Anticipating Primary Challenge, Greenpoint's Congresswoman Builds Up Bank
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Good afternoon, and apologies for this Late Edition of East & Creek, the Greenpoint newsletter. e&c can only offer this excuse: it is Too Darned Hot out.
What’s up in Greenpoint?
For those who travel by bike: The bike lane on Greenpoint’s West St is a consistent source of headaches for cyclists because it is a convenient spot for car and truck drivers to idle. Bike lanes all across the city deal with this kind of encroachment, but West St was supposed to be different. What went wrong? Poor execution, on smart design, by the Dept. of Transportation. (Streetsblog’s Gersh Kuntzman)
For those who travel by street: Note that several Greenpoint roads are scheduled for repaving this week. (Greenpointers)
And for those who travel by sea: Note the following, from NYC Ferry:
Due to planned maintenance on the barge, the Hunters Point South ferry landing will be closed during non-peak hours on Tuesday, July 16 from 10:00 AM – 3:30 PM. During this time, all ferry service on the East River route will bypass Hunters Point South in both directions and service will be re-routed to the Long Island City ferry landing at Gantry State Plaza Park.
Also, meat department workers at Greenpoint’s Key Foods (finally) have a new contract, following a dispute resulting in a lock-out earlier this year. (Greenpointers)
e&c reports: Congressional candidates file quarterly financial reports
Greenpoint’s congressional representative, Carolyn Maloney, will likely head into a competitive Democratic primary next year with a steep financial advantage, according to quarterly reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday.
Both declared challengers, Lauren Ashcraft and Erica Vladimer, ended the quarter (April 1 – June 30) with approximately $10,000 on-hand. Maloney, who has served in Congress since 1993, heads into the next quarter with just over a half-million dollars in the bank.
Other rumored potential challengers, including former Obama administration staffer Dawn Smalls and housing advocate Pete Harrison, have yet to officially declare their candidacies.
In the past three months Ashcraft raised $10,044.34 from 147 individual contributors at an average of $68.33 per donation, according to her FEC filing and a campaign spokesperson. Since filing to run in early June, Vladimer pulled in $10,003, 85 percent of which came from small-dollar donations. According to her campaign, the average donation to Vladimer during the first 27 days of her campaign was $117.
New to these candidates? The Queens Chronicle last week covered Vladimer’s entrance into the race; earlier this month, Vladimer criticized plans to privatize portions of NYCHA. Ashcraft appeared on The Young Turks last Thursday to discuss her platform and to announce her “Even the Playing Field Act,” to address pay inequity. Maloney has spent the past several months advocating for federal benefits for 9/11 emergency workers, and last month she spoke in support of impeachment.
Meanwhile in New York City…
The Justice Department will not bring charges against Daniel Pantaleo, the NYPD officer responsible for the death of Eric Garner. (New York Times’ Katie Benner and William Rashbaum)
Long-threatened raids on immigrant families by the Trump administration got off to a puttering start Sunday and Monday, while typically lively sections of Brooklyn were “eerily empty” over the weekend. (BKLYNER’s Zainab Iqbal)
Labor activist and 32BJ SEIU President Hector Figueroa, whose building workers’ union grew by 50,000 members during his tenure, passed away unexpectedly last week. (The City’s Josefa Velasquez)
After the state legislature beefed up rent regulations and tenant protections last month, some New York City landlords threatened doom and disrepair. But some of that is just talk: Rent regs or no rent regs, New York tenants still have a legal right — a “warranty of habitability” — to a “livable, safe, and sanitary apartment.” (Gothamist’s Ross Barkan)
The power went out in Manhattan last weekend and while the viral videos were novel and sweet, Con Edison warns: “We expect that there could be service outages — those things happen during heat waves.” How to plan for an electricity emergency during a New York summer. (Curbed NY’s Amy Plitt)
New Yorkers rallied last night in Union Square to call for the Puerto Rican governor Ricardo Rossello’s resignation, over “profane and derogatory” leaked chats. (CBS’s David Begnaud)
And finally, a salacious story of little consequence: A city council staffer was caught abusing a parking placard in lower Manhattan. The kicker? His boss has railed against this very kind of corruption. (New York Post’s Julia Marsh and Theo Wayt)
Thus concludes this July 16, 2019 edition of East & Creek, the twice-weekly newsletter about Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Read the full archives here.
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See you around town,
e&c