Category: Linked

WG News + Arts held a candidates forum for the 34th District last night. For a while, it looked like it would be yet another one-sided discussion, this time with just Gerry Esposito (you may remember that the last two times Diana Reyna was the only candidate to show).

Well, at the last minute Diana Reyna decided she would attend. So kudos to her (the only candidate to appear at all four candidate debates/forums). And kudos to Gerry Esposito, who has now attended two of the four (and gets extra credit for appearing at a fifth event that wound up getting cancelled). Notably absent at all one of these events is the third candidate in the race, Maritza Davila.

And while I’m at it, kudos to WG News + Arts and the Brooklyn Rail for organizing the whole event.

In that spirit, the Grand Central Parkway could come into play… How about making it the Edward M. Kennedy Parkway?

How about not? (And while I’m on the subject, how about not naming a subway station after Michael Johnson.)

A leader actively engaged in issues affecting Williamsburg Bushwick and Ridgewood, Reyna has been a firm supporter and funder of youth services, especially in the face of surging gang violence. The Councilwoman has protected senior citizen programs and is pushing for state-of-the-art upgrades in local schools. With longtime constituents vulnerable to soaring rents and the concentration of waste transfer stations, Reyna will continue to be an ardent defender of a community that needs advocacy, not a party boss’ manipulation.

Another big endorsement for Reyna. While we’re on the subject, The Greenpoint Gazette has posted candidate profiles for the 34th District. Here is Reyna’s.

More synergy from Murdochland – Aaron Short’s candidate profiles for the 33rd debut in the Post. (I think it’s a debut – I haven’t noticed the other candidate profiles on the Post.) If you want to read the “local” version, it’s here.

Congrats, Aaron.

A public service message for my New Jersey reader:

The New Jersey governor’s race is getting so down and dirty that nothing is off limits. Not even Chris Christie’s driving the wrong way on a one-way street, crashing into a motorcyclist, sending the motorcyclist to the hospital, flashing his US Attorney ID to get out of a ticket, apparently settling a lawsuit with a non-disclosed settlement and then lying about ever being sued in the first place.

[Investigators] captured crooked city workers taking mere $50 and $100 payoffs to ignore violations that had the potential to halt construction at several sites, most of them in The Bronx.

Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn has a rundown of the candidates in the 33rd district, along with links to her Breakfast of Candidates series (in-depth discussions with 6 of the 7 candidates – I guess Issac Abraham wasn’t hungry).

OtBKB’s take on the 39th district is here.

The saga of the Post’s policy for ripping off blogs continues. The mainstream media mining blogs for leads is an old story, but this time around, Ms. Heather has gotten noticed. Or more to the point, the Post’s inane policy for attribution has gotten noticed.

I can independently verify Einstein’s theory of relativity. That doesn’t mean I should call it my own. The Post has no more right to its “exclusive” based on its own verification of a blog post.

I’ve said it before, but regardless of whose vision of Broadway Triangle comes to fruition, manufacturing will be displaced. The City’s plan replaces manufacturing with residential, as does the BTCC plan. The important thing is to make sure that businesses in the Triangle can relocate (and relocate nearby). For that to happen, someone has to pony up some serious money (and that should happen before the Council signs off on anything). CB1 made funding for industrial relocation a condition of their approval, and since then David Yassky and Vito Lopez have signed on, as has Marty Markowitz (who went a step further). If it can happen in Willets Point, it should happen here.

With regard to the Times endorsements today, Real Reform Brooklyn continues to see Atlantic Yards conspiracies at every turn. Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report, on the other hand, is suspicious but less willing to call foul when it comes to the Simon endorsement. Being less in the AY loop, I am skeptical, but I will agree with RRB (and AYR) that the Times’ 33rd endorsement was lukewarm at best.

The Times endorsement in the 33rd is particularly frustrating because they don’t say why they are choosing one candidate over another. They start out by saying that there are three “excellent candidates”, and they are clear on why Steve Levin is out of the running – he “would be a prime candidate except for his entanglement in the Brooklyn Democratic Party machine”. But if you are looking for some insight on Jo Anne Simon or Evan Thies, you won’t get it here. Instead we get a Cliff Notes version of the two candidates’ resumes – Thies “an aide to [David] Yassky, has been active on reform and clean-air issues”; Simon “has an impressive legal background and has been a strong community organizer who has done important work for the disabled”. The endorsement could just have easily ended “We endorse Mr. Thies”; instead, they went with “We endorse Ms. Simon” and no explanation. In a competitive race like this, where the Times’ endorsement can have a major impact, its readers deserve better.

By contrast, the endorsement for the 34th is pretty clear. It highlights what the Times sees as Diana Reyna’s qualifications – her “show of independence should be enough to re-elect her”; “she has also grown into a strong advocate for small businesses and struggling families in her area”. Maritza Davila is dismissed out of hand (“a community activist who has worked with Mr. Lopez on development issues”), and Gerry Esposito doesn’t even get a mention.

As to the 35th, where the Times chose not to make an endorsement, the AY influence would appear to be more at play here. Unless, of course, the Times simply considers the race not to be among the “most competitive districts where winning the Democratic primary usually means capturing the seat”. But that is outside my jurisdiction.