LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

These seats belong to all of us

Posted

To the editor:

(re: “Nepotism is dismantling democracy in plain sight,” June 6)

We hear rumblings about more shady backroom politics every day, from City Hall to the capitol in Albany. It’s part of what drove me to run against Jeff Klein. It’s part of what’s animated my life in activism, policy and organizing.

And it’s getting positively tiresome.

Twitter is abuzz with rumors of a plan to install Eric Dinowitz, son of our Assemblyman, into our seat on the city council. Without knowing all the details — and without trusting Twitter any more than anyone should — I want to be clear as I possibly can be about this: The Bronx should not stand for this kind of unacceptable, anti-democratic, hereditary power grab.

And we won’t.

Just this past year, Riverdale and the rest of the Bronx was at the epicenter of an earthquake that shook loose the corrupt Independent Democratic Conference and remade Albany.

Our congressman is the chairman of the powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee.

We demand the best of our public servants.

Now we all know the Bronx ain’t exactly a paragon of upright political rectitude. But as a lifelong Riverdalian, I know that my neighbors and I aren’t about to get behind some kind of “Game of Thrones” plot to install the Assemblyman’s son onto the New York City Council in a surprise election.

A surprise election they hope we’ll all forget about.

The city council seat belongs to the people of this district. And that Assembly seat belongs to the people of this district. Just like the state senate seat belongs to the people of this district.

Our elected representatives would do well to remember it.

Lewis Kaminski

 

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Lewis Kaminski,

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