22 The QUEENS Courier • august 29, 2013 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com primary guide MAYOR • DEMOCRATS MAYOR • REPUBLICANS Name: Erick Salgado Party: Democrat Current Position: Reverend Personal: Having worked with the residents of New York City’s diverse communities for almost a quarter century, created and grown a small bookstore into a four borough chain employing many New Yorkers, and started a radio network broadcasting on five stations, Erick Salgado knows and understands the issues of this city. A married father of six, with a doctorate in theology, Erick lives on Staten Island. He combines the business acumen of an entrepreneur with the compassion and insight into what New Yorkers face daily as they live their lives, gained from his work in many of the neighborhoods comprising this city. Issues/Platform: Safety is Erick Salgado’s highest priority. He will increase the ranks of the NYPD to 37,000 and bring back community policing which will allow officers to know and understand the community they patrol. Since small businesses are collectively the city’s largest employer he will remove the obstacles City Hall places on them to help them Name: Neil Grimaldi Party: Democrat Editor’s Note: Request for information thrive and create more jobs for New Yorkers. Because New Yorkers will need an excellent education to be qualified for those jobs he will make the Department of Education more responsive to the needs of all its students from the candidate’s campaign was not received as of press time. No additional information on the candidate was available from an official campaign website. by increasing parental involvement and working to bring back the community school boards. Name: Bill Thompson Party: Democrat Current Position: Former New York City Comptroller Personal: Bill Thompson was born in Brooklyn and has lived and worked in New York City his entire life. His father was born in Harlem and his grandparents were Caribbean immigrants. He worked to bring our communities closer together as deputy borough president, lift up our children as president of the Board of Education, and manage our finances as comptroller. As president of the Board of Education, he fought for after-school programs, art classes and higher teaching standards. Issues/Platform: As mayor, Bill plans to give parents a meaningful voice in our system, end the practice of teaching to the test, place greater emphasis on critical thinking skills, and appoint a chancellor who is an educator. Bill also understands the city needs to be affordable, and as comptroller he made crucial investments in affordable housing for lower and middle class families. If elected, he also plans to overhaul NYCHA and preserve and create 120,000 affordable housing units. Bill knows nothing is more important than our city’s safety, but we can protect our city and people’s constitutional rights at the same time. As mayor he plans to launch a new era of community policing, put over 2,000 new officers on the streets, and end the abuse of stop-and-frisk. Name: Anthony Weiner Party: Democrat Current Position: Former U.S. Congressmember Personal: Anthony Weiner is a fighter for the middle class and those struggling to make it. He grew up a middle class kid in Brooklyn. He went to public schools his whole life. Anthony’s mom was a public school teacher for 31 years. He got his start working for Chuck Schumer and went on to represent Brooklyn and Queens in Congress. The New York Times praised Weiner for his “command of the issues, coupled with his tireless devotion to constituent concerns, underscores a genuine devotion to and eagerness to fight for his native city.” Issues/Platform: When he launched his campaign, Weiner offered “64 Ideas to Keep New York the Capital of the Middle Class,” which discusses his ideas for tackling education, transportation, small business, health care, safety and crime prevention, housing and other issues. “It’s not that those living at the top and bottom of New York’s economic ladder should suffer at the expense of the middle class. It’s that maintaining the city’s claim as the capital of the middle class is an investment that will benefit New Yorkers at all points on the spectrum,” he says in 64 Ideas. To read more about Weiner’s 64 Ideas, visit, www.anthonyweiner.com/keys-city. Editor’s Note: Request for some information from the candidate’s campaign was not received as of press time therefore information on the candidate’s issues/platform was retrieved from the campaign website. H H Name: John Catsimatidis Party: Republican Current Position: CEO of Red Apple Group and Gristedes Foods Personal: John Catsimatidis immigrated to New York City from Greece as a young child, settling in Harlem. After graduating from Brooklyn Tech, he enrolled at NYU, working at a small grocery store on nights and weekends to help his parents with the bills, but dropped out to work full time. By the time he was 25, he had 10 Red Apple Supermarkets along Broadway on Manhattan’s Upper Westside. Forty years later the Red Apple Group has holdings in the retail, energy, aviation and real estate sectors. He currently serves on the Board of Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and the Hellenic Times Scholarship Fund. Issues/Platform: As mayor, Catsimatidis would like to reduce the dropout rate by increasing career and technical education in the New York City public school system. Funding for these programs, he says, can be done through “partnerships with the private sector that can ‘adopt’ a school or sponsor programs.” Catsimatidis believes that “small businesses are the life-blood of every city neighborhood, providing jobs and economic advancement.” If elected, one way he would help small businesses would be by creating a Small Business Advocate for the city that would act as an “ombudsman” for the small business community and answer directly to the mayor. Editor’s Note: Request for information from the candidate’s campaign was not received as of press time therefore this information was retrieved from the candidate’s campaign website.
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