28 The QUEE NS Courier • APRIL 28, 2016 for breaking news visit www.qns.com RADIO HOST CURTIS SLIWA SAYS HE’S CHALLENGING HIS EX, KATZ, FOR BORO PREZ By Angela Matua amatua@qns.com/@AngelaMatua Curtis Sliwa, the ex-partner of current Queens Borough President Melinda Katz and father of her two children, announced last week that he would run for her seat as a Republican in 2017. Sliwa, a talk show host on WABC-AM and founder of the international volunteer patrol organization Guardian Angels, attended the Juniper Park Civic Association in Middle Village on Thursday night, where he spoke about the “corrupt” and ineffective Democratic Party, railing on everyone from Mayor Bill de Blasio to Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley and Congressman Joe Crowley. His speech was met with cheers and claps from the packed auditorium. “What is the most corrupt Democratic county in America now?” Sliwa asked the audience. “Does anyone know? Crook sic County, Illinois? No, it pales in comparison to Queens County, the Democratic corrupt machine.” He announced the run as a possibility last week at a gala for the Queens County Republican Party, according to DNAinfo. But he made it clear last night to a full house at the Our Lady of Hope auditorium that he would look to run against Katz, with whom he has a very personal history. As documented in the Daily News, Sliwa donated his sperm to Katz, who had two sons. Sliwa and Katz were also in a personal relationship until they broke up in November 2014. Though he previously took shots at Katz at the gala, he told the audience that she was one of the only elected officials in office who was not corrupt. “I know her political bones and where they’re buried,” Sliwa said. “But I can swear to you she’s not corrupt.” In his speech, which lasted for about half an hour, he questioned the effectiveness of Queens officials on both sides of the political spectrum, mentioning the longtime dilapidation of Woodhaven Boulevard and Willets Point, and the rapid succession of shuttered hospitals in the borough. “Queens is one of the largest, most prosperous boroughs in the city of New York with a growing population, and they’re closing your hospitals left right and every which way,” Sliwa said. “How do they get away with it? They get away with it because they can.” Sliwa would have to move from his Brooklyn home to Queens to make the run for office. Photo courtesy of Juniper Park Civic Association/Walter Karling “I will do what I have to do to make that run for office,” Sliwa said. A spokesperson for Katz said the current borough president has no comment. “The borough president’s children are now old enough to read the papers and Google their parents’ names; as such, the borough president will reserve any further comment on the father of her children at this time,” said spokesperson Sharon Lee. Civic leaders after Sliwa’s announcement Queens Politics & More BY MIKE FRICCHIONE A FAREWELL T O FUNDRAISING The insidious relationship between politicians and campaign contributions has been well documented throughout the ages. For as long as there’s been those seeking political power, there has also been those same people asking others to fund their endeavors. One can argue that the tradition goes as far back as to Julius and Augustus Caesar, who raised huge sums of private money to wage foreign wars for selfserving glory, which led to higher office, and of course, ultimately enshrined their immortality in the annals of history. Contemporary political campaigns, and the politicians who engage in them, are not that dissimilar from their Roman counterparts. They follow the same formula. In fact, the very word “campaign,” as well as the “field” that candidates compete in, are borrowed military terms that harken to battles waged between competing armies in the open, grassy fields. But not every politician craves war. Fast forward a few thousand years, and you can find a growing movement to stop the proud bloodsport that officeseekers on every level of government shamelessly and ritualistically partake in every year, whereby money is used not to raise armies and buy weapons, but hire canvassers and buy airtime on television. One such solution to ending the violence that has recently gained national notoriety comes all the way from southern Florida, where Republican Congressman David Jolly introduced legislation that would ban members of Congress from personally asking people for money. The bill was crafted by Jolly after the Republican House leadership instructed him that his number one priority in Congress was to raise $16,000 a day in order to be competitive in his Sunshine State swing district. Jolly said his “Stop Act” is needed because too many in Congress spend more time raising money than doing the job they were elected to do. And Jolly is not alone. Local Congressman Steve Israel, once chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is tasked with raising millions of dollars each year for congressional candidates, is hanging it up and retiring at the end of this year because he says he’s sick of all the fundraising calls. That’s right, earlier this year Congressman Israel detailed in a New York Times Op-Ed entitled “Confessions of a Congressman” that “It’s now safe to pick up your phones and read your emails,” because he won’t be calling to ask you to donate to his congressional campaign anymore. The Long Island congressman details, in agonizing fashion, how he has spent roughly 4,200 hours begging people for money and attended more than 1,600 fundraisers (just for his own campaigns) in his 15-year career. So if every politician’s first job is to get re-elected, then we better start talking about what these politicos are potentially trading off in their second job, serving the people.
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