With 99.15% of precincts reporting, Diana Reyna is leading the race for the 34th with 45% of the vote. Maritza Davila is second with 43% (only 195 votes behind), while Gerry Esposito is back at 11%.
WNYC says that Lander is leading Skaller, 41% to 25%, with over 75% of precincts reporting. Congratulations, Brad.
CityRoom says that deBlasio is leading Green, 32 to 31 (with 65% reporting). That is big – a contrary to all of the polling. In the comptroller race, Liu is at 39%, one point below the magic no-runoff number, with Yassky at 29%.
Locally, Short says that Diana Reyna is up by 97 votes (45% to 44%), while Steve Levin appears to be walking away with it – just over 31% with 70% reporting (and no runoffs in council races, I believe).
Brooklyn11211 hereby calls the Mayoral primary for Bill Thompson.
We’ll come in from our limb now.
So, there’s an election today. It will probably determine who your City Council member is for the next four (or eight or twelve) years. It will also probably determine who your Comptroller, Public Advocate and Borough President is for the next four (or eight or twelve) years. So it’s kind of important and worth paying attention to.
Al Sharpton called last night, and he wants me to pass on his support for Bill de Blasio. Ed Koch called last night, and he’s supporting Melinda Katz for Comptroller (so is Diana Reyna, but she didn’t call me last night). Sara Horowitz from Freelancer’s Union called, and they’re supporting David Yassky for Comptroller and Evan Thies for Council.
Here are links to the very excellent candidate profiles Juliet Linderman did for the Greenpoint Gazette.
In the 33rd District (open race):
Isaac Abraham
Ken Baer
Doug Biviano
Ken Diamondstone
Steve Levin
Jo Anne Simon
Evan Thies
In the 34th District (Diana Reyna is the incumbent):
Maritza Davila
Gerry Esposito
Diana Reyna
And for the citywides, here is a recap of the major races from the Times.
AYR supports (“gingerly”) Jo Anne Simon. Part of the calculus is Evan Thies’ role – or lack thereof – in Broadway Triangle. As Norman puts it:
Could Thies have stopped the Broadway Triangle project from going forward, as Simon’s latest mailer suggests? No, but his departure from Community Board 1 before the vote was not his best moment…
UPDATE: Realreformbrooklyn took Simon to task for her campaign literature making essentially this same accusation.
Since I was there, I can shed some more light on all of this.
As Norman says, Evan’s vote on Broadway Triangle wouldn’t have made a whit of a difference – the vote was 23 in favor, 12 opposed and 1 abstention. Evan was clearly on the record opposing Broadway Triangle (as he said to me, the process was the biggest problem – “shockingly exclusionary” – and he wanted to see more bulk in the zoning*).
As for his resignation, Evan told me in April or May that he would be resigning from CB1 in order to focus on the campaign (and in particular the petitioning) long before Broadway Triangle hit the Community Board’s schedule. I don’t know when Evan actually resigned, but I do know that the certification of Broadway Triangle happened very quickly. (Recall that at its May meeting, CB1 voted not to meet in July or August because there was nothing on the land use agenda – it wasn’t until the end of May that Broadway Triangle was certified, upending our summer vacation plans.)
For the record.
[* Which is where Evan and I part company – I voted for the Broadway Triangle rezoning because it was the right density. But Evan and I agree on the process.]
Sad news – another punk dies too young.
I came to Jim Carroll via Patti Smith and Catholic Boy and all that – it was some years before I heard about Basketball Diaries (but not that many years). Still, I’ll resist the obvious Catholic Boy cut and go with this rather nice tribute from YouTube.
In case you haven’t noticed, there is an election tomorrow. Technically it’s a primary, but for all intents and purposes, it’s the election (the exception being the race for Mayor, which will be decided in November, not September).
If you are a registered Democrat, vote tomorrow.* If you are a registered Democrat in North Brooklyn, vote tomorrow and tell all of your friends to vote. This is particularly important in the 33rd District, which Williamsburg and Greenpoint shares with DUMBO, Brooklyn Heights, Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Park Slope (because we all have so much in common). Too often, our council members are focused on the southern part of the district, where the votes (and dollars) are, to the exclusion of the north. Good turnout from the northern territories can change that (it might even elect someone who actually lives here).
[*If you are not a registered democrat, you really should be – at least for the citywide elections. For better or (mostly) worse, New York has a closed primary system. That means you can only vote in the primary for the party you are registered for. If you are not registered as a Democrat in city elections, you will not have a voice in most of the races that affect you. That’s just the way it is, and that’s why you should register as a Democrat (you can always switch back to Republican, Independent, WFP, whatever in the even-year state and national election cycles).]
The Daily News is out with its endorsements for significant City Council races. Locally, they are endorsing Evan Thies in the 33rd and Diana Reyna in the 34th. Here’s what they have to say.
[Thies] has distinguished himself in fights for affordable housing and public space.
and
[Reyna] has secured millions for new community and youth centers.
Reyna in particular is racking up the endorsements – she now has the Times, the News, El Diario, and the Brooklyn Courier. Thies adds the News to his earlier endorsements from the Brooklyn Paper and the Brooklyn Star.
In the 39th, the News like Brad Lander. Like the Times, the News is not making an endorsement in the 35th (Tish James’ seat). I’m sure some will see conspiracy there, but maybe it’s just not seen as a competitive race
The News goes for Yassky. This gives him a pretty nice sweep of the citywide endorsements – the Times, Crains and now now the News.
On the celebrity/politico endorsement front, Yassky is also doing pretty well. So far, he has Russell Simmons, Robert Kennedy, Jr. and some senator from New York. (Equal time – Ed Koch called this afternoon and asked me to vote for Melinda Katz.)
