Endorsements: Teachout, Sikora, Ortiz

On September 9th the polls will open at 6 am. Hopefully everyone will be able to figure out where to go and vote. There is a very handy voting booth locator online. It is at http://nyc.pollsitelocator.com. We just checked and it seems to be correct.

That’s the easy part. A bit harder is making the right choice. Summertime is a tough time to campaign, as half of NY seems to be out of town. However, as the summer winds down, the campaigns are moving into high gear, judging from news coverage, debates and leaflets in the mailbox.

A favored campaign method these days is door knocking, and this has gone on all summer throughout our neighborhoods. We’re finally starting to see signs in store windows – a visual cue that lets us all know there’s an election coming up. If you’re reading this, you’re interested.

We are delighted that all five candidates in the two Assembly races we are covering responded to our request for statements. These are printed on pages six and seven, and all of them are well done and sincere. If you can’t catch a debate, and are not familiar with the candidates, reading through them is probably your best bet to formulate an educated choice of your own.
New York is a Democratic town, and the winners of the September primary generally win in the November general election (Bloomberg being a notable recent exception). All five of the candidates express progressive views and we could live with any of them.

Our endorsements will be more about our guess at the candidate’s effectiveness rather than policy. Of course, ‘guess,’ is the operative word.
The easiest endorsement we have to make is the statewide race for governor.

We have never met Andrew Cuomo, but we have spoken to people who have, and we have no doubt as to his intelligence. In many ways the state has been well governed during his first term. He does many of the right things. But it is his style of governing that irks us – at least from what we can see tucked away here in Red Hook.

We wish he would make a decision about fracking, we wish he would allow our mayor to raise taxes, we wish he would fund schools the way they are supposed to. We are not crazy about charter schools as he is. We can’t believe that he allowed LICH to close – many believe it was his idea all along. We don’t like the idea that he has formed a Republicans for Cuomo group, and filed a lawsuit and an appeal to knock his opponent, Zephyr Teachout, from the ballot. Luckily, he was unsuccessful with both attempts.

We suspect that his presidential ambitions are preventing NY from having a government more in line with the Democratic ideals we thought we voted for.
So we are joining the growing bandwagon by endorsing Zephyr Teachout.

The 52nd Assembly District has three people running for an open seat, as Joan Millman has chosen to end her long career in the Assembly. This district includes the Columbia Street waterfront, Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn Heights and Gowanus.

Millman’s choice in this race is her District Leader and State Committee woman Jo Anne Simon.

Simon is opposed by newcomer Peter Sikora and local gadfly Doug Biviano, who has run against Simon before in a city council race won by Steve Levin.

We have only been covering politics closely for the past year. We were surprised as many others by the insurgent victory last year of Carlos Menchaca in a race we assumed would be won by the incumbent. This is a way of saying that we do not know the candidates as well as others who have been around longer. We have seen the three in action only recently at candidate debates.

We know that Simon has many passionate supporters. She has been active in downtown Brooklyn the longest, dating back to the 1990s when she headed the Boerum Hill Association. It seems that those who love her, support her, and those who don’t are Sikora supporters. Pete has three important local backers – Brad Lander, Stephen Levin and Dan Squadron.
The alliances in this race are all over the place. Our choice, as mentioned above, will be on how we think they would do in the Albany cesspool.

We are tempted to go into the netherworld and support Doug Biviano. Albany is well known as being an unfortunate home of corruption and Biviano wants to look under every stone, find it and root it out. He answers almost every question put to him by saying he wants to give power back to the people, and away from vested interests. He makes sense when he points out the possible conflicts of interest that politicians put themselves into when so many of them use the consulting firm BerlinRosen both to get elected and also to govern.

It would be interesting to see him unleashed in Albany, but in the end his effectiveness might be limited by his inability to form alliances necessary to pass legislation, and direct funding streams to the district – budget negotiating is an important skill for an assembly member. Perhaps his time is yet to come as he matures into a politician.

Simon and Sikora basically agree on policy. Simon has been groomed to be an elected official, working closely with the political clubs and party pols, serving as District Leader for ten years. She has paid her dues in the community and is a successful lawyer and educator. She has in place all the mechanics to win this race. However, in some respects she reminds us of the governor. Her supporters claim that Sikora suffers from an ill temper – we suspect that Simon may suffer from the same ailment. She claims that she can work with anyone but we are not convinced.

Pete Sikora says that he got the bug for political activism by his desire to do good. He is very proud of his work as an environmental activist, with good reason. He has big ideas – many of which seem utopian – meaning that only in a better world they could be possibilities.

As a successful lobbyist, he has developed skills at putting together coalitions to get things done. As a lobbyist, he is well paid to effect action. We are hoping that in the pay of the public he can do the same. So our opinion is to give Pete Sikora a chance.

The 51st Assembly District includes our coverage area of Red Hook, as well as Sunset Park. Felix Ortiz is running for his 11th two year term.

Ceasar Zuniga is providing Ortiz’s first real challenge in many years. He is an educator with a passion for providing others with the opportunities he was given as son of an immigrant. We like what he says about the waterfront and the importance of industry remaining in our neighborhoods. He is obviously friendly with Council member Menchaca, and speaks of working with him to provide a one-two punch for the district.

He claims that ten terms is too much, and says that fresh blood is needed.

In this case, we think that there is plenty of fresh blood left in Felix. He does not take his position for granted, and we have seen him continue to grow in the job. His experience is a valuable asset, as are the alliances he has developed. His reputation is untarnished. In what Sikora calls the ‘belly of the beast,’ Ortiz remains uncorrupted and independent. These are the reasons we think that Felix Ortiz merits another two year term.