There are 62 senators in Albany. At times it feels like many of them have been there since John Hancock disfigured the Declaration of Independence document; the overwhelming majority of them have never authored a single piece of legislation in all that time, so their embellished signatures have never been needed. But this isn’t aberrational, because many former senators who have now moved on to bigger things never authored legislation either. For example Marty Markowitz -the current boro prez of Brooklyn and possible mayoral candidate- spent about 20 years in Albany, and didn’t get a single piece of legislation that he authored pass that body. Thus yesterday’s passage makes Kevin Parker a legislative genius.
You see Parker has only been in Albany since January 2003, therefore we should cut him some slack given Albany’s lethargic standards; and yet yesterday he was solely responsible for the passage of a significant piece of traffic and law enforcement legislation. The beauty of all this is the fact that Kevin Parker wasn’t even there to vote on the bill. The bill passed 60-0, with two absentees (Parker was one). The bill makes it a felony for anyone to assault a City Marshall or a traffic agent: especially the ones who piss you off while writing you a ticket for double parking when quickly running into the bodega or such.
For those who have been living in some cave in Mesopotamia since 2005, and must have missed Parker’s dust up with a traffic agent that year -while he was double parked outside his constituency office in Flatbush Brooklyn- this legislation came about directly because he was accused of punching said traffic agent. After this incident, the union representing traffic agents demanded Parker’s head on a platter. They held demonstrations and rallies to boost their cause (the bill’s passage). They also pressured legislators to take some kind of action on this matter. Kevin Parker was a one-man catalyst.
This bill was first introduced in 1986 and had been stuck in nowhere land ever since. After Parker’s faux pas, momentum was built that enabled yesterday’s passage. So it appears that Parker is more productive than many who have been in the senate long before he came. Because of his actions, a bill rotting in the senate’s purgatory for nearly twenty years, passed less than three years later; he is so so so very productive.
Kevin Parker is the same person who once challenged me to a fight, while in a church taping a live debate. This was during the summer of 2004, at a candidate’s forum in the Methodist Church on 31st Street and Glenwood Avenue, Brooklyn. I was a member of the audience and Kevin (incumbent senator) was a participant in the debate. Talk about lack of decorum.
This is the same person who was sued by Wellington Sharpe because of his gangster behavior. Sharpe claimed that he was assaulted by Parker on two separate occasions.
So now that this bill has been passed, maybe we need to work on another Parker-related piece of legislation; you see Parker has flunked out of anger management classes at least twice -based on my sources. I suggest that we pass legislation making it mandatory for those legislators who flunk anger management courses, to return to kindergarten for lessons on how to grow up and behave as adults. Now if only Parker would sponsor this bill, maybe we would get somewhere. And maybe Wellington Sharpe, myself and a few others (who Parker dislikes) can safely walk Flatbush streets without fear/lol.
Stay tuned in folks.