Brooklyn Politics News Roundup
It’s been a busy week in Brooklyn politics. Here are some key stories you may have missed:
De Blasio likes Eric Adams’ “story.” Mayor Bill de Blasio met last week with key labor leaders—the presidents of District Council 37, the Hotel Trades Council and 32BJ SEIU—to discuss the race to replace him, and to voice concern about the impact of “a Bloomberg-like type that would undo or would regress the city back 10, 12 years,” Politico New York reports.
The Mayor didn’t endorse any of the many Democrats seeking his job in the June primary, but one source told Politico that de Blasio “said he liked Eric’s story,” referring to Brooklyn Borough President and mayoral candidate Eric Adams. He also offered measured support for Maya Wiley, his former attorney in City Hall, but expressed skepticism about her chances of winning the primary. The labor leaders told the mayor they have not decided who to endorse and are unlikely to unite behind one candidate.
Maya Wiley: the crisis candidate. In a new profile in New York Magazine, mayoral candidate Maya Wiley tries to make the case that she can be a better progressive leader than de Blasio, her former boss. At the age of nine, the profile recounts, Wiley and her brother watched their father tragically drown in the Chesapeake Bay after the dock he was walking on collapsed.
That experience is one of many that has informed her thinking about the post-pandemic city: “When I think of 24,000 families who could not touch or hold their loved ones,” she told New York, “I think of how I could not touch my father or feel him hold me ever again.”
Cornegy misused his office for BP run, complaint alleges. A complaint alleges Council Member Robert Cornegy improperly used his office to jumpstart his Brooklyn Borough President, The City reports, by asking staffers for donations and to work for free on his run. The complaint was filed by a fired former employee, and has been pending for the last year with the City Council’s HR and Equal Employment Opportunity offices.
NYPD reformer’s City Council campaign gets support from fellow officers. A Gothamist analysis of financial disclosure forms by Lieutenant Edwin Raymond, an NYPD whistleblower now running to represent Flatbush in the City Council, shows 141 donations to Raymond’s campaign from 132 active NYPD members, more than any other Council candidate this election cycle. “There are thousands of justice-minded officers who are simply afraid” to speak up, Raymond told Gothamist.
Salazar has harsh words for Cuomo. In an interview with Jacobin, State Senator Julia Salazar, who represents parts of north Brooklyn, criticized Governor Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, his “power grab” at the start of the pandemic, and his resistance to raising taxes the rich. “It is dangerous for Gov. Cuomo to continue to be the most powerful person in our state,” Salazar told the magazine.