|
| Wednesday, May 04, 2005 |
| Support Gifford Miller for Mayor |
I'm not going to pretend I hate Mayor Bloomberg. I love the smoking ban. I love that he supports gay marriage. I love the plan to build a direct train to JFK. And I like the fact that he hasn't cut taxes stupidly or done some other things Republicans tend to do.
But there are some definite areas of deficiency that I think could be improved with a Democratic NYC mayor:
1. Bloomberg wants to build a stadium on the west side, with at least $600m of city funds that could be used to improve the many poor schools, partly in an effort to please one of his billionaire friends, and partly to attract an Olympics that no city residents I've talked to actually want (do we really need more terrorist threats?)
2. Bloomberg has befriended Bush and Pataki, and has not lobbied hard enough for Homeland Security or Education funds that NYC should be getting from the state and federal governments. A court ruled that NYC schools are being underfunded by Albany, but Bloomberg hasn't done anything about it.
3. Bloomberg spent $76million of his own money on the last race. On principal, I really can't support anyone who does that - it becomes clear that their purpose is winning/notoriety rather than ensuring that the people's choice is elected. [I also hate it when Democrats like Corzine do it].
4. He does nothing to build the base or the bench of the Democratic party. NYC major is a high-profile position that can be leveraged to attain higher office. It's important for us to elect Democrats who have the chance to not only do great things in NYC, but to prepare themselves to be great candidates on a higher level.
For those reasons, I'm going to vote for a Democrat, and my choice is Gifford Miller, Speaker of the City Council, who is the current longest-serving elected official in New York City. Miller has focused on improving the quality of education, including smaller class size and more appropriate funding from Albany and Washington. He has led 21 overrides of Bloomberg vetoes, on things like emergency contraception for rape victims. A few weeks ago he forced Bloomberg to include an extra $1.3bn for school improvement in the city budget. He has the endorsement of former speaker Peter Vallone, and a number of unions - the UAW local just called him "the candidate to lead our City into the future".
I'm co-hosting two fundraisers for him: May 11th and May 19th. For information and to buy tickets ($40), go here: http://www.millerfornewyork.com/events/ |
posted by CB @ 10:25 AM   |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Recent Posts |
|
| Archives |
|
| Contact Me |
| Email me |
| Template by |
 |
|
|
