Council picks: Manhattan
Term limits are forcing out seven council members; in Manhattan, three 12-year incumbents must go. Fortunately, there’s some decent talent knocking on the door. District 2 is centered on the East Village, and the choice for Democrats there should be Mary Silver. Silver, who holds both a law degree and a Ph.D. from NYU, has been active in the neighborhood, serving on the Community Education Council and the local Community Board.
She wants to focus on schools and affordable housing, and unlike many other candidates, who reach all too easily for platitudes, she actually understands the complexity of the issues. She’d be a welcome addition to a sometimes intelligencestarved Council. unning for District 4, which covers a chunk of Upper East Side, East Midtown and Stuyvesant Town, there are nine candidates in the Democratic Primary.
The obvious choice is Keith Powers. A lifelong neighborhood resident and former Albany legislative aide and current lobbyist working for exSpeaker Peter Vallone, he knows how the system works — and doesn’t. Powers has pledged to resign from his party district leader perch should he win. He would push to abolish member items, whereby Council members pick and choose which favored non-profits, from Little Leagues to reading programs to soup kitchens, get public dollars. Vote him in. istrict 8 voters in Harlem and the South Bronx should fill in their bubbles for Robert Rodriguez, who has served more than ably in the state Assembly for six years. As the prime sponsor of the Move NY congestion pricing plan
RD— which sharply reduces tolls on Bronx and Queens crossings while setting fair tolls on the East River bridges and generating billions to fix the subways — Rodriguez has made himself a leader. He’ll bring smarts and an aversion to pandering to the Council. hree incumbents running for another four years demand special mention. In the Upper West Side’s District 6, Helen Rosenthal deserves re-election. She took the lead on a controversial but essential school desegregation plan in her district — and held City Hall’s feet to the fire to save $600 million in a wasteful school contract.
In District 7, Mark Levine has been a solid representative in Northern Manhattan and he faces only minimal opposition. We endorse him for another term without hesitation. His primary opponent, who we will not name, is a notorious antiSemite who pled guilty to criminal contempt for violating a restraining order to stay away from his ex-wife — and who used $90,000 in public matching campaign funds to print and distribute hateridden posters. Give Levine a huge win.
Bill Perkins won the Harlem-based District 9 seat, which he held years ago, in a special election in February, after a decade in the state Senate.
But despite all those years, he cannot articulate any rationale for continuing to serve. In an interview with The News, his answers even to softballs on major issues were embarrassingly blank. He’s should be replaced by Marvin Holland, who began as a subway station cleaner and moved his way to union leadership. Smartly, Holland wants to boost home-ownership, focus on homelessness prevention and develop a Harlem high-technology business hub.
T