....March 4, 1:46 AM
 
 
   
The Man Who Would Be Mayor

NYC Comptroller William Thompson and Queens Tribune Publisher Michael Schenkler lunch and chat at the Trib offices. Photo by Ira Cohen
By MICHAEL SCHENKLER

I lunched recently with New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson. Bill is easy-going and engaging -- it is always pleasant spending time with him. He is bright, interesting and committed to principled core values, so as to make each encounter not only pleasant but enlightening.

In this political writer’s opinion, Bill Thompson is in line to be Mayor of New York City. No, he’s not running for the office, and he won’t inherit the job by laws of succession. Bill Thompson is standing for re-election to the office of NYC Comptroller.

Although our luncheon chat meandered all over the public policy map, due to space limitations and personal preferences, I will for this column, focus on our discussion of politics and leave the meaty policy issues perhaps for another time.

As always, a good deal of my political chat with Bill was “off the record,” but on the record, it was clear that Bill would have liked to run for Mayor but feared a potentially divisive primary (against Freddy Ferrer) followed by a super-funded aggressive campaign by the Mayor.

“So Bill” I asked, “Do you want to be Mayor?”

“Absolutely! Either in 2009 or 2013 — I’ll be alive. In 2013 I’ll only be 60. Depending on what happens with this election, I have to give serious thought to 2009. I think the numbers show the real possibility exists.”

“But for three terms in a row we’ve elected a Republican mayor,” I asserted, “What’s wrong with your party?”

“Give credit to the people of New York City. They are able to go past party affiliation and go with what they think is the best candidate.”

Citing the election of David Dinkins followed by the opposite results the next time around, Thompson expanded his analysis. “The people went with Giuliani. Crime goes down, quality of life goes up – he gets elected [the next time] in a huge way. In 2001, the entire election is overshadowed by Sept. 11 – if it never occurred then there’s a Democrat sitting in City Hall right now. The City became concerned about who could help best rebuild lower Manhattan. Bloomberg, as a businessman was able to make a case along with Giuliani’s support. He represents security, safety. We had a runoff and the aftermath was ugly”

“Will that divisive primary be repeated?” I inquired.
“I don’t know if it will fully happen,” Thompson replied, “One would hope it wouldn’t. All Democrats this time are going to have to be very conscious [to avoid it].

“Is the City less divided racially?” I continued.

“There was an ugly undertone then.” Thompson said of four years ago. “It is a different tone now because of couple of things. It is a more unified city. The people of this city are more connected than before. They understand that we are one city. The Sept. 11 terror attack didn’t differentiate between who was in the building and who was on the ground. You see the pictures of everybody walking across the Brooklyn Bridge together. I think the leadership has helped contribute to a more calm, less divided city. The people are stronger than they were before 9/11.”

“Rate Bloomberg,” I insisted.

“[There is] a different tone in government. You work with the mayor . . . You can disagree without real animosity. In the last administration, if you disagreed it could be real ugly. . . The Comptroller under Giuliani had more public battles. We’ve sued this mayor a couple of times. . . Mike is a democrat in his ideals and principles. The mayor and I have had a good working relationship,” Bill explained.

“If you’re Freddy [Ferrer],” I asked. “What are your issues?”

Thompson shot back without hesitation “Education! Affordable housing! These are the things you talk about.”
We moved to racial politics and I asked, “Does it hurt Freddy that he’s a Latino?”

“It’s probably a wash,” Thompson explained. “In NYC you see more African American and Latino elected officials. [However,] I still think that if you look at the underlying economics there is still a long way to go. . . NYC spends billions a year in goods and services, and minority vendors only get ½ to 1 percent.”

“There are two things our children can learn from racial politics,” he continued: “We all must work together. And there is also strength in understanding who you are.”
“NYC did that [voted ethnically] for decades. Nobody said there was something wrong with it. It wasn’t ‘elect this person just because he’s Jewish.’ I never said ‘vote for me because I’m black.’ I say ‘vote for me because I’m the better candidate.’”

“Do you have a race for Comptroller?” I asked.

“I haven’t seen anybody yet – it may happen. . . Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I think we’re prepared. We’ve been successful in fundraising – even against mayoral candidates. We come in second right now.”

“[And] I still love my job,” Bill asserted.

And Bill loves the City and our borough too.

“People say take a trip some place. Go to Queens. Go with Helen Sears down one street, then off to another community. Queens is strong. People should be very proud.”

Bill Thompson smiled.

Bill Thompson looks to the future – to his re-election and to four years beyond. He’s sitting and waiting for the opportunity to truly invest his years of service, his compassion and his ideals into the City he has called home all of his life.

Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.

 
 
While New York Sleeps

Henry Stern
By HENRY STERN

Most New Yorkers have a good idea of the low moral standards of some public and party officials. The prevailing feeling is, “Yes, it’s true, but what can anyone do about it?”

However, many people believe that their own State Senator or Assembly member is a decent sort, relatively hard-working, and concerned with issues. We know that some members have gone stale during their protracted tenures; some regularly yield to their libido or their thirst, and a very small number see their seats as a license to cheat, steal, or bully people they run into on the streets of New York or Albany.

We do not blame our own legislators for the dominant/submissive relationships of Albany, or for the paralysis in the legislative process. After all, if our guys rose up, they would have their heads handed to them. And, if they squawked too loudly, some people could get hurt, like the Little Leaguers who play in our parks and need help to fix the fields, and our local charities that need program support from the state. Member items mean a lot.

How can we escape the chains that bind us and our legislators, while the gray sea of corruption, favoritism, and allegiance to special interests swarms and swells around us? There are four principal factors that hold the majority of New York State’s 18 million people in a frustrating condition of involuntary political servitude. They are:

(1) Gerrymandering - Unfair, unreasonable, and distended boundaries of legislative districts, designed to assure incumbent protection and one-party domination.

(2) New York State’s Election Law - One of the most burdensome in the country, its onerous requirements for ballot access and the disqualification of candidates for technicalities enhance the power of political machines, who are the only ones who fully understand the intricate structure of the law.

(3) Subservience of elected officials to political leaders, whether they are county bosses at home, or the speaker and majority leader in Albany. Most legislators bargain away their rights to dissent for member items in their districts, lulus for themselves, the privilege of placing their people on the public payroll, and the opportunity to express their views for consideration by the leadership.

(4) The powerful influence of lobbyists, from business and labor, particularly public employee unions, whose regular contributions and campaign assistance gain them the privilege of being heard and heeded. They are part and parcel of what is called the permanent government.

Only the courts can rescue the states from the gerrymandered artificial barriers created by self-serving legislators who make their own continuance in office with minimal intrusion by elections a far higher priority than meaningful districts with communities of interest for them to represent. Yet our state courts have been consistently feeble in these matters, hanging back in the face of flagrant injustice.

We observe that state courts have appeared willing, almost eager, to intervene in other areas of public policy normally under legislative authority, such as how much money should be appropriated for various agencies, and precisely what level of social services should be provided for the homeless.

Under activist Chief Judge Judith Kaye, the venerable Court of Appeals has blazed new trails of jurisprudence, telling the executive how to do its job by leaving a court-appointed monitor in charge of a city agency for decades, and, more recently by taking on the state Legislature in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity school-spending case, arrogating to itself the basic power to determine spending, and therefore require taxation, to support a major state function, public education.

Yet when dealing with a pre-eminent and permanent injustice, deprivation of representation for citizens of the state through flagrant gerrymandering — a condition that the members of the Legislature will never remedy because they themselves are the beneficiaries of the injustice — the judicial tiger lies on his paws and falls asleep. Only when the public rises, like a great beast, will it be able to overcome these obstacles to democracy. Sadly, no leaders on these issues have emerged in New York State.

Henry Stern: Starquest@NYCivic.org

Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato
Michael Schenkler can be reached via this contact form.