HAKEEM DEFENDED A supporter of former Assembly candidate Hakeem Jeffries said State Senator Kevin Parker was off base when he suggested Jeffries should have run for the City Council seat left vacant when James Davis was killed. Lupé Todd, a member of the Brooklyn Freedom Civic Association, said Jeffries would have been wrong to run against the wishes of Davis's mother, given that Davis was the first elected official to support Jeffries against Assemblyman Roger Green in 2002. "Hakeem sat down with Thelma Davis and said 'I'll support whatever you want.' He wasn't going to run against the very family who was with him when he ran against a 20-year incumbent."

Side note: James Davis had publicly maintained that he would decide on the merits whether to endorse Jeffries or Green last year. But privately, he told us he would never endorse Green because Green supported Tish James against him in the 2001 City Council race. Though that was obvious to many, he couldn't admit it publicly because it would diminish his endorsement of Jeffries. Getting back to Todd, she also said if Parker was intimating that Jeffries is reluctant to take risks, he's mistaken.

"The notion that Hakeem Jeffries, who ran against a 20-year incumbent not once but twice, is not a person who would take political risks is laughable," Todd said. "While I am a friend of Kevin Parker, and I respect him, Kevin has to remember that Hakeem's risks are not only his risks. He's married, he has a mortgage and a 2-year-old son, things that Kevin doesn't have." Parker's point was that sometimes it's necessary to step on a few toes, something Davis did to become a district leader in 2000 and a councilman in 2001, and Parker did when he ran against the wishes of Democratic county leader Clarence Norman to become a senator in 2002.

Regardless of whether Parker was right or wrong about Jeffries, he gets bonus points from us for speaking his mind, something many elected officials won't do.

WEINER TRASHES ROAD MAP Rep. Anthony Weiner, who was in Jerusalem on a bus several miles from the one blown up by Hamas, reached exactly the conclusion the terrorist organization hoped for when it planned the bombing. "The road map to peace is dead," Weiner told the Associated Press. "It would be hard to imagine the Israelis being able to make concessions for peace in the shadow of this kind of bloodshed." The Israelis and Palestinians now return you to their regularly scheduled program, "Tit-for-Tat Killing Ad Infinitum."

WORLD'S WORST CANDIDATE The usual complaint from insurgent candidates is they don't get enough press. But we don't expect to hear that from Richard Taylor of Bedford-Stuyvesant, who's running (or at least is on the ballot) against Councilman Al Vann.

Taylor was a no-show at a candidates forum hosted by this newspaper. As a panel of interviewers and a BCAT television crew waited for Taylor, an organizer called him. Taylor claimed that his computer, on which he kept his schedule, crashed during the blackout and so he forgot his appointment at the forum-a full five days after the blackout.

Graciously, this paper allowed Taylor to reschedule for the following day. Once again, Taylor failed to show. That time, he didn't even call to apologize. In Richard Taylor we have a candidate with no respect for people's time, no media savvy, no common decency, no organizational skills, no short-term memory, and no inclination to set an alarm clock. Other than that, he'd make a fine councilman.

So would Derek Booker, assuming he exists. We have our doubts after Booker missed his appointment to appear at the forum, which BCAT planned to air in its entirety, CSPAN-style. Booker, running against Councilman Charles Barron, was scheduled to appear August 19. Calls to the only contact number Booker provided this newspaper reached the unattended voice-mail of his friend, who was out of town. The friend later called us back to say Booker had had to take care of a "personal item" and thus missed his forum slot. "It was an oversight on his behalf," Booker's contact told us. "Sorry for the inconvenience."

Usually it's the incumbents who avoid candidates forums, but Barron appeared as scheduled and delivered a fiery presentation. We later tracked down a number for Booker's Canarsie home but our call was not returned. David Miller, a candidate against Councilwoman Tracy Boyland, also initially stiffed the panel, offering the lousy excuse that his wife's car broke down. But at least he rescheduled and showed up on the second try.

Conservative Crown Heights candidate Abe Wasserman canceled his appearance, but had the good sense to call in advance. David Yassky also canceled at the last minute but apologized profusely. Vann, Councilwoman Diana Reyna, and Geoffrey Davis all claimed to be too busy to come.

RECCHIA'S DENIAL City Councilman Domenic Recchia was jovial as he appeared at a forum sponsored by this newspaper, since he'd just knocked his last remaining Democratic opponent, Anatoly Eyzenberg, a/k/a Tony Eisenberg, off the primary ballot.

With reelection assured, if he were ever going to own up to a role in drawing half of Brighton Beach out of his council district, this was it. So we asked, noting our certainty that such a change could only have happened with the incumbent's say-so. Recchia stuck to his story, which was essentially, "Who, me?" His version of events: The districting commission, appointed by the mayor and the speaker and minority leader of the City Council, redrew his 47th District with no input from him. "I did not give that commission a map," Recchia said. "I never spoke to them about what I wanted. And the district was drawn."

But districts are not drawn randomly. As the forum's next speaker, Councilman Mike Nelson of the 48th District, said minutes later, "They had a lot of pressure to take Brighton Beach out of the 47th and push it into the 48th." From whom did this pressure come if not Recchia? Surely his wishes were somehow conveyed to Speaker Gifford Miller and Minority Leader Jim Oddo. Districts of legislators like Recchia are simply not redrawn without the representatives at least being consulted.

Further evidence that the Russian-American community was intentionally divided was unwittingly provided by Recchia himself, who informed us that his new district is 14.6 percent Russian while Nelson's is 14.7 percent. Such an even split could not have happened by accident. Recchia suggested this precise division of Russian voters was good for their political clout. "You're giving the Russian-American community two opportunities to run for office," he said.

Two opportunities to run, yes. But not to win. It's like suggesting a basketball team take two half-court shots rather than one 15-footer. Nelson, incidentally, lobbied against the splitting of Brighton Beach. It had no effect, as Nelson has less clout than Recchia at City Hall.

But Nelson did make another point worth mentioning: the vast majority of Russians don't care about their councilmember's ethnicity, only that he's doing the job.

Getting back to Eyzenberg, with all the attention on his attempted name change, few noticed Recchia's argument that Eyzenberg listed his butcher shop as his residence. But the judge did, ruling that the false address would disqualify him even if the name switch didn't. "He couldn't decide if he slept in the meat freezer or on the deli counter," Recchia cracked.

Kidding aside, Recchia claims he doesn't regret challenging Eyzenberg's petitions, even though it elevated a little-known candidate into a political martyr of sorts. "There is a process," Recchia said, and Eyzenberg didn't follow it. "Why should I have to live in the district and he doesn't?" Recchia asked. "Why should I have to tell the truth and he doesn't?"

HIKIND FINGERED AS MEDDLER Rabbi Daniel Fingerer thought himself the leading contender for the Community Board 12 district manager's job vacated by Priscilla Celano. But when Assemblyman Dov Hikind began lobbying for Wolf Sender to be the new d.m., the board's nominating committee rolled over like a rowboat in a maelstrom.

Rather than hand up two or three finalists to the full board, as is often done, the committee overwhelmingly nominated only Sender for a yes-or-no vote in September. Fingerer, realizing that if he does nothing he won't get the job, is taking the unusual step of challenging board members to demonstrate their independence from Hikind by not hiring Sender. Don't expect it to work. Fingerer tried the same thing with the nominating committee, which then voted overwhelmingly to hand up Sender alone.

"I said they're independent thinkers and they should not be beholden to any elected official," said Fingerer. "I thought they had strength of character, that they were ethical, that they were moral. And it didn't work out that way."

Hikind downplays his influence on the community board, noting that he appoints none of its members. "It's not my choice," he said. "Anyone who is insinuating anything else is silly." In that case, there are a few silly people out there. One, a CB 12 member who asked to remain anonymous, said, "Dov Hikind has no business interfering in the community board. As it is, he controls everything between Borough Park and Midwood."

But when Hikind began introducing Sender (a member of his Democratic club) at meetings, the message was clearly, "If you have any allegiance to Dov at all, you should vote for his guy," our source said. Hikind insisted, "No one controls their vote."

Supporters of Fingerer consider him the most qualified of the candidates. He was Borough President Marty Markowitz's Jewish liaison and representative to CB 12 before budget cuts eliminated his salary. But their pronouncements about Sender-that he "has absolutely no qualifications for the job" and that he'd lost his position as State Senator Kevin Parker's Borough Park liaison-proved false.

"He's eminently qualified," said Parker, who was Sender's colleague when they were special assistants to then Comptroller Carl McCall. "He's been active in the Borough Park community for a long time. He understands the system and the politics very well. I know him to be a very committed person to his community."

COLTON'S BRIGHT IDEA For once, we're not being sarcastic. A politician really did have a bright idea in the wake of the blackout. Assemblyman Bill Colton called on the city to develop a transportation plan for future subway outages. "Thursday was a disaster," the assemblyman said. "We do not have true emergency management in this city. Everyone was basically left to their own devides in their attempts to get home."

He suggested designating pedestrian lanes on thoroughfares and bridges, as well as comfort stations, for such emergencies. Also, commuter buses should be part of the plan, Colton said.

THE DOLLAR-VAN DILEMMA Did you read about the tiff between State Senator Carl Kruger and City Councilwoman Yvette Clarke? Clarke was furious that Kruger used the occasion of the murder of a dollar-van driver to rail against the dollar-van industry-right at the crime scene. Kruger so agitated other van drivers who'd gathered to mourn the death of the father of nine that police had to escort the senator away. Kruger insisted his remarks were appropriate and not racist, as Clarke alleged.

"This has nothing to do with race and insensitivity, and I prefaced all of my remarks by saying that all of our hearts go out to this man and his family," Kruger told us. "The Clarke family has a long history of supporting the van industry with reckless disregard for what's right and wrong." Clarke, who succeeded her mother Una Clarke in the Flatbush council seat, took the unusual step of blasting a fellow Democrat in a press release, calling Kruger's actions "racist" and "despicable."

The dollar-van issue is a complicated one. No doubt some opponents object for reasons other than the vans causing congestion and robbing riders from city buses. After all, the vans carry minority passengers into the white areas of southern Brooklyn near the Kings Plaza mall, whose construction was vigorously opposed by local residents all those years ago.

If dollar vans are going to be allowed to stay, which seems likely, it makes sense to regulate them and make it possible for them to operate profitably within the bounds of the law. To some extent, that's happened. Yet for years they've been allowed to pick up passengers who flag them down, which is illegal except for taxis.

But no administration, not even Rudy Giuliani's, has had the gumption to wipe out the practice. One reason may be that whites who object are subjected to accusations of racism because the dollar-van industry is almost exclusively the province of minorities, who make money by operating the vans and save money and time by riding them.

A solution is possible. After all, the MTA has partnerships with private bus lines serving white areas of Staten Island, Queens, and Brooklyn. It could find a way to co-exist peacefully with the dollar vans along Flatbush Avenue, or at least more peacefully than Kruger and Clarke get along.

Contact Brooklyn Politics at (718) 399-3693.

Borough Politics Archive

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2000
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1999
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