Politics on the Hudson

Yonkers City Council President Chuck Lesnick says Councilman John Murtagh dredged up the bad old days of the city’s desegregation battle in talking about a shootout that killed one man and wounded another in the city’s Colonial Heights neighborhood Monday night. The incident took place in front of the Raleigh Valentine Townhouses, a development built as part of the federal desegregation order.

“It proves that it doesn’t belong in a middle-class neighborhood,” Murtagh told our reporter Will David, referring to what he said was a housing development that’s long been plagued by crime.

In a release e-mailed to the press late this afternoon Lesnick, a Democrat, criticized Republican Murtagh, in whose district the shooting occurred. “For Councilman Murtagh to state that he doesn’t feel families and people of lesser means should be housed in a middle class neighborhood is unfortunate and harkens back to an ugly era in Yonkers past.”

Reached for comment, Murtagh said Lesnick was grandstanding. “I’m disappointed that Mr. Lesnick feels the need to pick a political fight,” Murtagh said this evening.

Murtagh said his criticism was not aimed at desegregation housing, three of which are in his district, but rather with problems at this particualr development. “I’m standing on my porch and if I walk 150 yards I literally will be standing in front of the Cross Street houses, which I’ve never heard one complaint about it.”

(note: original post edited for length and clarity)