FIDLER STICKS WITH DAVIS Most elected Democrats would sooner jump into the Gowanus Canal than the 35th Council District race between Geoffrey Davis and Tish James (running on the Working Families Party line). They don't want to be associated with Davis because of his criminal history, notably allegations of girlfriend abuse and failure to pay child support. And they don't want to campaign against him because he has the sympathy of many as he runs to succeed his brother, James Davis, with the blessing of their mother Thelma Davis.

The exception is Councilman Lew Fidler, who's helping Geoffrey Davis. "I'm honoring a commitment I made to his brother," explained Fidler, who had been supporting James Davis's reelection.

There's more to it than that, we suspect. Fidler will need his colleagues' votes when he tries to become City Council speaker in 2005. So it behooves him to support winning candidates. But it does present some ironies for Fidler. He finds himself on the same team as a man he detests, Alan Rocoff, Davis's attorney. Fidler's always been quick to mention Rocoff's past issues with child support, yet now Fidler is supporting a candidate facing similar accusations.

Davis was once convicted of failing to pay child support, though he did find money to solicit a prostitute, according to The New York Times. One girlfriend alleged date-rape and obtained an order of protection against him. Davis, 39, says his criminal past is long behind him.

The race has taken several turns of late, with Tony Herbert announcing after losing his place on the ballot that he would back Tish James, only to retract his endorsement when she refused to appear at his press conference. (The New York Post erroneously reported on August 12 that Herbert was working for James.) James told Herbert that she was abiding by the wishes of the Working Families Party, which wanted to roll out her endorsements on a schedule. Herbert said he worked by his own schedule. So instead of getting an endorsement publicized, James got the retraction of an endorsement publicized. The blunder begs the question of why James is not taking charge of her own campaign.

Speaking of not taking charge, where has Hakeem Jeffries been? He thought it unseemly to run against the wishes of Thelma Davis, and the man who twice ran strong campaigns against Assemblyman Roger Green thus missed his chance at an open seat.

His fellow Midwood High School alumnus, State Senator Kevin Parker, wishes Jeffries had asserted himself the way James Davis always did. "The Bible says the meek shall inherit the Earth. They may do so, but they're only going to get what's left," Parker said. "He's going to have to step out." Parker noted, "Had James [Davis] respected the wishes of everybody, James would have never been elected."

In defense of Jeffries, we pointed out that Thelma Davis controlled her late son's committee on vacancies and thus could choose the Democratic nominee. But Parker said, "This wasn't about anybody not choosing Hakeem. Hakeem didn't choose himself."

However, Jeffries may get a consolation prize: the Democratic district leader position in the 57th Assembly District left vacant when Davis was killed. Democratic county leader Clarence Norman will make the call with input from other elected officials, including Assemblyman Roger Green, whom Jeffries ran against twice but did not turn into an enemy. The district leadership could be Jeffries's payback. (The position is unpaid, but is a nice platform from which to run when a seat opens up.) Other rumored hopefuls include Herbert, Eric Blackwell, and Francis Byrd.

Herbert, meanwhile, was in discussions with the Republican Party at press time to perhaps replace Frank Voyticky as the party's council candidate in the 35th, though Herbert would remain a registered Democrat. Finally, we can't leave unmentioned that Geoffrey Davis's adviser James Caldwell actually called police alleging that Herbert had threatened him. Herbert, angry that Caldwell had insulted him in print, had told Caldwell, "I've never said anything about you, but if you make comments about me, then you're fair game."

Herbert was suggesting he'd retaliate with words, not bullets. But if Caldwell thinks that justifies a police response, he should have turned himself in after giving Newsday this response to the announcement of Tish James's candidacy on August 5: "The enemy has been located. We're just waiting on permission to fire."

CITY HALL SHOOTER UPDATE We've been asked several times where Othniel Boaz "Aaron" Askew, the murderer of Councilman James Davis, got the money to buy and renovate a Fort Greene townhouse at 59 South Elliott Place, and to drive a late-model SUV, given that he had no job and his purported construction company had no clients. The New York Post was curious as well, calling gay escort services and porn clubs to see if Askew had been an employee. The paper came up empty.

Meanwhile, we looked over the property records for Askew's house and found that he actually co-owned it, along with someone named Charles Parham, who listed a Flanders, New Jersey address as well as the Fort Greene townhouse as his residence.

In fact, Parham owned the house himself but for some reason signed part of it over to Askew while taking out another $120,000 mortgage (combining it with an existing $280,000 mortgage). Parham got the money from a bank in Pasadena. Askew didn't even sign any of the documents, though his "Fortitude Construction Project LLC" is listed on the deed along with Parham. Why did Parham hand half of his house to Askew? We called Parham's cell phone but his mailbox was full. Later it took our message, but we didn't hear back. Parham has no listed numbers in Brooklyn or Flanders. And he didn't return our email.

As a longshot, we also left a message for Parham on Askew's cell phone. Askew's voice is still on the outgoing message, identifying himself as a candidate in the 35th Councilmanic District. Askew was killed by a police officer from Council Speaker Gifford Miller's detail immediately after shooting Davis on July 23-coincidentally, the same officer Askew had stood next to at a Grand Army Plaza library forum on non-partisan elections just days earlier, according to one witness.

SIMON SAYS SHE MAY RUN Boerum Hill activist Jo Anne Simon is telling people she may challenge Rep. Ed Towns in 2004. She'd help finance her run with a million-dollar settlement she accepted some months ago, sources said. But when we talked to Simon, she was non-committal. "For years a number of people have been asking me to do this, but I'm currently evaluating a lot of things," said Simon, an attorney in private practice and a Boerum Hill Association board member. "I've made no decisions about anything."

But, we asked, hadn't she recently met with Assemblyman Jim Brennan, Assemblywoman Joan Millman, and Democratic district leaders Liz Daly and Alan Fleishman to talk about entering the race? "I meet with people all the time," Simon said.

An evasive answer. She's obviously preparing to be a politician!

However, her chances of defeating Towns are remote. Simon is relatively unknown and Towns is a longtime incumbent. Simon is white, while the 10th Congressional District is 60 percent black (and just 17 percent white). Simon has never run for office (that we can recall), while Towns is a seasoned candidate. It all adds up to a hopeless situation. However, Simon could use her candidacy to pressure Towns to modify his positions, such as his support for a watered-down fire-safe cigarettes bill favored by the tobacco industry.

RUSSIAN TO JUDGMENT Even if City Councilman Domenic Recchia succeeds in keeping challenger Tony Eisenberg off the ballot, it would be a Pyrrhic victory.

Recchia's argument that Eisenberg should be disqualified because he's registered to vote as "Anatoly Eyzenberg" yet petitioned as "Tony Eisenberg" has earned the councilman scathing criticism in the Daily News, New York Sun, and local Russian media.

The News editorialized that Recchia is acting with the "blessing" of "the crooked Brooklyn Democratic organization" (not true, the organization says, though machine director Jeff Feldman has been in court conferring with Recchia's lawyer) and that his case against Eisenberg should be thrown out. The Sun wrote that Recchia attempted to "intimidate and demoralize" elderly people who petitioned for Eisenberg and that the councilman should "call off the whole disgraceful spectacle…and choose the high road of seeking reelection on the merits."

And the Russian media have been even harsher. Russian Television Network cried "dirty politics" and the newspaper Novoye Russkoye Slovo declared, "Subpoenaing seniors and taking them to court is a new low in Recchia's war against the Russian-American community. Recchia understands that being taken to court in the U.S.S.R. was a very frightening experience for the Russian-American seniors who now live in his community." The translation was apparently emailed to us by Recchia's Republican opponent in 2001, the Russian-American physician Oleg Gutnik. We say "apparently" because the writer frequently misspells his name "Ogle" on the messages, which are sent from Eisenbeg2003@aol.com (note the missing "r" in the name). A person close to Eisenberg told us Gutnik is not authorized to speak for the campaign.

But whether it's really Gutnik is secondary. The real issue is that Recchia's bullets have ricocheted back at him. His challenge of Eisenberg's petitions is only creating more enemies for himself in the Russian community and certainly flies in the face of his claim to want to unite his district. State Senator Carl Kruger has publicly called on Recchia to drop the case, which Recchia surely didn't appreciate. On the other hand, to suggest that Recchia's subpoenaing Russian seniors is "a new low" is absurd. Anyone who collects signatures should expect to defend them in court. There's no exemption for seniors, Soviet émigrés, or anyone else.

The standard response is to play the victim, and Eisenberg is delivering an Oscar-caliber performance with the News and Sun in supporting roles. "I'm destroyed," he told the News. "Half of my money is being spent on this. I can't campaign. I can't fund-raise. Everything here is nonsense."

Eisenberg neglected to mention that he's doing the same thing as Recchia to a third candidate, Joe Hochhauser. Upon reading the above quote, Hochhauser spoke to the News. "He is not a victim," Hochhauser told the paper. "He's not spending all his resources defending himself-he's also spending his resources challenging me." Eisenberg's campaign manager, Gary Tilzer, said the circumstances are different because Eisenberg is alleging insufficient signatures, not fraud.

Hochhauser was knocked off the ballot August 12. We suspect he has changed his opinion of Eisenberg since the beginning of the campaign, when Hochhauser had said, "I'd love to meet the guy and I'm glad he's running. We need people to step up and run … I applaud his efforts and I wish him all the luck in the world."

And what of Eisenberg's name? Of course the man can call himself Tony Eisenberg if he wants, just like Charles Schumer can use Chuck and William J. Clinton can use Bill.

But Schumer, Clinton, et al make sure the names on their petitions match the names on their voter registrations. Getting your name straight is the very first step in running for office. Yet Eisenberg didn't bother.

And then we're asked to believe that he put "Eisenberg" rather than "Eyzenberg" on his petitions because he wants to be more American, not because he wants more votes. Please, spare us. His name's been Eyzenberg since he got here in 1980. In 2003 he runs for office and suddenly wants to Americanize his name. Coincidence? Nyet.

CORRECTIONS We erred in reporting that Marty Solomon became a Civil Court judge by replacing another judge who was elevated to Supreme Court after the 1995 Democratic primary. Solomon was indeed unopposed in the primary, but he made the ballot by gathering petitions.

We also underreported the amount of campaign money raised by Councilman David Yassky. We only reported what was in his council reelection fund, Friends of David Yassky, but it turns out he has another fund called Yassky for New York with more than $84,000. Yassky figures to ultimately pool the money from the two funds to run for higher office, such as Brooklyn district attorney.

Also, we received unofficial word that the petitions shoved under a locked door at the Board of Elections on July 10 were not those of City Hall shooter Aaron Askew, but rather belonged to a Queens Republican. We had speculated that the petitions might have been Askew's, but in fact he never turned them in, even late.

DEMS DEMAND EVIDENCE All five of Brooklyn's Democrats in the House of Representatives have joined the call for an independent commission to investigate the evidence President Bush used to make the case for war: Anthony Weiner, Nydia Velazquez, Ed Towns, Jerry Nadler, and Major Owens.

Yet to join his House colleagues as a co-sponsor of California Democrat Henry Waxman's bill is Brooklyn's lone Republican member, Vito Fossella, who would probably sooner ride to Iraq on a warhead, Dr. Strangelove style.

Contact Brooklyn Politics at (718) 399-3693.

Borough Politics Archive

2003
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.