What’s News for May 28
BOROUGHWIDE — A congressman pressed police Tuesday to reduce low-level marijuana arrests after new numbers suggested little change under a mayoral administration that vowed to lower them. Under scrutiny since soaring to over 50,700 in 2011, the number of arrests dropped about 9 percent, to about 7,000, in the first quarter of this year and of Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration, The Associated Press reported this month. But the arrests were heading up in March, and the 2014 total still could equal last year’s roughly 28,600, Democratic Rep. Hakeem Jeffries noted. And those arrested still are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic — 86 percent in the first quarter — although de Blasio pointed to the racial breakdown in calling the arrests “unjust and wrong” in campaign literature last year.
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SUNSET PARK — Ceasar Zuñiga, a Democratic candidate for the 51st New York State Assembly District, has been endorsed by New Kings Democrats (NKD), one of Brooklyn’s preeminent reform Democratic clubs. New Kings Democrats is a progressive, grassroots political organization committed to the transparency, accountability and inclusionary democracy of the Kings County Democratic Party. They endorsed Zuñiga in their second round of endorsements along with Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez for New York’s 7th Congressional District and Rubain Dorancy for the 20th District in the New York State Senate. Zuñiga, running against a 20-year Albany incumbent, was honored by NKD’s endorsement and promised to run a reform-minded and progressive campaign in order to bring transparency and accessibility back to the residents of Sunset Park, Red Hook, Borough Park, Greenwood Heights and Bay Ridge Towers.___