Chances are, you'll be seeing one or more of the candidates vying to represent the First City Council District on your street corner in the next several days. The Democratic Primary is a week away. City Councilmember Alan Gerson faces four challengers: Pete Gleason, Arthur Gregory, Margaret Chin and PJ Kim. Here's the latest on the campaign:
The NYC Campaign Finance Board is out with its video voter guide. You can see it here.
Today the Village Voice takes a look at the First District race, noting Gerson's 76-percent attendance record at Council meetings (7th worst) and, of course, his vote to support Mayor Bloomberg's successful fight to extend term limits. The article goes on to question the experience of PJ Kim, who won the New York Times' endorsement Saturday:
But what's he done? He served on CB1 for two years, worked at McKinsey,
and ran a couple of non-profits. And as head of the Undergraduate
Student Government at Princeton, the Daily Princetonian
reports, Kim "sat on the search committee that chose Shirley Tilghman
as the U.'s 19th president." We might call him the Hope and Change
candidate (get a load of his web site's color scheme). Kim also has the
backing of the large DC37 union.
In a recent letter to supporters, Kim said:
Traditionally, Labor Day is when most voters begin to pay attention to political races. The other candidates have already spent most of their money. The incumbent’s campaign is in debt. We have a full war chest to unleash our direct mail and paid canvassing operation on an almost daily basis for the next 8 days until election day on September 15. We are positioned to win.
Meanwhile, Margaret Chin rallied her supporters in Chinatown over the holiday weekend. A news release from her campaign highlighted the importance of strong turnout from Chinese voters:
Speakers called on Chinatown and District 1 voters to unite behind Margaret as the only Chinese-American candidate on the ballot, and to come out in large numbers next Tuesday. Some also spoke emotionally about the possibility of Chinatown, and district 1, having its first Chinese-American representative in Margaret Chin. It is important for Chinatown’s population to turn out, so that the area gets appropriate government resources and attention.
Pete Gleason's campaign is out with a press release of its own this afternoon. Drawing attention to a story on Channel 7, the release says Gleason "exposed a major asbestos scandal in New York schools last week. Representing a Dept. of Education whistleblower, Gleason shot video proving real danger to New York schoolchildren – and a cover-up on behalf of the DoE." You can see the WABC video here.
The final debate before the election is Thursday, 7pm at Trinity Church. More details later.
Thanks for all your hard work on covering the race. There aren’t many unbiased sources out there, and it’s nice to have some more or less neutral perspective on the race!
Thanks, Liam. It’s been a fun race to cover, for sure.
Alan J Gerson stood with several leading environmental activists and welfare programs for children, senior citizens, WTC reforms, Cultural, Housing activities in his service till now.
A short list of those can be found from here: http://www.gerson2009.com/main.cfm?actionId=globalShowStaticContent&screenKey=cmpContent&htmlKey=issues&s=gerson
To continue his efforts, do vote for him for Dist 1 council election 15th Sept 2009