DAVIS READIES ARSENAL FOR NORMAN WAR Councilman James Davis, informed by "very reliable sources" that Assemblyman Clarence Norman will run against him for Democratic district leader in the 43rd A.D., says he will run against Rep. Major Owens for Congress if Norman doesn't back off. In addition, Davis threatened to support all of the "insurgent" candidates that Norman and the county Democratic organization oppose. How much difference that would make is uncertain, but Davis-as evidenced by his upset win over Norman-backed Tish James in last year's council race-has a following and the political savvy to mobilize it.

Davis has done no fundraising for a race against Owens, so it's probably too late for him to mount a successful campaign for the September Democratic primary. But his candidacy would be an annoyance that Owens and the county organization don't need. So too would his support for such candidates as Hakeem Jeffries (running against Assemblyman Roger Green in the 57th A.D.), Wellington Sharpe (running against state Senator Carl Andrews in Senate District 20), Sandra Roper (running against Norman), and whichever candidate in Senate District 21 Norman ultimately fears most (Omar Boucher, Joel Toney, Kevin Parker, Anthony Alexis, Lori Knipel, or Noach Dear).

Norman has "declared war on me," Davis said. "I think it's not wise, because now my votes are going to come out. My base may be offended by Clarence's running against me." The councilman added, "Norman is the county leader, but I am the county leader of the insurgents. This might be the year we take it to the streets…Any chance I get to chip away at Clarence Norman's power is a good thing."

Davis would be most helpful to Jeffries, whose shoestring campaign scored a surprising 41 percent of the vote against Green two years ago. Green's recent hiring of Tish James only makes a Davis-Jeffries marriage more likely. In 2000, Davis defeated Norman's candidate, William Boone, to become district leader. Davis also ran his mother for female leader; she lost respectably, without even campaigning, Davis said.

DiBRIENZA WON'T RUN, BUT WILL HELP Former City Councilman Steve DiBrienza considered running for judge and then was rumored to be looking at challenging state Senator Carl Andrews. But he passed on the judicial race and says he never seriously considered running for senate, where Democrats are the minority and are stymied by the Republican leadership anyway.

When he decided against the judicial race, his friend Ira Cure became the favorite and hired DiBrienza to work for his campaign. The hiring was not a payoff for DiBrienza, who noted, "Ira was not running if I was running." He added, "Ira's the best candidate for that job." Cure is a former Independent Neighborhood Democrats club president.

DiBrienza is also helping Andrews in an unpaid, unofficial capacity. The former councilman told us he would be "generally supportive" of Andrews. The DiBrienza-Andrews alliance is frowned upon by the reform club Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats. Andrews is known as a likeable fellow but CBID can't stomach his relationship with Assemblyman Clarence Norman, the county Democratic leader. As a result of their friendship, Andrews has often been employed by the campaigns of judicial candidates supported by Norman, the observer said. "In order to get a judgeship, you had to hire Carl Andrews," the source asserted. Reform clubs detest that sort of thing.

Andrews has also worked for the campaigns of Norman himself and such Norman-supported candidates as Hillary Clinton, David Dinkins, Brooklyn D.A. Joe Hynes, and Supreme Court Judge Michael Feinberg. CBID is backing Wellington Sharpe against Andrews in Senate District 20. "We endorsed him because he's running against Carl," CBID President Susan Loeb said matter-of-factly.

Loeb was told by Andrews that DiBrienza would speak on his behalf at CBID's endorsement meeting. DiBrienza told us afterward he was never scheduled to appear, but one source who believed DiBrienza had changed his mind speculated, "He thought better of it, because it would have been the end of him forever at CBID."

DiBrienza said if he had been scheduled to present for Andrews at CBID, he might have declined out of respect for the club. But he simply was not scheduled to speak for Andrews, DiBrienza insisted. By the way, there is one other office for which DiBrienza has been mentioned: Congress, against Rep. Major Owens. "Someone faxed me the [new] congressional lines and said you should take a look at this," DiBrienza said of Owens's redrawn 11th District. "It's my entire old council district."

But the congressional district still has enough minority neighborhoods to be 57 percent black (down from 65 percent), which would be an edge for Owens or another black candidate. It's 24 percent white. Still, it's likely DiBrienza will be considered a candidate in 2004 (he won't run this year). "I don't think I'm done yet. I think I have more to contribute," he said.

DiBrienza is doing legal work and political consulting, having been forced to leave the City Council by term limits. "It's a big adjustment, after 16 years in office," he acknowledged.

DEAR CHANGES HIS TUNE Councilman Noach Dear surprisingly attended CBID's endorsement meeting, seeking support for his candidacy in the new Senate District 21. Dear has long been despised by left-wing, reform Democrats, but he told the club he had changed-even becoming more tolerant of gay marriage, which the club strongly believes should be sanctioned by law.

Unfortunately for Dear, the club didn't buy it. "He said he's grown and he's learned," said Loeb. "But CBID will never endorse Noach Dear no matter what he says."

TOWNS, OWENS ARE NO-SHOW No one denies that local Democratic clubs have lost some clout over the years, but the failure of Reps. Ed Towns and Major Owens to attend the Independent Neighborhood Democrats endorsement meeting nonetheless led to embarrassment for both congressmen. Owens didn't even send an aide to speak to IND to perhaps challenge the notion that he delivers poor constituent services. The club responded by not endorsing him, despite the liberal values that IND and Owens share. (Owens, Jerry Nadler, and Nydia Velazquez are the only three Brooklyn members of the House Progressive Caucus.) "[An endorsement by] IND is usually a lock for an incumbent," one longtime Democrat noted.

Towns isn't quite the progressive reformer that brownstone Brooklyn Democratic clubs would like him to be, but he does have a staff member-Karen Johnson- on the IND board to do his bidding at the club. Indeed, it took intensive lobbying by Johnson for Towns to edge "none of the above" by an 18-15 vote of IND members. "Karen Johnson was practically begging people to vote for Towns," a witness reported. Another marveled, "With nobody even getting up to make a complaint about him, he still won by [only] three votes over nobody."

The endorsement means the club will help Towns collect signatures to get on the primary ballot, a necessity even if no one opposes him. Owens's failure to win IND's support means he won't get that assistance.

The last time we mentioned some folks' impression that Owens runs disorganized district offices and lacks influence in Washington, his son, Chris Owens, e-mailed us a defense of his dad. "Congressman Owens's D.C. clout should be carefully examined," he wrote. "He remains the only New York City representative on the Education and Workforce Committee, and the third ranking Democrat on that committee. He does much more for New York City and his district than he ever gets credit for. In that respect, he is indeed guilty of inadequate self-promotion."

But blowing off the endorsement meeting of one of the more important Democratic clubs in his district indicates more than "inadequate self-promotion," one observer said. "It just feeds into this feeling that he's hopelessly lame," the Democrat explained. He added, "Towns and Owens may be on their last legs." Both have been in Congress since 1983.

YASSKY'S FERRY PLAN MIGHT SINK City Councilman David Yassky certainly picked the wrong year to try to expand commuter ferry service in New York, what with the city's $5 billion budget deficit for fiscal year 2003. The Park Slope and Brooklyn Heights councilman managed to get a $5 million budget line into the council's formal budget request, which Mayor Mike Bloomberg might well be lining his bird cage with right now. More ferries would be nice, but with Yassky and the council making education funding their top priority, other projects are likely to be sacrificed.

"It's an uphill battle, but I'm not giving up on it yet," said Yassky, chairman of the council's Waterfronts Committee. The $5 million would maintain existing ferry service from the Brooklyn Army Terminal and add service from Queens to Greenpoint to lower Manhattan; from Williamsburg to Fulton Ferry Landing to lower Manhattan, and from the Rockaways to Brooklyn Army Terminal. Look for the existing service to be maintained and money for other routes to be postponed. Yassky also hopes to fund a Cadman Plaza Park fix-up, street reconstruction in DUMBO, and several more garbage pickups per week along 7th Avenue in Park Slope.

Incidentally, Yassky's bill to regulate those hideous newspaper boxes died, but its provision allowing the city to seize poorly maintained boxes was included in Councilwoman Eva Moskowitz's similar bill, which could be approved this month. We also asked Yassky for news from the political world, but he drew a blank. "You tell me," he finally replied. Clearly he's been spending too much time legislating and not enough gossiping.

MARKOWITZ TRIES AGAIN Borough President Marty Markowitz has ended his experiment with a press secretary with no background in media relations. Glenn von Nostitz has been replaced by Andy Ross as director of communications, and instead will be senior policy adviser to the beep. Von Nostitz, a Prospect Heights resident, had spent seven years as a very able deputy public advocate for media-savvy Mark Green, but did not handle press matters. Why Markowitz tapped him for communications director was a head-scratcher from the outset, as this column noted at the time.

The official explanation from Borough Hall for the change is that von Nostitz was trying to do both press and policy stuff, which proved to be too much. "Glenn wanted to use his years of expertise in the policy arena and commit himself full-time to working on the issues," Ross explained.

LASHER GOIN' FOR COHEN Susan Lasher will challenge Assemblywoman Adele Cohen in the Democratic primary September 10. Lasher launched her campaign June 9 on the Brighton Beach boardwalk at the outset of the NYANA festival. NYANA is the New York Association for New Americans, a resettlement organization focusing on Russian immigrants. In fact, Lasher seems to be staking her candidacy on the Russian community in Brighton Beach, which could backfire if she is seen by the rest of the district as simply the Russians' candidate. "I hope to be considered the candidate for the Russian-speaking community as well as for the whole community," Lasher told us. "I need to know for myself that this is a popular candidacy."

It had better be, because over 40 percent of Cohen's redrawn district is in Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights, where Cohen is strong and Russians are less plentiful. Cohen is also considered stronger than Lasher among blacks in Coney Island. So Lasher will need more than the Russian vote to win. There's also an old Brighton Beach residency issue in Lasher's past. Though she now lives at 3000 Ocean Parkway, when she married then-Assemblyman Howard Lasher they raised their children at her house in ritzier Manhattan Beach, outside of her husband's district. They kept his one-bedroom Brighton Beach apartment to abide by the letter of the law, if not its spirit. Howard Lasher's 1993 City Council opponent, Shelly Plotnick, took the residency issue to court, but a judge ruled the Brighton Beach apartment was a valid voting address because Lasher claimed he always intended to return there.

Susan Lasher calls the old residency question a "non-issue" in this year's race, noting that she now has two residences in the district and has sold her Manhattan Beach house. Plotnick, incidentally, achieved a form of vicarious revenge for his 1993 "War by the Shore" council election loss by helping Domenic Recchia defeat Susan Lasher for the same seat in 2001. (Plotnick and Recchia were allies on School Board 21 in the early 1990s.) In the Democratic primary, Lasher finished second to Recchia in a field of six. Lasher then endorsed Republican Oleg Gutnik against Recchia in the general election, which Gutnik lost by about 10 percentage points in a largely Democratic district. (Lasher spent so much time working at Gutnik's gynecological clinic that many folks think she's an employee, which she denies.) Lasher will now reap the reward of her endorsement of Gutnik, as Gutnik is supporting her candidacy against Cohen, but some Democratic leaders remain incensed that Lasher endorsed the Republican against Recchia. "How can she call herself a Democrat?" one asked.

The popular Recchia will now support Cohen (who helped him win the council seat last year). We're told Councilman Mike Nelson also won't be endorsing Lasher. In fact, if any other top area Democrats are behind Lasher, they haven't come forward yet. Lasher is also breaking a Democratic Party rule of thumb by challenging an incumbent Democrat. Finally, as one observer noted, her candidacy may set back efforts to unite the Russian-speaking voters with the other elements in the district into a potent political force.

For her part, Cohen would never have had the worry of a primary challenge had she built a better relationship with more of her constituents. "If Adele doesn't like you, she's very offensive in what she says," said one observer. "Adele has alienated the Russian community."

Cohen's 46th District has more Russian speakers than any other district. So it was a major setback for her when a Russian daily paper published an apocryphal account of her demeaning Russians two years ago. She is well aware of the theory that her relationship with the Russian community could be exploited by Lasher. "Except that I don't think the whole community votes as a bloc," Cohen said. "I serve my entire community, Russians and non-Russians alike. And no entire community all has the same opinion."

ALL THAT GLITTERS AIN'T GOLDEN Could the Bay Ridge-based state Senate district crafted for City Councilman Marty Golden be wiped off the map? Republican leaders in the senate added a district to the state map specifically to get Golden elected, thereby adding to the GOP majority. But they did so without providing a reason to the U.S. Department of Justice, whose approval is required. Justice could rule that adding a white, conservative district reduces the political power of minorities in the other 61 districts, which the Voting Rights Act forbids.

A formula inserted into the State Constitution in 1894 determines the number of senate seats, but different interpretations of the formula are possible. If the Department of Justice doesn't buy the Republicans' explanation, it could send them back to the drawing board, essentially undoing all the drama that's unfolded (what with state Senator Vinny Gentile shocking Republicans by deciding to run against Golden in the all-Brooklyn district rather than against fellow Democrat Seymour Lachman in the adjacent Brooklyn/Staten Island one). It would be like that season of "Dallas" when Bobby Ewing was killed, which CBS later decided was all a bad dream.

But political insiders don't expect that to happen. "They're not going to pull out the rug from under all of us," one Gentile aide said. The Justice Department is supposed to only look at civil rights implications, but chances are the political and logistical ramifications will be considered as well, and the new lines approved.

If not, any redrawing of the Bay Ridge-based Senate District 22 would reduce the number of right-wing voters. The Republicans had included as many as possible to boost Golden's chances, never expecting Gentile would challenge him rather than run in the two-borough district. We should point out that while the new district might lean to the right, it's still got many more registered Democrats (52 percent) than Republicans (25 percent) and unaffiliated voters (19 percent) combined. Golden's council district is entirely within the new senate district, 68 percent of which is currently represented by Gentile. Gentile just won the first battle of the race by securing the Independence Party nomination from Boerum Hill resident Bob Conroy, president of the party's Brooklyn chapter. Gentile's camp hopes perhaps 2 or 3 percent of voters will select him on the Independence Party line, where he will be positioned just below George Pataki.

Borough Politics Archive

2002
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2001
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2000
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1999
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