Bay Ridge City Council race goes down to wire

Three candidates vying to succeed Gentile

October 31, 2017 By Paula Katinas Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Democrat Justin Brannan hopes to succeed his former boss, Councilmember Vincent Gentile, in the City Council. Photo courtesy of Brannan campaign

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In one of the hottest and most unpredictable races in the city this political season, three candidates are running for the City Council seat in a Southwest Brooklyn district that has swung between Democrat and Republican over the years.

Democrat Justin Brannan, Republican John Quaglione and Reform Party candidate Bob Capano are all spending the last week of the campaign trying to woo voters in the 43rd Council District to vote for them on Election Day on Nov. 7. The district covers Bay Ridge and Dyker Heights and takes in parts of Bensonhurst and Bath Beach.

It’s an open seat due to the retirement of longtime Councilmember Vincent Gentile, a Democrat who has served on the Council since 2003 and who is prohibited from running for re-election because of New York City’s term limits law.

The 43rd Council District race is intriguing for two reasons: 1) The district is one of the few in New York City in which a Republican could have a fighting chance to win, and 2) The presence of a third party candidate could lead to unpredictable results.

Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and Bensonhurst have sometimes voted for Republican candidates. State Sen. Marty Golden, a Republican-Conservative, represents a Senate district that includes much of the territory of the Council district. And Golden was the councilmember before Gentile won the seat in 2003.

Brannan boasts a wide and varied resume. He has been a musician in a punk rock band, worked on Wall Street, has served as chief of staff to Gentile and as a top aide to City Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña.

He and his wife Leigh Holliday Brannan own The Art Room, a small art gallery and school on Third Avenue in Bay Ridge.

Brannan is also the founder of Bay Ridge Cares, a nonprofit group that assists families with cancer and people who are coping with natural disasters.

Brannan founded the Bay Ridge Democrats, a grassroots political club, in 2010. He had tried to join other civic and political organizations but did not receive a warm welcome, he said. “So I decided to form my own club. I went outside the box. That’s why when people described me as the establishment candidate in the primary, I had to laugh. I’m anything but establishment,” Brannan told the Brooklyn Eagle in a recent interview.

Capano is an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the manager of a Gristedes supermarket in Manhattan. In the past, Capano has worked in politics for Republicans and Democrats, including a stint as Brooklyn director for former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, a Democrat, and as an aide to former Republican Congressmember Bob Turner (R-Brooklyn-Queens).

Capano ran in the Republican primary for the Council seat in September and lost to Quaglione. He had earlier been endorsed by the Reform Party and decided to remain in the race and run on that party’s line.

“For far too long our city and state have been under the thumb of the special interests; the political bosses, the lobbyists and the business-as-usual crowd, who place their interests and concerns before those of the voters and the taxpayers. It’s time this cynical system of government came to an end,” Capano said in a statement issued in May.

Quaglione is taking a leave of absence from his job as deputy chief of staff to Golden to run for the City Council.

Quaglione is the president of the Board of Directors at St. Anselm Catholic Academy and president of the Brooklyn Chapter of the March of Dimes.

Quaglione threw his hat into the ring in 2013, running against Gentile. Quaglione lost the race but said he gained valuable insight into politics.

He said he hopes for a better result this time around and is working to come up with solutions to quality-of-life problems faced by voters.

“They care about quality-of-life issues. They see litter on their sidewalks, graffiti making a comeback, cars being broken into, delivery packages being stolen off stoops. They’re getting parking tickets and they see the city spending money like it’s going out of style,” Quaglione said.