Koppell must mend fences if he wants to run again

By N. Clark Judd

The last few weeks have been rough for City Councilman Oliver Koppell.

His call for a bill to extend term limits from eight years to 12 drew ire from current and former supporters. As a similar bill wends its way through the council this week, Mr. Koppell says he'll wait until it is either rejected or made into law to announce whether or not he'd take advantage of the opportunity to seek re-election. If he does, he'll have a lot of making-up to do with the political powers-that-be he alienated not just with his stance on term limits, but by siding against them in vicious infighting within the Bronx Democratic Party.

"We've supported him through thick and thin, and it's going to be a trying time for us to mend fences or create something new," said Randi Martos, a Democratic district leader in Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz's district and a member of the Ben Franklin Reform Democratic Club, the organization that has put Mr. Koppell's name on the ballot since the start of his political career.

She said she hasn't made up her mind if she would support him in a re-election bid.

"I'm not sure personally what I would do," she said. "I'm a little angry now, and I'm hurt that he went totally over and above what he had to do. He could have stayed neutral."

The other district leader in Riverdale and Kingsbridge's assembly district, Bruce Feld, also a Ben Franklin Club member, also said he was "very disappointed" in Mr. Koppell.

When the club sided with Mr. Dinowitz and Assemblyman Carl Heastie against the county's established Democratic leadership, Mr. Koppell took the other side.

He conceded it was, in part, because Council Majority Leader Joel Rivera and the head of the council's Bronx delegation, Maria Baez, could have frozen him out of committee chairmanships if he sided against them and lost. He currently heads committees on mental health and drug abuse, but served for years without any leadership role - believed to be a punishment for offending Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Adding insult to injury for constituents who sided with Mr. Dinowitz and Mr. Heastie, the Rivera faction elected Mr. Koppell as their parliamentarian at the now infamous Sept. 28 committee meeting.

Mr. Koppell has since withdrawn support for Mr. Rivera and says he didn't even know he was selected to be part of that group's executive committee.

"I'm calling for there to be a compromise, a negotiation, a compromise, which would include that Jose's time as county chairman would come to an end," he said.

As parliamentarian, Mr. Koppell would be Mr. Rivera's expert on the party rules. Ironically, he wasn't aware Mr. Rivera's supporters moved to change the committee rules on Sept. 28 so that the committee as a whole, not just district leaders - 15 out of 24 of whom support Mr. Heastie - pick the county leader. He disagrees with that on principle, he says.

As for term limits, Mr. Koppell has always disagreed with them on principle, but he says his decision to run for re-election depends on the opinion of his allies and constituents.

"If it passes," he said Tuesday, "I invite my constituents to tell me whether or not I should run for re-election."

Two of Mr. Koppell's potential competitors, Tony Cassino and Ari Hoffnung, say they will run regardless of the incumbent's decision.

"There's absolutely no question in my mind that I'm still running," said Mr. Hoffnung, "and I think it's also fair to say that Oliver Koppell has essentially abandoned his roots as a reformer."

Mr. Cassino supports Mr. Bloomberg, the chief booster of extending term limits, but also says he thinks term limits should only be changed through a referendum.

"If they changed it," he said, "they changed it, so he's sitting there as a candidate."

Mr. Cassino would vote for Mr. Bloomberg even if the mayor pursues the current plan to legislate a change in term limits.

Helen Morik, another council candidate, was non-committal.

Community Board 8 land use committee chairman Charles Moerdler, who is also considering a council bid, said Mr. Koppell's stance on term limits does not add "any luster at all to his record," which he otherwise praised.

Even if Mr. Koppell loses the support of the Ben Franklin Club, he could still run, said one Democratic operative in Riverdale. "The local voters know Oliver Koppell. He's a known commodity," said Bill Weitz, part of Riverdale's delegation to the Democratic state committee, "And that name recognition is certainly a big advantage."

Someone who's been around as long as Mr. Koppell has the wherewithal to get himself on the ballot even without Ben Franklin's help, Mr. Weitz added.

Not everyone is mad at Mr. Koppell. Jacki Fischer, an active member of Northwest Bronx for Obama and a self-described supporter of Mr. Heastie, certainly isn't.

Mr. Koppell's change of heart "tells me that he's big enough and honest enough to rethink something in light of the information and circumstances at hand, and I admire that," she said. "'Flip-flop' doesn't mean anything to me."

This is part of the October 9, 2008 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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