Primary Postcard: Poll Coordinators Says Candidates Didn't Campaign Enough

A lack of candidate advertising - at least until the very last minute - may be one reason why the expected voter turnout is low, poll workers say.

Early this afternoon I visited several polling sites in the 14th District. Fernando Cabrera appeared to be making the most effort. His truck was spotted driving along Jerome and University avenues, blasting out loud Spanish music and a recorded audio clip of Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. vouching for the candidate. The clip was repeated over and over.

While Cabrera appeared the most visual candidate, Maria Baez’s camp seemed more vocal. Close to each polling station, she had volunteers handing out flyers and asking passersby to vote for her. The flyers included this quote by Fernando Ferrer, the former Bronx borough president: "Nobody will take care of her neighborhoods as well as Maria Baez." Her blue and red posters blanketed Burnside Avenue. There was the odd Cabrera one too. In fact, Cabrera's face has taken over a bus shelter on Burnside at Jerome Avenue.

Yudelka Tapia’s posters were plastered on gates, street lamps and buildings near Webster Avenue on 180th Street, but aside from that seemed in short supply, at least where I went.

Despite these last ditch efforts, turnout has been low, poll coordinators said. At PS 163 on East 180th Street off Webster Avenue only 78 voters had cast their vote, as of 2 p.m. Perhaps the low numbers can be party explained by the fact that station is dimly and well hidden. Or, as the poll coordinator there said, because the candidates haven't done a good job of getting their names out there (until today, that is). “Some voters [will] come after 5pm, when they get out of work,” said the coordinator, Luis Rivera. “The candidates didn’t work hard enough, though. We expected more people.”

My next stop was PS 79, which was just as dead. The midday vote count was only 132. A block away, Baez volunteers said they noticed poll workers lounging around outside since there was little to do in the station.

Added Ella Stewart, a poll coordinator at PS 26 on Andrews Avenue.“It really wasn’t advertised enough, we haven’t heard anything."

The voters - the few that turned out this afternoon - seemed non-plussed by their 14th District conditions. “It’s very necessary to vote, but I didn’t vote for anyone new in particular since I didn’t hear much about the candidates," said Laurez Morales, 39, at PS 26. She said she voted for Baez because the name was familiar.

She added, “I’m really confused about the candidates.”

By LINSEY ISAACS

Primary Postcard: Is Foster Being Complacent?

This e-mail came from Michal Bergdale, a 16th District resident who lives on the Grand Concourse.

I wish there was more news about our local council race. I really think we could see an upset from Carlos Sierra. I have not received a thing from Helen Foster, and she is not held in high regard in the neighborhood. Carlos Sierra has plastered the voting areas with signs and flyers. He also sent out mailers to all the voters just this past week. He is also the only one of the two to setup an election website. I have seen a ton about Carlos and have not seen hardly anything about Foster. With light turnout, the most motivated people to vote are going to be those who want to throw out the incumbent. We will see, but I think our council race could be close.

Regarding the flyers and signs, we've noticed the same thing. On Jerome and East Tremont avenues, Sierra's face is everywhere, Foster's nowhere. I wonder, is she being complacent? Or does she know something we don't.

See here and here for short profiles of the two candidates. In a nutshell, Foster says her willingness to criticize the powers that be (the Yankees, the NYPD, the mayor, etc.) is one of her strongest attributes. Sierra says he's eager and hungry, and would be a "full-time councilmember." He questions Foster's work ethic and says she's rarely seen in the community.

A couple of additional points:

Last year, Foster told the Highbridge Horizon that she would consider taking a position with the Obama administration if he was elected and if a job was offered. A couple of weeks ago, in her district office, I asked her what became of this. She said:

Half of his cabinet is not filled. If we look at the Clinton/Gore White House it took almost two years before the bulk of the positions were filled. I was smart enough to know that it wasn’t going to be something, you know, [when] he gets sworn in on the 20th [January] and I get a call on the 21st.

So is she still interested?

It would require discussion with my husband, step-daughter, my family. It would have to be the right move.

I guess that's what you call keeping your options open.

Fundraising-wise, Foster is streets ahead of Sierra. And she's been endorsed by most of the key unions and the Bronx Democratic Party (she says Party Chairman Carl Heastie asked her not to run against again Ruben Diaz, Jr. in last spring's borough president race, and instead run for reelection.)

But Sierra's picked up one endorsement that's raising a few eyebrows (or mine at least). In an editorial, The Amsterdam News, the long-standing weekly geared towards the African-American community, wrote:

Carlos Sierra will serve the community well. He is committed to becoming a City Council member devoted to effectively representing his constituents. His experience as the chairman of the Bronx Department of Youth and Community Development for Neighborhood Youth Advisory Board No. 4 and board member of Bronx Community Board #4 will provide him with a sound foundation as a Council member. He is aware of his community’s needs and will fight to bring resources and services to his district. That is why we endorse Carlos Sierra in the Democratic primary for City Council in the 16th District.

It'll be fascinating to see how close things get.

Protesting the Yankees: 'It's About Respect,' Activists Say

-PHOTO SLIDESHOW BY ADI TALWAR

Yesterday, a group of South Bronx activists braved the oppressive afternoon heat to re-energize a campaign to hold the Yankees baseball club accountable for promises they made to community for the right to build a new $1.5 billion stadium on public parkland.

In exchange for taking its parkland, soaking up taxpayer dollars (in the form of subsidies and tax breaks) and bringing more traffic congestion and parking woes to the area, the Yankees (and the city which backed the project) promised to provide local jobs, quickly restore parkland and give back money to community groups and programs on annual basis.

But the local jobs didn't materialize. Replacement parks haven't been built, mostly because the old stadium (where the new parks are to be built) is still standing and collecting moss. And the money, which is being dispersed through a specifically-created nonprofit fund, has been slow in getting back into the community, not to mention racked by controversey and possible corruption.

"All we're asking is that they be good neighbors," said Ramon Jimenez, one of the organizers of the protest who has helped create a short-hand friendly group called 4DSBxCoalition (For the South Bronx Coalition). "They promised everything. They have given us nothing."

Jimenez is a Harvard-educated lawyer with offices in South Bronx. Last year, Times reporter David Gonzalez wrote about how Jimenez, a longtime Bronx activist, was critical of Assemblyman and then-Democratic County Chair Jose Rivera who was facing challenges to his leadership of the party. Rivera's since been ousted as party chair and Jimenez is now back taking on the powers that be.

"We want to revitalize this whole [Yankee Stadium and the lack of community benefits] issue," Jimenez said, sweating in his suit underneath the 4-Train line on 161st Street and River Avenue, along with about 30 equally sweat-soaked supporters.

Specifically, the Jimenez and the Coalition, which held a similar protest at the new stadium in early June, want: the old stadium torn down by the end of the year; one represtentative of their organization on the advisory board that distributes the $800,000 in community funds; the replacement parks to be built safe and green (no artifical turf, they say); and for the community to share in the profits of memorabilia sold from the old stadium.

(The city sold the Yankees the rights to all the memorabilia for $11 million earlier this year. Some say this was a good deal for the city, but it's unclear if that money will go back into the community in any way. )

Hector Soto, another lawyer who helped organize the protest, said, "We're trying to re-energize a campaign that was started by the community before the stadium was even built. The issues were never addressed . . . the community has not been compensated at all."

"It's about respect," Soto said later.

The Coalition created a Web site to highlight all the Yankees' broken promises.

Others in attendance included a host of other recognizable faces, including Rafael Alequin-Martez, a blogger/activist/journalist who got into a dust up with Pedro Espada's son during the state senator's campaign last year. (Alequin-Martez refused a judge's plea offer of restitution for his busted camera and is holding out for harassment and assault charges, he says.)

Also marching with the Coalition was the dapper young City Council candidate, Carlos Sierra, who is challenging Helen Foster in the 16th District, which includes both stadiums, and Public Advocate candidate Norman Siegel. Joyce Hogi, a longtime critic of the new stadium and its gobbling of parkland, was also there. A Green Party member, Tom Syracuse, railed against the new Yankee Stadium, not to mention all the mainstream politicians who allowed it to be built.

Meanwhile, dozens of tourists, looking for a glimpse inside one of the world's most expensive sports complexes, continued to side-step the protest and enter the stadium.

In 16th District City Council Race, Four Candidates Become Three

After a tumultuous encounter with the Board of Elections, only three candidates running for the 16th District City Council, covering parts of the West and South Bronx, succeeded in garnering a spot on the primary ballot. Incumbent Helen Foster, Carlos Sierra and Mark Escoffery-Bey made the cut while longtime contender, Daryl Johnson, fell out of the race due to a challenge to his petition signatures (see more about the process here).

Johnson was not the only candidate forced to maneuver through the complexities of the petitioning process. Both Sierra and Escoffery-Bey went to court last week to argue the validity of their petition signatures. By the end of the week, Sierra and Escoffery-Bey complied over 900 legitimate petitions and made it on the ballot while Johnson came up short in the numbers and was booted off of the ballot.

Now that the ballot is secure, candidates are honing in on their campaigns and making one final push to win over voters.

Helen Foster has yet to respond to phone calls, but she is backed by the Bronx Democratic Party and appears to focusing her campaign on her level of experience in City Council, according to her website. Foster has served two-terms as a City Council representative for District 16. Over Foster’s years on City Council, she has made headlines for, among other things, voting against the new Yankee Stadium and missing the vote on congestion pricing.

The neighborhood surrounding Yankee Stadium is also an issue for one of Foster’s opponents, Carlos Sierra. Sierra’s campaign manager, Andrew Lisko, said Sierra hopes to “put pressure on the Yankee organization to ensure the expansion of green space” such as parks and not the “turf fields” the developers put up instead of natural areas.

Another major issue for Sierra is education. As a member of the CUNY Board of Trustees, Sierra secured millions of dollars to improve education and has experience in dealing with politicians in the education field. Lisko said Sierra “wants more parental influence at the Board of Education and he wants to improve the mayor’s test standards.”

Lisko said that Sierra will be an effective councilman because “he is in touch with the people. Helen Foster saw term limits were coming her way and she slowed down in the last few years. Foster has a 68% attendance rate [at council meetings and hearings]. Sierra will really be involved and known around the neighborhood as a full time city council member.”

Another candidate on the ballot is political newcomer, Mark Escoffery-Bey. Escoffery-Bey has been involved with the community as the vice president of the parent association of PS109 in Morris Heights, but he has yet to hold a political office.

At his petition hearing last week, he expressed his confidence in his ability to win the primary election. He explained that his campaign speed is increasing on an almost vertical path while Foster’s campaign speed is only at a slight incline. As for how he will improve the community, Escoffery-Bey says that he will “time travel.” In essence, this means that he pictures the solution to the community’s problem and works backwards from this image to achieve it.

As for campaign finances, Helen Foster has a comfortable lead in the monetary department with $55, 300 and is tailed by Carlos Sierra with $14, 535 and Mark Escoffery-Bey with $9, 072.