The Times is out with its endorsements for City Council, and in the local races, it is endorsing Jo Anne Simon in the 33rd and Diana Reyna in the 34th.
In the 33rd, the Times sees a three-way race, with something to be said for Simon, Steve Levin and Evan Thies:
There are several excellent candidates vying to replace Councilman David Yassky, who’s also running for comptroller. Stephen Levin would be a prime candidate except for his entanglement in the Brooklyn Democratic Party machine. Evan Thies, an aide to Mr. Yassky, has been active on reform and clean-air issues. Jo Anne Simon has an impressive legal background and has been a strong community organizer who has done important work for the disabled. We endorse Ms. Simon.
In the 34th, the Times sees a two-way race, with only one candidate worth considering:
Party bosses sometimes try to intimidate a rebellious politician by threatening to support a challenger in the next election. That is what has happened to Councilwoman Diana Reyna, who dared to oppose a housing development backed by Assemblyman Vito Lopez, the leader of Brooklyn’s Democrats. Mr. Lopez now supports Maritza Davila, a community activist who has worked with Mr. Lopez on development issues. Ms. Reyna’s show of independence should be enough to re-elect her. But she has also grown into a strong advocate for small businesses and struggling families in her area. We endorse Ms. Reyna in this race.
There were a few noteworthy – and interesting – newspaper endorsements over the past few days. In the 33rd Council District, Evan Thies has picked up the support of the Brooklyn Paper and the Brooklyn Downtown Star. Meanwhile, the Courier-Life papers have gone for Steve Levin.
In the 34th District, Courier-Life endorsed Diana Reyna, while the Star endorsed Gerry Esposito. (As far as I can see, the Brooklyn Paper hasn’t weighed in on the 34th yet.)
A couple things of note in these endorsements. First, as Norman Oder notes (in a slightly different context), Courier-Life can’t be accused following the party line by picking Steve Levin, given that they also endorsed Diana Reyna. And second, for those (like Norman) who have been worried that News Corp’s ownership of both the Brooklyn Paper and the Courier-Life papers would mean that all would follow the Murdoch party line, at least for the moment, there seems to be editorial independence between the two.
WNYC ran a brief piece on the 33rd Council District race, focusing on three leading candidates – Steve Levin, Jo Anne Simon and Evan Thies. The station has transcribed the piece in a blog post, complete with pictures. Good thing you can’t see pictures on the radio, because the image above is what you see in the slide show for Steve Levin. (For the 99.999999% of the world that doesn’t understand this post, that picture is from here, not here.)
On a more substantive note, Real Reform Brooklyn’s latest broadside against Jo Anne Simon tries to connect the dots between a few Simon contributers and Atlantic Yards. The crux of the argument is that Simon received contributions from three board members of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corporation (BBPDC), as well as a contribution from the wife of one of those board members. RRB claims that the contributions from these “real estate related interests” pose a conflict of interest, in that Simon is opposed to the development of luxury housing in Brooklyn Bridge Park. This is enough of a stretch – and belies a complete misunderstanding what a conflict of interest is. But RRB really jumps the shark when it claims that the contributions create the “appearance of a conflict of interest” because the BBPDC is a subsidiary of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), and ESDC is – wait for it – overseeing the development of Atlantic Yards.
For the record, the “questionable” contributions came from BBPDC board members Joanne Witty, David Offensend and Henry Gutman and from Gutman’s wife Karolyn. All three are heavy contributers to various campaigns – notably Yassky, Markowitz and de Blasio. The total of the contributions from the four was $2,750 ($6,250 when matched with city matching funds).
The BBPDC contributions are interesting, and may raise a question about Simon’s commitment to keeping luxury housing out of Brooklyn Bridge Park for those who are concerned about the issue. But they are not a conflict of interest, and they are certainly not an indication of a connection to Atlantic Yards. If you want to troll the CFB records for questionable donations, there are far bigger fish out there. Take for instance Joshua Guttman – two “T”s, he of Greenpoint Terminal Market fame – and his family. He, his son Jack and wife Vera have given a total of $6,000 in direct donations to Isaac Abraham’s campaign.
Real Reform Brooklyn has taken down the photo that came with their stock WordPress template (ironically, a photo of Grand Street in Manhattan) and replaced it with a lovely historic picture of the Brooklyn Bridge. Clearly they are trying to curry favor with me by choosing to go the historic route. (BTW – the photo is looking east on the bridge, towards Brooklyn – you can tell by the belching smokestack off in the distance.)
Real Reform Brooklyn has redesigned its web site (for the better). We still don’t know who is behind Real Reform Brooklyn, but whoever it is must not be too good on New York City geography. They dumped the old tunnel photo on the masthead and have replaced it with a photo of Grand Street. Grand Street in Little Italy, that is.
