By MELANIE GOLDBERG
Clint Eastwood may not be the only one to debate with an empty chair.
Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz, whose district runs from Manhattan Beach north to Midwood, refused to debate not only during his Democratic primary campaign against insurgent Ben Akselrod back in September, but also more recently against Republican candidate Russell Gallo and Akselrod, now on the Independence Party line.
Each year, the Manhattan Beach Community Group offers to run televised debates for all local candidates so that they may reach their constituents more directly, and so that their constituents can ask the questions they care about. This year’s was scheduled for Oct. 24.
Gallo assailed Cymbrowitz, who has served in the Assembly for 12 years, for his refusal to debate. “I think it’s disgraceful,” he said. “Democrats in New York City don’t generally have opponents. In a sense they have absolute power. The voters should be able to see this debate so we can let them decide.”
In a statement released to Gallo’s campaign on Oct. 15 as well as to the community group, Cymbrowitz stated that “MBCG is unable to be impartial” in the debate.
When asked to elaborate on what that meant, Cymbrowitz’s aide, Laura Singer, responded via email that she had “been advised that a debate has not been discussed for the general election in the 45th Assembly District,” and that “the issue was with the sponsor of the debate, not the debate itself.”
The community group posted a note on its Web site saying it would go ahead with the debate. “We will have an extra chair in case Assemblyman Steve Cymbrowitz changes his mind,” it said.
Gallo and his campaign managers were not shocked at the Cymbrowitz campaign’s decision, though, since it has been a common strategy for incumbents in local races to avoid debates.
With Republican victories in local races for State Senate race and Congress, it may well become more difficult for Democrats in southern Brooklyn to act as if their opponents don’t exist. Cymbrowitz also faced a challenge within his own party; in September, he won the Democratic primary by a relatively slim margin for an incumbent, 7 percentage points.
Akselrod’s decision to run on the Independence line – which could divide voters opposed to Cymbrowitz – angered Gallo, who charged that the vote count used to determine the Independence Party’s nominee was unfair.
“I’m sure voters’ frustration of Cymbrowitz had a hand in the fact that he won the primary by so little,” Gene Barardelli, Gallo’s campaign co-manager, said. “But it could also have been the result of a low voter turnout.”
Generally, though, low voter turnout favors incumbents, since they have the funds to advertise themselves in the election and the current backing of their party to get out their vote.
“There will be a time when conservatives will take over the district,” political consultant Bob Liff said. “The Republican Party’s current challenge is to make their voice not a minority voice. But Cymbrowitz is smart enough to know he wants less press. You want to give your opponents less oxygen.”
Barardelli said that voters should have an opportunity to hear the voice of opposition. With the 45th Assembly District’s demographics changing – there is a large population of Russian immigrants and Orthodox Jews – sometimes the party representing them has to change as well, he said.
“I still find that Cymbrowitz has been a diligent assemblyman,” Liff said. “I find him a smart, talented and hardworking official. The public cannot ignore that.”
Barardelli touted Gallo, a sergeant in the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority police, as a man who “doesn’t know the meaning of politically correct. What he says is who he is.”
Gallo has announced that he “believes that marriage can only be between one man and one woman.” He also sent a letter inviting Chick-Fil-A, the fast-food chain that enraged gay activists by spending millions of dollars on the campaign against legalizing same-sex marriage, to come to Brooklyn. (Cymbrowitz voted against the measure that legalized same-sex marriage in New York State.)
“It’s refreshing,” Diana Sepulveda, also Gallo’s campaign co-manager, said. “Gallo is brutally honest in real life He’s saying what he thinks and feels.”
On Oct. 15, Gallo received the support of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. “It draws even more attention to him [Gallo] as a candidate,” Diana Sepulveda, also co-manager of the Gallo campaign, said. “The association is what opens the conversation.”
By GILBERTE SAINT-PRIEUX & AVRIL REGIS
The surviving victim of a gang shooting three years ago testified Tuesday in a Brooklyn courthouse that he did not want to identify his assailants but instead wanted to kill them himself.
The witness, Derrick Henry, who is in jail in an unrelated case, later changed his mind and decided to cooperate with authorities.
The defendants, Maurice Hall, 30, Andrew Smart, 28, and Raneiro Chavez, 24, were charged with firing 30 shots at rival gang members Antoine Stokes, 20, Steven Hill, 15, and Derrick Henry, also 15 at the time.
In his testimony, Henry recalled being at 217 Bainbridge Street with Stokes, 20, and Hill, 15, free run 3.0 v4 femmes and deciding to go down the block to get Chinese food together, then returning to eat on the apartment building stoop.
Henry said they were approached by air jordan 5 femmes the defendants who asked, “Are you Chaun City?” the name of a rival gang. Henry said no but Stokes said yes.
The hail of bullets the gang members released on Henry and his friends landed him in the hospital for three months when his kidney was removed.
Police officials at the time said the shooting was in retaliation for an earlier shooting.
By AYA YOSHIDA and HAIKAL FERNANDEZ
A 25-year-old construction worker was killed after being trapped inside a building that collapsed in the Gerritsen Beach section of Brooklyn on Tuesday morning, the Fire Department said.
Three other construction workers suffered minor injuries when the building, a vacant two-story house under construction on 38 Frank Court and Seba Avenue, collapsed. Fire Department officials said the upper floor fell toppled at about 11 a.m.
According to authorities, there were five workers working on the building, with three of them on the roof when the building collapsed. Officials said the deceased worker died of trauma; the names of the victims were not released.
Buildings Commissioner Robert LiMandri, who appeared at a news conference at the scene, said three factors contributed to the building’s collapse.
He said the existing structure of the building was compromised; the second story addition was not anchored properly; air jordan 4 femmes and there were some design flaws in the construction plan. The existing structure was an old bungalow that couldn’t sustain a second floor, he said.
A legal construction permit was signed in 2004, but ownership changed several times between then and the present. The current owner had the proper permit approved late last year, but it was pulled in March, LiMandri said.
He said an investigation was continuing for any possible permit violations.
The building is currently stabilized, officials said, but utilities have been cut and the next-door neighbors have been vacated for safety reasons.
Melissa Impellizeri, a resident of the neighborhood, said she heard what she thought were gunshots at that time. The property had been vacant for years, she said.
Gerritsen Beach, located in southern Brooklyn, is known for its small-town atmosphere and its beachfront.
By MAX NEOPIKHANOV and ARIANNA ROMIG
A former captain of the Colombo crime family testified Tuesday that ex-boss Thomas Gioeli and hit man Dino Saracino ordered him to kill multiple people, including a city police officer mysteriously slain in Brooklyn in 1997.
Dino Calabro, Saracino’s cousin, testified that Gioeli ordered him and Saracino to kill Police Officer Ralph Dols – without telling them that Dols was a cop.
“Tommy had told me he was a Mexican guy who worked in a social club,” he said.
Calabro said that Gioeli was acting on orders from Joel Cacace, who was acting head of the Colombo crime family at the time. Prosecutors say that Cacace ordered a hit on Dols because he married Cacace’s ex-wife.
Gioeli and Saracino are on trial at U.S. District Court in Brooklyn on racketeering conspiracy charges that include six murders. Calabro, previously sentenced to life in prison, agreed to cooperate with authorities in January, 2009 and is seeking a reduced sentence.
A day after the slaying, Calabro saw Dols’ face on the front page of a newspaper when walking to a candy store, and found out he was an officer. “We don’t typically kill police officers,” he testified. “It’s a rule. We don’t hurt kids, and we don’t kill cops.”
The hit occurred in 1997 in front of Dols’ Brooklyn home at East 19th Street and Avenue U. In his testimony, Calabro gave details about the planning and execution of the hit. Calabro said that he had used a .44-caliber revolver and Saracino used a .45-caliber air jordan 10 automatic pistol to kill Dols. He also detailed how he and Saracino stole a car to drive to the crime scene, then fled in a brown Jaguar that belonged to Saracino.
After the slaying, Saracino and Calabro went to Saracino’s home where they hung out in the hallway and listened to their police scanner, Calabro said.
Calabro found out from relatives a few days later that police were suspicious of him and Saracino because of a parking ticket that Saracino had received in the same area. He felt he was being watched, he said.
After learning that Dols was a cop, Calabro and Saracino referred to him as “AIDS” and would gesture the motion of a needle being inserted into his arm, in reference to their belief that they would receive the death penalty if ever caught for the murder. They also discussed “taking out” Cacace, because he had “screwed them” by having them kill a police officer, Calabro said.
Calabro also testified that he had murdered William Cutolo, an underboss he said Gioeli believed was trying to become head of the family after former boss Alphonse Persico was imprisoned.
Calabro testified that Gioeli was to drive Cutolo to Saracino’s Brooklyn home, but because of a car problem, Cutolo arrived before Gioeli.
Cutolo “went in, I went in behind him, closed the door, pulled out my gun and shot him in the back of the head,” Calabro said. According to Calabro, Gioeli arrived minutes later and Calabro told him it was done.
Calabro said he and Saracino buried the body in Farmingdale, Long Island, where it was recovered in 2008.
When asked why he committed the murders, Calabro said: “I wanted to be inducted into the crime family.”
Gioeli and Saracino face life in prison if convicted.
Flowers arrive early at Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Dara Feinberg.
By DARA FEINBERG
Jennifer Sidman pointed happily to a single, tiny purple flower bud.
“Look Naya, spring is in the air!” the 33-year-old mom told her toddler daughter. flower bud. “See all the little pretty flowers coming up?”
As they walked Tuesday along the green-lined pathways of the Osborne Garden at the <a href=”http://www.bbg.org/news/”>Brooklyn Botanic Garden</a>, Sidman and her daughter were not the only ones who are noticing the sudden growth springing up everywhere weeks before winter’s end.
Due to mild weather, flower buds and other plant growth are beginning to make their appearance earlier than expected in parks all over New York City. At the Botanic Garden in Brooklyn however, staff members aren’t worried about the fluctuating weather and have decided to let nature take its course.
“We’re being good horticulturists by going about our usual Air Jordan Femme methods of protection,” said Communications Manager Kate Blumm. This includes mulching and placing fences around trees, but Blumm attests that the blossoming vegetation is strong enough to withstand severe weather.
Crocus and snowdrops are among the first plants to crop up during the early season; they can endure swings in the weather.
“I couldn’t be more excited for spring!” Sidman said. “Seeing all this new growth can really lift your spirits after being cooped up all winter, and what better place to see it than at the Botanical Gardens?”
The Brooklyn Botanic Garden is currently undergoing construction in some areas as it prepares to renovate various gardens for the summer months.
