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Vote Like it Matters. Hawkins for Governor, Meadows for Assembly

I have been your District Leader or State Democratic Committee Member since 1995. Every year I give my neighbors advice about how and why to vote. Never have I counseled against voting for a Democrat. Usually I say vote for the Democrat on the Working Families Party line. Change has come! This year I say Vote Green. Vote Progressive. I will be voting for Howie Hawkins for Governor and Alexander Meadows for Assembly.

Our neighborhood has a special voice in this state. Even as the demographics have shifted and the community has become more affluent and less a community of artists, we have retained our voice as the progressive capital of New York City and New York State.

The most recent example was the September Democratic Primary. In our Assembly District—the 66th—here were the numbers:

Governor

Zephyr Teachout……………………. 4156

Andrew Cuomo………………………1885

Lieutenant Governor

Tim Wu……………………………4236

Kathy Hochu …………………..1610

Our district was the only white-majority district to vote for Barack Obama in the April 2008 Presidential Primary (against Hillary Clinton), and Bill de Blasio beat Christine Quinn here by 55% to 35%, even though Quinn was our City Councilmember.

This year Andrew Cuomo will again win. No doubt about it. And he will launch his male-led Women’s Equality Party and get a new line on the ballot so as to knock the Working Families Party off. That will be a loss. But we have a chance to install the Green Party on Line C in every election in NY State for the next four years. The Green Party is a young party which has had to develop a platform beyond environmentalism. They are right on all the social issues: for affordable housing, for strict gun control, for full gay and lesbian civil rights, for the right to choose, for an increase in school funding. If Governor Cuomo succeeds in decimating the WFP, the Green Party will be the voice of progressive politics on our ballots. Their candidate for Governor, Howie Hawkins, is a wonderful guy. He’s from San Francisco, but moved to Syracuse in 1991 to run a federation of farm cooperatives called Common Works.

He also worked at UPS and was an active leader in efforts to democratize the Teamsters. He has worked for years now with Carpenter Cooperatives, installing solar systems around the state. He is open, friendly and lacks the arrogance of so many others in politics.

Andrew Cuomo has failed to inspire me to vote for him, even on a third-party pro- test line. He is smug, all-powerful, overly image-conscious, and willing to stab even his friends in the back. He has ignored the overwhelming calls to have campaign finance reform in New York. He has failed to fully fund public education and then boasts of a balanced budget. He undercut and terminated the Moreland Commission investigating corruption. He has failed to pass the women’s equality laws he says he favors for four years. He cares little about State Parks or the environment. Allowing fracking is clearly wrong, but he has been “studying” the issue for 3 years. He has cut taxes on corporations and promoted gambling casinos as the answer to the state’s fiscal future.

Similarly, our Assemblywoman, Deborah Glick, has become a tired shell of the activist she tells us she once was. She is a party-line Assembly Democrat who gets a zero when it comes to creative solutions or leadership in our community. Last year she sponsored a secret bill which allowed Hudson River Park to sell air rights without proper community input. She did little to stop St. Vincent’s from closing, and supported covering up the permit to build luxury towers with a City Council vote to fund a new school at 75 Morton Street. Her only answer to NYU’s massive expansion was a lawsuit, which has gotten nowhere. Twenty-four years is enough! We need new blood and new energy, and for a first step in bringing about Deborah Glick’s retirement, I am calling on my neighbors to go all the way to the right on the ballot and, under Progressive Party, fill in the circle for Alexander Meadows.

Village voters can have an impact next week—if you vote, and if you vote for Hawkins and for Meadows.

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