Politics on the Hudson

A state Supreme Court justice today ruled that Republican Jim Castro-Blanco can remain on the Conservative Party line in his race for City Council president against Democratic incumbent Chuck Lesnick.

Justice Nicholas Colabella tossed out a challenge to the Conservative endorsement in June of Castro-Blanco. Colabella also ruled against a bid to overturn Conservative Party endorsements given to other candidates, including County Executive Andrew Spano and District Attorney Janet DiFiore.

It was the second ballot victory in four days for Castro-Blanco. On Friday, Lesnick agreed to drop plans to run in an Independence Party primary against Castro-Blanco, who previously had challenged the validity of the Democrat’s petitions to get on the primary ballot.

Read more tomorrow in The Journal News and LoHud.com

This is from staff writer Jorge Fitz-Gibbon:

Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano will carry the Conservative Party line in next month’s primaries, a state judge ruled today.

In two separate rulings, state Supreme Court Justice Nicholas Colabella dismissed claims in lawsuits by Conservative Party members who said Spano and District Attorney Janet DiFiore, both Democrats, improperly got the party’s endorsement in June.

Colabella said, in part, that more than 3,000 proxy votes cast by Conservative Party Chairwoman Gail Burns to back Spano and DiFiore were properly used.

“The foregoing demonstrates that petitioners had an opportunity to review the proxies and to object at the meeting, but did not do so and, in fact, participated in and ratified the use of the proxies at the meeting,” Colabella wrote.

Read more tomorrow in The Journal News and on LoHud.com.

If you’ve got $250, Yonkers City Council President Chuck Lesnick wants to have lunch with you at the Chrysler Building in Midtown tomorrow. The event is a campaign fundraiser for the Democrat who is seeking his second four-year-term. He faces a challenge from Republican Jim Castro-Blanco.

The luncheon features Mo Vaughn, the slugging first baseman and 1995 American League MVP, who played nine years for the locally hated Boston Red Sox, though Lesnick might prefer perspective donors to focus on the two years Vaughn played for the more palatable Mets.

Since leaving baseball Vaughn has worked to build and rehabilitate affordable housing, through Omni New York LLC, of which he is managing director. The company’s projects include the renovation of the Whitney Young Manor apartment complex at 358 Nepperhan Ave. in Yonkers. The luncheon is from 12:30 to 2 p.m. More information is available by contacting Kim DiTomasso at 917-991-8276 or kditto31@yahoo.com.

Democratic voters in Yonkers outnumber Republicans by more than 2-1, but that doesn’t mean the GOP is going to write off those voters. The Republican Party today opened up a campaign office in Westchester’s biggest city for three top elective offices.
You may think the Republicans are borrowing a page from Howard Dean’s successful 50-state strategy in 2006 and 2008, but Republicans have often fared well in this city. Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone is a Republican and he was preceded by another Republican, John Spencer.
The new campaign space at 1915 Central Park Ave. will serve as offices for Republican candidates Rob Astorino for County Executive, Dan Schorr for District Attorney and Jim Castro-Blanco for Yonkers City Council President. Incidently, Amicone was schedued to officially endorse the three candidates at the event this afternoon.

Yonkers Democratic City Council President Chuck Lesnick outspent his Republican challenger Jim Castro-Blanco at a 4-1 rate over the first six months of this year. Lesnick’s campaign spent $48,164 compared to Castro-Blanco’s $11,170, according to latest campaign financial disclosure records available from the New York State Board of Elections. Even with that big spending lead, Lesnick has nearly twice as much money on hand than Castro-Blanco, $50,717 to $26,808.

Lesnick’s big money lead can be attributed in part to his incumbency; He started the year with $29,386 in his campaign fund, while first-time candidate Castro-Blanco had nothing. Look for more financial details from this year’s political campaigns here at Politics on the Hudson and in The Journal News

Come Wednesday, journalists and ordinary citizens alike can observe the famous words of Watergate source Deep Throat to reporter Bob Woodward, “Follow the money.”

Wednesday is the deadline for candidates for office in New York state to file their latest campaign contribution disclosure forms, documents which list who is contributing to each candidate, some of whom just might be interested in influencing those candidates.

Here’s the link to check on candidates in your favorite race: www.elections.state.ny.us/CFU.html

With the city facing the possibility of running out of cash to pay bills and paychecks later this month, Mayor Phil Amicone was on the phone to Albany today. The mayor spoke with state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli and staff in a bid to come up with a way around gridlock in the state Senate, which is preventing the city from sending out property tax bills.
Before the city can send out the bills, the Comptroller’s office must certify the city’s new budget as balanced. That can’t happen, however, until the state Senate approves the extension of two city taxes whose absence would leave a $13.4 million hole in the city budget.
Among the options being discussed, mayoral spokesman David Simpon said, are the state advancing revenue to the city which otherwise wouldn’t be available until later in the year, or the Comptroller certifying the Yonkers budget without the taxes.
The requirement that the Comptroller certify the city’s budget as balanced is a holdover from Yonkers two brushes with bankruptcy in the 1970s and the 1980s.

Republican candidate for District Attorney Dan Schorr is going far and wide to raise money for his battle with incumbent Janet DiFiore, a one-time Republican who is now a Democrat. Starting tonight he’s got a couple of fund-raisers at contrasting venues.

Schorr looks for campaign money tonight in Washington, D.C., with an event at Lounge 201, a tavern that bills itself as “Cool. Comfortable. Close by,” which is true if you’re at a Senate office building or Union Station. By the way, 201 Lounge offers a seemingly Soviet-inspired drink called “Hammer & Sickle” for $7.00 on Thursday nights.

Then on July 22, Schorr is in Yonkers at a fundraiser with Republican guest speakers, state Sen. Dean Skelos and Mayor Phil Amicone. That event is at La Lanterna Ristorante and Caffe, which describes itself as “Yonkers best kept-secret” with “cutting-edge desserts.” It’s down-home Yonkers, with a website that serenades you with Dean Martin singing “That’s Amore.”

Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone is finishing up the first-day of a two-day trip to the nation’s capitol. The visit has the mayor meeting with administation officials and members of Congress in the hope of bringing federal economic stimulus dollars back to Yonkers.

Back in January, Amicone issued a $645 million wish list put together by city and school officials. Among the funding requests is $45 million to fund the downtown baseball stadium that is part of Struver Fidelco Cappelli’s River Park Center plan. The total construction-funding wish list comprises $321 million in city
projects and $324 million in school projects.

Among those Amicone will be meeting with are Housing and Urban Development Deputy Secretary Ron Sims; Reps. Nita Lowey, D-Harrison, and Eliot Engel, D-Bronx; and former upstate Congressman Republican Bill Paxon, who served as a senior advisor for Rudolph Giuliani’s bid for the GOP Presidential nomination last year.

The four-way Republican primary in Yonkers’ 4th Council District that seemed possible last week, now looks like a two-way contest. Gerri Esposito and Ronald Volino say they no longer plan to run in a September primary for the party’s nomination. That leaves Dennis Shepherd, who recently won the Republican committee’s endorsement at a convention, and John Rubbo a former aide to Mayor Phil Amicone, who jumped in the race after leaving his job in City Hall.

The fourth district has elected Republican candidates for many years, but GOP dominance may lessening. Facing the winner of a Republican primary would be Democrat Mario DeGiorgio, who was selected at a convention earlier this spring. DeGiorgio ran a strong but ultimately losing campaign against incumbent Councilman Liam McLaughlin in 2005. McLaughlin cannot run for re-election because of term limits.