Volume 18 • Issue 15 | September 01 – 08, 2005
Forum boots ‘reformer’
Christopher X Brodeur might not have been invited to the most recent mayoral candidates forum, but that didn’t keep him from jumping into the mix on Tuesday night. The self-declared “reform candidate” hopped up on stage at the Alliance of Lower East Side Settlements’ Tuesday night forum to let the audience know that he had been left out of the fold.
“Voices of reform have been silenced since the beginning of mankind,” declared Brodeur in a lengthy message left on UnderCover’s voicemail on Wednesday afternoon. Brodeur, who ran for mayor in 2001 as a Green Party candidate, insists he has been “blackmailed” from all the candidates forums and debates because the organizations that host the events “don’t want audiences and voters to hear reform ideas because they know voters want reform.”
The Educational Alliance, one of the six settlement houses that organized the forum, sees the situation differently. Only candidates who have secured at least 10 percent of the public’s interest in opinion polls are considered. Given that criteria, heavy hitters Fernando Ferrer, C. Virginia Fields, Gifford Miller and Anthony Weiner were invited to the forum, which was held at the Educational Alliance’s Mazer Theater at 197 E. Broadway.
“Everyone knows that the polls are inaccurate,” retorted Brodeur’s campaign manager, Jessica Delfino.
Brodeur’s Tuesday night outburst — which ended with the police forcibly removing him from the stage (he was not arrested and left without incident) — was not his first.
In February he was arrested for allegedly telling Ed Skyler, a mayoral spokesperson, “If you lie to the people of New York City, you should have your throat sliced.” And in April, he was brought up on charges for threatening his former landlord, Paul Stallings, and a rent collector for Stallings, Kathleen O’Malley. He left voicemail messages to the tune of: “My girlfriend was saying let’s get Paul Stallings and torture him and record his screams and mail that tape to Kathy O’Malley and then kidnap her and torture her and mutilate her but keep her alive.”
“He has been accused of making comments, but it’s all in the details,” explained Delfino. “I can’t imagine how anybody could look at this situation and not recognize that Christopher has passion that is beneficial to the city.”
Drying out
It’s been dry days for the Battery Park City water babies. The swimming pool, sauna and steam room at Gateway Plaza, a rental complex, were shut down last Friday by the Department of Health, with no word to the residents of the 1,700-unit complex about why their beloved pool was deemed unhealthful on a balmy August afternoon. Turns out, it was all a permit gaffe. The permit expired and the Health Department had not yet received the renewals. “All they [Lefrak] need to do is get their paperwork in to renew their permit and the matter can be resolved relatively quickly,” said Sid Dinsay, a Health Department spokesperson. The water facilities are up and running again, declared James Heller, general manager for Gateway Plaza, adding that the Health Department “misplaced the check.” “It was strictly a permit issue, nothing else, no water contamination, nothing like that,” he said.
Jazzed over arrest
Art D’Lugoff, former owner of the legendary Village Gate club on Bleecker St., is still steaming about how his daughter, Sharon Blythe, was arrested at the July Critical Mass bike ride. Downtowners may recall the front-page photo in The Villager, Downtown Express’s sister newspaper, of Blythe, five-months pregnant, in handcuffs. “She observed the law and she stopped at lights and all,” said D’Lugofff. “I think it’s a rotten deal. She’s a fighter and she knows her rights. The policeman pushed her around and all — it was terrible. He saw she had a belly. What was it all about?” Blythe’s daughter Charlotte, 17, is a competitive bike racer, D’Lugoff added.
Dogfight
It looks like it’s going to be a dogfight over the dog-owners’ vote in the District 2 Council race. Hot on the heels of Darren Bloch’s winning the endorsement of a pet PAC, we’ve just learned that Michael Beys’s wife, Cheyne, runs a dog Web site, www.urbanhound.com. Beys says, if elected, he will fight to insure that dog-friendly salt is used on city streets in the winter.
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