Council Candidates:
The Filing Is Done; The Fun Has Begun
By MICHAEL SCHENKLER
Here they are, the 107 candidates who filed petitions to run for City Council from Queens.
As of this writing, they’re all still players. But the challenges have just begun. We
will witness a number of these candidates fall to bad petitions or a bad system laden with
technicalities that make ballot access costly and difficult.
How do you distinguish the potential winners from the also-rans? Money matters. We’ve
told you about 4-1 public matching funds. Now with a real picky — justly so —
Campaign Finance Board, we can’t be sure that claimed funds will be approved.
However, for comparative purposes, we have provided you with the figures claimed by each
candidate of funds eligible to be matched and the value of the 4-1 match.
With the records presently available to us, we can’t determine in which calendar year
a candidate spent funds or which funds are excluded from the expense cap (ie: ballot
access costs). So we are unable to provide precise dollars available to be spent at this
time. However, by adding all funds raised plus claimed matching funds and subtracting
expenditures and outstanding liabilities we have calculated a “maximum
available.” This is our own term.
The maximum a candidate for Council enrolled in the CFB matching program can spend in 2001
(with some exceptions) is $137,000 including some money already spent.
Without money, you can’t deliver your message. Those that didn’t enroll in the
CFB program (and the deadline is long passed) won’t get the 4-1 match and therefore
are likely to have considerably less than the CFB participants. Should a non-enrolled
candidate exceed CFB limits, enrolled candidates for that seat are given a bonus and
receive a 5-1 match.
Remember, at this time we’re looking at a September 11 Primary Election where
candidates are running only against members of their own party. In most seats, the game to
watch is the Democratic battle.
The
key to the chart below is in the bottom right hand corner, and for starters, D=Democrat,
R=Republican, G=Green Party, and I=Independent. An asterisk before a name indicates there
is still an outstanding challenge to their ballot placement on which the Board of
Elections will rule July 31. All other candidates have achieved ballot placement and are
expected to appear on the ballot.
Stay
tuned as we tell you about who remains standing after the challenges and explore more
about each candidate and race.
Let the games begin!
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Michael Schenkler can be reached at: MSchenkler@QueensTribune.com
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