Brooklyn’s 40th City Council district came into existence in 1991, when via charter revision the city council expanded from thirty-six to fifty-one districts. It also came about because many Caribbean-American political activists, demanded lines be drawn that were favorable to electing one of their ilk. The 40th and 45th districts were drawn with that objective in mind somewhat, cutting through the heartlands of areas where Caribbean-Americans live in majority. That same year, a pugnacious Jamaican-born woman, stubbornly insisting that she was a “maroon”, emerged victorious. And the ‘icon” that many now refer to by one name, was born. She was Una Clarke. Una held the seat for ten years, before she was eventually term-limited out of office.

Last Thursday, the State Board of Elections official certified this year’s General Election Results and both they and the City BOE have made detailed results available. I’ve reviewed the results to see what was interesting and/or surprising and have found not much – at least among the major Parties.

No parsing of the numbers makes a Democratic landslide look like anything else. Among the statewide candidates, the four Democrats each carried every Assembly District except one. The 62nd AD, on Staten Island was won by Jeanine Pirro (57%), John Spencer (51%) and Christopher Callaghan (50%).

According to press reports, Governor-Elect Spitzer is assembling a fully credentialed panel of wonks, lawyers and financiers. It’s good to know he will have a full supply of facts at his disposal, but facts are just the beginning of governing. First you have the facts. Then you have opinions about what the facts mean – hopefully the people Spitzer has hired will be truthful enough to distinguish between the two when advising him, or Spitzer will be sharp enough to realize if they are not. In the end, however, one has to decide what to do about the facts, and the right decision is generally not an automatic consequence of them. Decisions, unlike deals, also involve values, and it is in terms of values that the Governor-elect will have to speak if anything is going to get better. I am reminded of this because this a year ago New York City Transit was on strike, and our elected officials, particularly Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg, failed utterly to speak in terms of values.

These organizations have long maintained that housing is expensive in New York City because New York City's development regulations are extremely difficult and restrictive. It is a mantra repeated over and over. Well some bad news — a developer who builds all over the United States has moved into town, and when asked about development restrictions in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he gave the "wrong" answer.

WSJ:   Is it easier to build in the suburbs versus the city?

Mr. Toll:   It's easier in the city. The approval process is more professional in the city. The experts that you deal with are pretty much doing the assigned job, as opposed to the secret unassigned job to stop the growth, stop sprawl [in the suburbs].

Followers of Lunchbox, EnWhySeaWonk, Left Behinds and the late lamented Gatemouth have been waiting for weeks to find out if Adam’s Green’s Comptroller campaign received any more votes than the five previously recorded in New York City and Westchester. Scandalously, the New York State Board of elections did not report Statewide totals until today.

So, how many votes did Green receive?

We still don’t know.

Instead of reporting a total for each write-in candidate, the State Board reports lump-one sum from all votes labeled “Blank, Void and Scattered”.

So, to add insult to injury, not only is there no total for Green, but his votes have been lumped together with every other write-in candidate, hanging chads and voters who’ve chosen not to cast a vote at all on that particular line.

You may have gotten the impression that I’m not a big fan or our elected officials at the state level, based on my view of the decisions (and more to the point non-decisions) they have made, and the deals they have cut. But unlike many commentators I’m not going to get all worked up about the legislature getting a cost of living pay increase after many years, just as I didn’t get all worked up about the City Council pay increase. We all expect, or at least hope for, annual increases in pay that keep up with the cost of living. It may be fair to suggest that our current state legislators have treated the general public with contempt, and do not deserve the increase. But my view is that one has to meet one’s own obligations before pointing fingers, and showing contempt for the legislature by cutting its inflation-adjusted pay isn’t doing so.

Has King Karl Lost His Magic Touch?

It's an ugly rumor, but it's spreading like wildfire: Karl Rove has lost his touch. In an amazing betrayal within a family where top political aide Rove is royalty, Bushies have been sneering at his pre-election happy talk that the gop would keep the Senate and take a slight hit in the House, both soon to be run by Democrats. And now we learn that President Bush really believed the GOP was safe, too. On the day before the elections, he asked embattled House gop leader Dennis Hastert to run for speaker again so he could guide the White House's agenda in Congress.

Now I know that if a person in found not guilty by a jury, we are supposed to act like he or she is innocent.

But shouldn’t at least ONE New York City newspaper have mentioned that Governor Pataki has nominated a guy who was accused TWICE of engaging in illegal patronage scams?

Will any Democratic State Senator make a stink?

From the Troy Record:

Zwack was elected county executive in 1995 to serve the remainder of John Buono's unfinished term after Pataki appointed Bruono to head the Thruway Authority. He was elected to a full term in 1997.

By 2001 two separate scandals, dozens of indictments and two trials forced him to resign.

So the Independent Budget Office has found that New York City’s property tax system is unfair. This is not a surprise. In a fundamental sense, property taxes are a tax on property wealth, and “fairness” requires that the tax be charged equally to all residential and commercial property owners based on the value of that wealth. This, however, has run into another definition of “fairness,” one based on income, with concern that people with high property wealth relative to income (such as senior citizens and, in rural areas, farmers) could be taxed out of their homes. This post will propose a different way to balance "wealth" fairness and "income" fairness.

Brooklyn's "Flatbush Life" newspaper is about to break the story that the race (special election) for Yvette Clarke's 40th City Council seat, will see one white – Jewish candidate up against a number of black candidates, just as the last congressional race in this said area. One of the newspaper's erstwhile political reporters (Helen Klein) is putting out a piece this week, that reeks of a David Yassky redux. Ms. Klein is a reputable, reliable and credible source. Fasten your seatbelts folks; and stay tuned-in.