BARBARO VS. FOSSELLA Former Supreme Court Judge and Assemblyman Frank Barbaro will challenge Rep. Vito Fossella in what should be a high-profile election this fall. Barbaro, a Democrat from Bensonhurst, will try to wrest a seat the Republicans have held for a quarter century. Though more 13th District residents are registered as Democrats, they tend to vote for Republicans.

During his years in Albany, Barbaro was often described as more liberal than his constituents, but he told us, "I never subscribed to that. I don't like labels." Instead, he characterizes his political philosophy by quoting from the famous Emma Lazarus poem engraved on the Statue of Liberty pedestal: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…"

That doesn't quite mesh with the immigration policies advocated by many Republicans. Yet just as Barbaro rejects the "liberal" label, he declines to call Fossella a "right-wing Republican." But he does object to Fossella's positions, which is why the 76-year-old Barbaro would give up a comfortable retirement (his pensions and Social Security total $90,000 annually) for a seat in Washington. "I had planned on writing my biography," he said. "But when I saw the votes Fossella has been making and received his mail, I said, 'I can't sit on the sidelines.'"

Fossella supported a non-union Homeland Security Department, huge tax cuts tilted toward the wealthy, a Medicare bill criticized by Democrats, and the war in Iraq. Barbaro also criticized Fossella's votes on firearms and the environment, and said the Republican doesn't bring enough money home from Washington.

Fossella's spokesman, Craig Donner, said the congressman would campaign on some of the very issues on which Barbaro knocked him: Homeland Security, prescription coverage in the Medicare bill, tax cuts, and federal anti-terrorism money for New York. Given their differences, debates between them should be interesting-if they happen. "They tell me he ducks debates," Barbaro said, perhaps goading Fossella into having some.

Barbaro faces numerous obstacles. Fossella, who has $250,000 in campaign funds and several fundraisers scheduled, could spend $3 million or more to perhaps $1 million to Barbaro, whose fundraising is starting from scratch.

Second, while Barbaro won 12 Assembly elections in Brooklyn, he's not well known in Staten Island, which is home to most of the congressional district's voters, including Fossella.

Third, Barbaro's been out of the limelight for nearly seven years. New residents of western Brooklyn have never heard of him.

Fourth, incumbent House members almost never lose, especially in non-redistricting years.

Fifth, at 76, Barbaro is vulnerable to a whisper campaign that he's too old to build the seniority that increases influence in Washington. "I really hope that Vito is not going to be anti-senior citizen and use that in the campaign," Barbaro said. (Donner declined to address the matter, saying only, "We're going to run an aggressive campaign." Fossella is a four-term incumbent and a member of the House majority; Barbaro would be a minority-party freshman.)

Despite all this, Barbaro professes no worries. On the money front, Barbaro said, "When I ran for mayor (against Ed Koch in 1981), I did extraordinarily well on $175,000…What we don't have in money for TV ads…we can make up with people. We'll be looking for people who want to volunteer." Barbaro's already been endorsed by the Staten Island Democratic organization. Nor have people forgotten him, Barbaro said. "It's unbelievable. People are calling me from all over the city. There's a chorus: we have to beat Fossella. It's come from Washington, in fact."

Barbaro's biggest advantage could be a big turnout of voters hoping to defeat George Bush. Barbaro himself is one of them. "I will be supporting the Democratic [presidential] candidate 100 percent, whoever that will be," Barbaro said. "Even more important than my campaign will be to defeat Bush."

NOACH DEAR REDUX The interminable campaign of Noach Dear will continue this summer when the ex-councilman challenges State Senator Kevin Parker, who beat Dear and three others for an open seat in 2002. How could Dear expect to defeat Parker the Incumbent when he couldn't even defeat Parker the Nobody? One way would be if a strong black candidate emerged to split the minority vote with Parker, but the odds of that are slim. A source suggested Dear will challenge Parker just to keep his name in the news, helping his chances of topping Councilman Simcha Felder in 2005.

Another possibility is that Dear is running not to win but just because, well, that's what Dear does. He runs for office every year or two. That allows him to continue spending campaign money. In the last six months of 2003, Dear spent $114,000 on gas, tolls, car payments and repairs, rental cars, cable TV, high-speed Internet service, cell phone bills, Visa bills, Amex bills, electric bills, legal bills, FedEx, photo developing, literature, consultants, newspaper subscriptions-even a trip to Israel. Attorney Jerry Goldfeder was paid $18,000 to try to get Dear on the 2003 City Council ballot.

Dear ran for an open House seat in 1998 and lost to Rep. Anthony Weiner. He challenged Weiner again in 2000 and did even worse. Then, a year after term limits forced him from the City Council, Dear lost the 2002 race to Parker (though he did finish ahead of Omar Boucher, Lori Knipel, and Harry Kaloshi). Which brings us to 2004. Dear has kept his political office open on Avenue J and East 13th Street, sharing space with his brother, a consultant. And he continues to raise money.

But he might not do as well with Jewish voters in the Borough Park end of the district this year. In 2002, he was supported by Borough Park Assemblyman Dov Hikind, but Dear's failed 2003 attempt to challenge Felder, Hikind's protégé, ensures Hikind won't back Dear again. Hikind might even round up Borough Park people to vote for Parker, who has established some ties to the neighborhood and forged an alliance with Hikind.

But Parker is taking no chances. Sources say he's calling political and community leaders to make sure he has their support in 2004. Dear is undoubtedly calling people as well, though he failed to answer our message.

SNOW-COVERED TRASH Ever notice how garbage sits curbside day after day when the Sanitation Department is busy clearing snow? It occurred to us that it doesn't have to be that way. Sanitation could tell folks the trucks won't be coming. In the Information Age, that shouldn't be too difficult. But so far, it hasn't happened.

We alerted Borough President Marty Markowitz, who promptly put his people on the case. The initial answer they got from Sanitation was that trucks are sent out early the night before a blizzard, so people should put their trash out at 5 p.m. (but not before). We did so before the last snowstorm, but the cans sat curbside for four days. The previous storm, it was six days. We'll see if Markowitz can get the bureaucracy to budge.

PATRIOT ACT DIVIDES COUNCIL Five Brooklyn councilmen voted against a resolution calling for repeal of Patriot Act measures "that unduly infringe upon fundamental rights and liberties as recognized in the U.S. Constitution and its Amendments." The five were, not surprisingly, from the borough's more conservative areas: Domenic Recchia, Vinny Gentile, Jimmy Oddo, Simcha Felder, and Mike Nelson. (Lew Fidler abstained.)

If they're happy that the government can hold people indefinitely without charging them or letting them see a judge or lawyer, most of their colleagues apparently disagree: the resolution passed 36-13.

EX-MALL CHIEF DISGRACED The scandal involving Lou Carbonetti and the Fulton Mall Improvement Association has finally come to a conclusion, the Village Voice reported, with Carbonetti pleading guilty to perjury in early February. Carbonetti had told city investigators that while director of the association, he was not being paid by a Long Island company that he'd hired to work for the association. That wasn't true.

Carbonetti's job for the company was to find clients for it. Unable to do so, the Voice reported, Carbonetti made the Fulton Mall association a client. At the time, he was being paid $2,500 a month by the Long Island company. Can you say kickback? The irony is that the arrangement was legal, according to Carbonetti's lawyer. What was illegal was lying to the Department of Investigation. His plea deals calls for five years of probation, a $7,500 fine, and $10,000 in restitution. Carbonetti nearly ran Fulton Mall into the ground after being hired in 1998 for $80,000 a year as a favor to his childhood friend Rudy Giuliani.

TIDBITS Boerum Hill activist Joanne Simon was expected to be appointed female district leader for the 52nd Assembly District (the brownstone neighborhoods) on February 19, filling the vacancy created when Liz Daly quit because of the long hours of her new job as director of international business for the New York City Commission for the United Nations…

Plans for an arena in downtown Brooklyn got a boost February 4 when the Port Authority announced plans to extend AirTrain to the LIRR station at Flatbush and Atlantic. That will add another transit link to the nine subway lines and six bus routes already there.

FIDLER THROUGH THE ROOF In the summer of 2002, Councilman Lew Fidler, the male Democratic district leader in the 41st Assembly District (Sheepshead Bay, Midwood), went through the roof upon hearing that his enemy and co-leader, Renee Hauser, had withdrawn her candidacy at the last minute and had her committee on vacancies replace herself with Lori Garson, Fidler's sister-in-law.

By pulling out so late, Hauser denied Fidler a chance to run his own candidate for female leader. The only reason he hadn't fielded a running mate, Fidler said, was because of a deal brokered by county (the Brooklyn Democratic organization), which didn't want Democratic infighting to resume in the 41st.

The result is not only political war but a worsening of the family feud between Fidler and the Garsons. The innocent victim of these shenanigans is Fidler's wife, who happens to be Lori Garson's sister and thus is caught in the crossfire through no fault of her own. A casual observer might wonder how politics could ever come before family, but that would be to misunderstand how important politics is to these folks.

How did it come to this? We'll begin in 1997, when Fidler backed the late Lena Cymbrowitz's successful Assembly campaign over Joel Garson, the brother of Supreme Court Judge Mike Garson, Lori Garson's husband. Mike Garson later accused Fidler of reporting him to the judicial conduct committee for inappropriate involvement in politics, a no-no for judges. Fidler proved he had nothing to do with the probe, even getting a letter confirming as much from the committee, but the judge didn't retract his accusation. Also in 1997, Hauser split with Fidler and the anti-county political alliance headed by the late Tony Genovesi, choosing to make peace with county. "I don't walk away from my friends unless my friends give me good reason," Fidler said bitterly, adding that he never understood Hauser's reasons. (We could not reach Hauser for comment.)

Fidler and Hauser had it out in the 1998 election, as county spent $70,000 trying to oust Fidler-an absurd amount for a district leader race. But Fidler won by a two-to-one margin. His running mate, a woman recently out of college with no political experience, came within 300 votes of defeating Hauser, a 20-year incumbent. The following election was quiet. "In 2000, at a time when there was some peace within county, an no discernable reason to continue open bloodshed, I discovered Rene Hauser was irrelevant to what I want to do in the community," Fidler said. "I just kind of got on with my life."

According to Fidler, Hauser gave her word that she would not file petitions for reelection, then decline and have her committee on vacancies hand-pick a replacement, a crude move that reform clubs detest because it's an end-run around democracy. That year, Hauser kept her word.

In 2001 Fidler became a City Councilman, defeating Joel Garson's wife, Doreen Greenwood. But he remained suspicious that Hauser would pull the vacancies trick in 2002. So when county asked Fidler not to run a candidate against her, Fidler demanded concessions: First, more control of the 41st A.D.'s county committee, most of which he already controlled (these are the people who choose a replacement when a state legislator resigns). Second, county's support in his 2003 council race. And third, shared control of Hauser's committee on vacancies. County counter-offered with a compromise that would likely keep Fidler in control of the county committee, and a pledge not to oppose him in 2003, but Hauser could have her own committee on vacancies if she gave her word to county chairman Clarence Norman that she wouldn't pull out, with the understanding that if she did, her replacement would be ostracized by county. Fidler agreed, but the deal quickly fell apart because of a dispute over county committee appointments. Fidler accused Hauser's camp of breaking its word and vowed to "teach them a lesson." So he launched a signature drive that left him with 155 county committee members to Hauser's 12. "Every one of their major players got knocked off," said Fidler. "They weren't happy about that."

Then came the Hauser-Garson switch, triggering county's pledge to isolate and ignore the new female leader. This was news to Lori Garson. "To say that there was a deal made, that is a very suspicious kind of statement for anyone to make. You're not supposed to make those kinds of deals," said Garson. "I'm sure Rene never would have made some kind of arrangement."

Garson, the president of Hauser's Democratic club, intimated that Fidler is simply power-hungry. "Why is he so upset? He's a councilman. Why does he care what goes on in our club? You can't control the world." Garson said Hauser did not plan a last-minute withdrawal, but personal issues came up, and "she felt that it was so stressful she could no longer handle it."

Replied Fidler, "I'm sympathetic to that. But [nothing changed] in the two weeks after she said she wasn't going to decline." Garson also laid the blame for the family feud on Fidler. "Lew's my brother-in-law. The whole thing breaks my heart. We've always had a very close family. It's unfortunate that he wants to control everything."

But it's clear that Hauser's camp has provoked Fidler, first trying to oust him as district leader, then opposing him for City Council, and breaking various agreements-even one over the naming of their rival clubs. When Hauser and Fidler split, they agreed to retire the name of their Harry S. Truman New Way Democratic Club. Hauser then formed the Harry S. Truman Democratic Club.

Contact Brooklyn Politics at (718) 399-3693.

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