Brooklyn11211 hereby calls the Mayoral primary for Bill Thompson.
We’ll come in from our limb now.
The purpose of having elected officials, as opposed to a self-perpetuating oligarchy like China, ought to be to enhance accountability.
Yglesias starts off well, but his suggestion that we dispatch with borough-level elected positions and rely instead on a unicameral state legislature would be a disaster for NYC.
Can’t embed the audio, so you’ll have to wander over to TMZ. It’s worth a trip, though – a very funny interview.
Is there a newspaper or blog in the country that has not written an article on Greenpoint’s rooftop farm? Here, the Detroit News weighs in (and by extension, so do I).
Actually, a lot of these aren’t so last minute, but it is a nice quick recap of the state of the field.
Sadly, based on the new store design for Duane Reade, so we won’t get that instant grime and disorder that has characterized DR for decades. On the plus side, King’s might lower their prices to something near MSRP.
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).]
