Marjorie Gerseten, my wife, Joy Romanski, and I are co-hosting an event on May 3rd for our friend Josh Skaller, candidate for the 39th New York City Council seat in Brooklyn (portions of Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Windsor Terrace, Kensington and Borough Park). Josh is a long-time organizer for Democracy for New York City, was president of the Central Independent Democrats political club in Brooklyn for two years, and was an early organizer with Brooklyn for Barak.

"Josh has always fought for fiscal responsibility and the progressive solutions needed to reform city government"

--Jim Dean
Chair of Democracy For America (DFA)

Without taking money from developers, PACs or lobbyists, and while a
first-time candidate, he’s the leader in number of donors and second in total dollars in a large field of good candidates. I want to emphasize that this is an amazing accomplishment and shows his organizational skills and potential. I also want to emphasize that it is so rare that the best, most honest and most progressive candidate running is also able to raise the most money.  read more »

Last night was the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats (CBID) endorsement meeting for two city council races: the 33rd and 39th City Council districts. Previously CBID endorsed Norman Siegel for Public Advocate and John Liu for Comptroller.

I did not attend the meeting but got a rundown from my wife who is an officer of CBID. Overall her impression of the candidates was a good one, which matches my own impressions. Steve Levin not only didn't show up (the second major district event he missed) but didn't even bother turning in a questionaire on time. THAT is called dissing the district. I guess he expects his boss, Vito Lopez, to carry him through the race. All the questionaires for the races covered by CBID (including both of these City Council races, Comptroller, Public Advocate and Mayor, with more to come) can be found at the CBID website...including Steve Levin's late homework...I mean questionaire. I will make reference to these questionaires but please go to the website for details because I will not be quoting from them.  read more »

It has always seemed vaguely insane that NYC devlopers have been pushing for expensive development along the Gowanus canal while it smells like it does and it looks like this:

Development of the Gowanus canal into some kind of Venice-in-Brooklyn has been a long standing dream of many. But it always seemed that people wanted to build before anyone knew whether it was safe or not. Or, more precisely, people wanted to start building while MOST people were pretty damned sure it was NOT safe. My wife keeps predicting if plans to develop went forward it would be the next Love Canal.

Now the EPA has nominated the Gowanus canal for Superfund status. That means it recognizes it as essentially a toxic waste site that requires Federal help to clean up. Boy, I am glad they didn't start building yet! Imagine trying to sell luxury property while the EPA in full protective gear are cleaning it up.  read more »

Do you notice how few politicians have the cajones to raise taxes on people who make half a million or more a year (keep in mind, that means half a million dollars a year INCOME, not net worth), but they will all, with a great show of reluctance, let people who depend on NYC's subways and buses get screwed over every single time?

Our city DEPENDS on good transit more than it depends on anything except maybe effective garbage collection. Yet fare hikes and service cuts are the politically easy thing to do if times get tough. Even though the MTA has proven itself completely unreliable right down to fraudulently keeping two sets of books, they are allowed to continue to function without adequate oversight or punishment for their shady practices.  read more »

This comes from Democracy for NYC:

DFNYC is proud to announce that the following candidates running in the 2009 city elections have received our first ever prestigious early endorsement:

Norman Siegel - 67% in favor of endorsement
Norman is running for Public Advocate, a citywide race. To learn more and make a contribution, visit: http://normansiegel.com/

Steve Behar - 84% in favor of endorsement
Steve is running for City Council, District 19 in Eastern Queens. To learn more and make a contribution, visit: http://beharfornewyork.com/

Josh Skaller - 91% in favor of endorsement
Josh is running for City Council, District 39 in Central Brooklyn. To learn more and make a contribution, visit: http://skaller09.com/  read more »