THE END IS NEAR How fearful are some people of Bruce Ratner's projects at Atlantic and Flatbush? Consider this excerpt from a posting by a Park Sloper on an anti-project Web site: "How long will it be until we start experiencing the severe health problems of the 70's because SUVs and TLC vehicles are idling as they pick up shoppers? Flatbush Avenue is a MAIN artery that can't absorb the changes that have already happened. How could anyone imagine that you could add clusters of skyscrapers to the same small area and not COMPLETELY throw our entire way of life into turmoil? This is madness and we must stop it. Otherwise we are certainly doomed."

Whoa. Does more traffic on Flatbush Avenue really mean Armageddon? While Ratner's project might offend some sensibilities, it's not going to "doom" Park Slope, Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, or Boerum Hill. These neighborhoods are defined by the small streets and avenues within them, not the big boulevards that separate them-Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, for example. The structure of these neighborhoods won't change. The writer also expressed outrage at the big corporate logos on Ratner's mall, which struck her as suburban commercialism. No doubt many folks agree. But we've been running into lots of people who rave about shopping at Target, which opened a store in Ratnerville on July 25.

MAJOR, TRACY AT ODDS Rep. Major Owens's campaign is upset that one of his Democratic primary opponents, Councilwoman Tracy Boyland, continues to mention speculation that Owens will retire before 2006. "At the Stonewall Democrats endorsement meeting, Tracy said that there were these rumors that the Congressman would leave early or resign, etc., and that this was one reason why she decided to run. And she's said this at other times as well," reported Chris Owens, Major's son and campaign manager.

We don't see the problem. If that was one reason Boyland decided to run, why shouldn't she say so? But Owens does have a point when he writes, "Boyland's remarks on this subject have been quite entertaining, since it was her father who deceived voters by campaigning for re-election to the New York State Assembly and then resigned to allow his district leader son, Tracy's brother, to ascend to the New York State Assembly."

PARKER, DEAR THROW DOWN State Senator Kevin Parker and Democratic primary challenger Noach Dear nearly came to blows during a candidates forum hosted by the Flatlands Civic Association on August 5. Parker, coming from unnamed other events, arrived 45 minutes late and found Dear at the microphone riling up the audience, which he'd packed with supporters. Dear had been displaying newspaper articles showing what other senators had done for their districts, and asserting that Parker's had been neglected, according to our reporter Christy Goodman.

When a question was asked about economic development, Dear and fellow challenger Wellington Sharpe answered, followed by Parker-who was interrupted by Dear saying, "I can't believe you have the audacity to show up an hour late and spit in these people's faces." Goodman reported that Dear began pointing at Parker and rattling off a battery of charges about poor services, leadership, etc. "Don't point your finger at me," responded Parker, adding, "You talk about leadership? You have been indicted three times."

The civic association's leader, former City Council candidate Sam Palmer, was "madly smashing the gavel into the table," Goodman informed us, while Parker and Dear stood, hollered, and wagged their fingers at each other.

OK, let's step back. Did Dear provoke the altercation? Yes, perhaps because he knew of Parker's reputation for flying off the handle, and perhaps because as an underdog Dear must pull out all the stops. Was Parker correct about three indictments? No. But Dear has been in trouble on multiple occasions, paid fines after some embarrassing accusations, and has yet to resolve a fundraising scandal stemming from his failed 1998 congressional campaign.

Let's begin in the late 1980s, when then-Councilman Dear founded and ran a purported charity called Save Soviet Jewry. The state attorney general investigated and determined that Dear was improperly spending the charity's money on himself, for example, by flying himself and his young daughter to the Soviet Union. Dear said it was not a vacation and in fact they were going to save Jews from the Communists, but it was unclear how his daughter might do that, so not many people believed him. The charity also paid for lots of electronic equipment that was apparently kept in Dear's house on East 7th Street off Avenue I. Dear insisted he'd done nothing wrong, but ultimately had to dig into his pockets to settle the case. Dear nearly lost his 1991 reelection bid to Robert Miller as a result of that scandal. This was all documented in the Bay News, and it would behoove Parker to check out the archives at the Kingsborough Community College library so that he may get his facts straight.

Dear's latest problem, rehashed by the Village Voice in its July 20 issue, involves $40,000 from 47 sequentially numbered money orders deposited into his congressional campaign fund. The Federal Election Commission, noticing the similar handwriting on the money orders, interviewed the 47 purported donors, who said they'd given nothing to the campaign. Auditors found two of Dear's campaign staffers had written the money orders, so the FEC filed a complaint in civil court. The FEC also found that Dear's campaign accepted $564,000 over the legal limit in the process of finishing third in the 1998 race won by Rep. Anthony Weiner.

The commission demanded repayment, and in 1999 Dear's committee filed papers saying it had refunded more than $300,000. But it hadn't, according to the FEC, which filed another complaint in June 2003 that Dear still owed more than $200,000 in refunds. It appears that Dear will escape with virtually no punishment other than bad publicity. While his campaign treasurer agreed to fork over $45,000 to close the book, Dear will only have to cough up what's left in two old campaign funds-all of $710, the Voice reported. Why doesn't the FEC garnish some of the $300,000 Dear has raised to run against Parker this year? It can't. The money's in a state campaign fund, out of the feds' reach (and also out of reach of the folks owed $148,000 by Dear's congressional fund).

So there are the three scandals Parker must have been referring to in his inaccurate indictment allegation. Dear thinks this is all irrelevant to the current race and to the voters of East Flatbush, Flatbush, Midwood, and Borough Park. He requested that we instead ask Parker a bunch of questions, beginning with: Why does this district continue to have some of the city's worst schools?

Parker replied, "Well, that's not true. There is one school with significant problems, Tilden High School, and I've been working closely with Tilden (to solve them). Midwood and [the other high schools] are doing well. The elementary schools are some of the best in the system. And we've been working closely with them to maintain services and make sure they get funding." Parker said he helped pressure the Republicans to fund universal pre-kindergarten. "If Noach Dear was the senator that never would have happened…He has consistently voted against programs important to public schools," the senator said. Dear's second question: Where is our youth center?

Parker said that in a district of one- and two-family homes stretching from Borough Park to Canarsie, "Putting a center in one place is not going to serve the need because kids are not going to travel a mile to go to a center." Better to have programs across the district such as those offered by the Flatbush YMCA, the Sesame Fliers, Church Avenue Merchants Block Association, Youth Education and Sports, and district schools and churches, said Parker. The senator has asked the mayor to expand beacon school programming and is working with non-profits to provide holistic family-centered programming including music, art, GED test preparation, and computer training.

This is getting way too newsy for an irreverent political column, but Dear asked, so we're obliging. Question number three: Why was the exemption on clothing sales tax taken away? "I'm appalled by it and I've voted against it every week," Parker answered. "The exemption was rolled back to get us out of the deficit [and was supposed to last a year]. I voted against the budget that time, but voted for the eventual budget package that overrode the governor's veto. It was supposed to sunset this year. They (Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno and Assembly Speaker Shelly Silver) repealed it this year. I voted against that repeal."

Question four: Why is there no adequate funding for job or vocational training to offset high unemployment? "I don't think that's true. There's a great deal of that going on," Parker replied. "The real problem is the issue of job creation. This is someone (Dear) who doesn't understand public policy. You do job training when you have a skills mismatch. That's not the problem we have.

The problem we have is a lack of available positions for people to take." Parker said he created the Building Blocks Local Development Corporation and allocated $20,000 to it, and plans to create a chamber of commerce.

Question five: Where are our basic services? "We have good service delivery," said Parker. "Is everything perfect? No…But services do get delivered in this district." Question six: Where is our leadership? At last report, fighting it out at the Flatlands Civic Association.

And there you have it, the first lengthy policy analysis in the history of this column. We promise not to do it again.

COHEN FOE MAKES THE BALLOT When we first asked Assemblywoman Adele Cohen about her Democratic primary challenger Inna Kaminsky, Cohen said, "I met her. I wished her well. We'll have debates. We'll get the issues out there." What she should have said was, "I'll get her butt off the ballot," because that's exactly what she tried to do last week, challenging Kaminsky's petitions. But Kaminsky was found to have just more than the 500 valid signatures needed.

Cohen also tried to take out her Kiev-born Republican-Conservative opponent, Alexander Kaplan. Again, no dice. Cohen, represented by former City Council candidate Jack Carroll, who counts himself as a "reform" Democrat, not only went after the two Russian-Americans but also Susan Lasher, who is running as a judicial delegate on a slate with Kaminsky. (Judicial delegates nominate candidates for Supreme Court.)

Lasher nearly defeated Cohen in 2002, so the assemblywoman wanted her off the Kaminsky ticket. But she failed in that effort as well the Board of Elections commissioners voted 6-2 in Lasher's favor. This is not to suggest that Cohen's challenges were motivated by pettiness or enmity. In Brooklyn politics, the first order of business is always to see your opponent disqualified. Going after Lasher was an attempt to destroy Kaminsky's election strategy, which is to ally herself with Lasher and perhaps inherit her supporters. Lasher is well known in southern Brooklyn in part because her husband Howard Lasher served in the Assembly and City Council for nearly three decades.

Cole Ettman, Howard Lasher's former deputy chief of staff, is running for State Senate, also on a ticket with Susan Lasher. Part of their platform is judicial reform-revamping the way Supreme Court judges are made. Helping to guide the effort is campaign consultant Gary Tilzer and election attorney Alan Rocoff, who put together petitions with more than 80 judicial delegates across Brooklyn. Since voters have no idea what judicial delegates do, they tend to vote for names they recognize. Rocoff's slate may have enough names familiar to local voters to worry the insiders who have for years controlled the judicial convention where Supreme Court nominees are picked.

Rocoff is also behind a slate of 18 Democratic district leader candidates. District leaders play a role in the selection of judges by approving the slate that the delegates have for years rubber-stamped at the convention. Could this spell the end of party bosses' control of Brooklyn's bench? It's not likely to happen in 2004, but several years of such efforts could do the trick.

TIDBITS Democrat Gabriel Toks Pearse, a native of Nigeria and Mercy College English professor, announced his candidacy for Congress on August 2 at a press conference on the steps of City Hall. Or perhaps we should just call it a conference, since it wasn't clear that any press attended. Pearse is running against Rep. Major Owens. We asked Pearse a couple of months ago about his other Democratic opponents, Councilwomen Yvette Clarke and Tracy Boyland. "I don't know what they're there to do. I don't see Tracy doing anything. I think it's going to be between me and Major." Insert your joke here…

According to Assembly candidate Ed Roberts's people, Assemblyman Clarence Norman dropped his challenge to Roberts's petitions after Roberts subpoenaed the time cards of several Norman staff members who helped gather Norman's petitions. The Roberts camp believes the two events are connected…

As a sponsor of the Ripple Block Party on August 15, Councilwoman Letitia "Tish" James got her name printed on thousands of advertisements dropped on stoops across Park Slope and Prospect Heights. Unfortunately, the ads misspelled her name Leticia.

Contact Brooklyn Politics at (718) 399-3693.

Borough Politics Archive

2004
August 9 column.
August 2 column.
July 26 column.
July 19 column.
July 12 column.
July 5 column.
June 28 column.
June 21 column.
June 14 column.
June 7 column.
May 31 column.
May 24 column.
May 17 column.
May 10 column.
May 3 column.
April 26 column.
April 19 column.
April 12 column.
April 5 column.
March 29 column.
March 22 column.
March 15 column.
March 8 column.
March 1 column.
February 23 column.
February 16 column.
February 9 column.
February 2 column.
January 26 column.
January 19 column.
January 12 column.
January 5 column.

2003
December 29 column.
December 22 column.
December 15 column.
December 8 column.
December 1 column.
November 24 column.
November 17 column.
November 10 column.
November 3 column.
October 27 column.
October 20 column.
October 13 column.
October 6 column.
September 29 column.
September 22 column.
September 15 column.
September 8 column.
September 1 column.
August 25 column.
August 18 column.
August 18 column.
August 11 column.
August 4 column.
July 21 column.
July 14 column.
July 7 column.
June 30 column.
June 23 column.
June 16 column.
June 9 column.
June 2 column.
May 26 column.
May 19 column.
May 12 column.
May 5 column.
April 28 column.
April 21 column.
April 14 column.
April 7 column.
March 31 column.
March 24 column.
March 10 column.
March 3 column.
February 24 column.
February 17 column.
February 10 column.
February 3 column.
January 27 column.
January 20 column.
January 13 column.
January 6 column.

2002
December 30 column.
December 23 column.
December 16 column.
December 9 column.
December 2 column.
Novemer 25 column.
Novemer 18 column.
November 11 column.
November 4 column.
October 28 column.
October 21 column.
October 14 column.
October 7 column.
September 30 column.
September 23 column.
September 16 column.
September 9 column.
September 2 column.
August 26 column.
August 19 column.
August 12 column.
August 5 column.
July 29 column.
July 22 column.
July 8 column.
July 1 column.
June 17 column.
June 10 column.
June 3 column.
May 27 column.
May 20 column.
May 13 column.
May 6 column.
April 29 column.
April 22 column.
April 15 column.
April 8 column.
April 1 column.
March 25 column.
March 18 column.
March 11 column.
March 4 column.
February 25 column.
February 18 column.
February 11 column.
February 4 column.
January 28 column.
January 21 column.
January 7 column.

2001
December 10 column.
December 3 column.
November 19 column.
November 12 column.
November 5 column.
October 22 column.
October 1 column.
September 6 column.
September 4 column.
August 30 column.
July 23 column.
July 2 column.
June 25 column.
June 11 column.
May 28 column.
May 21 column.
May 14 column.
May 7 column.
April 30 column.
April 23 column.
April 9 column.
April 2 column.
March 26 column.
March 19 column.
March 12 column.
March 5 column.
February 26 column.
February 19 column.
February 12 column.
February 5 column.
January 29 column.
January 22 column.
January 15 column.
January 8 column.
January 1 column.

2000
December 25 column.
December 18 column.
December 11 column.
December 4 column.
November 27 column.
November 20 column.
November 13 column.
November 6 column.
October 30 column.
October 23 column.
October 16 column.
October 9 column.
October 2 column.
September 25 column.
September 18 column.
September 11 column.
September 4 column.
August 28 column.
August 21 column.
August 7 column.
July 31 column.
July 24 column.
July 17 column.
July 10 column.
June 26 column.
June 19 column.
June 12 column.
May 15 column.
May 8 column.
April 24 column.
April 10 column.
March 13 column.
March 7 column.
February 21 column.
February 14 column.
February 7 column.
January 31 column.
January 24 column.
January 17 column.

1999
December 16 column.
December 9 column.
December 2 column.
November 25 column.
November 18 column.
November 11 column.
November 4 column.