As previously announced, the New Kings Democrats held a rally early this evening, prior to the meeting of the Kings County Democratic Committee, on the steps of Borough Hall. In the clip above, NKD President Matt Cowherd introduces Lincoln Restler, candidate for male district leader in the 50th Assembly District (ballots are still being counted in that election; as of Monday evening,, Restler led the Vito Lopez backed candidate by 85 votes), who speaks about NKD’s goals at the Committee meeting. Standing behind Restler are the district leaders for the 52nd Assembly District, Chris Owens and Jo Anne Simon. Another video and more text after the jump.
Following the rally, NKD members and supporters marched to St. Francis College, site of the Committee meeting.
After the meeting, one of the attendees reported to your correspondent that because of the number of proxies held by Lopez, the only substantive item of business considered was a proposal by Lopez to expand the unelected membership of the Democratic Executive Committee from five to eleven, which was opposed by the NKD because it gives the County Leader more slots to which he can appoint cronies. City Council Member Lew Fidler and Jo Anne Simon spoke against it; nevertheless, it passed easily. My source characterized the NKD as “completely not prepared for the meeting, There was obviously no planning.”
Update: This in from Sarah Baker of NKD:
I take issue with the last sentence of the post. To give you some background, Vito’s hundreds of proxies (and thus his ability to carry or kill any motion he pleases) was no surprise to NKD. We knew what we were walking into because we’ve walked into it before, but this time we took reporters from almost every major paper in the city with us to see the farce and get the word out that there is nothing democratic about the operations of our local Democratic Party & there is an urgent need for Brooklynites to engage with this situation. NKD prepared and presented resolutions aimed at making the County Committee more active & democratic, and thus forced a public dialogue among leaders about issues of accountability and operations within the Party.
