Campaign Intensity Medically Forces Schwartz to Support Activist Jim Fouratt
When Arthur Z. Schwartz had to withdraw from the New York District 66 State Assembly election for health reasons, I agreed to step up and continue his campaign. For the last three years, Arthur, with my support, has campaigned to unseat 25-year incumbent Deborah Glick.
I was inspired by Bernie Sanders’ willingness to play real-time, issue-based politics when I made this choice to run. Sanders has repeatedly called for citizens to step up and run for office. I think of Zephyr Teachout, who I supported in her race for Governor (Glick supported Cuomo) and in her campaign to the U.S. House of Representatives from Hudson Valley. Finding no one able to immediately step up in District 66, I said “Yes” to Arthur Schwartz—I will challenge Deborah Glick.
I agree with Arthur that her actual record would shock most voters in District 66 if they knew it. Talk is easy. Actions are what matter. Last election, a Vice President of the Village Independent Democrats challenged her and she refused to debate him. I am going to run on exposing her actual record. I will not attack her personally, as Bernie Sanders role-modeled in his race with Hillary. I hope Deborah Glick will agree to three debates between now and September 13th so you, the public, will understand why this life-long Democrat voter and 50-plus-year Village resident is saying, “We need real reform in Albany.” We need an end to the three-man rule. We need an Assembly representative that feels an obligation to include a discussion with the voters of District 66 on the role of their elected representatives in Albany.
Issues matter. Constituent input is essential. Deborah Glick was the Chief Lieutenant to now jailed Speaker of the Assembly Sheldon Silver. Her loyalty to him overruled her loyalty to her constituents in District 66. Glick was silent on Silver’s record of handling sexual harassment charges made by women in the employ of elected officials who reported to Silver. For the most part, she has been silent on the serious issues that have confronted members of her district over her last three terms.
We know of her public inaction at the closing of St Vincent’s because we were there. We know of her public silence and backroom machinations to NOT reform Albany and its three-men-in-a-room rule (the Governor, the now jailed Speaker, and the now jailed Senate President). We know of her silence over the building of a fracked gas pipeline from New Jersey to the West Village that put her apartment, and all far West Village housing and businesses, directly in a frack gas pipeline blast zone because we demonstrated against it.
We know of her public silence on why she drafted and introduced—in the middle of the night on the last day of the legislative session with Silver’s support—a very flawed Hudson River Park Trust air rights proposal that will forever change the landscape of the West Side and add infrastructure demands that she failed to acknowledge. Rather than educating her constituents about the failure of both the City administration and the Governor to fund the operating cost of the taxpayer-bought Hudson River Trust, she passed this bill and refused to talk with her constituents about the ramifications—either before or after passage. Glick’s team and the Democratic Party machine backing her are complicit in her silence. Both will deny and put a smokescreen around her actual public record. But her record is public fact—not spin.
I am committed to informing and educating the voters and businesses of District 66 as to the issues that affect this community from the tip of Tribeca, up the west side through Soho, and the Village, both East and West. The only boss I will report to is you, the voters, not some backroom powerbroker. I am committed to working with other like-minded legislators to reform Albany. I am committed to fighting for home rule so New Yorkers can decide on issues that principally and directly affect New York City, and not the entire State. I am not afraid to speak up…or listen.
Please donate. Please volunteer. Find out the truth about Deborah Glick’s record.
VOTE FOURATT at the September 13th Democratic Primary.
Jim Fouratt, Democratic candidate
NY State Assembly District 66
fourattnystateassembly@gmail.com
