BY BEN BRACHFELD
Nikki Lucas secured the
Dem nomination in the special
election for East New York’s
60th Assembly District seat,
dealing a blow to the Barron
dynasty which has dominated
area politics for two decades.
Lucas, a local activist, former
district leader, and longtime
critic of the Barrons,
was selected as the nominee
for the Feb. 15 special election
in a meeting of the Brooklyn
Democratic Party’s County
Committee in Starrett City
on Sunday. In a “weighted”
vote of County Committee’s
members in the 60th District,
Lucas handily beat her opponent
Keron Alleyne, winning
13,882.5 weighted votes to Alleyne’s
1,953.75.
“We’ve got to do it differently,
we’ve got to do it differently,”
Lucas told County Committee
members after the vote,
referencing the 20-year Barron
dominion of the area’s politics.
“And I’m gonna take the time
that I need to make sure that we
communicate that message.”
Lucas argued that the Barrons’
high-minded, Black socialist
COURIER L 16 IFE, JANUARY 21-27, 2022
politics had effectively
done little for East New York,
which remains one of the poorest
and most resource-deprived
communities in New York City.
She maintained that the Barrons’
confrontational, lone-wolf
style of politics had isolated the
community and ripped it of resources
and funds, and pitched
herself instead as a partner
and collaborator who would
more effectively meet constituents’
needs.
“I’m about making partnerships,”
Lucas said. “I’m
not gonna agree with you all
the time, I can’t agree with
you all the time. But the one
or two things that I can work
with you, that’s what we’re
gonna champion.”
A total of 167 county committee
members were present
at the vote either in-person
or by proxy, the county
party said. A spokesperson
for Party Chair Rodneyse Bichotte
Hermelyn said that the
weighting is divvied up by
election district, the tiny electoral
units comprising just
a few blocks, each of which
sends delegates to County
Committee. EDs with higher
turnout in the last gubernatorial
primary were assigned
greater weight in the County
Committee selection, said the
spokesperson, Sabrina Rezzy.
“Lucas is an esteemed and
dedicated activist in her community,
whose platform of
‘change’ includes reforming
the police, fi ghting homelessness,
creating affordable housing,
and ending gun violence,”
Bichotte Hermelyn said in a
statement. “We are pleased to
have held a successful nominating
meeting, and are confi -
dent that Nikki, as the Democratic
Party candidate, will be
Nikki Lucas. Courtesy of campaign
a formidable contender in the
special election.
The special election was
called after the seat was vacated
by Charles Barron, the
iconoclastic socialist and former
Black Panther who recently
secured the area’s City
Council seat, succeeding his
wife Inez. Political observers
expected Inez to seek the Assembly
seat, fostering another
seat switcheroo by the couple,
but she instead decided to retire,
leaving the seat open.
The selection became a
proxy fi ght between the county
party and chair, Bichotte
Hermelyn, who was fi rmly but
not formally in the Lucas camp,
and the Barrons — long at odds
with party leadership — who
backed Alleyne, a former Assembly
staffer for Charles.
Days after the vote, Alleyne
— who characerized the
county’s nomination process
as undemocratic— announced
he would still run, but on the
Working Families Party line.
“The people will decide,”
Barron told Brooklyn Paper,
“and I believe that we have a
very good chance of winning.”
If victorious, Alleyne
would be just the third person
in New York City history to
win elected offi ce solely on the
WFP line.
For more on the special election
for AD60, visit Brooklyn-
Paper.com.
END OF AN ERA?
Lucas secures Dem nomination for ENY Assembly
seat, Barron-backed candidate to run on WFP line
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