There are many generalizations about how dysfunctional the BOE was," he told me. 

"During my time there: we got rid of decentralization that had been going on from 1960-1996. Now that was totally dysfunctional. Local boards selected principals, budgets, everything. The chancellor basically ran the high schools. Decentralization had to end; what we did was a pre-cursor to mayoral control, which I believe in."

In 2001, Thompson won the comptroller's seat and has been there ever since. He ran as a "fiscal activist" and was sworn in as the city's first black comptroller on January 1, 2002, by his own father.

Education?

At this point in the conversation I could tell that we were running out of time andI quickly asked him to elaborate on his education plan:

He listed his top five factors that contribute to a good school

Thompson: 1. The principal; 2. Teacher collaboration; 3. A collaborative environment; 4. A welcoming environment for parents and parental involvement; 5. Nutrition for kids. 

Mayoral Control of the School?

 "I support it but it  needs to be changed. The parents have been shut out and that's a problem. There needs to be better oversight over contracts and there's a need for independent information gathering about test scores," he told me. 

When I asked Thompson if he thought an educator should be the Chancellor he said: "I would get rid of Klein. People confuse structure with education. There needs to be an educational vision.”

Thompson did say that Bloomberg and Klein have created change and that's a good thing with one caveat: "They benefited from great press. Their "success" speaks more to how they sold this. Math scores for instance. The tests are easier. The NAEP (Nation Assessment of Educational Progress) scores have been flat for four years." 

At this point in our conversation, Thompson, who is extremely friendly, smart, polite and easy to talk to, told me that he had to get out of the car. "I'll call you back in an hour. At 12:30 or so." 

I waited around for a couple of hours and eventually concluded that he'd gotten busy too busy to call.  A member of his campaign staff emailed me a day later to say that the candidate would call back at 4 p.m. on Monday.

Two days later

"Sorry that one hour turned into three days," Thompson told me by way of hello. Knowing that our time was limited I jumped right in.

What makes a great mayor?

"A great mayor understands New York and its people. He has a  vision of what the city should be. But it’s about understanding the city," Thompson said.

Thompson's Favorite NYC Mayor?

"You need to pick pieces or part of mayors. Ed Koch was a great mayor during a very difficult time. His spirit: he was a great leader and had some really creative ideas.

"David Dinkins was great because of his humanity.

"Giuliani, not for his humanity. But he's remembered for crime reduction and proving that government can work.

And Bloomberg?

"Bloomberg did positive things during his first term. Restoring confidence after 9/11, he helped to calm things and convince people and businesses not to move out of the city. But I don’t think Mike understands the people and what they do on a regular basis, their struggles. There's a gap in his understanding.

 "For instance the MTA fare increases. He said he felt sorry for the riders but also sorry for the MTA.

"The minimum wage increase. He said no-one in the city make minimum wage. But 20% of the people in this city earn minimum wage.  He is not understanding the life of the people here."

Does Thompson understand the people?

Thompson says he understands ordinary New Yorkers. I thought about his brownstone in Prospect Heights and the fact that his daughter was a lifer at Berkeley Carroll. He's had well-paying jobs in city government and even a stint in the private financial sector.

 "I’ve gone through a lot of struggles. This is my home. I'm a native New Yorker," he told me. He didn't elaborate on this and I let it slip (dang) but he did go on:

"Money helps to separate Bloomberg from the people. That much money creates a different outlook. When Obama came to the city and it cost $400,000 Bloomberg said: "'that’s not a lot of money.' But it is a lot of money."

Unemployment among African Americans?

I asked Thompson to comment on the Bureau of Labor statistics that showed an unusually high rate among African Americans. It was the comptrollers office that brought this analysis to the attention of the New York Times in a press release.

"It's frightening when you look at rate of increase. Last year it was 5.7% now it’s 14.7% among African Americans. The Hispanic unemployment rate is 9.3%. We can't have this kind of inequality. At this rate there will be 400,000 African Americans unemployed by 2010.

I asked Thompson if this will be top priority if he becomes mayor. He hedged a bit but then said: "We have to take what we have: job training, upgrading of skills, programs we have but they’re not tied together." Rather than talk about ideas and real solutions, Thompson seemed more comfortable with broad statements: "You can’t have a city where 14.7% of the population is unemployed. This goes to issues of opportunity and inequality. There needs to be opportunity for all New Yorkers.

Campaign Finance?

Skipping around, I asked Thompson to respond to Bloomberg's comment during the Working Families Party forum that "There is no such thing as a totally fair campaign: 

"That was just an attempt to excuse the $115 million he is spending on this campaign," Thompson told me clearly exasperated by the disparity between his spending and what the mayor can afford. "Is it his money? Yes. Did he earn the money? Yes. But it affects the structure of the campaign. Finance distorts things dramatically. It pollutes government. We have campaign finance laws so that government isn’t just for rich people," Thompson said. 

Race, class and electoral politics?

This seemed a natural segue into issues of race and class. Thompson seemed to waver.

"You can govern fairly, everyone brings a separate outlook to the table. All of our backgrounds and what we've experienced help to craft how we see things," he told me.

I knew we were running out of time and I still had a long list of issues of concern to Brooklynites. But first I wanted to know: What does the Democratic Party stand for?

"It stands for working people, middle class Americans. There is a huge contrast between Democrats and republicans. That said, the party is not monolithic and there’s a great deal of variation."

Issues of Concern to Brooklyn

I must say, I found his answers to Brooklyn-specific questions to be a bit lackluster. And that surprised me. Or maybe it shouldn't have. He's been endorsed by all the Democratic clubs from Greenpoint to Coney Island and maybe he wants to remain vague on issues that Brooklynites are passionate about to stay out of the fray.

Atlantic Yards?

" I did initially support it. I have real concerns now. I will continue to re-evaluate it, meet with individuals, have a conversation. I plan to sit down to talk and evaluate," he said. 

My reaction: You lived in Prospect Heights and initially supported the Atlantic Yards???? Yikes. And why aren't you more outraged now? Many Brooklyn Democrats are. 

What about Superfund for the Gowanus?

At first I think he misunderstood my question.

"I would be collaborative. Listen to residents rather than tell them what the Gowanus area should be. It has been discussed for decades. Should it be open space, commercial, housing..." he said.

Then he made a correction:

"Oh you’re talking about Superfund. The mayor is supporting an alternative plan to try to have more control, to do it in a faster period of time. I would work in conjunction with the community and I'm not as concerned about Superfund stigma. I would look for input from community.

My reaction: He's not that familiar with the issue.

Community based development?

"I like to talk about smart growth, fair growth. Don’t destroy communities, involve them in planning. The last few years there has been a top down approach. I would work with the community to see how we should approach development.

My reaction: Vague answer without much passion for the idea.

Vision for Coney Island?

"What the people want there is affordable housing. The developers are not talking to the community. City Councilman Recchio is trying to involve the community. It's important to maintain flavor and bring people in. But what they want is affordable housing.

My reaction: Affordable housing is not the only issue on the table in Coney Island. What about the hotels? The recreation areas? What about the mayor's plan, the developer's plan, the Municipal Arts Society plan? What about the history of Coney Island?

Condos for Affordable Housing?

"I think the affordable housing for luxury condos equation needs to be rethought. The problem is that affordable housing is treated as an afterthought.

My reaction: Affordable housing treated as an afterthought is a good line.

Small Business?

In answer to this question, I sensed a bit more passion. Thompson told me that one of the things he loves about Brooklyn Heights and Park Slope are the small shops. "I used to love to go to a bread shop on Court Street," he said. I wondered if it was Caputos but I forgot to ask. I have the feeling that a small business platform may be in the works for the campaign.

"I've been meeting with small business people over a period of time to get their opinions. Just had a meeting today. We discussed tax abatements, retail retention zone, a number of ideas. How to protect what is great about our neighborhoods is important. I want to collect ideas going forward and have a round table.

Big Ideas?

I knew we were just about out of time. I asked if he had any big ideas to add sparkle to his campaign. His answer was disappointing and lackluster.

 "We have a few ideas rolling out over the next few weeks in the areas of small business, job creation, education."

My reaction: His "I'll get back to you" answer was disappointing.

City Budget?

I asked Thompson how bad the city budget really is. Critics of Bloomberg are saying that this year's budget was a pre-election Band Aid solution; the cuts weren't so bad but trouble lies ahead...

"Next year will be much worse. After the election they'll be closing down senior centers, childcare vouchers will be reduced and more," Thompson said. 

My reaction: The fact that he said "they'll be closing down senior centers" suggests that Thompson doesn't think he's going to be the mayor. That said, Thompson suggests that Bloomberg is waiting until after the election to make the cuts. This is a big issue for Thompson and one that he can potentially be passionate about.

And what about reform of the City Council?

"The City Council has lost its independence. It isn't an independent institution. Every mayor wants to work with the City Council...(he trailed off).

My reaction: No talk of reform to the way the City Council works was disappointing.

How are you framing your concerns to the public?

"When you ask New Yorkers if their future is brighter than before they say no. I will make them aware of the flaws in the city: the rise in homelessness, unemployment,

And Finally: Overturning of term limits?

I asked Thompson how big a deal he's going to make out of the fact that Bloomberg overturned term limits.

"New Yorkers are upset and frustrated by what he did. He said he would never go against what the voters wanted. And then he did. He lied to the people. And that resonates with them."

And those are fightin' words. The candidate who has been called the stealth candidate by the New York Times has plenty to run on. He just needs to get his juices flowing and find some passion about the issues that matter to New Yorkers.

Next Week: Breakfast-of-Candidates with the Mayoral Contenders

This week OTBKB interviewed CIty Councilman Tony Avella at Donuts Coffee Shop and Comptroller Bill Thompson by phone (on his way to an event at Borough Hall).

They'll both be on the ballot September 15th and are vying to be the Democratic candidate for mayor against Mayor Bloomberg.

Tony or Bill (or Green candidate Rev. Billy for that matter): Can anyone beat the richest man in NYC who also happens to be the incumbent who overturned turn limits?

That IS the question.

Coming next week on Breakfast of Candidates meet Tony Avella and Bill Thompson.

Tidbits: City Council Candidates (Biviano's Sign, Green Petitioning, Fundraising Deadline)

Doug Biviano, one of the 33's has a new sign at his headquarters on Montague Street on the corner of Hicks Street. Here he is pictured with his wife and three children.

David Pechefsky, the Green 39er, began his official petitioning period in earnest on July 7. I saw him yesterday near the entrance to the Seventh Avenue F-train. Wearing the green Pechefsky t-shirt with his caricature on the front and back, Pechefsky was good-naturedly trying to encourage Independents and Democrats (who didn't sign another petition) to sign on to put a Green candidate on the ballot.

The last big City Council fundraising deadline is on Saturday. That means that Saturday is the last day to donate to your candidate of choice so that New York City can match your contribution with $6 for every $1 raised from City residents up to $175.

I Want to Interview William C. Thompson (The Stealth Candidate)

This morning I met with Tony Avella at Donuts Coffee Shop, one of my favorite spots in the Slope. He's running against William C. Thompson in the Democratic mayoral primary on September 15th. During our Breakfast-of-Candidates interview, we talked about this article in the Times' today:

He is rarely on television. He has not begun to advertise. He is far behind in the polls, yet seems in no rush to get going.

The all-but-invisible mayoral candidacy of William C. Thompson Jr., the city’s comptroller, is baffling even to those who wish to see him elected. He has raised $5 million but has been so low key, some Democrats wonder if he is actually running.

And often, when Mr. Thompson travels, he hears the same question: Where have you been?

The incumbent, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, is everywhere: on television, with a $12 million barrage of ads touting his re-election bid; in mailboxes, with a constant stream of glossy literature; and online, with ads popping up on Web sites from Facebook to local blogs.

A woman approached Mr. Thompson in the Bronx not long ago and asked if she would be receiving campaign literature from him.

"Not anytime soon,” he said.

Now I really want to interview him for my Breakfast-of-Candidates series. I've been in touch and his campaign people say he's interested...

Register to Vote So You Can Vote on September 15th and November 3rd

Here's some info from the League of Women Voters about registering for the upcoming election:

You can register to vote at any time during the year, but the last day to register for the September 15, 2009 primary election is August 21, 2009; and the last day to register for the November 3, 2009
general election is October 9, 2009.

To vote you must be a U. S. citizen, a resident of New York City for 30 days by Election Day, 18 years of age by Election Day, and you must be registered.

You can register in person, or mail your completed Registration Form. Your registration is permanent unless you move, change your name, or have not voted for 5 years. You may register at your borough Board of Elections (or any agency participating in the National Voter Registration Act) on any business day throughout the year. Forms are available from your borough Board of Elections (see addresses below), town and city hall, post office, political parties, various state offices, and the League of Women Voters. Click here to print a blank Registration Form. If you are registering for the first time you must provide a valid photo ID.

Green Party Ballot Petitioning Begins July 7

Supporters of Green Party City Council candidate David Pechefsky will be all over the 39th City Council district in an effort to get the 2500 signatures needed to get Pechefsky's name on the ballot.

If you haven't already signed one of the Democratic petitions and you want to see the Green Party on general election ballot, sign Pechefsky's petition.

You can only sign one petition.

Your signature on the petition doesn't mean that you have to vote for Pechefsky in the general election (although you are more than welcome to do so).

Pechefsky's name will not be on the primary ballot on September 15th because that election is for the Conservative, Democratic, Independence, Republican, Working Families parties.

I Missed the Working Families Mayoral Forum

Since I wasn't able to make it to the Working Families Party Mayoral Forum yesterday I have to read about it like everyone else in the New York Times, and hear about it on WNYC.

According to all reports something like 400 people packed into the Hotel Trades Association. All three of the major candidates attended but they were interviewed separately.

Bloomberg, who is running as a Republican and an Independent surprised many by his willingness to particpate in the forum of the progressive Working Families Party.

Apparently, he got booed and hissed quite a bit by the audience.

According to the New York Times, Bloomberg poo-pooed the idea that ginormous campaign spending was undemocratic. “You can’t buy an election. The public is much smarter than that," he said.  That remark, according to WNYC "drew boos and hisses" from the crowd.

Also reported by WNYC,  both of the Democrats running for mayor, Comptroller Bill Thompson and Councilman Tony Avella, were cheered several times by the largely progressive Working Families crowd "when they pledged to raise taxes on wealthier New Yorkers and push for more affordable housing."

City Councilmember Bill de Blasio, who is running for Public Advocate sent out a press release about Bloomberg's statement that more people are choosing to stay in homeless shelters because they have become more attractive during his time in office. "It is insulting to the almost 35,000 people who spent last night in a shelter to say that they were there out of choice, not out of necessity," de Blasio said.

The format of the event was interesting. It was really three interviews: one with each candidate and then closing remarks.

You can imagine how disappointed I am that I wasn't there. But stay tuned: I am doing a Breakfast-of-Candidates interview with Tony Avella on Monday in Park Slope.

Tidbits: City Council Candidates (Ken Baer Correction, Evan Thies' Trivia Challenge)

I ran into Ken Baer in front of Citibank on Seventh Avenue and he told me that there were numerous factual errors in my Breakfast-of-Candidates profile of him. I asked why he didn't get in touch sooner and he said he was too busy with petitioning "to sit and edit your piece."

Hmmm.

Our conversation spanned more than two hours as we went from Cousin John's to the Park Slope Food Coop and it did have a rambling quality. Later I did have a hard time reconstructing the actual chronology of some of his work experience. 

The biggest mistake: Ken told me that his father did NOT attend Harvard Law School. He was accepted at the school but it was during the Depression and he couldn't go.

Apparently there are other small mistakes as well. I don't think any of them are glaring or misleading. My apologies to Ken. He says that when he has more time he may get in touch and point out the other mistakes.

Evan Thies' campaign is sponsoring a Campaign Trivia Challenge on Wednesday, July 8 at 6:30 pm at Union Hall ( 702 Union St., Brooklyn). 

So what is the Campaign Trivia Challenge? Seven-time Jeopardy champion and Park Slope resident Justin Bernbauch will host. Supporters and volunteers will compete to see who knows the most about Brooklyn, and finalists will have a chance to match wits with Bernbauch.

Today on Breakfast of Candidates (33rd Edition): Ken Baer

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Ken Baer.  He majored in psychology and sociology at Kent State University during the turbulent 1960's and was actually attending the school when four students were killed by National Guard during an anti-war demonstration in 1970. At the time, he lived with "a bunch of vegetarians" and tried to stay out of the Vietnam War as a conscientious objector (CO). It was during college, that Baer became aware of food and environmental issues: "answering questions on the CO form got me to thinking about killing humans and animals...so I became a vegetarian," he told me. A longtime member of the Park Slope Food Coop, Baer is also a member of the Sierra Club and has held various key positions at the city and state level. He was an early opponent of the Atlantic Yards Project and is a strong believer in community based development.

And in case you missed these from the 33rd (they're all here except for Issac Abraham):

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Stephen Levin.  A classics major at Brown University,  Levin has wonky good looks and a boyish, disarming manner. His father's cousins are Michigan's Senator Carl Levin and Congressman Sander Levin and he currently works as Vito Lopez's chief of staff. Lopez, who is often portrayed as a Darth Vader figure in Brooklyn politics taught the 29-year-old Levin about "knocking on doors, talking to as many people as possible, the importance of having a command of the issues, and having empathy for the people," Levin told me. A pragmatist, Levin believes "that for for every problem there is a solution that is not readily apparent."

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Doug Biviano. Expect the unexpected from Biviano, who is a civil engineer with BS and MS degrees from Cornell University. Biviano works as a superintendent in a Brooklyn Heights apartment building and in 2008 was a New York State Coordinator for presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich , whose politics of peace are a strong influence. Biviano has lived the skier's life in Colorado and sailed the Inter-Coastal Highway with his wife installing solar panels on a boat he barely knew how to sail.

Breakfast of Candidates: Jo Anne Simon.  Her career trajectory from teacher of the deaf to disability rights attorney can make you feel like a slacker  and wonder how she had time to become such a strong voice in community politics, the female Democratic District Leader and State Committeewoman for the 52nd Assembly District. A proponent of the art of listening, she believes that there's a place for all viewpoints at the table and that "someone who is elected to office can work with everyone."

Breakfast-of Candidates; Evan Thies. A former aide to City Council Member David Yassky, Thies also worked in Hillary Clinton's upstate senate office and for Andrew Cuomo. Raised in New Hampshire, public service was the family business and his grandmother was appointed by NH governor John Sununu to be the state's Commissioner of Health and Human Services. Struck as a child with Fibromatosis, a chronic disease, he was home-schooled during the worst of his illness. When he was 11, he and his mother wrote and passed a bill about his disease.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Ken Diamondstone: A lover of diner food, Diamondstone runs an affordable housing business with an emphasis on "nice spaces for low prices." He could have made a killing in the real estate biz but instead stuck to his principles. Affordable housing is clearly Diamondstone's passion and through his business he has been able to translate ideals into action. He is also a member of three local Democratic clubs and was an early opponent of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. For Diamondstone, who is openly gay and lives with his longtime partner, Joe, the rights of the LGBT community is high on his list of priorities. But so is the environment. As chair of the Brooklyn Solid Waste Council he was involved with the Zero Waste Coalition and passage of NYPIRG's Bigger, Better, Bottle Bill.

And here are the 39ers:

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Gary Reilly. At 34 he's not quite the youngest of the 39th candidates (John Heyer beats him on that score) but this intelligent and likable man is plenty wet behind the ears and full of enthusiasm about public transportation and other issues that affect voters.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Bob Zuckerman. A long-time politico, Zuckerman is currently executive director of the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation and the Gowanus Canal Conservancy.  He remembers the night Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 (he was 7-years-old) and one of his heroes is Harvey Milk.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Brad Lander, Lander has two master's degrees and a BA from the University of Chicago. He made his mark running community organizations like the Fifth Avenue Committee and Pratt Center for Community Development, advocating for affordable housing and community sustainablility.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Josh  Skaller. A former computer music composer at Harvard, it was Howard Dean's presidential campaign that jumpstarted his interest in electoral politics. As president of the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, he learned to facilitiate dialogue  and manage strong personalities. Running on a community empowerment platform with a strong interest in the environment and smart development, Josh is proud to be refusing donations from  real estate developers.

Breakfast of Candidates: John Heyer: An assistant to Borough President Marty Markowitz, Heyer is the only candidate for City Council born in the 39th district. A fifth-generation Carroll Gardener, his twin passions are politics and theology. He works as a funeral director at Scotto's Funeral Home and his knowledge of the history of the neighborhood runs deep though he is only 27-years-old.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: David Pechefsky. The Green Candidate, Pechefsky worked for 10 years in the central staff of the New York City Council. With a master's degree in public policy and experience advising local governments in Africa, Pechefsky knows how the City Council works from the inside out and has ideas about how it could better serve the people of New York City.

Breakfast-of-Candidates (33rd Edition): Ken Baer

Note: according to Baer, there are some small mistakes in my retelling of his bio. As I find them out I will change them.

It was like pulling teeth trying to get Ken Baer, candidate for the City Council in the Brooklyn's 33rd district, to talk about his childhood. Not because he has any secrets, it's just that Baer is awfully private for a politician.

Baer faced OTBKB's coffee cup in Cousin John's, a bakery/restaurant in Park Slope, where he ordered a three-egg breakfast and talked sparingly about his mother, who was a German Jewish refugee, his dad, who was a Harvard educated lawyer and almost nothing about growing up in Levittown, Long Island and later Huntington.

He did get a bit more verbal when I asked about his college years at Kent State during the height of the 1960s campus rebellions. In fact, Baer was attending Kent State, when four students were killed by National Guard during an anti-war demonstration in 1970. 

At Kent State, Baer majored in psychology and sociology, lived with "a bunch of vegetarians" and tried to stay out of the Vietnam War as a conscientious objector (CO). It was during college, that Baer became aware of food and environmental issues: "answering questions on the CO form got me to thinking about killing humans and animals... I didn't want to kill animals and became a vegetarian," he told me. He is still a vegetarian.

Baer got a second bachelors degree at Kent state in accounting and economics and later returned to New York to work at the Dime Savings Bank on DeKalb and Flatbush Avenue. I asked where he lived and quickly got the feeling he thought I was being nosy.

"That's what I do. I ask questions," I told Baer.

"I'm not big about talking about myself. I'm a doer," he said.

In 1972, Baer volunteered for George McGovern's presidential campaign. He also got a job as a budget analyst at the City's Agency for Child Development. Sometime later he received a mayor's scholarship available to city employees and went to Baruch College to study computer methodology.

During this time, he joined the Park Slope Food Coop, an organization that he is still a proud member of. "I became a Sunday coordinator; I deal with various strong personalities well," he told me.

In the 1980's Baer went to night school to earn an MBA and worked as an accountant at various firms. In the 1980's he also joined the Sierra Club and ran for a seat on the Executive Committee of the New York City group. He won by one vote in a fractious campaign. "I steer a center path between factions. I don't make enemies," he told me.

His volunteer involvement with the Sierra Club is, I think, the foundation of Baer's political activism. Clearly, Baer is genuinely dedicated to the core values of the largest, and most influential grassroots environmental group in the United States, and has had various roles within the organization.

At this point in our conversation Baer had to walk over to the Food Coop to meet one of his petitioners and I decided to tag along. Once there, we sat in the busy orientation room and spoke more about Baer's work with the Sierra Club.

He told me that he is proud of his work helping the New York State state and city chapters of the Sierra Club through a very difficult and fractious period in 1999 as the result of a misguided fund-raising effort by the NYC group. Due to this mistake, the NYC group's existence was in question. Mediation, a retreat and careful resolution techniques were required to help the parties heal and realize that they needed to stop fighting and start working together again.  "To bring together a national organization when they're having problems is significant," he said.

Our conversation zig and zagged but Baer did tell me that in 1996 he decided to throw his hat into the 52nd district  Assembly race against Eileen Dugin, who wanted to introduce a bill "to allow more smoking in restaurants." Dugan died before the Democratic primary and Baer ran, unsuccessfully against Joan Millman, who replaced Dugin in that race.

"I am not a typical politico but I love meeting people, I'm out on the sidewalks, I love people and seeing so many infants and toddlers. These young people deserve a quality education."

Baer was an early opponent of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. In 2004, he attended one of the very first meetings organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn at a local school and instantly had a bad feeling about the over sized project, which left the community out of the development process.

He continues to be an outspoken opponent of the project and has been endorsed by the highly respected Eric McClure, who runs the group Park Slope Neighbors. For Baer the overarching issue for Brooklyn and NYC are development. He believes that community-based planning must be the basis for all new development in NYC.

Baer and I walked downstairs to wait for one of his petitioners; we sat on the bench out front and I asked him to name his heroes. He thought for a long time and finally said softly, "Ted Williams. He was a great hitter. Because he was a World War II and Korean War pilot he lost five or six seasons in his prime," Baer told me emotionally. "He did it out of patriotism."

When I got home, Baer called me and told me to add Eleanor Roosevelt, JFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. to his list of heroes. But I told him I was going to lead with the Red Sox hitter.

"A very domineering man, he wouldn't let anyone pick up a check. But he was a very skilled player and I admire that. A great ballplayer, a very humble, down to earth and approachable person," Baer told me.

Tidbits: City Council Candidates (Petitions, David, Brad, Doug and Evan)

You've probably seen volunteers all over Brooklyn (and Manhattan) with their brown clip boards and green petitions. 

Green candidate David Pechefsky (in the 39th district) was at Seventh Heaven on Sunday in his new green campaign t-shirt that has a hysterically funny illustration of him on the front. If you want to sign the Pechefsky's petition you'll have to wait for July 1. The Greens have to get a minimum of 2,500 names on their petitions, unlike the Dems and the Repubs who only need 900. If you would like to see Pechefsky's name on the ballot in November, here's what he thinks you should do: "In June when the Democratic candidates are collecting signatures, DO NOT SIGN their petition because the rules state that you can only sign the petition of ONE candidate!

Pechefsky is just back from two weeks doing consulting work in Nepal and Liberia. His assignment was to help strengthen the effectiveness of the national legislatures in those countries in their role in the annual government budget process.

Brad Lander, one of the 39ers, sent word that he is joining with a group of parent leaders from schools in Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, and Windsor Terrace will join together to highlight their efforts to make schools more sustainable, healthy places. It's at the Old Stone House on Thursday June 25th at 11 am. The group plans to call ont he DOE to adopt the following polices: Ban Styrofoam in the schools; Dramatically improve recycling; Get the junk food out; Support innovative efforts by students, parents, educators, and staff. The Old Stone House in on Fifth Avenue between 3rd and 4th Streets.

Doug Biviano, one of the 33's, wants people to help him celebrate the end of the schoo year on  Friday, June 26th from 6:00 - 9:00 PM, at 89 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights (at the corner of Hicks St. and just a couple blocks from the beautiful Brooklyn Heights Promenade).  For a suggested donation of $10 come have some wine and hors d'oeuvres.

Jo Anne Simon, also one of the 33's, wants neighbors, who care about children with special needs, to sign COPAA's petition in support of the IDEA Fairness Restoration Act (H.R. 2740), a bill that would permit parents who prevail in due process and litigation to recover their expert witness fees. Few parents can afford the high cost of paying technical, medical, and other expert witnesses themselves; by contrast, school districts can use taxpayer dollar to pay for experts or use staff on their payroll. In 2006, the Supreme Court decided that parents could not be reimbursed for expert witness fees in Arlington Central School District v. Murphy. The Murphy decision has made the playing field unlevel and unjust for parents who are forced to pursue due process. H.R. 2740 will override this decision.

Tonight, Wednesday, June 24 at 7 p.m., Williamsburg residents will be joining together to help campaign, and organize in their neighborhood for Evan Thies, one of the 33's, at 187 Greenpoint Avenue, Brooklyn

  

Today on Breakfast of Candidates (33rd Edition): Stephen Levin

Today Stephen Levin faces OTBKB's coffee cup. A major in classics at Brown Univeristy, Levin has wonky good looks and a boyish, disarming manner. His father's cousins are Michigan's Senator Carl Levin and Congressman Sander Levin and he's Vito Lopez's chief of staff. Lopez, who is often portrayed as a Darth Vader figure in Brooklyn politics taught the 29-year-old Levin about "knocking on doors, talking to as many people as possible, the importance of having a command of the issues, and having empathy for the people," Levin told me. A pragmatist, Levin believes that for for every problem there is a solution that is not readily apparent."

And in case you missed these from the 33rd:

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Doug Biviano. Expect the unexpected from Biviano. A civil engineer with degrees from Cornell University,  Biviano works as a superintendent in Brooklyn Heights apartment building and as New York State Coordinator for presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, whose politics of peace are a strong influence. Biviano has lived the skiers life in Colorado and sailed the Inter-Coastal Highway with his wife installing solar panels on a boat he barely knew how to sail.

Breakfast of Candidates: Jo Anne Simon.  Her career trajectory from teacher of the deaf to disability rights attorney will make you feel like a slacker  and wonder how she had time to become such a strong voice in her community and the female Democratic District Leader and State Committeewoman for the 52nd Assembly District. A proponent of the art of listening, she believes that there's a place for all viewpoints at the table and that "someone who is elected to office can work with everyone."

Breakfast-of Candidates; Evan Thies. A former aide to City Council Member David Yassky, Thies also worked in Hillary Clinton's upstate senate office and for Andrew Cuomo. Raised in New Hampshire, public service was the family business and his grandmother, Mary Mongron, was appointed by NH governor John Sununu to be New Hampshire's Commissioner of Health and Human Services. Struck as a child with Fibromatosis, a chronic disease, he was homeschooled during the worst of his illness. When he was 11, he and his mother wrote and passed a bill about his disease. Evan studied his twin interests, political science and journalism, at Syracuse University but knew that he was called to public service like his grandmother.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Ken Diamondstone: A lover of diner food, Diamondstone runs an affordable housing business with an emphasis on "nice spaces for low prices." He could have made a killing in the real estate biz but instead stuck to his principles. Affordable housing is clearly Diamondstone's passion and through his business he has been able to translate ideals into action. He is also a member of three local Democratic clubs and an early opponent of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. For Diamondstone, who is openly gay and lives with his longtime partner, Joe, the rights of the LGBT commuity is high on his list of priorities. But so is the environment. As chair of the Brooklyn Solid Waste Council he was involved with the Zero Waste Coalition and passage of NYPIRG's Bigger, Better, Bottle Bill.

And here are the 39ers:

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Gary Reilly. At 34 he's not quite the youngest of the candidates (John Heyer beats him on that score) but he's plenty wet behind the ears and full of enthusiasm about public transportation and other issues that affect voters.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Bob Zuckerman. A long-time politico, Bob is currently executive director of the Gowanus Canal Community Development Corporation and  Gowanus Canal Conservancy.  He remembers the night Richard Nixon was elected in 1968 (he was 7-years-old) and one of his heroes is Harvey Milk.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Brad Lander, The intellectual of the group, Brad has two master's degrees and a BA from the University of Chicago. He made his mark running community organizations like the Fifth Avenue Committee and Pratt Center for Community Development, advocating for affordable housing and community sustainablility.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: Josh  Skaller. A former computer music composer at Harvard, it was Howard Dean's presidential campaign that jumpstarted his interest in electoral politics. As president of the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, he learned to facilitiate dialogue  and manage strong personalities. Running on a community empowerment platform with a strong interest in the environment and smart development, Josh is proud to be refusing donations from  real estate developers.

Breakfast of Candidates: John Heyer: An assistant to Borough President Marty Markowitz, Heyer is the only candidate for City Council born in the 39th district. A fifth-generation Carroll Gardener, his twin passions are politics and theology. He works as a funeral director at Scotto's Funeral home and his knowledge of the history of the neighborhood runs deep though he is only 27 years old.

Breakfast-of-Candidates: David Pechefsky. The Green Candidate, Pechefsky worked for 10 years in the central staff of the New York City Council. With a master's degree in public policy and experience advising local governments in Africa, Pechefsky knows how the City Council works from the inside out and has ideas about how it could better serve the people of New York City.

Breakfast-of-Candidates (33rd Edition): Stephen Levin

Stephen Levin faced OTBKB's coffee cup at Ozzie's on Fifth Avenue in Park Slope. At 9:15 in the morning, the humidity was already high but Levin arrived good-natured and cheerful after campaigning at the Borough Hall subway stop. By way of an introduction, he handed me a campaign brochure, a button and a campaign pen, which I needed because the pen I brought was out of ink.

We ordered coffee and talked easily for 90 minutes or so.

I had to be honest. I told Levin point-blank that he was being portrayed, disparagingly, as "Assemblyman Vito Lopez's guy." And Assemblyman Lopez is probably one of the most demonized—and powerful Democratic figures in Brooklyn.

"At your first candidates forum I expected you to come in wearing a black cape or something." I told him.

But Levin has something like wonky good looks. Small framed and skinny, he's got a boyish, friendly face and in a blue button down shirt and a tie he has a  disarming, low key manner.

Still, there's no denying that Levin is Lopez's chief of staff. But where some see Lopez as a Darth Vader figure with a sometimes corrupt approach to politics, Levin sees Lopez as "a great teacher and someone who taught him strategy and the value of running an on-the-ground campaign."

Levin has other important mentors, too. His father's cousin is none other than Carl Levin, the Senior United States Senator from Michigan and the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

And his father's other cousin (and Carl's brother) is Congressman Sander Levin, Democratic representative from the 12th congressional district in Michigan, where he has served since 1983. In fact, when Levin was first contemplating his run for City Council he called cousin Sander (and his wife) for advice.

"We talked about the district. The issues. He wanted to know my chances of winning and what I've been doing.  After listening for about an hour they said 'Yeah, do it. Sounds like a good idea.'"

Born in 1980 (no, that is not a misprint), Levin grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey. His father is a lawyer, who served in Vietnam as part of the Marine Corps and his mother is an art teacher. At home, Levin and his brother "were encouraged to be curious, open and to follow our interests. My parents encouraged hard work and intellectual curiosity," Levin told me.

History was also a topic that was often discussed at home. "My dad always emphasized the back story, the importance of history and getting the full facts. If we were talking about the Vietnam War, he'd bring up French colonialism. There's always more to the story."

So it's no accident that Levin majored in classics at Brown University. "Classics gives you a perspective. There are many parallels with modern life. History is a great teacher," he told me.

The attacks on September 11th, which occurred when Levin was a junior in college, convinced him that he wanted to be involved in public life. After graduation from Brown Levin came to NYC and searched for a job in politics or the non-profit sector.

That's when he landed a temporary stint working on  Lopez's re-election campaign where he "basically went out for coffee and did clerical work." But over time he learned Lopez's approach to campaigning which involves  "knocking on doors,  talking to as many people as possible, the importance of having a command of the issues, and having empathy for the people," Levin said.

After Lopez's successful run, Levin got a job with a lead safe house program in Bushwick. He looks back very fondly on that experience, where he was an advocate for families whose children's blood tests revealed high and dangerous levels of lead. The law requires that these families move out of their homes immediately until the problem is rectified. The safe house was needed as a temporary refuge for families who faced this temporary dislocation. "I got very involved in people's lives and helped to walk them through the bureaucracy."

Around that time, Levin also ran an anti-predatory lending program in Bushwick, where, he says, he helped to organize homeowners and teach them about lending practices that were "decimating the neighborhood with foreclosures."

In 2006, Levin became Lopez's chief of staff. "Vito trusts me and lets me flourish on policy. He's been a tremendous help and a great teacher." Clearly, Levin was expecting the negativity about Lopez going in to his City Council run but he refuses to speak disparagingly of his boss and mentor.

Levin has been canvassing the 33rd district, "from Grand Army Plaza to Newtown Creek" since January and has learned that there are "no short cuts to talking to people and learning what they care about."

When Levin talks about meeting senior citizens, his empathy for people's lives really comes through. "It's heartbreaking. They live on fixed incomes and pensions. There's a long waiting list for Section 8 housing. When a city is run like a business it loses its human face. I want to help people," he says. "I see a lot of people out there in need."

Levin describes himself as a very practical person. "I believe that for every problem there is a solution that is not readily apparent."

Suddenly Levin stands up and walks to a bookshelf across from where we're sitting. He pulls out a book called Breathing for a Living: A Memoir.

"This is my good friend from college," he says of the author of the book, Laura Rothenberg, who died while at Brown of cystic fibrosis. The coincidence of finding this book at Ozzie's provides Levin with an opportunity to talk about what he learned from his friend.

"Life is precious. Time is limited. It really puts thing in perspective. Laura was fearless not shrinking. She had an inner strength."

Clearly, Levin has an inner strength, too. He's smart, well educated and very, very young. But he knows a lot about history and like his father and his relatives Sander and Carl, Levin wants to extend the family legacy of politics and public service. I don't get a very ideological feeling from Levin or the sense of a strong, political agenda. He strikes me as someone who wants to fix things one problem at a time as he believes, pragmatically, that there's a solution to every problem.

At the end of 90-minutes it was time for me to run as I had an interview scheduled with Ken Baer over at Cousin John's on Seventh Avenue...

Tidbits: City Council Candidates (Petitioning with Bob Z.)

This morning on my way to breakfast at Grand Canyon I ran into Bob Zuckerman, candidate for the 39th district, petitioning with a supporter. Actually he was standing out of the rain underneath the scaffolding of Park Slope's infamous House of Whimsy, the mostly unoccupied apartment building on the corner of Second Street and Seventh Avenue.

He reminded me that last week he along with a group of Brooklyn LGBT groups helped to organize a marriage equality rally in JJ BYrne Park. The rally, which was sponsored by the Lambda Independent
Democrats of Brooklyn, the Stonewall Democratic Club of New York City, Marriage Equality New
York, the Brooklyn Community Pride Center, and the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, was an opportunity for Brooklyn to demonstrate its support for marriage equality legislation. Zuckerman, who is hoping to be Brooklyn’s first openly LGBT legislator ever elected from Brooklyn, was the emcee.

Tidbits: City Council Candidates (The Biv Team, Give Parents a Voice in Schools)

--Meet the Biv Team: This week Doug Biviano (33rd) opens  his brand new campaign headquarters (89 Montague St in Brooklyn Heights, at the corner of Hicks St. and just a couple blocks from the Brooklyn Heights Promenade). Biviano will be doing  back-to-back fundraising events this Thursday, June 18th from 5:00 - 8:00 PM and Friday, June 19th from 5:00 - 9:00 PM. For a suggested donation of $10 come have some cocktails and hors d'oeuvres and meet and greet with him and his brand new staff.

That's right: He's even got a staff: Campaign Strategist, Wilson Karaman; Campaign Manager; Henry McCaslin; Public Relations Consultant, Frank Lentini.

--Brad Lander (39th) and District 15 public school parent leaders are calling on the governor and legislators in Albany to give parents a greater voice in their children’s education.  They want state leaders to ensure new school governance legislation contains stronger checks and balances on the power of the mayor and his appointee, the schools chancellor, and more public and parent participation in the public schools.

--I'm almost done: I met with Steve Levin at Ozzie's on Fifth Avenue and Ken Baer at Cousin John's and later at the Food Coop. Stay tuned for those two Breakfast of Candidates Thursday and Friday!!

 

Tom Martinez, Witness: Welcome to the Mayoral Forum

Young greeters welcome people to Our Lady of Refuge (Ocean Avenue and Foster), site of the Brooklyn Congregations United Mayoral Forum.

Pix of Tom Martinez

Thompson and Avella at Brooklyn Congregations United Mayoral Forum

Mayoral Candidate Comptroller William Thompson at Brooklyn Congregations United Mayoral Forum at Our Lady of Refuge (Ocean Avenue and Foster). The other Democratic candidate, Tony Avella is seated to Thompson's right.

Was Reverend Billy, Green Party candidate for mayor, there?

Pix by Tom Martinez

Tidbits: City Council Candidates (Weekend News)

Pardon Me For Asking reports that City Council candidate in the 39th district John Heyer (pictured left climbing the lamp post) was on hand for the renaming of Palazzo Way, a stretch of Henry Street, between Union and Sackett Streets. The block has officially been co-named "Citizens Of Pozzallo Way" in honor of the Society Of The Citizens of Pozzallo. He even got to climb lamp post and unveil the sign.

According to PMFA: "The Society was started in 1919 by immigrants from the Sicilian town of Pozzallo, Italy who formed an organization, to 'promote fellowship and friendship amongst its members and to educate them to the American ideals in order to transition them to the American way of life and American citizenship.'"

Photo by PMFA

The politicians were out in full force at the Gay Pride Parade on Saturday night. I chatted briefly with Doug Biviano, candidate for City Council in the 33rd district, who asked me to sign his petition. "Sorry, I can't. I'm a 39er." Council Speaker Christine Quinn and City Council members David Yassky and Bill deBlasio were also in the parade.

Brad Lander and Gary Reilly were also marching in the  Brooklyn Pride Parade on Saturday night. Brad marched near his synagogue Kolot Chayeinu, which is informally Brooklyn's gay & lesbian synagogue) so he wasn't up with the other candidates and electeds.

A plan to honor gays and other non-Jewish victims of Nazi persecution in Brooklyn's Holocaust Memorial Park inspired Assemblyman Dov Hikind to say ridiculously: "the Holocausut is a uniquely Jewish event."

Mole 333, who writes a blog for Daily Gotham (and seems to be a supporter of Josh Skaller) had this to say: "And remember this is the same Dov Hikind who is helping City Council Candidate Brad Lander in the Hasid community. Dov Hikind has previously expressed support for racial profiling and segregated neighborhoods and now denies the right of anyone but Jews to consider themselves victims of Nazi Germany. I am now calling Brad Lander out on this one. Does Brad Lander condemn the racism and intolerance of his political ally Dov Hikind? How does Brad Lander feel about Dov's vilifying of Muslim-Americans and African-Americans? How does Brad Lander feel about Dov's Holocaust denial. And let me be clear on this: Dov's version of Holocaust denial is JUST as disgusting as that of Iran or neo-Nazis who deny that Jews were targeted for genocide."

Actually, Brad Lander did have something to say about Dov Hikind's Holocaust comment and it was published on Mole333's Daily Gotham blog.

I strongly support the New York City Parks Department’s inclusion of the full range of victims of Nazi atrocities – Jews, gays, Romani, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the disabled, and political prisoners (as well as Catholics, Slavs, trade unionists, and others) – in Brooklyn’s Holocaust Memorial Park.

Honoring all victims of Nazi persecution does not diminish the immensity of the six million Jews murdered by Hitler and the Nazis. It is important to commemorate all victims of the Holocaust, both to accurately record history, and to learn its lessons. To me, the lesson of the Holocaust is never again to anyone, anywhere. I have been proud to stand with Jews and many others in opposition to genocide in Darfur, and to vicious bias murders in New York City – activism which stems from a shared history of oppression, and an unyielding commitment to human rights.

I am grateful to have the support of Assemblyman Dov Hikind in my campaign for City Council (as well as Congressman Jerrold Nadler, State Senators Liz Krueger and Daniel Squadron, City Councilmember Rosie Mendez, Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr, Ruth Messinger, and many others who are champions in the fight for human rights). While Assemblyman Hikind and I agree on the need for affordable housing, support for small businesses, public safety, strong social service organizations, and improved neighborhood quality-of-life in Boro Park (where his Assembly District and the City Council district I am seeking to represent overlap), I strongly disagree with him on this issue.

Power Struggle in Albany: Who Are Brooklyn's State Senators?

The world watches as the State Senate in Albany is in chaos after two Democratic senators crossed the aisle in a Republican power grab. Seems like a good time for a refresher course on the State Senate and the names of those who represent Kings County.

If you don't know in what district you live, you can find out everything you need to know by entering your address into the New York City Board of Elections' website right here.

Thanks to The Brooklyn Optimist for this list.

17th SD: Martin Malavé Dilan
18th SD: Velmanette Montgomery
19th SD: John Sampson
20th SD: Eric Adams
21st SD: Kevin Parker
22nd SD: Martin Golden
23rd SD: Diane Savino (also represents Staten Island)
25th SD:  Daniel Squadron,
27th SD: Carl Kruger

The Petitioners Are On The Streets: Take the Time to Sign

They're all over the place. At subway stations; on all the avenues and streets; Petitioners are going door to door all over the city collecting signatures on ballot nominating petitions to help the candidates get on the ballot.

Just so you know: during the petitioning period which lasts from June 9th until June 15th, you are being NOT asked to commit to a candidate, you're only be asked to add your signature so that a particular candidate can be on the ballot.

Just so you know: You can only sign one petition and you must be a registered Democrat in the District where you are signing the petition.

Just so you know: Each candidate needs to get 900 signatures of registered Democrats in the district. But they usually try to get more to insure their place on the ballot.

Just so you know: The process is entirely volunteer-driven, which means that the supporters of all the candidates are out their meeting their neighbors and convincing them to sign the petition.

Just so you know: If you want to see a Green candidate on the ballot in November you must wait until the July petitioning period. Since you can only sign one petition, don't sign a Democratic petition if you are waiting to sign the Green Party petition.