Generally Speaking: Green Party candidate Lane joins race for Grimm seat

March 13, 2015 Theodore W. General
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Green Party candidate James Lane, a Queens native currently residing in Park Slope who last ran for the citywide post of public advocate, has joined the Donovan-Gentile race to fill the congressional seat left vacant by the resignation of Michael Grimm.

Lane was nominated by the Kings County Green Party at a February 28 county meeting held in at the parish hall at the Union Church of Bay Ridge.

City Councilmember Vincent Gentile, who was nominated by both the Kings County and Richmond County Democratic Parties, will also be running on the Working Families Party line.

Staten Island District Attorney Dan Donovan was nominated by both the Brooklyn and Staten Island County Republican organizations. He also has the backing of the Conservative and Independence parties.

There is wide political speculation that Lane’s entry into the campaign could cost Gentile votes both on Staten Island and Brooklyn, although Lane is already attacking Donovan for not getting an indictment in the Garner case. Lane, an African-American who is active in the Black Lives Matter movement, reports his key issues are police accountability and climate change.


Longtime Brooklyn community activist and civic leader Buddy Scotto was the guest speaker at the March meeting of the Society of Old Brooklynites at Brooklyn Borough Hall. In the absence of society President Ron Schweiger, who had a speaking engagement with the Florida chapter of the Brooklyn College Alumni Association, the session was chaired by your correspondent.

Scotto, who has been  profiled as a Star of Brooklyn by this paper, gave a fascinating and very animated talk about his earlier political career, the founding of the Carroll Gardens Association and his efforts with others working to clean-up the Gowanus Canal.

Also present at the meeting was Bob Furman, president of the Brooklyn Preservation Council and a member of the society. At last month’s meeting, Furman spoke about a proposal to establish a mini park in memory of the American Revolutionary-era Maryland Militia members on a vacant lot next to the Rawley Post of the American Legion on Ninth Street near Third Avenue. According to Furman’s research, many of the Marylanders died and were  buried in the vicinity of the proposed park.


The 100th Year Association is holding its 80th Gold Medal Gala on Monday, March 23 at 5 p.m. at Sardi’s Restaurant, 234 West 44th Street in Manhattan. This year’s Richard A. Cook Gold Medal will be presented to the Actors’ Fund.

Broadway/TV Actor, composer and vocalist Brian Stokes Mitchell, the group’s current board chair will receive the coveted medal. Tickets are $500.

For more information and/or reservation contact Lorry at 212-922-0791. The association, which is headed by Clinton W. Blume, III, includes corporations, partnerships, associations and individual proprietorships in existence in the City of New York for a century of more.

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