Here Come the Candidates to Succeed Joan Millman in the 52nd NYS Assembly District

And finally, there’s Brooklyn Heights resident Doug Biviano, who is no stranger to running against Simon. In 2009 they faced off in the Democratic primary for city council, a race Steve Levin eventually won.

The winner of the Democratic primary is most likely the winner of the general election, but that’s never stopped us from asking the nominee to debate the Republican challenger. So, candidates, if you win the election we’re asking you right now to debate your GOP (or any other challenger on the ballot) before the general election.

, , ,

  • Solovely

    New to thinking about all this, but I will want to know their positions/agendas for school capacity, and how to jointly approach the planning / zoning of the LICH site and Pier 6 at Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp. These sites are right next to each other and together, will have significant impacts on the community and the future of this area of Brooklyn.

    Read the comments on the petition, here:
    http://www.change.org/petitions/bill-de-blasio-stop-brooklyn-bridge-park-pier-6-development-gone-awry

  • subwaysubculture

    Doug Biviano is such a great person. We are very lucky to have him run for State Assembly. He’s someone who has personally helped me and my family in Brooklyn Heights. You couldn’t ask for someone with greater personal integrity and intelligence than Doug. I don’t know the other candidates, but Doug is major part of this community and a smart, honorable, and helpful man. Do us all a favor and vote for Doug.

  • Disgusted_by_Silver_sycophants

    I have a lot of respect for Joan Millman but I also respect the integrity I have seen in Brad Lander over the years from before he was an elected official. My biggest concern is that the person filling Joan’s seat be strong enough to resist the corrupt and corrupting culture of Albany. It seems to me that much of our State government is rotten to the core. How many thieves have been revealed lately? How many sexual predators? Shelly Silver has done next to nothing to stop the corruption. The Governor (who I voted for) sold out the public on the issue of reform when he did away with the commission he set up to fight corruption. I am a lifelong Democrat who only wants truth, personal integrity, a social conscience and some courage in my elected leaders. There’s an old expression: “The fish stinks from the head.” Boy does that hold true with Albany these days (and maybe always — but I care about who represents me now). So I will listen to the three candidates and decide by what I hear and what I know about them. No list of elected officials will impress me or cause me to choose one over the other.

  • marshasrimler

    you are right .

  • marshasrimler

    Brad Lander is a phony progressive who is full of himself. he is trying to position himself to be mayor..He supports the destruction of the Brooklyn Heights Libaray and Peter Sikora.. and is licking the boots of the real estate industry

  • Quinn Raymond

    I am supporting Sikora primarily because he was instrumental in passing the lead paint law of 2004, which has had a tremendous impact on the health of our city’s kids. I also think his experience in Albany will make him more effective in the Assembly.

    We don’t agree on everything, but I think he’ll be quite good.

    http://home2.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/lead/lead-paint-fix-bro-abr.pdf

  • marshasrimler

    I do not see too much community experience.think he needs more seasoning.. maybe next time around.. lets get to know him first. Very unhappy with all men representing us if he wins.. We need a smart woman with a track record

  • Ironic

    Hi there, Pot.

  • Reggie

    Wait! Lander supports the destruction of Peter Sikora and he endorsed him?

  • Susan Raboy

    Where was Doug Biviano these past 17 months when we were fighting SUNY criminals from shutting down LICH? To all of you out there please note there is still more to fight for so stay tuned…

  • marshasrimler

    thank you Regigie. I have edited my post

  • ujh

    Solovely, come down to reality. The BBP’s Pier 6 development has been planned – don’t waste your time.

  • ujh

    I’m sure you would benefit from educating yourself about the other candidates. Personal assistance doesn’t qualify a person to represent voters in any legislative body.

  • ujh

    It’s a lot easier to have integrity when you’re accountable only to yourself. It’s also easy to promise the sky when running for office, but once elected you have to represent a wide range of constituents and interests. Elected office doesn’t mean ditching one’s integrity, but every “victory” now requires compromise. I venture to say the majority of the electorate doesn’t know what “politics is the art of compromise” means.

  • ujh

    Isn’t that JoAnne Simon?

  • marshasrimler

    trust me.. you will see Brad Lander is about Brad Lander

  • marshasrimler

    yes

  • BrooklynBugle

    You are now AstroTurfing this site. You will be blacklisted if it continues

  • Doug Biviano

    Like you, I am frustrated at the corrupt waste and lack
    of smart government in Albany that is causing this state to have the
    highest taxes pushing the middle class and businesses out and causing
    suffering of the poor. Hospitals have been disappeared throughout NYC
    for condos for over a decade now. The leadership and professionalism
    that made New York the economic, cultural and idea capital of the world
    has gone, replaced by a generation of politicians whose elective office
    will be the best and only jobs they have.

    Campaign promises have become disconnected from governing. As a cynical
    class of insider politicians have mastered the election process, the
    public is powerless to stop them. Case in point, Bill de Blasio, Steve
    Levin, Daniel Squadron, Brad Lander and Peter Sikora used LICH
    hospital as an election prop last year and they’ re at it again.

    Council Member Steve Levin makes that perfectly clear in the Brooklyn Eagle on July 1, 2014:

    …Levin also credited Sikora with coming
    up with the idea to get arrested to try to keep LICH open. “At the time,
    the candidate who was third in the polls, candidate Bill de Blasio,
    said, ‘That’s a really good idea…’”

    Now these elected officials — City
    Councilman Brad Lander, City Councilman Steve Levin, NYS Senator Daniel
    Squadron — are endorsing Sikora, a candidate who has never been
    involved in our community unless he was paid mostly working for their
    election efforts. They are supporting Sikora not to empower our
    community, but to give themselves more power to control us.

    No mater who is elected, the permanent
    government, as journalist Jack Newfield called them a generation ago,
    stays in power. Today’s elected officials are put in power by the
    permanent government and kept in power by their campaign contributions.

    Breaking campaign promises
    — whether it’s LICH, condos in Brooklyn Bridge Park or shrinking and
    closing libraries for more condos — is unfortunately only a symptom of
    the damage to our neighborhood. The worst thing today’s political class
    of politicians has done to us by controlling the election process is
    the taking of power of governing away from our community and you and
    consolidating it for themselves and the permanent government to do as
    they please.

    The progressives attacked Dick Cheney, and
    rightly so, for spinning facts and creating fake realities. But sadly
    our local parties in power (Democratic and Working Family Parties) have
    copied his methods. Mayor de Blasio recently sent out a propaganda
    letter via his PR machine, Campaign for One New York, rejoicing ‘less is
    more’ without a full service hospital. It was clearly paid by a PR
    front but signed by Gary Reilly represented as a board member of Carroll
    Gardens Neighborhood Association. This deceptive representation was
    pure Orwellian.

    The
    question our elected officials and the media is not asking is why did
    SUNY buy a losing money hospital ($300 million a year) and
    turn around to sell it to developers? Was it to save Stanley
    Brezenoff’s company (Stanley got a golden parachute). Shortly after
    taking office, Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is obviously close with Sikora,
    hired Stanley Brezenoff the former President of Continuum, the company
    that took control of LICH and bleed it out. When hospitals close
    people die.

    I was the guy at the Community Board 6
    meeting in 2008 fingering Brezenoff, asking him how much he was being
    compensated as he slit LICH at the throat by trying to close Pediatrics
    and OB/GYN at the time (strategic step even just announcing it if one
    wants to slay a neighborhood hospital). Council Member Bill de Blasio
    was there and asked Brezenoff nice-nice questions about his bio,
    allowing Brezenoff a platform to not only look like a qualified and
    dedicated man but almost celebrate how lucky we were to have him.
    Apparently, Council Member de Blasio believed Brezenoff so much that he
    hired the mastermind of LICH’s doom when he became mayor or maybe it is
    just plain old corruption. How anyone could have been at that meeting,
    professing to care about our community, yet turn around to hire this man
    once elected to higher office is not unclear, it’s simply disturbing.

    It was nice to know LICH was there. LICH
    saved my child’s life when he had a bad Asthma attack a few years ago.
    I’ve met countless folks over the years and again petitioning the last
    few weeks who believe LICH saved their lives. Without full cardiac and
    stroke centers, our seniors in our community face unnecessary and
    unprecedented peril. This is shameless.

    And don’t believe that these
    elected officials are powerless. Interfaith Hospital just a few miles
    away from LICH faced a similar fate yet African American elected
    officials went straight to Governor Cuomo, flexed their representative
    power and saved the hospital. Our community elected officials all come
    from inside the political system. They put pressure on only in front of
    the cameras. In the back rooms, they bow to the permanent government
    who got them elected.

    We have to give power back to the communities — back to you the voter.
    Today’s elected will not attack the special interests that put them in
    office. I am running for Assembly because I believe this permanent
    class of politicians who have seized control of our city, state and
    country is destroying the future not only for us, but our children and
    grandchildren. We must take New York back for them.

    Doug Biviano
    Candidate for Assembly