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WPCNR News Commentary. By John F. Bailey. September 12, 2005: Will the Democratic Candidate for Mayor of White Plains ever start to campaign?
Is the Democratic Party of White Plains taking the campaign off?
Are two of the Republican Candidates for Common Council cooperating by laying low to allow the usual suspect Democrats to ease back into their do-nothing-but-say-yes slots?
Is Mayor Delfino so happy with his current Democratic Council (with the exception of Larry Delgado), that he is not campaigning for his Republican running mates? Of course, the Mayor has no coattails, he proved that in 2001.
Dennis Power has sent out five press releases in three months, allowing the Mayor the first reaction before he sent out three of them. He has called no news conferences. He has only spoken out at two Council meetings. He is nowhere. Sending out faxed news releases is not campaigning.
However, a strong campaign against Delfino could win.
Consider the possibility of anti-Republican feeling due to the pragmatic, heartless response to Hurricane Katrina by the “Bush Crime Family” (Mike Mulloy’s line, not mine). Thanks to Mr. Bush’s demonstrated lack of humanity and compassion, Mr. Power, the Democratic candidate for Mayor — the Ticket Position no big name Dem wanted – could actually steal the election.
But, hey, he has to want to.
But, hey, he has to campaign.
He has to fight for truth, justice and the American way. Nobody seems to want to do that in either party at any level of government these days.
The lack of a campaign, the lack of money tendered Mr. Power in two fundraisers, with a third coming up tells this suspicious observer that Mr. Power is not supposed to win against Mayor Joseph Delfino and nobody wants him to win either.
It’s not the script.
It’s going too well for the developers, the state hierarchy, the medical establishment with Mayor Delfino greasing the skids for developers, finetuning the city zoning code in 2002, and customizing it to whatever developers, medical facilities, and community connected want.
But this column is not about Mr. Delfino, he is just doing what he is told. He is very good at doing that.
This is about one-party government.
Government of the well-connected. King and Prince-making. And the pecking order.
Last spring Bill Ryan conducted a poll to assay his chances of defeating Joseph Delfino.
Mr. Ryan told me himself that he wound up in a dead-heat with Mayor Delfino, 42% to 42%. Given the twenty or so issues a smart, informed, relentless candidate could raise against Delfino, (clearly articulated in this column last spring), it was reasonable to expect that Mr. Ryan could have put up an excellent battle against the Mayor.
However, did Ryan have too much to lose? Did he see a clear, noncompetitive path to becoming County Executive in four years after Andy Spano disposed of the Republican candidate, Rob Astorino, running against him? The White Plains Mayoral Race would be a hard fought campaign and cost a lot of money, and who knows what dirt the Delfino Boys would dig up?
Was Ryan promised the County Executive plum in turn for not running? Of course not, this is not Tammany Hall.
So Ryan opted not to run, too much unfinished business at the county level, Ryan told me.
Now, that left Adam Bradley, the charismatic champion of election law sanctity, Glen Hockley’s Darrow, whose rapier-like campaign slash and burn tactics ousted Naomi Matusow with six relentless months of campaigning that Matusow was totally unprepared for. Bradley: Energetic. A native son, an almost spotless record of being right on the issues people care about, and a man who actually knows how to campaign. He would have beaten Delfino in a walk.
He perhaps had a better shot than Bill Ryan at beating Delfino because he had a popular White Plains following, a solid track record in Albany for one term. Bradley told me he was not interested in becoming Mayor because he felt he could do more at the state level. Sound familiar?
Are we beginning to see a pattern here?
So with the two Democratic Dobermans leaving the White Plains porch, that left a lineup of the usual suspects: Rita Malmud, Benjamin Boykin, Jr., Glen Hockley and Thomas Roach as possible Mayoral candidates.
In interviews with the Democratic City Committee Nominating Committee they all said they were not interested in running. Roach, the strongest candidate of the four, declined, too. Roach, the token opposition to the Mayor on several issues, notably the condominium affordable housing buy-out issue, could have mounted a campaign if he had wished. He could not be criticized for being one of “The Six Blind Mice,” as former Mayor Alfred Del Vecchio refers to the Common Council.
But Roach decided not to express an interest in running for Mayor.
So the Democratic Nominating Committee reported that they did not recommend any candidate for Mayor last May.
Mayor Delfino was scheduled to run unopposed. Then Ron Jackson, an African-American, a community activist said he would run for Mayor. He volunteered.
Well! The City Democrats could not have that.
A rambunctious, hard-hitting, wheel-chair bound handicapped person running for Mayor, talking street talk who actually spoke out on issues when he saw them and particularly a Black person at that. Good God, no! How embarrassing to the Democratic Party?
So they said they would interview Mr. Jackson, and Dennis Power was talked into running. Power even resigned his job with the Hudson River Museum so he would have time, as he put it to run a campaign. (Considering the campaign he’s running, he could have kept his job.)
The Nominating Committee interviewed Mr. Jackson and Mr. Power on a Sunday, June 5 but Mr. Power in a bungle sent out a letter to district leaders asking for their support for Mayor June 3 before he was chosen, received by leaders before Mr. Power was officially announced. That means that Mr. Jackson was being patronized.
Then Mr. Power announced his campaign twice in early June and in late June, but has not hit the Mayor hard on any issues of substance in three months. Finances? Not a word. Affordable Housing, an absence of proposals, and a mere call for a task force to be formed. Taxes? not a word. Future Planning of the City? Not an explicit word except for statements at community meetings that all the community needs to be involved . Certioraris? Not a word.
We do not know what Mr. Power stands for or what he would do on the twenty issues facing the city the CitizeNetReporter outlined in the spring.
His latest news release criticized the Mayor on the renewal of the New York Presbyterian Hospital Site Plan, accusing the Mayor of hiding the hospital’s intention to renew their proton accelerator site plan that expired August 5, and indicating that the site plan permit should not be renewed because they had not applied for it. It also promoted Rita Malmud as exposing the lateness of the intent to renew letter.
Why is Mr. Power promoting Rita Malmud? He should stake out a position on the issue! What are the Democratic Council Candidates doing for Dennis?
He did make the point that the proton accelerator site plan renewal issue has been swept under the rug. But his running mates: Malmud, Roach and Hockley have not raised the hospital site plan renewal issue either. It is a head-banger issue that could gather votes.
But, what is Mr. Power’s position on the New York Presbyterian Hospital?
Is he in favor of the St. Agnes development by North Street Community, the $250 Million to $300 Million minimum money maker aimed at that property that threatens to develop the entire 100 acres with custom zoning. Marc Pollitzer’s comment on the dangers of custom zoning that property on request at the Common Council meeting September 5 was thoughtful.
Mr. Power should be hammering that. How about no rezoning of the property until the proton accelerator issue and medical commercial rezoning is resolved would be an interesting position, don’t you think?
Well, the intent to renew was not late and had not expired in any way. It is a quibble not a shot across the bow.
In another press release, Mr. Power did not do his homework. He admitted to WPCNR September 6 that the organization attempting to get Mayor Delfino to sign an agreement seeking to limit greenhouse warming, had not sent the letter to Mayor Delfino asking him to sign it.
Power had sent out a release taking Mayor Delfino to task for not signing a letter the Mayor was never sent. This is a gaffe. Mr. Power is getting very bad advice that is sabotaging him rather than helping him.
Mr. Power alleged in his release that the letter was not date-stamped, raising the question that it was delivered September 6, and backdated to August 1. (Why not tie this to the suppression of the Bud Nicoletti sewer overrun memo that was suppressed from the Common Council in September 2001? That’s how you campaign – build a history of behind-the-back dealings. He did mention the suppression of the bond rating information in the Spring of 2004 – but the charge is “government in secret”.)
A knowledgeable source close to city policy makers told WPCNR Friday that if a developer writes signifying they wish to renew a site plan at the time of renewal that that is evidence they wish to renew, even though the site plan paperwork is not in yet.
Could some of Mr. Power’s council running mates have told him that? Despite Rita Malmud’s support of the Intent to Renew Letter release, he was misinformed and misses the real issue: The Mayor considers the Common Council a lot like the College of Cardinals: to be seen and not heard, great for blessings, but policy — forget about it.
Power, instead of campaigning for himself is actually promoting Rita Malmud as the feisty little watchdog of the Common Council, instead of himself. This is the same Rita Malmud who approved the City Center Development, and somehow failed to read Mr. Nicoletti’s statement warning about “catastrophic backups” if the Main Street Sewer problem was not addressed. Nicoletti’s comment was in the City Center approving legislation. The council did one bad job on that whole sewer issue by not publicly censuring the Mayor and the individual who suppressed the Nicoletti memo for negligence.
How about the unexplainable absence of Mr. Power last week on the New Orleans issue?
Dennis Power is identified with housing for the homeless. Homelessness, serving the handicapped is his background. He had two weeks after the New Orleans disaster to stake out his humanitarian credentials before the Mayor did with the Mayor’s rent-free apartments for New Orleans victims news conference last week.
Mr. Power appears to have deliberately held back an excellent headline maker and identifier (calling on developers and empty apartments to be opened to New Orleans victims) which might have jumpstarted his non-campaign. Instead, by his inaction, he gives it the Mayor. Nice handoff, Dennis. He did this on the Galleria killing, too, allowing the Mayor to have the first shot.
It is this reporter’s opinion that the Democrats’ job is to make sure Mr. Power loses, while giving the impression the Democrats were trying to unseat Mr. Delfino. Power’s reward for this Quixote Quest (so far) – well who knows? Is it a county job, in addition to being appointed to poor Robert Greer’s Council seat when the time comes?
Why would you quit your job to run a campaign and then not run to win?
Mr. Power can walk the city in the Glen Hockley School of Grassroots Campaigning to drum up votes. He has to do that.
He has squandered three months of conciousness-raising time. As of today he has 60 days before the election. A lot of catchup ball to play.
What this says to me is that we have one-party government in White Plains.
However, the running of Power and the overrunning of Lake Pontchartrain one week ago today have scared the Mayor into running a poll, measuring his popularity against Mr. Power.
Mr. Delfino, though, is bereft of any kind of political organization. I mean how many Republicans in White Plains are there who believe enough in the party to make phone calls to get out the vote?
The thrust of the questions of the telephone poll conducted among Democratic voters by Mr. Delfino is to ascertain how Democrats feel about him, to assure himself he will get that old Democrat crossover. The pollster contacting one Democratic voter, Candyce Corcoran, actually told Ms. Corcoran, “this guy Delfino is doing well.”
However, Delfino need not worry. The Democrats have to get out a vote for Mr. Power and have to get started campaigning. The footdragging and fumbling of the issues is incredible.
There is no money for Mr. Power. I see no signs. No bumper stickers. No radio appearances. No interest in the Journal News in his candidacy. (I mean Power may as well be running on the Republican ticket for all the ink The Journal News is giving him.)
The most campaigning against Delfino has been done by John Carlson, a Republican Candidate for Common Council who has taken the Mayor to task for financial management. Larry Delgado, the other Republican Councilman is not campaigning to speak of. I have not heard from the third Republican Council Candidate.
The converse appears to be true. Other than Carlson, the other two Republican Candidates appear to be doing little to unseat the other “Five Blind Mice.”
Meanwhile no Democrat Councilperson has said a word or campaigned for Dennis Power. That should be interesting at the genteel League of Women Voters debates to watch that interplay.
Bottom line folks, this smells like a contrived election scenario, well worth investigation by Tony Castro, or Janet DiFiori, whoever wins the County D.A. post, or Eliot Spitzer, or the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Weak candidates put up against strong incumbents has happened too often. That it is happening in White Plains is a disgrace.
Predictions: Adam Bradley is looking to run for Representive Nita Lowey’s seat in 2006 if she retires or for Suzi Oppenheimer’s State Senate seat.
However, you never know what is going to happen.
If Winbrook voted in November, they could give the election to Dennis Power, especially after the White Plains Housing Authority fiasco. Especially after the city refuses to involve Winbrook before the election on their secret plans to develop the West Side, Post Road and Lexington Avenue neighborhood. (We hear that Avalon, the New Rochelle developer, has the inside track to develop that West Side neighborhood.) And especially after the Bush performance in New Orleans.
Ironically though Mayor Delfino has delivered the Digital Divide Computer Labs to Winbrook and other public housing apartments in the city – perhaps the single most humanitarian achievement of his administration. I salute the Mayor for that and his work in getting the city back to growing, apparently.
Power should be running vans in a nonstop stream from Winbrook, DeKalb and Battle Hill to get the vote out in November.
The Democratic Party is acting as if Dennis Power their “standard bearer” is running on a minority party ticket. Will they work the phones like they have in the past for Mr. Power? Will Andy Spano open his war chest to Mr. Power and give him the money to make a case against Mayor Delfino? It does not look like it at this time, folks.
Why would you not want to win the Mayor’s seat in White Plains? There’s so much juicy patronage in the city. All those commissionerships. The opportunity to put in a massive press office.
For those who predict the future and try and establish a political succession order nothing is certain.
Suppose there should suddenly become a vacancy in the Mayor’s office? Then the next Common Council President becomes the Mayor. And Adam Bradley if he ever wanted to run for Mayor would be at the mercy of the interim Mayor’s performance. Suppose Mayor Delfino wanted to run for County Executive, (at age 76) then Mr. Ryan would be faced with a formidable popular opponent who shows more energy than politicians half his age.
The responsibility of the party not in power is to critique, highlight shortcomings, and raise issues when they campaign against an incumbent Mayor in hopes of improving the Mayor’s performance and sensitivity even in a losing effort.
The Democratic Party to their shame and disgrace did not put up their best candidate for Mayor, they all bailed out, and were not going to run anyone.
Now they are not running a campaign.
Do they care where the city is going?
Do they have a clue?
It does not look like they do.
Otherwise they would be campaigning.
They are giving the election away.
