Nothing New From Cedar
Today's Staten Island Advance recaps Cedar's kickoff breakfast yesterday morning at the Agudah of Staten Island; an event that brought "more than 36 supporters" together. (So what does that mean, 37 people attended?).
He came out in favor of "upzoning" to allow people to expand their houses, a traffic light on Willowbrook road (completely unncessary in my opinion), parochial school tax breaks, surveilance cameras in front of places of worship and schools, and is opposed to the proposed racing track near the Goethals Bridge.
His opponent, Jim Oddo, got it right when he said that his platform is "narrowly tailored for a particular community." Cedar doesn't talk about things for the greater district, just for his Jewish constituents in Willowbrook. If his platform is narrowly tailored, he won't get the name recognition he so sorely needs because his platform won't appeal to other ethnicities and constituents in the district.
Upzoning is good except that the Jewish community is actually aging and there are not nearly enough young families moving in. By expanding the houses the property will be worth more. But house prices are already far too high; this is, in fact, one of the reasons people aren't moving in!
Parochial tax breaks are good, too. But Oddo's on that one already.
My guess is that Cedar is "jealous" that his synagogue, Agudath Israel, does not have the police car in front of it on Jewish holidays like the Young Israel does. That's not really something to run on or something that would get him into office though, is it?
Lastly, the raceway proposal. I, and some friends of mine, participated in a poll that was almost definitely paid for by the local GOP and conducted via telephone yesterday afternoon by a polling firm based in California. After asking about the state of the borough ("Is it headed in the right direction or the wrong direction?") and whether I thought Oddo, Bloomberg, and Molinaro deserve re-election, we spent about ten minutes on the raceway proposal (the jobs it will create, the fact that it's only three weekends a year, it will create more parks, will result in a ferry to ease traffic etc). It was full of loaded questions and when I said that I was opposed to the plan, the questioner gave me some information about it and asked if I'd change my mind based on the information she presented. Considering that the lead lobbyist for the plan (to my knowledge) is former BP Guy Molinari, I'm sure the GOP is supporting it. But I don't think it will generate as many jobs as the industrial park proposal that exists for the same site, and don't think that all the attempts to ease traffic will be very effective. And who cares about NASCAR in Staten Island, anyway?
But getting back to the main point here, Cedar's event did not seem very successful. Indeed, as one person commented, it was probably just an easy way to get Weiner into a Jewish crowd in Staten Island.
He came out in favor of "upzoning" to allow people to expand their houses, a traffic light on Willowbrook road (completely unncessary in my opinion), parochial school tax breaks, surveilance cameras in front of places of worship and schools, and is opposed to the proposed racing track near the Goethals Bridge.
His opponent, Jim Oddo, got it right when he said that his platform is "narrowly tailored for a particular community." Cedar doesn't talk about things for the greater district, just for his Jewish constituents in Willowbrook. If his platform is narrowly tailored, he won't get the name recognition he so sorely needs because his platform won't appeal to other ethnicities and constituents in the district.
Upzoning is good except that the Jewish community is actually aging and there are not nearly enough young families moving in. By expanding the houses the property will be worth more. But house prices are already far too high; this is, in fact, one of the reasons people aren't moving in!
Parochial tax breaks are good, too. But Oddo's on that one already.
My guess is that Cedar is "jealous" that his synagogue, Agudath Israel, does not have the police car in front of it on Jewish holidays like the Young Israel does. That's not really something to run on or something that would get him into office though, is it?
Lastly, the raceway proposal. I, and some friends of mine, participated in a poll that was almost definitely paid for by the local GOP and conducted via telephone yesterday afternoon by a polling firm based in California. After asking about the state of the borough ("Is it headed in the right direction or the wrong direction?") and whether I thought Oddo, Bloomberg, and Molinaro deserve re-election, we spent about ten minutes on the raceway proposal (the jobs it will create, the fact that it's only three weekends a year, it will create more parks, will result in a ferry to ease traffic etc). It was full of loaded questions and when I said that I was opposed to the plan, the questioner gave me some information about it and asked if I'd change my mind based on the information she presented. Considering that the lead lobbyist for the plan (to my knowledge) is former BP Guy Molinari, I'm sure the GOP is supporting it. But I don't think it will generate as many jobs as the industrial park proposal that exists for the same site, and don't think that all the attempts to ease traffic will be very effective. And who cares about NASCAR in Staten Island, anyway?
But getting back to the main point here, Cedar's event did not seem very successful. Indeed, as one person commented, it was probably just an easy way to get Weiner into a Jewish crowd in Staten Island.
posted by Michael at 10:50 AM
1 Comments:
an event that brought "more than 36 supporters" together. (So what does that mean, 37 people attended?).
LOL!
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