CHUTZPAH, BUT NO BALLOT LINE The rule of thumb for Brooklyn candidates is to collect three times more signatures than needed to make the ballot, since so many are ruled invalid during petition challenges. Then there's the rule of Cyril Joseph. The Bushwick resident, needing 500 good signatures to make the ballot against Assemblyman Darryl Towns, only managed to collect 415. He filed them anyway. "This guy has the [gonads] to file less than the minimum number," said Mitch Alter, Towns's attorney, who is something of a character himself.

Amazingly, Joseph nearly made the ballot anyway. He claimed on his petitions' cover sheet to have more than 500 signatures, and since Towns (who was not initially represented by Alter) didn't file objections, the Board of Elections deemed Joseph a candidate. "The board doesn't check it [automatically]," Alter said. "You have six days to file objections. It doesn't take a genius."

Towns nearly let a second deadline expire, waiting until the last day to file an order to show cause in State Supreme Court. Because he waited so long, he couldn't legally serve notice of the order by mail to Joseph's house on Hancock Street. So Towns hired a process server. The server rang Joseph's bell. Joseph opened the door, recognized the server from the local community board, and slammed the door in his face before he could be handed the legal papers. Later, the server gave the papers to Joseph's wife when the would-be candidate refused to come to the door.

The law says you cannot evade service this way, but Judge Joe Levine nonetheless agreed with Joseph's attorney Gerry Dunbar, himself a Civil Court candidate, that Joseph was not properly served. That kept Joseph and his 415 signatures on the ballot. At this point, it occurred to Towns that perhaps he didn't have the most effective attorney. So he called Alter, who'd had a falling out with Towns's father, Rep. Ed Towns, more than a year ago when Alter's client Kathy King defeated (by 51 votes) an incumbent Civil Court judge backed by the congressman.

When the younger Towns asked Alter to handle his appeal of Levine's ruling, Alter thought, "You sure you want me on the case? I'm not getting along so well with your daddy." But the assemblyman told him, "Look, you're the only one who can get us out of this mess." So they agreed on a price and Alter took the case. And won it. Why was Towns so afraid of Cyril Joseph? Because Joseph might have diverted a few black votes from Towns, whose main opposition in the primary is Heriberto Santiago. In a district that's 54 percent Hispanic and only 33 percent black, Towns might need every black vote he can get.

FREE RIDE FOR ROGER With perennial candidate Guillermo Philpotts predictably off the ballot, former assemblyman Roger Green has a free ride in the Democratic primary-an extremely rare occurrence for an open seat in a heavily Democratic district, though this is not a typical open seat since Green only resigned from office in May. Two other Democratic candidates previously fell by the wayside: Tammy Meadows, who had been supported by BUILD, an organization Green helped conceive, and Daniel McCalla, who withdrew when opponents of Bruce Ratner's project decided to back Green Party candidate Susan Metz instead.

That proved a mistake, as Metz reportedly left town without filing her candidate's statement of acceptance form with the Board of Elections, and as a result did not make the ballot. Thousands of signatures had been collected for Metz, an effort that went for naught. Sources said Metz ignored warnings from her supporters about going away during the filing deadline in the midst of what she claimed was a hot race.

Getting back to the Democrats, Green dismissed speculation that a deal was cut to eliminate Meadows from the race. He said he was asked to present his views to BUILD on Ratner's project and downtown Brooklyn development and after he did so, "Tammy stood up and said she would not run." We have no evidence to the contrary, other than a general disbelief that someone would so casually waste hundreds of man-hours gathering petitions in the summer heat. Perhaps Meadows, whom Green described as having been "a loyal supporter of me," would like to leave her job as a meter-maid, er, traffic enforcement officer for a position on Green's staff, should he be elected. "There was no deal cut with Tammy," Green said.

In other good news for Green, the Assembly denied a Freedom of Information request from The New York Times for the confidential Assembly Ethics Committee report on the travel-voucher scandal that led to Green's resignation. Maybe the Times should just ask Green for the report. After all, the paper endorsed him over Hakeem Jeffries in the 2000 and 2002 Democratic primaries. Surely it wouldn't have done so if Green didn't believe government ethics investigations were public information.

BOYLAND'S BOAST: "Tracy L. Boyland has been chosen as one of the up and rising leaders for the future by the New York Times," boasts a full-color piece of literature distributed six weeks before Boyland's Democratic primary showdown with Rep. Major Owens. We went searching for such a reference in the Times. We didn't exactly find it.

Instead, there was this, from the paper's editorial page in 1997: "Ms. Boyland, a teacher, has little record of community activity and seems to have no thoughts about what she would do as a Council member more specific than 'new ideas for the next millennium.'" An Owens press release included the less egregious but still somewhat misleading sentence, "Congressman Major Owens is married with five children." That gives the impression Owens and his wife had five children. And they did. But none together. Owens had three sons from his first marriage to Ethel Owens (nee Werfel). His second wife, Maria Cuprill Owens, already had two children when she married the congressman.

We later learned the release was supposed to say "blended family." In other news from the race, Gabriel Toks Pearse was removed from the Democratic primary ballot because of a cover sheet error he blamed on the Board of Elections. He went to court to get back on but was denied. That leaves Owens, Boyland, and Councilwoman Yvette Clarke in the primary.

DEAR, PARKER, SHARPE TUSSLE Expect a higher turnout of black voters in the 21st Senatorial District this September compared to the 2002 primary, because above the Senate race on the ballot, Rep. Major Owens has two opponents. That's good news for State Senator Kevin Parker and challenger Wellington Sharpe, bad news for challenger Noach Dear. Two years ago, when H. Carl McCall was uncontested in the gubernatorial primary, there was no big race to draw blacks to the polls. Parker is also expecting more Jewish votes thanks to a forthcoming endorsement by Assemblyman Dov Hikind. In 2002 Hikind helped Dear, who received nearly every vote cast in Borough Park.

Dear, incidentally, was in court trying to kick Parker off the Working Families Party line. Dear, who claims all 11 signatures on Parker's WFP petition were fraudulent, wants to make sure that Parker can't mount a second campaign upon losing the Democratic primary. Finally, in a bizarre incident, Sharpe told police that thugs descended on his campaign office last weekend, banging on the door, ripping down his posters and putting Parker posters up in their place. Sharpe also told us Parker has physically attacked him and Dear. Parker said Sharpe should have filed a police report if that really happened.

G.O.P. LOSES LAWYER, CANDIDATES A bunch of Republican candidates for state office got kicked off the ballot because of technicalities this year, leaving Democrats unopposed in many Brooklyn races. Do you suppose Brooklyn G.O.P. leaders are regretting chasing away their top election lawyer, Aaron Maslow? Maslow won't say exactly why he quit his party post, but it had something to do with his legal assistance to the campaign for Democratic district leader of his sister-in-law, Miriam Steinberg.

One Republican official reported, "This problem was brought about by ideologues in the Brooklyn Republican Party and we are not amused." Maslow's well-meaning but inexperienced replacement reportedly made an error on the cover sheet of many petitions, dooming a number of candidacies.

"Nobody worked harder for this party than Aaron Maslow for the last four years," our source noted. "He had just launched a magazine, The Brooklyn Republican, which was very well received. He did it all alone. He organized the Republican County Committee Meeting in May, which was a breath of fresh air. He designed, published and distributed 150 versions of petitions without a single mistake or so much as a typo. His successor blew it all on cover sheets."

PARKER STAYS OUT One of the few Flatbush political people who hasn't taken sides in the campaign for Rep. Major Owens's seat is State Senator Kevin Parker. Councilwoman Yvette Clarke would love to have Parker's help against Owens, but while Parker is a friend of hers, he's also been supported by Owens in the past. Beyond that, Parker is fighting for reelection himself against Noach Dear and Wellington Sharpe and would rather not alienate anyone. "I'm focusing on my own race," Parker told us. "The only person I'm endorsing this year is Kevin Parker."

WASTE, WANT NOT Half of the New York City power plants proposed in the last three years have targeted Rep. Nydia Velazquez's district-notably Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and Sunset Park, all particularly tempting for utilities and trash haulers. Fed up, Velazquez introduced a bill to stop communities from being disproportionally exposed to contaminants. We noted that Velazquez has a lot of waterfronts in her district, and power plants and waste stations are typically sited on waterfronts. But her office told us that not all plants require lots of water, and besides, "There are plenty of upscale NYC waterfronts that are not getting any new power plants or waste transfer facilities." Manhattan's waterfronts are protected from power plants not only by political might but by the Waterfront Revitalization Plan, thus making it more likely for plants and waste transfer stations to be cited in minority communities.

TIDBITS More evidence (though not exactly scientific) that Kevin Hynes, son of Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes, was not alone in the government car he crashed in northern Westchester County: the empty bottle found in his car was a Heineken. "Irish guys don't drink Heineken," said one person who would know. "Kevin Hynes used to live in Farrell's bar. Farrell's only serves one type of beer: Budweiser."

Haitian-Americans Zacary Lareche and Michelle Adolphe both made the ballot against Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs, a Jew representing a district that's 65 percent black and just 13 percent white. Coincidentally, Adolphe and Jacobs live on the same block of Bedford Avenue, across the street from Midwood High School…

Councilman Charles Barron is endorsing Ed Roberts over Assemblyman Clarence Norman in the Democratic primary. That makes it rather unlikely Norman, the Democratic county leader, will endorse Barron for mayor in 2005. Not that he was planning to. The endorsement, which was to be announced August 24 at City Hall, is a surprise, since Barron has nothing to gain politically by backing someone with little chance to win. Also, Roberts is a mild-mannered, unexcitable, and dare we say unexciting fellow. He's the antithesis of the passionate, opinionated Barron…

Sigal Levi, the woman victimized in her divorce case by corrupt Judge Gerald Garson, gave this measured response to The New York Times after prosecutors played the surveillance tapes of Garson apparently fixing the case with her ex-husband's lawyer: "How is he deciding the fates of people and families, ruining houses and families and children? They should put him in Alcatraz. And when he dies, vultures should eat his body." C'mon, Ms. Levi, tell us how you really feel…

Assemblyman Joan Millman has written a letter to constituents who ask for her position on Bruce Ratner's project. She writes that she supports "the idea of creating an arena in Brooklyn," but then lists nearly two full pages of reservations and vows to vote against any use of eminent domain for it…

A motorist with Jersey plates was seen angrily snatching a ticket from his windshield on a recent Saturday morning in Park Slope. He'd failed to notice the sign saying "No Parking" for street sweeping 8 to 9 a.m. "except Sunday." Little did he know that the sign should have said "except Wednesday and Saturday" too because the sweepers don't run those days either. That hasn't stopped the Department of Transportation (led by neighborhood resident Iris Weinshall) and the police from issuing tickets on days when sweepers don't come…

Assemblyman Felix Ortiz of Sunset Park, a Democrat, also ran on the Working Families Party line in 2000 and 2002. But this year, facing the usual nominal Republican-Conservative opponent, Ortiz didn't bother to apply for the line. The Working Families Party also fielded no candidate in the 55th Assembly District, where Reggie Bowman is challenging Assemblyman William Boyland Jr. The local WFP chapter declined to recommend anyone …

Noach Dear moved his State Senate campaign office one flight down at 1318 Avenue J. He had been sharing space with his brother, a consultant, and paying him rent for three months…

Gotham Gazette reported that a study found people litter because they have little attachment to an area or because the area is already dirty. The former must have been the reason a Borough Park woman recently air-mailed a wet diaper toward a garbage can at the 3rd Street Playground in Prospect Park, missed it by a good six feet, turned around, and walked back to her bench. A certain political columnist returned the package to its sender, who left it at the foot of her stroller.

Contact Brooklyn Politics at (718) 399-3693.

Borough Politics Archive

2004
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2003
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2002
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2001
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2000
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1999
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