Warning: The sign faeries are on the loose.
Like those fable faerie rings that spring up overnight, signs for Jerry Green's school board candidates Jeanette Criscione and Wilma Campbell sprang up around the community overnight Saturday.
PT remembers the day when Board of Ed elections were apolitical affairs, with Democrats and Republicans running together as teams having the best interest of the students and the community at heart. The total amount we used to raise and spend on a campaign was never over $2,000.
All that changed once Assemblyman Jerry Green politicized the process a few years ago by running his own slate. Candidates had to face raising and spending enormous sums to compete with Green's resources -- and many fell by the wayside as a consequence.
That, of course, was in the days when Green had dreams of dancing dollar signs -- specifically the $186M that was supposedly earmarked for schools construction by the SCC.
Even though the promise of the money has evaporated, Green is now committed to running a slate -- more or less whether he wants to or not -- so as not to lose a chance at control of the BOE.
This year, he was unable to find three candidates to cobble together into a 'team.'
In fact, word has it that he was spared having only a single candidate when Criscione showed up to pick up her petition the afternoon of the filing deadline. And returned with it completed before the deadline a couple of hours later. It was only thanks to her willingness that he has any sort of 'team' whatsoever.
We'll have to see what good it does him.
From the If-You're-Gonna-Do-It-Do-It-Right Dept.: ELEC rules require signage contain not only the name of the committee, but the treasurer also. Have Criscione and Campbell filed to run as a team? If so, why doesn't the Committee name reflect it?
-- Dan Damon
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1 comments:
I am offended someone from LGBTI community approached me and my partner (husband,spousal eqv)this weekend with the statement that we had to support Jeanette because she is from "OUR COMMUNITY". Now what the hell does that mean ? We support who is the best and qualified candidate. Several years ago you had another gay candiate run openly for the school board. This person was highly qualified. Being a teacher with year of experience, Dir. of Recruitment for NYCBOE.Those of us in the Gay community who supported him did so because of his qualifications and the feeling that he would be an asset to the school board not because he is "gay". So, please do not use these tactics to get the gay communities vote because it may back fire.
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