One would think that an unholy alliance among longtime Brooklyn political boss Vito Lopez, an endorsement by the Working Families Party (WFP), and a robocall from a Catholic bishop would have clinched the City Council race in District 34. Why even hold the election?
But it seems that voters were not in the fix. Lopez’s hand-picked candidate, Maritza Davila, lost to City Council incumbent, Diana Reyna, who was backed by Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez.
This is the second time Reyna trounces Davila. The first was September’s Democratic primary race.
Reyna’s sin was in not going along with Lopez’s political agenda. This includes his tunnel vision on the development of the Broadway Triangle site in Brooklyn, the largest undeveloped parcel of land left in the borough. One of the chief beneficiaries of the development would be Lopez’s fiefdom, Ridgewood-Bushwick Senior Citizens Council. So, to that end, he and the city have shut a coalition of 40 Latino, African American and Jewish organizations out of the planning process -- their proposals have not even been heard out.
But why let a primary from his own party get in the way? In a deal cut with the Working Families Party, Lopez backed WFP candidate Bill De Blasio in exchange, for among other concessions, getting Davila on the WFP line in the general election ballot.
The plot thickened. Days before the election, voters in District 34 were getting robocalls from Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio of the Brooklyn Diocese of the Roman Catholic Church. DiMarzio extolled the virtues of Lopez, a not so discreet signal for them to back Davila.
This all sounds like a like a telenovela or feudal power play –landowner and church collaborating to control unruly commoners. Chalk it up to bad politics by Lopez, the would-be kingmaker, bad decision-making by DiMarzio the Bishop, and a “what-were-we-thinking-moment” for the New York’s professed party of working families.
This all sounds like a like a telenovela or feudal power play –landowner and church collaborating to control unruly commoners. Chalk it up to bad politics by Lopez, the would-be kingmaker, bad decision-making by DiMarzio the Bishop, and a “what-were-we-thinking-moment” for the New York’s professed party of working families.
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