There are two hotly contested primaries happening this Tuesday in our fair City's core, both of which feature young, Progressive reformers going up against well-established incumbents. In one case, we have Paul Newell and Luke Henry taking on Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, in what Errol Louis called the most important race in this state; in the other, former Senate Minority Leader Marty Connor is in the fight of his life against Progressive challenger Daniel Squadron.

Here's a map: light blue is the 64th AD, red, the 25th Senate District.

The Working Families Party has taken positions in both races. In the SD-25 race, they're backing Dan Squadron, saying:

"This district is in need of a State Senator who will champion responsible development and shake things up in Albany. Daniel Squadron has a proven record of fighting for change," said Rocky Chin a member of the Chinatown/Lower East Side Club of the Working Families Party.

In the AD-64 race, by contrast, WFP stuck with Silver, arguing:

This is nice: the WFP just endorsed Don Barber, who's running for Senate in the 51st District. The 51st is a tripod-shaped district covering roughly the center of the state and branching out from there a hundred miles or so north, west and south-east towards the City.

State Senate candidate Don Barber (D-Caroline) received a strong boost today when the Working Families Party threw its considerable resources behind Barber's campaign. "The Working Families Party fights every day to make sure government works for hardworking families," said Barber, who will appear on the Working Families ballot line. "I'm delighted to have their endorsement, and I look forward to their help getting out our message."

Noting that his opponent, Jim Seward, opposed raising the minimum wage above $5.15 an hour, Barber added, "Struggling New York families needed that raise. I supported increasing the minimum wage then, but more importantly, I support a real living wage now. I don't think the hard-working people in our district deserve any less."

In a separate release, the Working Families Party noted that their endorsement "could be a crucial element in finally ending Republican rule in the state senate. The WFP played a critical role in recent special elections in the North Country and on Long Island, helping to narrow the Republican Senate majority to just two."

There are a lot of those crucial elements coming together, it seems. Barber is a netroots-friendly candidate with an ActBlue page; show the man some love. We need upstate Democrats, too.

The issue of affordable housing in NYC is so complex and fragmented that it's difficult to tease out. Some aspects of the problems confronting lower and middle income people were covered fairly well in a recent DMI post by Gregory Lobo Jost .

Tenants and affordable housing advocates are gathering energy and momentum to change 12 years of Pataki anti-tenant regulation and statute. Coordinated by Housing Here And Now a remarkable coalition of labor unions, community organizations and housing church groups and the Working Families Party have gathered around a six goals.

While large-scale meetings have been held in many party of NYC, the meeting for those living below 59th Street in Manhattan is Saturday, May 5, 2007 11 AM at Middle Collegiate Church 50 East 7th Street (Between 1st and 2nd Aves.) Refreshments will be provided, I'm told, so come hungry. The agenda is:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Christine Quinn, Robert Jackson and UFT president Randy Weingarten reached agreement on compromise to the Mayor's third major school reorganization plan.

Under the agreement, schools wont lose money during the next school year. That had been a major danger in the Bloomberg-Klein plan -- that the effect would be actual reductions in money available even as billions more are added the the education budget.

In addition the UFT appears to have won concessions that may mitigate the incentive built into the reorganization which will encourage principals to shed higher paid senior teachers. Other crucial areas: class size, parent engagement, middle school reform etc. appear to be adjourned to later with precatory language. Community leaders who were at the announcement included: Director of the New York Immigration Coalition Chung-Wha Hong, NY ACORN Director Bertha Lewis, and Irania Sanchez representing the Coalition for Economic Justice and Make the Road by Walking. They were the ones clustered around the Working Families Party which, along with the UFT, put considerable resources into the anti-reorganization effort. .

Consistent with the long Bloomberg-Klein hostility to parent groups, it appears that no leader of a Parent Association was present. The press announcment is here while press accounts from the New York Times and Daily News are here and here.

Do you know the story of Russian Minister Gregori Potemkin? To shield Catherine the Great from seeing the poverty of Russian village life, the story goes, he constructed movie-set style phony villages. Mayor Bloomberg has taken a leaf from Prince Potemkin and has staged a phony press event to puff-up pretend support for his disastrous mismanagement plan for our public schools. He produced a swath of supporters for the press on Monday, largely people who work for him as employees or contractors. Lo! And Behold!. If you pay them, they’ll agree with you.

Julie Bosman, writing in Tuesday’s NY Times noted the concentration of contractors, as did Carrie Melago of the Daily news. Will they bill or have these courtiers already billed NYC for their time? Since public funds are paying for this, wouldn’t Central Casting has been cheaper?

Part of the problem with the Mayor’s plan to play 52 pick-up with the schools is that it was sprung on parents, teachers and principals with no prior consultation. When Deputy Mayor Wolcott and Chancellor Klein say they’ve spoken with teachers or parents – they mean just that – they’ve not been listening at all. Another part of the problem is that the plan is bad.

People involved in school issues have revolted against this reorganization. See District 1 parents here and high school parents here , the NYC Council here For a critique from the UFT’s blog edwize, which is especially informed and well reasoned, in my view, try here or the Educational Priorities Panel take here .

Mayor Bloomberg, in his State of the City address, in January, proposed a top-to-bottom reorganization of the NYC public schools. Because the plan had been drafted in secret by Mr. Bloomberg, Mr. Klein and their multi-million dollar no-bid contractors, when it was first announced, no one could understand it at all. At the post-speech hearing of the NYC Council Education Committee, Advocate Gotbaum, Speaker Quinn, and Chairman Jackson (among a host of others were shocked that such far-reaching changes would be imposed with no consultation whatsoever with stakeholders or electeds.

I suppose it's not so odd, but the schools that Mr. Klein and Mr. Bloomberg want to impose on our children are entirely unlike those which their children attended. Both Spence and Ms. Porters sport small classes and individualized teaching.

As Mr. Bloomberg's proposal has become clearer over the last few weeks, it has drawn concerted opposition from the NYC Council, parents, teachers, the Working Families Party, ACORN and many others. If you care about public education not at all and intend to stop reading now, take away my overall judgment as a parent and somewhat informed observer: The Bloomberg/Klein proposals will destabilize every school and will facilitate the looting of the education budget by contractors. The educational theory upon which this chaotic re-shuffle is based seems to me to be -- every child, teacher and school is fungible with every other.
It seems to me the only thing Mr. Klein learned about schools, he learned in law school. Children are, to him, widgets. In later posts, I'll write about the movement to stop Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Klein, but below, an attempt to set out some of the mismanagement principles of their erratic proposal.

Candidates to fill the late John Lavelle’s State Assembly seat, the openly Gay Matt Titone and Kelvin Alexander, a co-founder of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care accuse each other’s campaigns of bigotry according to Saturday’s Link TextStaten Island Advance.

Democratic Candidate Titone, who lost to Andrew Lanza in a November State Senate bid, has been challenging Alexander, the Independence Party candidate (But still a member of County Democratic Committee) and Democratic Brooklyn State Senator Eric Adams ‘s chief of staff’s petition signatures. Not signatures for his Independence candidacy, but those for his made up additional line, the Family First Party (Which has nothing to do with the Working Families Party).

Alexander finished a distant fourth at the Staten Island Democratic Committee’s nominating convention, but anticipating that secured the Independence nomination and began petitioning for his made up party line before the convention.

Alexander ridiculously asserted Titone’s challenging of his Family First Party signatures, many of which were allegedly from non-registered voters and people not living in the district marginalizes blacks, while Titone counters that the word “Family” in Kelvin’s party moniker could be a homophobic code word suggesting that Matt being Gay means he’s anti-family.

2009?

Ok I know what your thinking "Spitzer just got in to office,we have three special elections coming up in the next month, and 2008 is a Presidential year. What about 2009?"

2009 represents the year when truly a cast of thousands well seek the numerous City Council seats that will become vacant. My count has 41 City Council seats that will be open due to those pesky term limits that Speaker Quinn may want to remove. That leaves only 10 seats that may not see a new face after the primaries in 2009.

Now how about those 41 who may be job hunting soon?

Will one of the remaining ten that survive re-election will become speaker of the House? (i.e. Letisha James)

Well is my "unfinished painting" for 2009. Be mindful its early but then again we are picking Presidential winners and losers(Guilani) already.

City Council List (Who is Staying, Going, and Not Knowing)

1. Christine Quinn – Term limited in 2009- Expected to run for Mayor or Public Advocate
2. Council Member- District: 32
Joseph P. Addabbo, Jr.- Democrat 1/1/02-12/31/09 (Term Limited)
3. Council Member- District: 17
Maria del Carmen Arroyo- Democrat 3/21/05-12/31/2009 (Not Term Limited-Up for Reelection 2009)

AD-01
Marc Alessi (D)
Candidate Name (R)

AD-02
Fred W. Thiele Jr. (R)
M. Treewolf West (D)

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Patricia Eddington (D)
Soctt Salimando (R)

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Steven Englebright (D)
Bruce Bennett (R)

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Ginny Fields (D)
William Faulk (R)

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Philip Ramos (D)
Waldo Cabrera (R)

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Michael Fitzpatrick (R)
Grace Kelly-McGovern (D)

AD-08
Philip Boyle (R)
Dennis Cohen (D)

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Andre Raia (R)
Gerard J. Mc Creight (D)

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James Conte (R)
Barbara Lo Moriello (D)

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Robert Sweeney(D)
Donald Nohs (R)

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Joseph Saladino (R)
Craig Heller (D)

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Chuck Lavine (D)
Steve Gonzalez (R)

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Robert Barra (R)
Daniel Torres (D)

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Rob Walker (R)
Matthew Pangburn (D)

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Thomas DiNapoli (D)
Louis Chisari (R)

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Thomas McKevitt (R)
Dolores Sedacca (D)

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Earlene Hooper (D)
J. Barrington Jackson (R)