Brooklyn Political Roundup, January 17: Clarke calls Trump ‘disgrace to our nation’

In Public Service, From The Political Staff Of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle

January 17, 2018 By Paula Katinas & John Alexander Brooklyn Daily Eagle

U.S. Rep. Yvette Clarke. Photo courtesy of Clarke’s office

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New City Council speaker gives Brooklyn pols plum committee roles

City Council Speaker Corey Johnson has named Councilmember Mark Treyger, a former history teacher at New Utrecht High School in Bensonhurst, chairman of the Education Committee.

During his time at New Utrecht, Treyger (D-Coney Island-Gravesend-Bensonhurst) served as a delegate chairman for the United Federation of Teachers.

“Our thriving city is constantly changing, and so are the needs of our diverse and vibrant student body. We need to ensure that New York City schools continue to grow and meet those needs, as well,” Treyger said in a statement.

Johnson made a number of interesting choices when he organized the various Council committees.

Councilmember Robert Cornegy (D-Bedford-Stuyvesant) has been tapped by Johnson to serve as chairman of the Housing Committee.

Freshman Councilmember Justin Brannan (D-Bay Ridge-Dyker Heights-Bensonhurst) is the new chairman of the Committee on Contacts.

“As Chairman, I will be focused on making sure the nearly $20 billion in taxpayer dollars that go to outside contracts are awarded fairly and with diligent oversight. My mission is to make stories like the $4 million bathroom or the new park that took a decade to see a shovel in the ground are things of the past,” Brannan stated.

Councilmember Carlos Menchaca (D-Sunset Park-Red Hook) will continue his role as chairman of the Committee on Immigration.

“I will work to keep New York the national leader upholding civil rights and supporting immigrant communities,” Menchaca said. – PK

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Donovan makes it official; Melson backs DeVito

There were several developments in recent days in the race for the House seat in the 11th Congressional District (Bay Ridge-Southwest Brooklyn-Staten Island).

On Jan. 13, the Republican-Conservative incumbent, Dan Donovan, officially declared that he is running for re-election this November.

Donovan kicked off his reelection campaign on Staten Island, where he was joined by New York state Republican Chairman Ed Cox, New York state Conservative Chairman Mike Long, Brooklyn Conservative Party Chairman Jerry Kassar, state Sen. Marty Golden, Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis and former U.S. Rep. Vito Fossella.

Donovan cited his record in Congress, including securing mass transit and homeland security funding, passing the Veteran’s Healthcare Choice Act, working to reform Kate’s Law and securing permanent funding for the Det. James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.

Former U.S. Rep. Michael Grimm is gearing up to run against Donovan in a GOP Primary this year.

In another development, a Democrat who dropped out of the race announced that he is supporting a former opponent.

Boyd Melson has endorsed fellow Democrat for the seat. DeVito is a U.S. Marine.

Melson, who is a major in the U.S. Army Reserve, dropped out of the race for Congress to take a deployment to the Middle East in place of a fellow soldier.

“Michael is an extraordinary man, and you get the sense of his integrity and his honor just by listening to him speak. He’s extraordinarily passionate, he puts his heart where his mouth is,” Melson said during a Radio Free Bay Ridge podcast. To listen to the interview on Radio Free Bay Ridge, visit: http://www.radiofreebayridge.org/2017/12/09/boyd-melson-primary/ – PK

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Gounardes raises $114,349 for State Senate race

Democrat Andrew Gounardes says his campaign to unseat Republican state Sen. Marty Golden has gotten off to a great start. He announced this week that his campaign has raised $114,349 in the first fundraising period of the 2018 election cycle.

Gounardes received 687 donations from 636 individual donors. Of those donations, 56 percent were donations of $50 or less, according to the Gounardes campaign, which said it is an indication of his grassroots strength.

“With more than half of our donations coming from small-dollar donors, this is truly a people-powered campaign to fight for fully funded schools, safe streets and to fix our broken transit system,” Gounardes said in a statement.

Gounardes, chief counsel to Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, is running in the 22nd Senate District, a seat Golden has held since 2002. The district includes all or parts of Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Bensonhurst, Marine Park, Gerritsen Beach, Gravesend, Sheepshead Bay, Borough Park and Midwood.

Journalist Ross Barkan is also running for the senate seat. Gounardes and Barkan will face each other in a Democratic primary. – PK

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Clarke calls Trump ‘Disgrace to Our Nation’

Anti-immigrant remarks allegedly made by President Donald Trump during a closed-door meeting with a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the White House last week continue to unleash a firestorm of criticisms.

According to the Washington Post, the president referred to countries like Haiti and nations in Africa as s***hole countries and said the U.S. should be welcoming more immigrants from countries like Norway.

U.S. Rep. Yvette D. Clarke (D-Central Brooklyn) was among the lawmakers denouncing Trump.

“Donald Trump is disgrace to the presidency and a disgrace to our nation,” she said bluntly.

“It is clear that he is not at all serious about developing constructive and humane policy to fix and mend our broken immigration system, but rather he has taken this opportunity to advance white supremacist ideology through his utterance in and from the White House,” Clarke said.

Assemblymember Diana Richardson (D-Prospect Lefferts Gardens-Crown Heights) also spoke out against the president.

“The United States was built off of the backs of those who migrated from a wide array of countries,” Richardson said in a statement. “The audacity of our country’s leader to refer to other human beings in such a derogatory manner because of where they come from is unpalatable.”

Richardson said she hails from a family of immigrants and represents a district that is home to many Haitians and immigrants from African nations. – PK

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Gillibrand seeks help for female business owners

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is pushing a bipartisan effort in the senate to help minority- and women-owned businesses gain easier access to loans and technical assistance.

Gillibrand is putting her weight behind the Microloan Modernization Act, a bill that would expand the Microloan Program at the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Gillibrand cited a report from the Senate’s Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship which found that women receive less than five percent of small business loans, even though females make up nearly 40 percent of all small business ownership in the U.S. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Commerce found that minority-owned firms are three times as likely to be denied a loan than non-minority-owned companies.

“Too many would-be small business owners struggle to get loans from banks to start their businesses. More often than not, the people who lose out are women and minority New Yorkers. The bipartisan Microloan Modernization Act would help ensure that every hardworking entrepreneur who wants to start a business has a chance to do it,” Gillibrand said in a statement. – PK

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Deutsch appointed to Speaker’s leadership team, chair of Veterans Committee

At a New York City Council meeting on Thursday, Jan. 11, newly elected speaker Corey Johnson announced that City Councilmember Chaim Deutsch (D-Brighton Beach-Sheepshead Bay-Manhattan Beach) was appointed chairman of the Veterans Committee.

“I’m honored to be asked to serve as the chairman of the Veterans Committee, a role that I can use to advocate for the needs of New York City’s more than 200,000 veterans,” Deutsch said. “We have a moral and ethical responsibility to support our veterans, who gave so much to our country. Right now, nearly 2,000 New York City veterans are homeless. Many are struggling with their mental health and with obtaining jobs and housing.

Deutsch said he was pleased to continue working with Councilmember Eric Ulrich (R-Belle Harbor-Breezy Point-Howard Beach), who served as the Veterans Committee chairman last session.

“I’m also looking forward to working with Department of Veterans Services Commissioner Loree Sutton, speaker Johnson and members of the Committee to fight for the services and resources that our veterans need,” Deutsch added.

Deutsch will also be a part of Johnson’s leadership team, where he will serve alongside several other key members of the City Council. He will remain a member of the Aging, Education and Public Safety Committees, and has also been appointed to the Land Use, Sanitation and Transportation Committees. – JA

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Carroll supports electoral reforms, including early voting

An issue that Assemblymember Robert Carroll has been focused on over the past few years is electoral reforms. Carroll represents Brooklyn’s 44th Assembly District, which includes the neighborhoods of Borough Park, Ditmas Park, Flatbush, Kensington, Midwood, Park Slope, Victorian Flatbush and Windsor Terrace.

“New York has some of the worst voter participation rates in the nation and that is because of antiquated voting laws that make it harder rather than easier to vote,” said Carroll, who is hoping that Gov. Cuomo includes the funding for early voting in his executive budget.

“Thirty-seven states have early voting — it is long past time for New York to join that group,” Carroll added. “Getting early voting in the budget this year would go a long way to rectifying our abysmal voter participation rates, but we must not forget that in order to truly reform our election laws, we need same day registration, no fault absentee voting, to close the LLC loophole, campaign finance reform and more.” – JA

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Lander decries Cuomo’s lack of statewide plastic bag solution

According to a post in Kings County Politics, City Councilmember Brad Lander (D-Park Slope-Windsor Terrace-Kensington-Gowanus) criticized Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s lack of statewide plastic bag legislation in the wake of a new report.

Over the weekend, the NYS Plastic Bag Task Force released an 88-page report called “An Analysis of the Impact of Single-Use Plastic Bags,” in which they outlined several solutions to the plastic bag waste crisis plaguing the state without recommending a clear solution.

According to initial reports, the six-member task force led by state Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos narrowed the list of possible solutions to eight options, including stronger enforcement of existing state laws to reduce plastic bag waste, an outright ban on single-use plastic bags found in supermarkets and other stores and requiring manufacturers to fund a program that would collect and recycle plastic bags. Four of the options would impose a fee on plastic bag usage.

Last February, Cuomo blocked a law that would have imposed a 5-cent plastic bag fee on single use bags but instead formed a statewide task force to develop a uniform state plan for addressing the plastic bag problem. Over the last year, NYC residents have sent 8 billion plastic bags to landfill.

“With this failure of leadership, every additional ton of plastic bag waste is on his hands. The so-called report of the NYS Plastic Bag Task Force is a total failure of leadership by Gov. Cuomo. When the governor nullified NYC’s ‘Bring Your Own Bag law last February, he promised to deliver an effective statewide policy to reduce the use of single-use plastic bags. He has failed to deliver even a proposal,” Lander said.

Lander slammed the report as merely a long list of options that he said could have been compiled from an internet search, adding, “It completely fails to deliver the promised statewide solution.” – JA

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Big names attend Menchaca’s inauguration

Some of the Democratic Party’s biggest names showed up at City Councilmember Carlos Menchaca’s (D-Sunset Park-Red Hook) inauguration on Sunday, Jan. 13 at the Sunset Park High School at 153 35th St.

Helping him kick off his second term in office were U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, U.S. Rep. Nydia Valazquez, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, Public Advocate Letitia James, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, City Councilmembers Chaim Deutsch, Brad Lander, Alan Maisel and Jumaane Williams.

Menchaca dedicated his inauguration to all residents and community leaders who “have used their own wisdom to wield some incredible power in our neighborhoods.”

During his first term in office Menchaca was instrumental in the establishment of six new schools in the 38th District and helped with the rebuilding of the Sunset Park Library. Menchaca also serves as chairman of the Committee on Immigration. – JA