[NYtenants-online] On Tomorrow's Election...

[Tenant]

NYtenants Online/TenantNet                               11/5/01
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Tomorrow New York City residents go to the polls for the fourth time in 
eight weeks.

For us, the bottom line is: who will help tenants and neighborhoods on the 
issues we care about and hear about. You will be disappointed -- again this 
year the Democratic Party has outdone itself by fielding the most mediocre 
talent it can find. And underneath the Republican skin you won't see much 
difference. Even the Wrecking Families Party (that's not a typo) is proving 
itself to be nothing other than warmed-over Democrats--for the most part 
having a line almost identical to the party of failed promises.

BEFORE WE GET TO THE MAYOR'S RACE, we suggest a write-in vote for Manhattan 
Borough President. As Abe Hirschfeld often claimed a New York Grand Jury 
would, if given a chance, indict a ham sandwhich --  we're going to 
write-in a vote for a ham sandwhich for Manhattan Borough President. 
Virginia Fields has done nothing except take over the community boards with 
inept cronies and turn once-promising City Councilmembers into political 
reflections. Go to Manhattan community boards and mention Virginia Fields' 
name--after they get up off the floor with uncontrollable laughter, you'll 
see eye-rolling, pantomimes of barfing and other similar expressions of 
endearment. Probably the most adept at acceptiong money from developers and 
side-stepping the question as to why she didn't fight Vallone's vacancy 
decontrol, Virginia Fields has proven to be a complete embarassment and the 
poster child for Democratic Party mediocrity. For another view, see 
"Fields: NY's Dumbest" at http://www.nypress.com/13/6/mail/mail3.cfm

SECOND, WE RECOMMEND A NO VOTE ON THE NYC CHARTER QUESTIONS. While some of 
the questions may have merit, it's also a question of process. All of these 
issues can easily be handled by the City Council in everyday business. So 
why are they on the ballot? It's because the Mayor uses this tactic to keep 
other issues OFF the ballot. A little known quirk of Charter Questions is 
that questions from a mayorally-appointed Charter Revision Commission 
preclude other questions and citizen referendums. The public has a hard 
enough time gathering many signatures to get something on the ballot, but 
all the Mayor has to do is place an innocuous question on the ballot with a 
crony-infested charter commission. He's done this three out of the last 
four years. And none of these questions have had any public debate.

FOR MAYOR...

In early September, we felt that Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, 
despite his connections to an often-corrupt Democratic machine, and despite 
his lack of a record friendly to tenant and neighborhood concerns, had 
earned the right to be in the expected runoff election. He had raised many 
issues of concern to New Yorkers. The villification he received from people 
like Peter Vallone -- for even suggesting that there was an economic divide 
in the city -- was unwarranted. To even accept the notion of America's Tale 
of Two Cities was to delegitimatize everything on which Vallone and others 
were running. People are hurting and can't afford 200% increases on rent? 
Well according to Vallone, Hevesi and Green -- and not even questioned by 
the corporate media -- that can't happen in the new sanitized New York.

But we also felt Ferrer needed to address these issues beyond his coalition 
base. Would he come into Manhattan neighborhoods and talk about 
overdevelopment, too much traffic, nightclubs keeping people up all night? 
Would he talk about the real tenant problems (beyond the RGB) -- why does a 
corrupt state agency (DHCR) continues to be fiercely anti-tenant and what 
would he do about it.

Well Ferrer did nothing, despite our asking. We know representatives from 
other groups asked him as well. We told him he need not concede Manhattan 
to Mark Green. But he did. And he lost. While the Village Voice's 
apologists tried to explain Ferrer's loss as the trumped-up fears over Al 
Sharpton, with a margin of only 18,000 votes, we feel Ferrer could very 
well have overcome the racist New York Post and similar operations in 
Brooklyn -- only if Ferrer had made an attempt to deal with the real issues 
many new Yorkers face every day.

So in the end we have Mark Green. We have big issues with Mark Green. He 
keeps saying that he has visited all 200 New York neighborhoods, but when 
we ask (about Manhattan's west side where we're located), other than to 
play footsie with corrupt politicians, no one can remember when. And 
despite his background as a Nadarite, he's moved considerably to the right 
in this campaign.

Some say that once the primary is over, everyone must support the nominee 
of the party. Bullshit! If that was the sole rationale, we'd be outta here. 
After all, what real talent has the Democratic party produced in the last 
generation? Virginia Fields? Peter Vallone? Vito Lopez? Even the 
progressives (the classic West Side liberals) are more worried over their 
own hides than solving problems.

So if we reject issues of party unity, the question remains which of the 
two major candidates are more inclined to help tenants and neighborhoods 
... or less inclined to hurt tenants and neighborhoods?

There is a slim chance. Slim is still in town (but we hear he's headed for 
Port Authority). If enough people get all over Mayor Green, there might be 
enough of Ralph Nader left in him that some good things might happen and 
some awful things might not happen. We don't have high hopes -- after all 
Mark Green's last signal before election day is to have a party with the 
corrupt west side McManus "Republican" Club tonight.

So we reluctantly urge you to vote for Mark Green.

And we mean it -- go vote for Green. Hold your nose if you have to, but do 
it, else we may be stuck with Mike Bloomberg.

Bloomberg has money and no ideas -- except the ideas that you really don't 
want to hear. He refers to NYC residents as "Caves" -- "There are people 
who are just against any kind of progress whatsoever. In the power business 
I think they call it 'caves,' a citizen against virtually everything..." He 
said this same thing at a recent Crains Power Breakfast where he jumped on 
Giuliani plan to tear down half of Chelsea and Clinton/Hell's Kitchen -- so 
his friends at the NYC Partnership (the developer's association) would have 
room for more skyscrapers.

Bloomberg has consistently refused to answer questions on tenant issues and 
he certainly has no connection with any New York neighborhoods -- except 
for may be a few Giuliani Democrats somewhere far out in Brooklyn.

His entire campaign is that he's "like Rudy." He says NYC needs a 
businessman, but his company has no Board of Directors, he doesn't have to 
answer to anyone (yes, that can work both ways) and he's never negotiated a 
union contract. With Bloomberg, NYC has no future other than that of a 
myopic sanitized suburbia with tassle-shoed yuppies of questionable value.

It's like those tenants that wear their rents on their arms. "I pay 
$2,500," says one. The other, not to be outdone, proudly announces his rent 
is $3,500 AND he has no heat AND he's being evicted! We don't get our 
sanity back by buying (literally buying) into Mike Bloomberg.

Green will take a lot of work (he has his own contingent of palm-piloted 
tassle-brained advisors/apologists), but as we said, Slim is still in town.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Tenant Network(tm) for Residential Tenants
   TenantNet(tm):          http://tenant.net
   email:                  tenant@tenant.net
Information from TenantNet is from experienced non-attorney tenant
activists and is not considered legal advice.