Mark Lieberman Announces Bid For Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs’ Seat
Civic activist and longtime journalist Mark Lieberman has announced he is tossing his hat into the ring for the 42nd Assembly District race, joining a crowded field of candidates running to represent Midwood, Ditmas Park, and Flatbush.
Lieberman, a Democrat who has lived in Midwood Park for 40 years, will, like all the other candidates making a bid for the seat being vacated by Assemblyman Rhoda Jacobs after 36 years, appear at the Flatbush Tenant Coalition’s political forum this Saturday.
The newest challenger in the campaign, Lieberman will face off against community activist Michele Adolphe, who ran against Jacobs in 2010; Democratic District Leader Rodneyse Bichotte, who challenged Jacobs in 2012; Community Board 17 member Victor A. Jordan; and Rickie Tulloch, the deputy chief financial officer of Harlem Hospital Center and chairman of Jacobs’ Community Advisory Council.
From a press release issued by Lieberman:
A lifelong resident of the community and a product of local schools, Lieberman has deep ties to the district. Having spent a lifetime uncovering government waste and corruption, Lieberman now wants to use his expertise to target government problems—and fix them.
“Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said ‘sunlight is the best disinfectant’ for corrupt government. Throughout my news career and afterward I’ve argued and fought for greater transparency in government and will continue to do so as a member of the Assembly,” he said.
The seat is being vacated by retiring Assemblywoman Rhoda Jacobs. It is a hotly contested race to represent a diverse community of all income levels and cultural backgrounds including the Orthodox Jews of Midwood, the Caribbean immigrants of Flatbush and the urban professionals of Ditmas Park.
“The 42nd Assembly District has been ably represented in Albany for the past 36 years. I run not to undo Rhoda Jacobs’ accomplishments but to build on them bringing my knowledge, background and experience to solve the problems of the 21st century,” Lieberman said.
Lieberman is running on a five-point platform that includes;
· Introducing legislation to give reduced fare MetroCards to food stamp recipients
· Returning responsibility for setting the city’s water rates to elected officials to prevent onerous increases
· Fighting to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and indexing future increases to inflation
· Promoting a reasonable tax on millionaires to generate revenue and provide needed programs for district residents
· Introducing legislation to fight drunk driving by banning the sale of cold beer at gas stations
As an award-winning reporter and columnist for the New York Daily News, Lieberman exposed political corruption and the abuse of taxpayer dollars. Following his journalism career, he served as director of investigations in the State Senate where he oversaw the first government investigation of the AIDS epidemic and won the first state funding for AIDS, saving countless lives. A trained economist, he was an officer of three of the nation’s largest banks and the Senior Economist at the Fox Business Network. Most recently, he has served as a board member of Citizens Union fighting to reform government and end the abusive practice of stop-question-and-frisk, a board member of the Community Service Society and a Board member of City Limits magazine. He’s also a member of the Society for American Baseball Research and was a member and officer of the Brooklyn Public Library board of trustees.
Photo courtesy Mark Lieberman