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WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2014. By John F. Bailey. June 17, 2014:  

 

Terence Guerriere, of Gedney Farms has been offered the opportunity to contend for the final year of former Councilman Benjamin Boykin’s council  term by the Republican Party leadership, beginning in January 2015..

This morning, speaking to WPCNR by phone, Mr. Guerriere confirmed he was offered the candidacy and has accepted it. He said the party had approached him at the end of last year after Mr. Boykin won election to the Westchester County Board of Legislators.

Guerriere, one of the leaders of the Gedney Association effort to convince the city not to approve the French American School of New York plan to build a 7-building school campus on the defunct Ridgeway Country Club, told WPCNR he has decided to run.

He said behind his decision to run again was the current political condition where the city government is not listening to the neighborhoods. He told WPCNR his campaign would forcus on repairing labor relations between the city and its unions; concentrate on filling up the empty storefronts along Mamaroneck Avenue and the downtown which he said has the most vacancies of rental space since before the recession began in 2008.

He has not picked his campaign manager yet but expects to receive input from former Councilman Larry Delgado and Terry Conroy.

The Guerriere candidacy may be contested by another former Republican Council candidate,Richard Cerulli, who may chose to run on the Independence Party line in November.

Meanwhile over on the other side of town, as I reported on WVOX Radio during the new John Marino Good Morning Westchester program,

At the JUNETEENTH PARADE Saturday,  CHARLES MORGAN was observed campaigning on the sidewalks as the parade marched down Mamaroneck collecting signatures in an effort to launch a primary bid to win the right to be the Democratic candidate in the Special Election, replacing Nadine Hunt-Robinson, presently filling the seat on an interim basis, the last four months, having been appointed to fill the seat until a special election can be held in the fall

Morgan told an organizer of the Juneteenth parade he is definitely shooting to primary Hunt-Robinson in September.

To recall the scenario resulting in Morgan’s primary effort, Democrat district leaders were upset when Hunt-Robinson was unexpectedly named to the Common Council Boykin vacancy because Hunt-Robinson had never been a district leader, and worse was not a registered Democrat, being a member of the Independence Party.

Leaders were also annoyed  that she was suggested to the Mayor and Common Council b the Ministerial Fellowship of White Plains which persuaded the Mayor that Mr. Boykin, former holder of the seat was an African-American and the black community needed to continue to have representation on the Common Council.

Previously, Nick Wolf, who is white, and a well-known district leader in the Democratic Party highly active in black community issues,  had been attending a number of council meetings over the summer and fall, in anticipation of being named to the seat to replace Mr. Boykin.

Ms. Hunt-robinson a wife of one of the ministers in the Ministerial Fellowship was suggested to the Mayor as an African-American to fill the “black seat” quote-unquote.

Thomas Caruso who is on the Democratic City Committee Nominating Committee challenged the Robinson nomination and lost by 1 District vote, but decided he would not primary Ms. Hunt-Robinson.

Mr. Morgan, though, also an African-American was not deterred. He was bothered by the notion that there was any seat that would be determined by the color of a person’s skin and would belong to any race, and has apparently decided to make a run in a primary to make a point.