8 JULY 4, 2019 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Primary update
The Community Board 5
Transportation Committee
is expected to give at the next
full board meeting on Wednesday,
July 10, a recommendation for or
against a proposed bus lane on
Fresh Pond Road in Ridgewood.
Board 5 will hold its next
meeting at 7:30 p.m. on July 10
at the CNL Center of Christ the
King High School, located at 68-
02 Metropolitan Ave. in Middle
Village (Enter through Door 10,
take stairs or elevator to third
fl oor).
The Transportation Committee
will offer its opinion on the
Department of Transportation
plan to create a southbound
bus lane along Fresh Pond Road
between Metropolitan and
Putnam Avenues.
Additionally, the regular
meeting agenda includes a public
forum; a review of liquor license
applications and demolition
notices; reports by Board 5
Chairperson Vincent Arcuri and
District Manager Gary Giordano;
and other committee reports.
For more information or to
register to speak in advance, call
Board 5 at 718-366-1834.
Maps depict support in QDA primary
BY MARK HALLUM
MHALLUM@SCHNEPSMEDIA.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
While Tiffany Cabán holds
a 1,100-vote lead over
Borough President Melinda
Katz, with a count of absentee ballots
pending in the Queens district attorney
primary, maps from CUNY Graduate
Center show election districts that went
heavy for the insurgent Democratic
Socialist.
Not only does the research in the
maps depict territories clearly more
dedicated to Cabán, but they also
show that the public defender posed
a surprise challenge to Katz in the
borough president’s own turf: Forest
Hills and Kew Gardens.
Katz dominated in the southeast,
while retired Judge Gregory Lasak
swayed majorities in traditional
conservative strongholds across
Queens in the northeast, Howard Beach
and the western Rockaway Peninsula.
About 28 to 50 percent of votes in
Queensbridge and Astoria Houses
went to Katz, giving her the advantage
in those election districts. But they
were enclaves in what turned out to
be Cabán country, contrasted by deep
red indicating 60 to 95 percent of voters
choosing Cabán over the six other
candidates on the ballot.
Approximately 70 to 100 percent
of voters chose Katz in Far Rockaway
districts, while parts of Fresh Meadows
also voted heavily for the borough
president, whose term is up in 2021.
After the polls closed on June 25,
Katz and Congressman Gregory
Meeks – Queens County Democratic
Party chair – said they would seek a
full count of absentee paper ballots
that they believed would tip the race in
Katz’s favor.
The city Board of Elections count
of about 3,400 absentee ballots is
scheduled for July 3. Aft er the count, it
will certify a primary winner.
“When you look at the map you realize
there are many more election districts
where Cabán received 70 percent or
more of the vote than Borough President
Katz did, so supporters who turned
out for Cabán really turned out more
strongly,” said Steven Romalewski, who
heads up the CUNY Mapping Service,
told QNS. “There are almost two poles
of support: there’s western Queens and
southeastern Queens. But between all of
that there is a lot of mixed support. The
votes weren’t strongly for one candidate
or another.”
“What that tells me is that Borough
President Katz could have done a lot
better, but she didn’t,” he added.
Romalewski pointed out that
although Katz’s support is depicted in
green across wider swaths of the fi rst
map, the pie chart map illustrates just
how much Cabán and other candidates
may have watered-down the vote.
“I think it’s premature and incomplete
to say that Cabán is the candidate
of places that people consider are
gentrifying. She got support in a lot of
other places, maybe not enough support
to win those election districts but still
she made a strong showing in many
parts of the borough,” Romalewski
added. “It’s not that she did poorly, but
I would have imagined it to be much
stronger.”
Romalewski also said this was an
election with low voter turnout, which
only 11 percent of registered Democrats
making their way to the polls.
Queens has not seen a competitive
race for DA in over 28 years, since
Richard Brown was appointed to
succeed John Santucci, and while other
counties have brought reforms to the
offi ce, policies have remained mostly
unchanged.
Lasak, on the campaign trail, claimed
that while he worked to overturn
wrongful convictions during his time
in the DA’s offi ce, Brown was resistant
to creating an offi cial unit that would
vindicate innocent people sitting behind
bars for crimes they did not commit.
And as the criminal justice community
has long debated eliminating cash
bail, Albany only recently voted on a
statewide reform this year in April.
But while the offi ce under Brown
maintained a steady, tough-on-crime
attitude for 28 years, those who carry on
Brown’s legacy, such as acting DA John
Ryan, have defended the late Brown as
a fi ghter who made the borough a safer
place.
While Cabán’s campaign rarely took
issue with Brown’s policies directly,
she ran on a platform that called for
zero cash bail, an end to prosecutions
for low-level drug possession or sex
work as well as advocating for an end
to incarceration with a motto of “no new
jails.”
Cabán, whose campaign was
slow to raise funds or create a stable
organization, quickly picked up
steam in the fi nal weeks before the
primary, buoyed in part by high-profi le
endorsements from Congresswoman
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Philadelphia
DA Larry Krasner, and Senators
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
The New York City Board of
Elections was scheduled
to begin counting on
Wednesday, July 3, the paper
ballots in the still-unresolved
Queens district attorney primary
election.
Because of the Independence
Day holiday, the print deadline of
this newspaper was moved up by
a day to Tuesday, July 2. Therefore,
the results of the July 3 count are
not available here.
We invite you to check QNS.com
for the latest reports on the count
and the Queens’ DA race itself.
As of press time, public
defender Tiffany Cabán had a
nearly 1,100-vote lead on Queens
Borough President Melinda
Katz in the Democratic primary.
There were an estimated 6,000
absentee and affi davit ballots to
be reviewed and counted by the
Board of Elections.
— Robert Pozarycki
Credit: CUNY Mapping Service
Bus lane
plan to get
CB 5 vote
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