Obituary
Liz Shollenberger, 63, Dem district leader
Liz Shollenberger, who served as
Greenwich Village’s female Democratic
district leader from 1986 to 1995, was
a member of Community Board 2 from
1986 to 1996, and went on to become
a City Court judge in White Plains, in
Westchester County, died on Sept. 5.
She was 63.
Shollenberger died in the hospital
from an infection. She had been battling
a respiratory illness, and had suffered
from various illnesses for more
than 15 years.
After graduating from high school
in Circleville, Ohio, as co-valedictorian
of her class, Shollenberger went on to
graduate from Princeton University
in 1978 and from Yale Law School in
1981. In early 1982, she landed an
apartment on E. Ninth St., between
Broadway and University Place. Even
before that, she had become active in
Village politics.
Following law school, Shollenberger
worked for three private law fi rms in
New York City and taught for two years
at New York University School of Law
(where one of her students was John
Kennedy, Jr.) before fi nding her major
career niche as a Legal Services attorney,
representing indigent clients in the
Bronx and Queens for more than 20
years.
Shollenberger spent the bulk of her
legal career as a Legal Services attorney,
representing indigent clients,
fi rst in the Bronx, where she became
the head of the Housing Unit for the
South Bronx, and later, of the program
providing legal services to the elderly,
and then in Queens, where she headed
the public-benefi ts unit. In Housing
Court, Shollenberger reveled in being
an equalizer, altering the radical
imbalance of power that normally exists
there between low-income tenants
(usually unrepresented) and the attorneys
Liz Shollenberger.
for landlords. Armed with her
“Housing Court Spanish” (as she called
it), a quickly acquired expertise in the
substantive and procedural aspects of
housing law, and a cheerful but steely
willingness to go to trial in any case
where she felt the landlord was not being
reasonable, Shollenberger became a
force in Bronx Housing Court.
In 2005, she won a landmark housing
case in New York’s high court, the
Court of Appeals, which established
that a married woman could maintain
a primary residence different from that
of her husband. In 2007, she was honored
with the Legal Services Award for
service to indigent clients.
In 1983, at age 27, Shollenberger became
the fi rst president of the Village
Reform Democratic Club. In 1986,
she was elected in a primary as female
Democratic district leader for Greenwich
Village, representing a district
that encompassed about three-quarters
of the 66th Assembly District. Her
election ended the Village Independent
Democrats’ 25-year exclusive hold on
the Village district leader posts.
A more politically moderate “pro-
Koch” faction, V.R.D.C. members
broke away from V.I.D. to form their
own club after the latter’s endorsing of
Mario Cuomo over Koch for governor
and disagreements over other issues.
She held that position for nine years,
winning two more primary contests and
then winning two more terms without
opposition. She lost a primary in 1995,
ending her tenure as district leader.
Elected at a time of quickly rising
crime and what was perceived as a declining
“quality of life” in the Village,
Shollenberger combined traditional liberal
Democratic values on many issues
with an emphasis on reclaiming parks
and other public spaces from crime
and other activities that decreased the
ability of many to enjoy those public
spaces.
Beginning in 1983 and continuing
for more than 20 years after that, Shollenberger
operated a free tenant clinic,
holding offi ce hours in the rectory at
Our Lady of Pompeii Church, on Carmine
St., every other Saturday morning
for Village tenants in need of legal
advice and assistance. She continued
to operate the clinic for several years
after her 1999 move from the Village
to White Plains. Her volunteer activities
also included service as a volunteer
attorney for Gay Men’s Health Crisis,
helping to write wills for people with
AIDS who were facing death and not
fi nancially able to hire an attorney to do
that for them.
One of the accomplishments during
her tenure as district leader of which
she was most proud was the role she
played in the initial election to Congress
of Representative Jerry Nadler in
1992. She mobilized support for Nadler
among members of the Democratic
County Committee from the Village at
the party meeting that nominated Nadler
to replace former Representative
Ted Weiss, who had died the day before
the 1992 primary.
Shollenberger ran for Civil Court
judge in Lower Manhattan’s First District
in 1996, losing to Paul Feinman by
just 24 votes out of 7,300 cast. (Simon
is now one of the seven members of the
state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.)
After moving to White Plains, in
1999, with her husband, Tim James
(whom she met at Princeton), Shollenberger
immediately got involved with
the White Plains Democratic Party.
Less than four years later, in 2003, she
was elected chairperson of the White
Plains Democratic City Committee — a
position in which she served for more
than 13 years, until her appointment
by the White Plains Common Council
at the end of 2016 to be a City Court
judge. She also served as a member of
New York’s Democratic State Committee
from 2014 until her appointment to
the bench.
James, who works as an attorney in
New York City, succeeded his wife as
chairperson of the White Plains Democratic
City Committee.
In addition to her husband, Shollenberger
is survived by her mother, Nancy
Shollenberger, of Circleville, and her
half-sister, Diane Kuipers, of Lebanon,
Tennessee.
There will not be a funeral or memorial
service for Shollenberger right
away. A memorial service for her will
be held in White Plains at a time and
place to be determined.
New push to snuff out fl avored e-cigarettes
BY ALEJANDRA O’CONNELLDOMENECH
Advocates want kids to remember
that it’s “back to school”
not “back to JUUL.”
Thurs., Sept. 5, marked the fi rst day
of classes in New York City. Members
of the Flavors Hook Kids NYC coalition
marked the occasion by gathering
signatures for a petition supporting legislation
to restrict the sale of fl avored
tobacco e-products in the Big Apple.
According to the 2018 National
Youth Tobacco Survey, e-cigarette use
among middle school and high school
students increased signifi cantly, from
2.1 million in 2017 to 3.6 million last
year. In 2018, one out of every fi ve high
school students and one out of every 20
middle school students admitted to using
an e-cigarette.
The study attributes the rise in use
to the recent popularity of e-cigarettes
shaped like a USB fl ash drive — like
JUUL — which can be used discreetly,
have high nicotine content and are sold
in fl avors with youth appeal, like bubble
gum, mango and cotton candy.
“My mom smokes and I have a little
brother and I don’t want to see him
do that,” said Kyle Jacobs, 21, a coalition
volunteer working outside of P.S.
64 in the East Village at E. Sixth St.
and Avenue B. “There’s a lot of things
that come with smoking: You can die
young; it can stunt your growth. That’s
not for him.”
Mark Levine, chairperson of the City
Council Health Committee, joined advocates
outside P.S. 64 to help garner
support against what he called, “the
biggest lure that is trapping a new generation
in nicotine addiction.”
The councilmember is the prime
sponsor of the bill to ban the sale of fl avored
e-cigarette products in the city.
The measure currently has support
of 22 other councilmembers. Levine
told Politico that he was working with
Council Speaker Corey Johnson on the
legislation.
Along with Levine’s bill, advocates
support another one introduced by
Councilmember Fernando Cabrera that
would ban menthol-fl avored cigarettes.
Despite recent reports of respiratory
illnesses and deaths attributed to
vaping, Levine’s legislation has been
delayed. According to the Centers
for Disease Control, as of Sept. 6.,
there have been more than 450 possible
cases of lung illnesses related to
e-cigarette use reported to the federal
health agency in 33 states. C.D.C. has
also confi rmed fi ve deaths connected
to e-cigarette use. The agency has even
issued a warning for people not to use
the devices as its investigation of a possible
connection between vaping and
lung illness continues.
6 September 12, 2019 TVG Schneps Media