Councilman Domenic M. Recchia told the New York Times on October 7th that he favors the extension of term limits, “A lot of us Council members feel that passing it through legislation is giving ample opportunity to the voters of the city to voice their opinions.” He added: “If the voters don’t like their council member, they can vote him out of office. And if they don’t like the mayor, they can get rid of him too.”
Dominic knows that if term limits passes he will be reelected. Dominic knows that 95% of the incumbents who ran for reelection in the 2005 City Council elections were reelected. Only Allan Jennings, who was censured on sexual harassment, was defeated that year and that was by a former incumbent, Thomas White Jr. “Incumbents have a taxpayer-financed staff, which may act as a public relations operation; the ability to mail newsletters to constituents,” Ron Lauder said in a 1993 letter to the New York Times. “Thus we have noncompetitive races, members increasingly insulated from constituent pressure and ossification of municipal government.” Lauder did not even get into the unfair advantages that incumbents get from redistricting, member items and New York’s election system.
Memo to the Times: Dominic is A Special Interest
“Journalism's ultimate purpose is to inform the reader, to bring him each day a letter from home and never to permit the serving of special interests,” proclaimed Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, former New York Times publisher. Will the Times, which blindly printed Recchia’s quotes without offering analysis, mislead the public in an attempt to mold public opinion to support its goal of another term for Mayor Bloomberg? A proper attempt to inform the public of the unfair advantages incumbents have and a review of the dirty tricks that Recchia has used over the years to repress his opposition would let its readers know what the Councilman already knows: that if term limits are extended he is a lock at reelection.
The Missing Analysis
In 2003, after Dr. Oleg Gutnik, running (2001) on the Republican line, came very close to becoming the first GOP candidate to win in Recchia’s 47th Council District in a hundred years, Recchia hatched a plan to divide the Russian community. The Councilman made a backroom deal with the Redistricting Commission, controlled by former Council Speaker Gifford Miller, to cut about 33% of the Russian voters out of his district.
4 reasons for Recchia’s weakness in his district:
1. He was only elected with less than 30% of the vote
2. His opponents, all Jewish, split the Jewish vote
3. The Italian neighborhoods were becoming Russian
4. The Russian citizens were increasingly registering to vote
Recchia Hooks Up with the Corrupt Norman Machine
After redistricting, Recchia conspired with the corrupt Clarence Norman-led Brooklyn machine to throw his opponent, Russian candidate Tony Eisenberg, off the ballot. Eisenberg was thrown off the ballot after a judge picked by Norman ruled he did not live in the district. The election law says a candidate for City Council can live anywhere during a redistricting year, which 2003 was. However, the law was no obstacle to a Norman judge. Recchia appeared shortly after removing Eisenberg from the ballot at a rally backing Norman, who was indicted by Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes for selling judgeships.
In 2005 after a New York Post reporter wrote a story about community leaders making a complaint to DA Hynes Assembly was not a legal resident of his district. They charged Lopez renting a tiny room in a home of a director of a non-profit he funded to maintain a legal residence, voting several times there. The net result of the charges to the DA was the county leader moved out of his single room to a real apartment and the reporter left the paper. If I were John J. O’Hara I would run for county leader to get my illegal voting conviction overturned.
In 2003, Recchia still managed to spend $82,500 in city matching funds, despite not having had a primary opponent and receiving 75% of the General Election vote. Recchia spent $35,000 on the election lawyer to throw Eisenberg off the ballot, $3,500 to hire a private investigator against Eisenberg, and $2,500 in rent to his own wife.
Recchia Uses Government Funds and the Election Law to Wear Out Opposition
Recchia has distributed millions in member funds from the Council, Mayor’s Office and capital budget throughout his district to buy political support. He has worked with a team of political supporters who have moved Russian polling sites and threaten poll workers to make it harder for the new immigrant community to organize and vote. The Russian activists who were organizing campaigns in Brighton Beach got tired of spending money and worn out from all the dirty political tricks Recchia and his friends play against them. Several said the machine was worse than the KGB in the Soviet Union. It was not until I met with Congressman Nadler in the winter of 2006 about how the dirty tricks against the Russian community were hurting any chance of reversing the declining Jewish vote in Brooklyn that Adele Cohen was talked out of running for reelection to the Assembly and Alex Brook-Krasny, the first Russian-American Assemblyman, was allowed to succeed her.
Being Councilman Has Been Good for Recchia’s Business
Recchia, the lawyer, is the top outside money earner in the City Council. In 2006, Citizens Union reported that Recchia has an outside income of over $210,000. In addition to the near quarter of a million he takes in, he receives a salary of $100,000 as a Councilman, plus $10,000 more for chairing the Council’s Libraries & International Intergroup Relations committee. Recchia has done very well for someone who graduated from a law school that was not accredited at the time he graduated from it. If the neighborhood buzz is true, Recchia’s tenure as President of Community School Board 21 was also good for his well-being.
Dominic is Only for Dominic
Recchia’s biggest backer, at least in terms of campaign contributions, is the developer who wants to turn historical Coney Island into a co-op project. Most of last year, developer Joe Sitt of Thor Equities pushed Recchia for U.S. Congress. But Recchia decided not to run after Rep. Vito Fossella dropped out of the race - when it was discovered
Fossella has a second family - and backers of Councilman Michael McMahon applied pressure to Recchia to have McMahon replace him. Despite Sitt’s longtime support for Recchia, by voting to extend his time in office to a third term, the Councilman is now destroying Sitt’s plan to build housing in Coney Island. The biggest opponent of Sitt’s plan is Mayor Bloomberg, the City’s staunchest advocate for keeping Coney Island an amusement park district. If Bloomberg stays another term, Thor Equities is likely to lose the battle to reshape Coney Island.
Term Limits were designed to stop elected officials like Dominic Recchia, who use elected office for selfish gain. Now our dysfunctional press is giving a man, who some Russians call the “Butcher of Brighton”, the right to extend his own term without comment or question. “Just like in the Soviet Union we left,” sighed a Russian senior woman after a deep exhale.
No comments:
Post a Comment