Norm Siegel, candidate for Public Advocate, has a new website and a new Youtube video:

For those who aren't familiar with Norman Siegel, he has been defending the Civil Liberties of Americans decades. From his website:

Norman Siegel, raised in Brooklyn, has been an advocate for New Yorkers throughout his 40 year career. He has been a leader in the fight for freedom, justice, and equality for all, issues that have pulled at our city’s fabric for too many generations.

Big Kick Off Fundraiser for Norm Siegel for Public Advocate

Monday, February 25th, 2008, 6pm to 8:30pm

Cafe Deville
103 Third Avenue (at 13th Street)
NYC

Let me just preface this with the comment that Joy Romanski, Marjorie Gersten and myself have already held a fundraiser for Norm Siegel...so maybe we should claim the Kick off fundraiser

Norman Siegel is the ideal candidate for NYC Public Advocate. In essence he has been our public advocate for decades, having been head of the NY Civil Liberties Union, defending the rights of NYC protestors against the 2004 Republican Convention, defending the rights of Critical Mass bicyclists, fighting destruction of Harlem neighborhoods, etc.

You can read more about my impressions of Norman Siegel here.

And you can attend this big, big fundraiser and meet the man himself:

I often wind up being focused on Brooklyn over development schemes, fighting such excessive plans as Atlantic Yards. But we have to remember that the entire city is plagued with these excessive development plans that destroy whole neighborhoods and benefit wealthy develpers more than communities. And, more often than not, they are shoved down our throats practically by force...or at least using the threat of eviction.

Harlem is another neighborhood threatened by overdevelopment that could destroy its historic character. As with Atlantic Yards, the Harlem development plan will displace lower and middle income families, driving them from the center of NYC and replacing them largely with luxury high rises.

VOTE People is a community organization that, in its own words:

...works to manifest the needs and intent of the people of communities in which policy and legal reform is proposed, through a holistic approach including legal and political advocacy and social and cultural movements.

This month there are four fundraisers I am pushing. One I am on the host committee of, two I am full on co-host (one of which is at my apartment) and one I am merely plugging for friends.

The first one was last Sunday, and I now have results from that. Sunday, Marjorie Gersten, Joy Romanski and I hosted a fundraiser for Norman Siegel, running for NY Public Advocate. You can read about my (3-year old interrupted) comments on the event here. And you can read another participant's obeservations here at the Brooklyn Optimist. But now I would like to add that the fundraiser did quite well for a small scale event put on by people like me who almost never do fundraising. We brought in $1400 for Norman Siegel. Now I am sure many out there see that as small potatoes, but it's damned good in my world!

If you want to add to this, please call his campaign at 212-448-6271. Tell them Marjorie, David and Joy sent you.

Come meet, greet, and support Norman Siegel for Public Advocate.

Marjorie Gersten, Joy Romanski (Corresponding Secretary for Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats), and I will be hosting a fundraiser for former executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union (1985-2000), Norman Siegel, who is running for NYC Public Advocate. I can think of no one better suited to be our Public Advocate than Norm Siegel.

Essentially, Norm has already been New York's unelected Public Advocate for years, standing up for the protesters against the Republican Convention and standing up for the rights of all New Yorkers when no one else seems willing. Norm Siegel's credentials go WAY back. He even spearheaded the NY State campaign for to impeach Richard Nixon!

Tracked down an old photo from election night 2005 when I was campaigning with my son for Norman Siegel.

In 2005 Norman Siegel started late, only got fundraising going last minute, and was up against and incumbent.

Norman is running again in 2009. And he is starting early and already is fundraising (sent in my donation already!). Guaranteed you will see an update to this photo as Jacob and I campaign again for Norm. You can read my opinion of Norm Siegel for Public Advocate in 2005 here.

If you are interested in electing the former head of the New York Civil Liberties Union as NYC's Public Advocate, contact New Yorkers for Norman Siegel:
212-488-6271

Sometimes it seems to me that the real reason that Mayor Bloomberg and his Police Commissioner have gotten into their unending multi-million dollar war with Critical Mass bicycle riders is that they hate being sassed by scruffy radicals. Other times it seems to me that the fault really belongs to two former officials of Mayor Koch's era, Stanley Brezenoff and Nat Leventhal who restructured how NYC evaluates agency productivity. Those two developed and polished the Mayor's Management Report (To see the current draft of the MMR for the Police Dept. click here.

As I read the data there, there are fewer arrests in many categories of offenses. How can the police show they are busy? Well, issuing 49 summonses and arresting three Critical Mass riders certainly gives their numbers a boost -- but so does narcotics enforcement. Misdemeanor narcotics arrests -- read pot -- are up very sharply. Is this the result of a pot wave or a need to boost productivity numbers? You may want to read Paul Armentano's article on Alternet a few days ago where he points out that marijuana arrests are vastly and disproportionately of people of color. NYC arrested more than 32,000 for pot in 2006, overwhelmingly minorities.

Jeez! This is a Bill Batson day! I had no intention of blogging about Bill today, even though I talked with him on Sunday. I do plan on writing up my Jewish Genealogy talk where I quote him, but I have no time to do that today.

But then I got the news about his successful campaign to save the Underground Railroad site. Now, yet more Bill Batson news. This is no surprise, but Norm Siegel, the man who is the REAL Public Advocate for New Yorkers (not that woman, what's her name?), is pushing for Bill Batson.

This is no surprise since they were partners at the New York Civil Liberties Union and worked well together. Here is the statement released today from Norm Siegel:

The race for the 57th Assembly District is incredibly important and my friend Bill Batson is running for this seat.

We should all support him.

For those of you who don't know Bill, you should get to know him. He's the ideal candidate for the 57th Assembly District.

The Forest City Ratner plan will radically change this area. Bill's opponent, at best, double talks about the issue, doesn't respond to questions and, at worst, supports the plan.

Bill doesn't.

That alone is sufficient grounds for everyone in the area to vote for Bill. But there are many more reasons to support Bill.

Remember there are 2 write-in campaigns going on: One for Norman Seigel for Public Advocate and Paul Wooten for Brooklyn DA. DFNYC has a great intro at How to Cast a Write In Vote | Democracy For NYC.

The explanation though works with one set of voting machines. This is what Mole333 had to say on a recent email :

Begin voting as usual (lever to the right, etc). For all positions you want to vote for normally, just flip levers as usual. To write in, look at the LOWER RIGHT HAND SIDE of the machine for a silver lever marked "Release lever." Flip that and leave it flipped. This releases the little numbered sliding doors along the LEFT HAND SIDE of the machine.

Find the numbered sliding door that corresponds to the number of the office you want to vote for and open the door. There will be a slip of paper behind the door. Do not remove the paper, simply take a pencil (there should be one to your left in a little cup on the machine) and write the name of who you want to vote for. When you are done writing, simply close the little door.

That's it.

When you have flipped all levers and written in all write-in names, leave the silver release lever filpped (do not flip it back) and pull the big lever back to the left as usual.

Just because you are unhappy with the choices it does not mean you have to stick to the choices offered on the ballot.

Use your vote to write-in your dissent. It's the democratic thing to do.

Writing in Norman's name may feel right, but it eludes an important issue: why did he lose?

I campaigned for Norman Siegel for two reasons: I admired his work as a lawyer (both while at NYCLU and after) and he was endorsed by DFNYC. I handed out leaflets and went door-to-door in my fairly liberal neighborhood where many people opposed him.

I never had a sense, however, of an overall strategy of the campaign. Did anyone else? How did the campaign expect to win? Why didn't it? Who voted for Siegel and who didn't? As I understand it, he did somewhat worse this time out than four years ago. Why? I dont know, but it seems to me that this year's defeat of Siegel was not a turnout issue, but a voter rejection of him.

We (or at least I) need a careful review of what went wrong and right with the campaign so as to minimize future losses.