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.

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.]