This month I am involved with no less than FOUR fundraisers for 2008 and 2009 elections in New York City and State. Tonight was the first one (Norman Siegel for Public Advocate)...Wed. is the second (Jimmy Dahroug for 3rd State Senate District (Suffolk County)), and Thursday is the third (Josh Skaller, 39th City Council District in Brooklyn). I'll get to the fourth one later because it isn't until the 17th. And three is MORE than enough to discuss in one shot.
Tonight I just got back from a fundraiser for Norman Siegel for Public Advocate. Marjorie Gersten (a nationally known advocate for verified voting and a well-known Brooklyn advocate), Joy Romanski (officer of Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, climate scientist and my wife) and I were co-hosts. Norman Siegel was the head of the New York Civil Liberties Union from 1985-2000, and is now running for NYC Public Advocate. I can think of no one better suited to be our Public Advocate than Norm Siegel. Essentially, Norm has already been New York's unelected Public Advocate for years, standing up for the protesters against the Republican Convention and standing up for the rights of all New Yorkers when no one else seems willing. Norm Siegel's credentials go WAY back. He even spearheaded the NY State campaign for to impeach Richard Nixon!
You can read more about my impressions of Norm Siegel here (including a picture of my baby holding a sign for Norman Siegel in 2005) and here.
Norm Siegel focused heavily on what a Public Advocate must do for the city in the post 9/11 city. He discussed how on 9/11 no city official gave the 911 emergency operators a clear script with up to date information, so 911 operators were giving conflicting information. We need a way in a city-wide emergency to get clear, up-to-date, information to the 911 operators so people who call in get clear, up-to-date information, not confused, conflicting information like they did in NYC on 9/11. This was NOT the fault of the operators who were doing their best, but the fault of the city officials who did nothing to make sure operators HAD the right information.
Norman also focused on the need to make sure the emergency workers have the proper equipment, focusing on two inexcusable ways the city failed our firefighters on 9/11. First, after the first attack on the WTC in 1993, one clear report was given that they firefighters had radio equipment that didn't work and needed proper radio equipment. Rudy Giuliani, who received the report, never acted on it. That meant the firefighters who went in to the WTC in 2001 did not have radios that would work in the building...so they NEVER were told that they had to get out. That is the main reason so many firefighters died on 9/11. Norman Siegel wants our city to do better. Finally he mentioned how so many rescue workers who came to NYC to help in the weeks after 9/11 from ALL over the nation were exposed to toxic smoke. Some 9000 workers from every state were exposed to smoke the EPA knew was toxic. Rudy Giuliani and George Bush ordered a coverup of that information and told workers they could work without respirators. At the Pentagon, no one was allowed at the site of the attack without respirators as of Sept. 12th 2001, the day after the attack. But in NYC no respirators were issued until NOVEMBER 14th or so...two months of toxic exposure. Respiratory illnesses are hitting these 9000 men and women from all over the country very hard. Many will die young because the city failed to give them the proper equipment. Norman Siegel already represents many 9/11 families in their efforts to get what they deserve from the city, state and country. As Public Advocate he will do more.
One reason he focused tonight so much on 9/11 is he and many firefighters and 9/11 families are trailing Rudy Giuliani from state to state to inform them about the lies Rudy tells about 9/11 and reveling the truth about Rudy (for more info on the truth, go here here, and here).
I missed much of his speech tonight because I was watching my 3 year old son. But I have heard him several times before and he is the ideal civil libertarian progressive to represent the people of NYC.
Tonight's event drew more people than I expected given that none of us holding the event are great at fundraising. We are just dedicated activists doing our best. I don't have the final numbers because we had to leave before the event was over, and people were STILL arriving. But there were upwards of 30 people there and I saw many writing checks. It wasn't a blockbuster event, but for a small, grassroots, unprofessional fundraiser, I was pretty proud. If you want to help, pleasr call Theresa at 212-448-6271 or email at NYCNormanSiegel@aol.com
This Wed. and Thurs I am helping with two more fundraisers. In fact, just got off the phone with Jimmy Dahroug, who I am helping out on Wednesday.
New York State now has a Democratic Governor and Assembly. But we still have a small Repub majority in the State Senate. We only need to win two seats to retake the State Senate. In 2006, we came VERY close to taking one of those two seats: SD-3 State Senate seat. And the man who so very nearly won that seat with a shoe string, grassroots campaign was Jimmy Dahroug. He is running again and this time he has the backing and the money to take the seat.
On Wednesday, January 9, 2008, 6 pm we are having another fundraiser for Jimmay at 1050 Park Avenue, NYC (at East 87th Street), Full invitation below.
I first met Jimmy at a fundraiser in November where he was introduced by none other than Jim Dean, Howard Dean's brother and head of Democracy for America. At that event, Jimmy Dahroug emphasized the need to clean up Albany and the fact that his race is one of the two most likely pick up chances for New York Democrats. And he emphasized the obvious conclusion from this: his race is one of the ones we MOST have to focus on. If you want a Democratic majority in the State Senate, you pretty much HAVE to help out Jimmy. There ain't no two ways about it. If Jimmy doesn't win in 2008 it is very unlikely we can win the State Senate, and Joe Bruno can keep on blocking real reform.
Building on the theme of cleaning up the garbage in Albany, Jimmy Dahroug emphasized a point we all want to hear when it comes to Albany dysfunction: Three men in a room should NOT be allowed to decide. And here is where Jimmy strikes a more reform note even than some mainstream Democrats like Shelly Silver and Vito Lopez. Jimmy thinks three men in a room should not decide the fate of NY State NO MATTER WHO THOSE THREE MEN ARE. Even if all three were Democrats, though we would see some real improvement in Albany, it would STILL be a dysfunctional system. Real reform means getting rid of three men in a room, a system unique to New York as far as I am aware and one of the main obstacles to real governing.
Jimmy told a story of one point when he was making fundraising phone calls that he talked to a Democracy for NYC member who expressed disappointment in Democrats and was very negative to Dahroug's request for support. That DFNYC member had expected more of the Democrats when they took control of Congress in 2006 and Jimmy got an earful of the guy's disappointment. This struck a chord with Jimmy who realized that the one thing he did not want to hear after we take the State Senate is a wave of disappointment from Democratic voters that they expected more. He wants to not only take the State Senate, but to deliver the goods to the voters. And, by some strange coincidence that many political hacks in both parties don't quite get, that is precisely what the voters of both parties want from their electeds: delivery of the goods.
Here is the invitation for Wednesday's event:
You are Cordially Invited to Attend A Cocktail Reception Hosted by Drs. Bonnie Maslin & Yehuda Nir
In Honor of
JIMMY DAHROUG
CANDIDATE FOR THE NEW YORK STATE SENATE
Wednesday, January 9, 2008, 6 pm
1050 Park Avenue, NYC
(at East 87th Street)
SUGGESTED DONATION:
$2,500 (Benefactor) $1,000 (Patron)
$500 (Sponsor) $250 (Supporter) $100 (Friend)
Please RSVP by phone: 631-434-5623 oremail: Jimmy for Senate_at_gmail.com
Checks payable to: People for Jimmy Dahroug
24 Nostrand Avenue, Brentwood, NY 11717
HOST COMMITTEE:
Phillip Anderson, Steve Behar, Wayne Brooks, Costa Constantinides, Jim Dean, Tracey Denton, Robert Donovan, Bernadette Evangelist, Ed Hartzog, Dan Jacoby, David Kogelman, Bruce Kraus, Betsy Malcolm, Hon. Trudy L. Mason, David Michaelson (mole333), Barbara Pearl, Morris Pearl, Pam Roderick, Carolyn Schultz, Joshu Skaller, Elizabeth Starkey, Richard Starkey, Jeffrey Trachtman, Heather Woodfield
Which then brings me to the fundraiser I am hosting for my good friend, Josh Skaller on Thursday right in my own Park Slope, basement apartment. (You might notice that Josh is ALSO on the host committee for the Jimmy Dahroug fundraiser).
Josh is running for New York City Council (39th district in Brooklyn, replacing Bill deBlasio). Josh is a really good friend and is one of the most honest, upstanding people I have ever met...certainly well above the average for Brooklyn politics. A real progressive and a reform minded Democrat.
Josh Skaller is President of Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats (CBID), a club Joy is on the board of. He also serves as a board member and Field Director of Democracy for New York City (DFNYC). It was through these two organizations that we first got to know Josh, though we have since become buddies apart from politics.
Unlike most City Council candidates, Josh stands outside a political system that rewards predatory developers who buy their way into the hearts of our elected officials. Josh believes that unchecked development threatens the beauty and integrity of our neighborhoods, overtaxes public services from transportation to schools and health care, and places an incalculable burden on our fragile ecology. Josh believes that we must never again be caught off-guard by developers who work in secret to draft grandiose projects that are dropped without warning on an unprepared public. Working with other progressive legislators, he is drafting a comprehensive plan with strict guidelines for developers. The guidelines will explicitly ban such covert tricks as eminent domain abuse and "blight analysis," and the use of tax-exempt bonds to benefit for-profit companies.
Joy and I will be hosting a fundraiser for Josh Skaller on Thursday, January 10th, 6-9 PM. This will be a chance to meet and talk with Josh in a small group. We would appreciate a $25 contribution (OR MORE!) to Josh's campaign, but the main thing is to give you a chance to meet Josh. The event will be at our apartment, 195 Garfield Place, bell #11, Park Slope, Brooklyn. You can email me at mole333_at_gmail_dot_com for more
info and to RSVP.