BHB Exclusive: Doug Biviano Talks About His Campaign for the 52nd AD Seat

By on August 26, 2014 12:34 pm in Brooklyn Heights, Election 14

BHB: Are you questioning the legality of these campaign contributions?

DB: I’m question the legality of… the coordination of the PACs with the campaigns, with de Blasio and Sikora and the “dark money mailer” that BerlinRosen [orchestrated] They use this… money that’s dumped in to elect their candidates, the slick and expensive mailers. They deceive voters—for instance, de Blasio and Sikora getting arrested at LICH, an incredible campaign prop, my case in point.

BHB: Did you think it was a prop at the time?

DB: I did, because Sal Albanese called them out [on this action]. Sal Albanese, who’s endorsing me, he is an incredibly insightful man and a person who cares about his community and the public, not these special interests. He called it for what it was. Community leaders didn’t respond to him and they fell for the deception.

If you look at the alignment with the Working Families Party, Bill de Blasio, Brad Lander, Sikora, all these people are the Working Families Party. You look at the deal they made with Cuomo [agreeing to support Governor Cuomo in the 2014 NYS governor’s race] who’s under investigation for the Moreland Commission. All this corruption is about campaign finance and it all goes back to these kind of campaign deceptions that get people elected.

BHB: Ten years ago, the Working Families Party might have been an organization that you might have campaigned with.

DB: Times have changed. They’re not what they were. They made the Faustian bargain… to get people elected, to gain enormous power. They made the deal with the devil and they’re selling out to the very interests they’re supposed to protect. I’m not aligned with them or any of these machines or special interest or developers.

BHB: But that position does have a double edge to it: in essence, you are financing and conducting your own campaign. You are therefore up against opponents who have much greater resources at their disposal.

DB: But the voters elect the candidates, and if they see through that… you don’t need a lot of money. If the press covers—in the smartest district in all of Brooklyn—minimal press [on Biviano’s campaign]. Hardly a mention. The other candidates are hiding. They don’t want to debate.

But the people can take control of this. To make more points about how they deceive people, [look at] de Blasio’s LICH arrest, Squadron’s veto power on the [Brooklyn Bridge Park] condos. He [Squadron] came in on the promise of no condos in the park. He had a vote to veto. He [didn’t use it] in 2010, an election year. It was given and taken away. Again, a campaign prop.

Jo Anne Simon and Atlantic Yards? Despite her work with the group Brooklyn Speaks, after 10 years of Atlantic Yards, we still don’t see any affordable housing, and what they’re calling the affordable housing, 60% of it you have to make more than $100,000. I wouldn’t call that affordable.

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  • miriamcb

    Thank you to BHB for putting together interviews of each of the candidates before the primary election.

  • Doug Biviano

    Until we get power of governing back to community with big issues hammering our neighborhoods (and that requires an independent candidate not backed by same special interests holding the hammer and controlling election system) legislative issues are not as helpful as the harm being done to our voters. The Assembly seat is quite powerful to stop this harm. That said here are a few legislative goals:

    1. Expose and Stop tax breaks, tax abatement for developers and public asset giveaways to them (developers will do fine without them and development will continue but will be harder to target public service institutions like hospitals, libraries, parks, etc). We do not have to subsidize because the affect is the tax payers take a double hit. We get overcrowded (schools, services) while at the same time our services get cut or can’t expand (schools, libraries, hospitals, parks) because our tax money goes to the developers. The tax breaks and abatement to developers also drives up rent at accelerated rates and pushes out good poor, middle class, and senior residents from our community. Affordable Housing as we know it is a band-aid on a cancer invented by politicians to make you think they are trying fix the problem. Homeless children are at record numbers under de Blasio. Ironically, the system the Pols have creacted has accelerated and amplified the problem of gentrification and uprooting folks. Voters tell me this all day. It’s time to reboot.

    2. I would have a big focus on election and campaign finance law reform to build walls between special interests, lobbyists, consultants, campaigns and elected officials to bring the balance of power back to the voter. We’re the only candidate to talk about this in real terms how bad Pols protect themselves while slaughtering our quality of life and our services. We did an op-ed in Brooklyn Paper in 2010:

    http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/33/24/all_opedbiviano_2010_06_11_bk.html

    3. I’m a fairly progressive guy supporting Woman’s Equality Act among other good legislation. I would never endorse Joe Hyne’s like Jo Anne Simon did last year knowing he covered up domestic violence and child abuse cases. I’m happy to talk to anyone and I’m very accessible and will remain that way.

    I ask for your vote on Sept. 9 and to help spread my message. Thank you.

  • miriamcb

    Thank you for answering with some thoughts!

  • Michael D. D. White

    One thing regarding the Brooklyn Heights Library- Sometimes I would take issue with a question’s premise rather than simply answering it- I don’t think the “reality” actually involves a “fatal flaw” of “decrepit infrastructure.”

    I promise some scoops on this coming up.

  • bethman14

    Anyone who actually thought that BDB getting himself arrested at LICH was anything other than a PR stunt by a low-polling Mayoral campaign was deluded. Biviano isn’t breaking any ground on that one. DeBlasio never had any real, financially viable solution to the LICH issue, and clearly neither does Biviano. LICH was a poorly managed, underutilized facility that fell victim to the larger macroeconomic forces that shape the health care industry in the US. The Mayor of NYC was never going to be able to save it, and neither will a freshman member of the State Assembly.

    On the library its unfortunate that Biviano appears to have bought the Mike DD White fear mongering. I wonder if he even reached out to the BPL people to hear there side of the story or just acccepted the DD White BS without bothering to do any independent research or fact checking. We certainly don’t need anymore politicians in NYC who just follow along with special interests uncritically.

    I don’t see anything in this interview about concrete proposals for practical action on any issues that seem to concern Biviano….just paranoid conspiracy theories. Definitely not constructive leadership.

  • bethman14

    Thats right Mike….because when you are forced to confront the reality of the library situation instead of the imaginary “facts” that you “report” on your crazy blog it becomes obvious that you don’t have a leg to stand on.

    Its sad that your fear-mongering, truth twisting and demagoguery has made it so difficult for those of us in the community who really care about the library to have a constructive conversation about its future. Your strategy of pretending to care about libraries in order to advance your deeply conservative anti-development, anti-affordable housing political agenda is very smart and seems to work for you….unfortunately the biggest victim of your crusade will be our public library and the thousands of children and seniors who rely on it. So sad.

  • miriamcb

    Doug is fairly accessible – I’m pretty sure you can ask on the blog as I did (see above) about practical action, if you are actually interested. He’s likely to answer you.

  • Remsen Street Dweller

    You know nothing about what happened to LICH so kindly refrain from spreading the lies that New York State used to murder that hospital.

  • davoyager

    Doug is absolutely right about the tax breaks given to developers. These are policies conceived during recession in order to encourage growth and create jobs. NY and Brooklyn specifically is growing out of all proportion and the current climate of over development is going to blow up soon so if anything government needs to implement policies to slow housing growth. Additionally since the city needs to make up some of the revenue shortfall, the taxes of small property owners continue to rise at an unsustainable rate which directly causes rents to rise and owners to sell.
    On Brooklyn Bridge Park I agree it doesn’t need additional residential high rises near Pier 6 but what it does need is a subway station at the foot of Atlantic Avenue. Any thoughts?

  • davoyager

    I would like to see the Pier 6 ferry dock to be an access hub gateway to a 12 month a year, 7 days a week Governor’s Island Park with a subway stop and additional parkland on 6 instead of the 2 unneeded luxury high rises currently planned.

  • ujh

    Mr. Biviano may be accessible for the time being and while he’s campaigning. If elected, he’ll spend the week in Albany like his colleagues in the Assembly and State Senate and commute home for the weekend to do more work and maybe to spare a few minutes for his family.
    Mr. Biviano has a habit of not answering questions and may believe that his unceasing litany of what’s wrong in politics and society is all he needs to successfully represent his constituents, who will comprise a lot more people in the 52nd Assembly District than those to whom he’s obviously pleasing, to judge from the comments on this blog. Making speeches is not enough; converting concepts and proposals into bills, finding co-sponsors and getting them enacted takes more than standing on a soapbox. Awareness of this struggle is not apparent in anything he’s been saying.
    I urge all who encounter him on the street to question him what he plans to do to “clean up Albany” and how he plans to go about it – while juggling a myriad of other matters he’ll have to attend to.