City Council analyst John Lisyanskiy officially threw his hat in the ring for Coney Island’s 47th District on December 16 with an e-mail blast to supporters, making him one of two candidates for the district to forego the political hand-wringing over redistricting and jump in the race. Meanwhile, others in what was expected to be a somewhat crowded field for the Democratic nod, are reconsidering their runs – and almost all are urging constituents to turn out to tomorrow’s Districting Committee hearing to oppose the plan.
Lisyanskiy is one of four Democratic contenders vying to replace term-limited Domenic Recchia that have registered committees with the Campaign Finance Board. Lisyanskiy is joined by activist Todd Dobrin; Michael Treybich, an attorney and deputy legal director for the New York State Young Democrats; and Brian Gotlieb, former chairman of Community Board 13.
Lisyanskiy, who serves as a legislative budget aide in the City Council under Speaker Christine Quinn, jumps in the race with tens of thousands of dollars collected for a 2009 run that ultimately fizzled after term limits were extended. The campaign’s announcement came weeks before the council’s district lines are set to be finalized, a process which could see a campaign’s key constituencies flung into a neighboring district.
But Lisyanskiy said the latest district lines were of little concern in determining whether or not to run.
Councilman Recchia, left, and Senator Adams, right.
Coney Island City Councilman Domenic Recchia is reportedly eyeing the Brooklyn Borough President’s office, potentially pitting Northern and Central Brooklyn versus Southern Brooklyn for the largely powerless position.
Sources told the Daily News that Recchia plans to announce his candidacy in January, confirming speculation that the term-limited pol was considering the seat after putting the kibosh on a rumored comptroller run.
Recchia has served in the City Council since 2002 and, in 2010, he became chair of the Council Finance Committee, one of the most powerful positions in the legislative body, responsible for directing taxpayer funds to nonprofits and community groups.
Recchia will be term-limited out at the end of 2013, as will the sitting beep, Marty Markowitz. Recchia was widely believed to be mulling a run for city comptroller, but squashed that rumor earlier this month when Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer announced his candidacy for the seat and obtained Recchia’s endorsement.
After a long night, the winners for our local districts have been announced. Looks like all of the incumbents held their places:
Democratic State Senator Diane Savino held onto her seat against Republican Lisa Grey in the 23 District, with 75.7 percent to 24.3 percent of the vote.
In District 11, Republican Michael Grimm beat out Democrat Mark Murphy, 52.6 percent to 46.4 percent.
In District 22, State Senator Marty Golden wins over Demorat Andrew Gounardes, 58.1 percent to 41.9 percent.
Democrat Jerrold Nadler held onto his seat in District 10 against Republican Michael Chan, with 80 percent to 20 percent of the vote.
Update (9:52 a.m.):
District 47′s Councilman William Colton beat Republican James Rippa, with 74.2 percent of the vote.
Peter Abbate was uncontested and held his seat in the 49th District.
This Friday, October 24, you have another chance to witness a debate between Republican New York State Senator Martin Golden and Democratic challenger Andrew Gounardes on NY1 at 6:45 pm.
If the other debates are any indication, this one serves to be just as feisty as Golden and Gounardes square off on issues ranging from gun control, women’s rights, jobs and education.
State Senator Marty Golden and his upstart opponent, Democrat Andrew Gounardes, faced off at a debate last night hosted by the Dyker Heights Civic Association.
The 30-minute debate got heated at points, with Golden and Gounardes occasionally raising their voices and breaking with debate protocol to ask each other questions or attack one another.
Among the issues discussed were gun control, women’s rights including emergency contraceptives for rape victims and fair pay, and education.
Education is how Andrew Gounardes opened the debate, attacking the 10-year incumbent for failing to bring home the bacon for local schools. He claimed Golden has voted 99 percent of the time with the Senate Republican leadership, which he said had been neglecting New York City’s schools, siphoning off funding and ignoring issues of overcapacity in New York City. The Senator responded by calling the claims “pure fantasy” and noted that he had brought funding to local schools, including adding 4,000 seats to the district.
On a separate question about education, Golden received boos for expressing his support for Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s handling of the city school system, while Gounardes said the state needed to do a better job ensuring the mayor is fulfilling his obligation to students, which, he said, appears not to be the case given college-readiness rates and school standards.
The crowd appeared to overwhelmingly support Senator Golden, many sporting Golden and GOP stickers – but Gounardes also brought a contingent of supporters who cheered him on. Both appeared to have “plants” in the crowd – or people who posed questions that exposed the weakness of their opponent.
One of those questions came from a female Gounardes supporter, who asked Golden if he supported Missouri Congressman Todd Akin’s statements that rape victims should not have access to emergency contraceptives. It seemed Golden was pretending not to hear the question, and then rephrased it as “Should [rape victims] get emergency services immediately upon rape? Yes, they should.”
Gounardes won a round of applause for immediately shooting back that Golden had voted three times against a bill that would provide contraceptives to rape victims.
The insurgent opponent also won accolades when Golden made a few verbal stumbles, such as suggesting that New Yorkers can’t afford to provide equal pay to women and that importing oil and gas from Canada qualified as energy independence.
Golden, for his part, effectively presented his opponent as rabidly anti-gun and portrayed his own record on gun safety as a more effective and moderate approach. He also scored points by aligning Gounardes’ view on renewable energy investments with that of the Obama Administration, which has recently taken flak for providing $90 billion in breaks for green energy industries with little return shown on the investment.
Watch the debate above – it will likely be the most expansive, interesting and exciting to happen this year in Southern Brooklyn.
The following is an op-ed contributed by Abe George, candidate for the office of the Brooklyn District Attorney in 2013′s citywide elections.
What is a cybercrime lab? Well, you might have heard last week that prosecutors in Manhattan obtained one, at a cost of $4.2 million awarded from the city. It will be used to assist the already existing identity theft and cybercrime unit of the New York County District Attorney’s office, where a group of specialized prosecutors and forensic analysts investigate crimes of identity theft and credit card fraud.
Why should you care? Because the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office not only has no cybercrime lab, it has no dedicated identity theft unit at all.
While law enforcement officials and prosecutors around the country have been gearing up to battle the growing epidemic of identity theft-related crimes, I fear that Brooklyn is lagging behind, and here’s why.
Image courtesy of Lucretia Regina-Potter's Facebook page
The Republican District Leader of the 49th Assembly District and Director of Communications of the Fiorello LaGuardia Republican Organization, Lucretia Regina-Potter, announced her candidacy for the New York State Assembly’s 46th District seat on Monday.
The 46th Assembly District, currently represented by Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny, currently includes sections of the Coney Island, Dyker Heights, and Brighton Beach neighborhoods.
Regina-Potter, 56, has a reputation for “jumping down people’s throats,” while standing up for her principles. Earlier this year, she released a statement harshly condemning a plan that would create a 51 percent Asian district in Sunset Park and Bensonhurst. Regina-Potter blamed the Republicans and Democrats for gerrymandering, and stated that the new district was “arbitrary, capricious and politically motivated.”
Furthermore, after Governor Andrew Coumo promised to veto proposed redistricting plans in January, she wrote a letter accusing political operatives of trying to remove her from the position of District Leader and eliminate the foundation of her constituency.
Regina-Potter now enters the scene with a new accusation. Currently being challenged by another Republican candidate, she filed objections to her adversary’s petition signatures. Some of her objections were successful, while others were dismissed by the New York City Board of Elections. A press release issued by Regina-Potter’s campaign stated that the Board of Elections shelved many of Regina-Potter’s objections by “giving more importance to an obscure and inconsequential technicality over the validity of her opponent’s petition signatures.” As a result of this decision, a primary election is scheduled to take place on Thursday, September 13, 2012.
Regina-Potter has expressed her excitement and anticipation for the upcoming primaries, while criticizing her opponent and the nature of the election.
“I feel very optimistic about this challenge, which in ordinary circumstances should have been prevented and avoided by those people who have the responsibility to strengthen the Republican Party instead of creating such divisiveness that weakens the Republican Party in Brooklyn,” Regina-Potter said, according to a press release.
Regina-Potter was born in Brooklyn, and currently resides in Bath Beach. She received her bachelor’s degree from Fordham University, and works as a Design Consultant at Bari Tile and Stone in Brooklyn. Regina-Potter is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Kings County Republican Party, the Republican National Committee, and the National Federation of Republican Women.
On Tuesday, June 26, voters will hit the polls to vote in federal legislative primaries, choosing Democratic or Republican candidates for Senate (Republican only) and Congress. This year’s elections, however, are complicated by redistricting, which changed the borders of the existing district and left many residents with incumbents they may be unfamiliar with.
We’ve put together this pre-primary primer to help you understand the geographic and demographic changes within the district, as well as background information on incumbents, their primary challengers (if any), and challengers in November’s general elections.
Here’s a quick rundown on how to use this guide before Tuesday’s primary:
Visit the New York City Board of Elections poll finder and enter your address. This will tell you what congressional district you’re in, where your poll site is, and provide sample ballots for the general election so you know who is running.
Return back to this page.
Use the following links to find the district profile we’ve put together, with bios and background on each of the candidates. Note that we’ve split up the district profiles between Sheepshead Bites and Bensonhurst Bean, and the links below will direct you to the appropriate site.
Sheepshead Bay State Senator David Storobin will run for re-election in the new Super Jewish district, named that for its dense population of Orthodox Jews.
Th district was drawn up in March as a result of the population changes revealed in the 2010 United States Census. The district includes the neighborhoods of Boro Park and Flatbush.
According to Politicker, Storobin’s main primary opposition, Nachman Caller of the Republican Party, has decided to drop out of the race, and will now support Storobin. Storobin will most likely compete against the Democrat Simcha Felder, a former City Councilman, in the general election. Although Felder began as the frontrunner, much of the area’s voter population has transferred its loyalty to the Republican Party. Storobin told Hamodia that he is looking forward to a civil competition between himself and Felder.
Storobin won the the recount for a special election in corrupt State Senator Carl Kruger’s district about a week ago. Kruger resigned last year, after pleading guilty to bribery charges on the federal level. However, due to the fact that Storobin’s current seat was disassembled in this year’s redistricting process, it was unclear if he would seek re-election.
“I am very happy that I won the previous election,” Storobin said. “I think it was a big victory for the Jewish community. I think it was a big victory for all of those who subscribe to conservative values, and I think we need to continue.”
The following is a press release from the offices City Councilmember David Greenfield. The above is a video provided by Yeshiva World News:
Mayor Ed Koch labeled divisive City Councilman Charles Barron as a “viper” and a “snake” who is an enemy to the State of Israel at a press conference outside the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Manhattan this morning organized by Councilman David G. Greenfield and attended by numerous elected officials and community leaders. Specifically, Mayor Koch and the rest of the speakers denounced Barron’s long track record of hateful rhetoric against people of various backgrounds and his antagonistic stance towards Israel.
Mayor Koch and Councilman Greenfield were joined by Congressman Jerrold Nadler, Assemblyman Dov Hikind, Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz, Councilman Mike Nelson and a number of community leaders to call attention to Barron’s divisive tactics and hate displayed towards many groups. Councilman Greenfield began by highlighting some of Barron’s most notorious and hateful comments, including his questioning of Israel’s right to exist, his comparisons of Gaza to concentration death camps, his proclamation in 2002 that he wanted to “slap the closest white person” and his labeling of Muammar Gaddafi and Robert Mugabe as heroes. The coalition of officials and community members also expressed concern for the role of this type of behavior in politics and the impact it can have on neighborhoods that become marginalized as a result.
“One thing about Charles Barron is, he can be very charming, but so can a snake. We have learned to live together in this city despite our different backgrounds, and his vile, vicious assailing of Israel is simply not acceptable. I can tell you this without hesitation because I know him,” said Mayor Koch.
“We can all agree that Charles Barron is a hate monger and an anti-Semite. A lot of people like todismiss him as crazy, but this is someone who knows exactly what he is doing when he makes these incendiary remarks and has a very specific, hateful agenda. This is not an individual who is fit to hold any office in this land,” said Greenfield.
“We need representatives who will focus on uniting communities, not dividing them. Charles Barron’s support of dictators and terrorists such as Muammar Gaddafi, and support for delegitimizing Israel and comparing Israelis to Nazis is dangerous and abhorrent rhetoric that makes him unfit to serve in Congress,” said Nadler.
“It has been made very clear that Charles Barron is unrelentingly racist and hateful. From his rabid attacks on whites and refusal to salute the American flag to his endless rhetoric about Jews and Israel, Barron proves again and again that his is a voice of divisiveness, a dying breed that sane New Yorkers no longer care to hear from,” said Hikind.
“It is quite appropriate to be standing in front of the Museum of Jewish Heritage as a second generation Holocaust survivor. Charles Barron is saying that what my parents went through did not occur, and that the Holocaust did not occur. It is outrageous for anyone, especially an elected official here in America, to deny these events. He is someone who hates and is a disgrace to all elected officials,” said Cymbrowitz.
“Regardless of background, all residents should stand up, siding with truth and for right, and repudiate the hateful stances of Charles Barron,” said Weinstein.
“It’s time to move New York City forward together in a unified manner, and Charles Barron represents everything that is wrong with our society,” said Chaskel Bennett, a Flatbush community activist.
Led by Mayor Koch, today’s speakers were united in their call for the public to reject this toxic style of politics and to demand that all citizens are represented and respected on all levels of government. Many noted that the press conference’s location is a stark reminder of the danger of allowing this type of rhetoric and hate to continue unchecked in politics.
Sheepshead Bay State Senator David Storobin will run for re-election in the new Super Jewish district, named that for its dense population of Orthodox Jews.
