THE SHAME OF CARROLL GARDENS (cont'd from last week) Last week we called on Carroll Gardens politicians to save the neighborhood's reputation by putting opponents of a battered women's shelter in their place. Assemblyman Joan Millman and Councilman Bill deBlasio have declined to take a position because they wants to be impartial mediators. Fair enough. But so far attempts to talk sense into the opponents have failed, and they show no inclination to be reasonable. Besides, they seem to think anyone who's not fighting the shelter is an enemy. So Millman and deBlasio have nothing to lose by rallying support for the plan.

The two politicians are being subjected to intense lobbying by opponents of the shelter. But another group of neighborhood people are campaigning in favor of the shelter. They have presented many compelling arguments, including that the shelter would count as a "fair share" facility, reducing the chances of Carroll Gardens getting another social service facility that could bring real problems, such as a transitional home for troubled teenagers, a methadone clinic, a drug rehab center, a halfway house, or a shelter for homeless men.

The opponents, meanwhile, are fighting the shelter in the ugliest possible fashion: by publicizing its address. Since battered women's shelters must keep their locations secret from violent husbands and boyfriends, the opponents think giving away the address will keep the shelter from opening. Truly disgusting. These people oppose the shelter because, they say, it would attract violent husbands and boyfriends. That could only happen if its address were publicized. And they are publicizing it. That alone should be a crime, since it risks the lives of battered women. Perhaps Millman could introduce a law that would put people who do that, such as neighborhood residents Sal Russo or Danny Contreras, in jail.

So far, opponents have not targeted Rep. Nydia Velazquez or State Senator Marty Connor. But that is no reason for these two to remain on the sidelines. Ditto Joe Hynes. The Brooklyn district attorney has always been a strong supporter of battered women and children, having grown up with an abusive father. "This is Joe Hynes's issue. He's from a domestic violence household. He threw his own father out of the house," one proponent of the shelter told us. "But we haven't heard from Joe on this and I don't know why." Hynes's spokesman didn't return our call or e-mail.

Connor told us he's sympathetic to the need for a shelter, that he's heard no rational arguments against it, and that some of the opponents' language has been "deplorable." Asked, then, why no elected officials have come out in support of the shelter, Connor said, "Why haven't the sponsors come to me or the other elected officials and said, Here are our plans? That's where they should begin." He added, "The sponsors are partly responsible for some of the hysteria. When people think things are done in secret, they get suspicious."

The shelter sponsors say they wanted to keep the shelter low-profile to protect the women it housed. Velazquez, though not actively lobbying for the shelter, issued the strongest statement of any politician on the matter: "I am aware of the proposal to put a battered women's shelter in Carroll Gardens. The most important thing to realize here is that these women are not criminals-they are women in need, who have suffered a great deal and are looking for a safe place to go. Think of this shelter as a place where your mother, sister or daughter could take refuge. Think of it as a place that could not just change lives, but save them as well."

Supporters of the shelter have written a sample letter for people to mail to Millman and deBlasio, which concludes, "Please do not be intimidated by a few dozen letters emanating from a two-block radius around the site. If you pander to the irrational forces of intolerance, you will be permanently damaging your reputation among your other constituents and the world at large. Moreover, you will be irreparably damaging the reputation of our community as a tolerant citadel of friendly neighbors and family values, something which could have serious consequences at many levels. The eyes of the world are upon you and upon Carroll Gardens. Please do what you know is right, and if you are afraid to do that, at least remain silent."

RECCHIA EXPECTS SPORTSPLEX City Councilman Domenic Recchia believes the Coney Island Sportsplex will be built, with or without the cooperation of businessman Horace Bullard, the Kansas Fried Chicken magnate who owns much of the land needed for the project.

Recchia said if Bullard does not agree to a fair deal, the city would move to acquire the land by eminent domain, in which case Bullard would be paid fair market value for his property. Moving forward with the Sportsplex would help New York City land the 2012 Summer Olympics, Recchia suggested, because the International Olympic Committee wants to see progress to ensure the necessary venues are in place in time for the games. "I have convinced the [Bloomberg] administration that the indoor sports arena in Coney Island should be a priority," Recchia said after meeting with Council Speaker Gifford Miller and a deputy mayor. There's still the matter of finding $40 or $50 million in public funds.

Recchia also revealed that a Coney Island Local Development Corporation would be launched. He said it was promised when KeySpan Park was built, but no one followed through. Recchia said he spent two years looking for the paperwork to prove it. He eventually found it, prompting the mayor to put money in the budget. Recchia told us the news in mid-August but said it would be formally announced in early September. Hmmm… Just before the election. What a coincidence! But Recchia subsequently kicked his opponent off the ballot, so there was no election anyway.

A SLEW OF SLATES With the Brooklyn Democratic organization under attack for its system of picking Supreme Court judges, the Working Families and Republican parties are publicizing their own judicial slates. The Republicans held a judicial convention in Sheepshead Bay in which its delegates, in contrast to those at the Democratic convention, were told to vote for the candidates of their choice. Usually, delegates are told by party leaders whom to pick, but since the Republican line isn't going to influence the election results anyway, party leaders let them make up their own minds-allowing the GOP to poke fun at the Democrats.

Aaron Maslow, second vice chairman of the Brooklyn Republicans, blasted Democratic county leader Clarence Norman for giving his district leaders a choice of two Latino candidates for one Latino judgeship and two black candidates for one black judgeship. "To me, that's racist," Maslow said. "The Democrats, who pride themselves on liberalism, should be ashamed of themselves for conducting a vote of black versus black and Hispanic versus Hispanic."

Norman said he just wanted to ensure a diverse bench by guaranteeing at least one black and one Latino would join the Supreme Court this year. Whether doing so justified (or even required) rigging the election is certainly debatable.

Consider that Norman put three white Civil Court judges (Marty Solomon, Artie Schack, and Bruce Balter) on the Democratic Supreme Court slate, thus ensuring their election, without allowing his district leaders to vote on them at all. He claimed they had so much support there was no point in voting. Bay Ridge district leader Joanne Seminara wanted leaders to be able to vote on all the candidates, and even brought printed ballots to the leaders' meeting. Norman rejected the idea. Why did Norman set aside three whites for promotion? As a favor to the white district leaders who supported them. In exchange, they voted for the minority candidates preferred by Norman (Ray Guzman and Bernadette Bayne).

"In the name of diversity, we had to choose between Bernadette Bayne and Kathryn Smith," one disgruntled district leader said. "Bernadette Bayne was just a disgraceful choice. She handcuffed a Legal Aid lawyer." Well, sort of. In 1991, Bayne cited Legal Aid's Michelle Myers for contempt of court, and court officers handcuffed the attorney. The judge now says she didn't know the order would result in the use of handcuffs and when she found out, she ordered Myers released from them. Bayne claims Myers had failed to show up in her court the day before, had been late for the rescheduled hearing, was acting erratically in the courtroom, and ignored the judge's instructions to stop.

Legal Aid, as you might expect, is not fond of Judge Bayne. "She was so bad that even [Rudy] Giuliani refused to reappoint her to Criminal Court," said Legal Aid's George Albro. Bayne did not make the Working Families Party's first Supreme Court slate. Neither did Schack, who was the only candidate rated "not qualified" by the WFP screening panel but whose wife is Democratic district leader Delia Schack.

Albro, who helped put together WFP's screening panel, couldn't say exactly why Schack was rejected, but he did note, "We did a survey of our (Legal Aid) members and it was really amazing. They uniformly said he was sadistic. He seems to take pleasure in setting high bail and giving extraordinarily high sentences for minor offenses." Schack also once threatened to order court officers to break the fingers of a mentally disturbed defendant who was refusing to be fingerprinted. "It's incidents like that, I would suspect, that led the committee to suspect that he lacked the judicial temperament to be a judge," Albro said.

Also absent from WFP's slate was Balter, who once rented a campaign office from Assemblyman Norman's Democratic club even though Balter had no opponent. Balter also sent Norman's political action committee $300 earlier this year. Three other Civil Court judges-Wayne Saitta, Debra Silber, and Jack Battaglia-were found qualified by the panel but withdrew from consideration for the WFP slate when they failed to get the Democratic line. They didn't want to risk punishment by the Democratic machine, Albro said.

Heading the seven-candidate WFP slate is Civil Court Judge Margarita Lopez-Torres. If anyone has a chance to win on the WFP line alone, she does. Two others also have the Democratic line. The four other WFP candidates are just building their résumés.

FREE RIDE FOR ADELE COHEN? Few Brooklyn legislators look more vulnerable in 2004 than Assemblywoman Adele Cohen, who edged Susan Lasher by 229 votes (51.7 percent to 48.3 percent) in the 2002 Democratic primary, a shockingly thin margin for an incumbent. Lasher nearly won despite having little money or organization. How did she do it? With strong support from Russian-Americans.

In her 13 best election districts, Lasher got 75 percent of the vote (1,429 votes to Cohen's 470), better than Cohen did in her 13 best ED's (1,279 to 558, or 70 percent). Essentially, Lasher destroyed Cohen in Brighton Beach but saw that edge nearly canceled out in the Bay Ridge portion of the Assembly district. Cohen made up the deficit in the remaining ED's.

Lasher had enough willing voters to win, but many failed to register as Democrats or couldn't find their polling places, some of which were moved. Those are problems that some advance work could easily solve by September 2004. But at the moment, neither Lasher nor anyone else seems to be doing it. Lasher was apparently so disillusioned by last year's election that she won't launch another campaign. "I never will run again," she informed us in a succinct e-mail message.

Lasher's campaign manager, Cole Ettman, said, "Candidates like Susan Lasher are frustrated by the process of having every door slammed shut in their face. Why would she want to have to go through this again? To have the Board of Elections say they had to close a polling place?"

The lack of public financing of campaigns for state offices makes unseating an incumbent difficult, Ettman said. Ironically, that system helped keep Lasher's husband Howard Lasher in the Assembly for two decades, but now it's helping keep her out of it. Lasher spent just $27,533 on her 2002 campaign (to Cohen's $105,263) and still ended up in the red by $7,667. She lent her campaign $10,000 so it could pay its expenses, and has yet to raise the money to pay herself back. (The campaign was also hit with $1,566 in judgments for filing its financial disclosures with the state Board of Elections months late.)

Ettman said he'd heard of no one planning to challenge Cohen. The best candidate, he said, would be someone who could get some votes outside of the Russian community to combine with the Russian vote (which would go against Cohen regardless, since the Russians don't like Cohen, which the assemblywoman says baffles her).

Ideally, Cohen's challenger would be a politically connected non-Russian who had a relationship with the Russian community and could speak some of the language. We know of only one person in the district matching that description: Susan Lasher. Absent her, Cohen's looking at a free ride.

"The people who would like to see Adele Cohen out of office are not vocal enough about it, which makes the possibility of succeeding her very difficult," Ettman said. "Everyone wants someone to run against Adele, but they don't want to be in the forefront in support of that person. Maybe nobody will run. It's unfortunate."

Contact Brooklyn Politics at (718) 399-3693.

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