Although I haven’t written much lately, my focus as a political-journalist remains the same: to educate voters in the hope that they would eventually make the right choices; especially in Brooklyn’s elections. The politics of Kings County is as stale and stinking, as a week-old patty sitting in the rusty showcase of some fledgling Caribbean-American bakery on Flatbush Avenue.
Frustrated voters often complain to me about the horrid overall state of New York’s politics, while berating me for not writing about it more. But how many columns do I have to write on Room Eight New York Politics (www.r8ny.com) and other websites, highlighting the corruption and ineptitude? How many times do I have to write about the metastasizing black and Hispanic communities before inventive government action is undertaken to alleviate this situation? How many more columns about the violence that has subsumed certain sections of the hood, to the point where most residents now seem inured? Do I have to ritually complain about unprepared, uneducated, unproductive, unimaginative and uninspiring elected-officials here; before voters act responsibly and remove them from elected office?
This column is for the few voters (and the reflexive complainers) who will be coming out to vote next month. Listen: YOU CAN’T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS. You can’t keep complaining about the dysfunctional state legislature while re-electing the same people over and over and again. It makes no sense. You will get no real change. There will be no reform. None. Collectively speaking; the New York State legislate is a cesspool of floating protoplasm where our tax dollars go to waste. It has been like that for decades. We pay the highest taxes in this nation for questionable services. Whether we buy a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of Cognac, utilize the RFK toll-bridge, or apply for a driver’s license, we face exorbitant prices regardless. Bar a few sincere and committed individual-electeds, this collective in Albany is dysfunctional at best. It’s time to start voting out these officials who have continually disappointed us.
Please note that on Thursday 13th September, 2012, primary elections will be held; giving Brooklyn voters a chance to do the right thing: remove the ineffective and non-productive members of this body. We need to elect people who will implement a twelve-year term-limit on all elected-officials from New York: at all three levels of government. The longer they stay in office the worse they become. We need to elect people who will sincerely address the reform-needs of our state.
Today, I am going to make two endorsements in Brooklyn. Please vote for community activist TONY HERBERT in the 55th AD. Let’s send Junior Boyland (the incumbent) packing once and for all. Tony has been the most consistent and committed activist here over the last decade or so.
In AD #58, please vote for attorney TERRY HINDS. The incumbent (Nick Perry) has been in office since 1992. It has been a stunning twenty-year display of political mediocrity, non-imagination and impotence. It’s time to send Nick to involuntary retirement. Hinds -the former chairperson for Community Board 17- was born and raised in this district. His parents migrated from Barbados many years ago. Terry’s father was a public school principal in this area. Terry Hinds is thirty-seven years old. He is intelligent, dedicated and hardworking. His Jamaican-born wife is also an attorney. Together they have two children. It time to make way for the young folks. It’s time for a change in the 58th AD and beyond.