Election Day in NYC

Second Tuesday  in November, hum...must be election day in New York. 

Well, just not in New York, in most of the USA someone is running for public office today.  Many offices are closed and the students  not in school....teachers in NYC  are at work for a "professional development:" day..."PD", as it is sort of affectionately called, can be both a torture and a treat.  Since many of my former colleagues were talking about the new report cards, I will make a presumption that the "PD" of the day will be about out how to fill out and then to fill out report cards.  For elementary teachers this is not too bad since they have only 25-35 students to grade.  Intermediate and High School teachers often have  five classes of 35 students...do the math, lots of "bubbling in".  And then there are comments...2 or 3 required for each student.  Glad to be retired.

Anyway, I will vote today at the local public school.  At the last special election, a primary, we had to use the old lever flip machines that  were invented by Thomas Edison.  They are purely mechanical and tick off the votes as you flip the lever.   They were returned into service when the city felt it could not get the new scanning machines up and running since a possible run off loomed over their collective elective heads.  The run off did happen, but not for the mayoral race, but for the lesser  position of public advocate, the job that was vacated by the current mayoral candidate, Bill DiBlasio.



Bill DiBlasio and family campaigning.

Bill is an interesting candidate.  Raised by  his single mother, he eschewed the surname of his father and chose to use his maternal last name.  He worked for Mayor Dinkins, where he met and married his wife.  Later he did strategy for Hillary Clinton during her senatorial race.  He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children...well, one is now away in college and the other attends  Brooklyn Tech, one of NYC's prestigious science high schools.  What makes Bill unique is that his wife is African American and he is adamantly against the current mayor's "stop and frisk" policies and is against the co-location of new schools within the buildings of current schools.



Joe Lhota in a jovial mood.

Bill's opponent is Joe Lhota, a local pol who headed the Transit Authority.  He is for charter schools, stop and frisk and is committed to continuing the policies of our current mayor, billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Joe has the support of many here on Staten Island which is considered the most Republican borough of NYC. He has also garnered the support of the Patrolman's Benevolent Society and other police organizations.  Several years ago he got himself embroiled in bridge toll hikes, a hot button issue on this island.  Staten Island is the only borough of NYC in which vehicular drivers: cars, trucks, vans, motorcycles, must pay a toll to use  the bridges to get off island.  The one way, round trip toll to use the Verrazano Narrow's Bridge is $15 per car.  It is higher for tractor trailers.  As Staten Island residents we get a discount and pay ONLY $5.50 per trip, and car pools of three or more can pay less than that, but it is still an annoyance.  There are free East River crossings from Brooklyn and Queens, so this toll mess is like a howling banshee following Joe around.


There is also Prop 1, proposal to legalize casino gambling in New York State.  Our illustrious governor, Andrew Cuomo, has touted this as a way of brining needed jobs to the upstate and southern tier areas of the state, and for filling the coffers of local school districts, but many clergy are against it.  I will probably vote against it.

And Prop 5 is to allow mining in one of our state forests.  NYCO Minerals, a mining company, wants to expand its wollastonite mine in Lewis, NY to include roughly 200 acres of what is now forest preserve land.  They say this will help them sustain around 100 high paying jobs.  In exchange, the company is offering to purchase roughly 1500 acres of land, expanding the Jay  Mountain Wilderness.

I am certainly glad that I am able to vote and have some say in local governance.  Over the years I have backed my fair share of winners and losers, so I always feel that you need to vote in order to complain about the outcome, but in the end , election results are a reflection of the times we live in...sometimes you just have to shut up and get on with it.