Contrary to popular misconception, Orthodox Jews are not the only voting bloc in Council District 44. This one seems to be breaking toward for the Republican.

I guess they weren’t won over by the Joe Lazar Jingle (mp3).

This did not stop State Supreme Court from tossing Judge’s name of the ballot for the March 23 special election. As reported by YourNabe.com, the Board of Elections had ruled 786 of Judge’s 1,221 petitioning signatures to be valid – just above the 765 threshold for a spot on the ballot. But the David Greenfield campaign took the matter to court, which threw out another 36 signatures. Judge is the second candidate thrown from the ballot, following the removal of Avraham Shlomo Tischler.

BK Southie awaits word from the Judge team regarding the next steps for the campaign.

Photo: Brian Hedden

Wild possums are destroying Brooklynites’ gardens, threatening small dogs and terrifying teenage girls.

OK. First of all – if a dog can be threatened by a possum, then it was never really a dog to begin with. I’m sure it turned in its Dog Card long before it crossed paths with a possum.

“Last year, while walking around the [Dyker Beach] golf course at dusk, my daughter and I bumped into one. We were so scared. We’re city girls,” said Marnee Elias-Pavia, district manager of Community Board 11, which covers Bensonhurst, Mapleton, Bath Beach and Gravesend.

Elias-Pavia’s 13-year-old daughter was terrified.

“My daughter screamed and I had to grab her from running into the street,” Elias-Pavia recalled.

Secondly, if approached by a wild possum, don’t panic! Calmly hand over your valuables. An iPod can be replaced. Your life cannot.

City Councilmember Domenic Recchia (D-Coney Island) claims the city is responsible for the growing possum population.

About 10 years ago, “There was a rat problem in Marine Park and Gerritsen Beach so they brought the possums in to target the rats,” Recchia explained. “These possums weren’t supposed to be able to duplicate, to have babies. It turns out that they had babies. Now, they’re pretty much everywhere and they’re a problem.”

Now it sounds like something straight out of Jurassic Park. That’s funny. I’ve met Recchia once, he didn’t strike me as the Jeff Goldblum type that mumbles things like “Nature found a way!” I wonder how nature found a way?

The creatures reproduce and mature at an incredible rate.

“They have a quick pregnancy,” [Urban Park Ranger Andrew] Marsala said. “It’s almost like a bowel movement.”

Whoa, Mack. Too much information there. Let’s just stick to rabbit analogies next time, OK?

“Why, hello there. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you.”

Daylight, that is. After I get home from work. For months, it’s been pitch black when I step out of the subway. Monday evening was the first time since I-don’t-even-remember that I saw daylight.

After clocks spring forward this Sunday (March 14), we’ll all be seeing a lot more of this in the evening.

All photos: Brian Hedden

With these two weekend incidents, along with general concern over the number of auto/pedestrian accidents in the area, I would like to offer crazy drivers three simple tips to reduce the number of injuries and fatalities in our community.

1. STOP F****** RUNNING OVER PEOPLE.
2. IF you just can’t help yourself, then for God’s sake, DO NOT DRIVE AWAY BEFORE THE COPS ARRIVE. Because hit-and-run drivers deserve the death penalty.
3. And lastly, STOP F****** RUNNING OVER PEOPLE.

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• Hannah Springer, a Bay Ridge resident that was the subject of a recent Brooklyn Paper article about raw milk consumption, is really really NOT happy with that paper’s coverage. (The Healthy Family Chronicles)
• Acid doesn’t hurt people. Delusional psychopathic dog-haters who walk around with jars of acid hurt people. (Sheepshead Bites)
• Stillwell Avenue, pre-Joe Sitt. It still annoys me that the first things he tore down were the spots I was most looking forward to visiting in 2007 during my post-Connecticut-exile return to Brooklyn. (Amusing The Zillion)
• At first, I didn’t believe it. But if Key Food went through the trouble of publicizing their stocked shelves through the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, then I suppose they really mean to open the 69th Street and Third Avenue location. This Week. (Bay Ridge Blog, Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
• I had no idea that the reigning Miss Brooklyn lives in Manhattan Beach and loves thrift stores. I do remember the Brooklyn Paper complaining that the 2008 winner lived in Manhattan (without the Beach). I don’t remember them plugging 2009 winner Keelie Sheridan at all. Maybe they’re not sure where Manhattan Beach is? Or maybe they know exactly where it is, which is probably outside their distribution area. (Sheepshead Bites)
• This 1924 aerial view of Gerritsen Beach looks like Google Maps in some sort of Hot Tub Time Machine. (GerritsenBeach.net)
• Lola Star is officially back in her Boardwalk cribs. On a related note, her blog makes me extremely confused as to whether I should be spelling her name with one ‘r’ or two. (Lola Star’s Diary)
• The volunteer Gerritsen Beach Fire Department is looking for additional support from the community, at least more than 25% of it. I’ll fess up, I had no idea that GB even had a volunteer fire department. (GerritsenBeach.net)
• A large condo development on Avenue Z is on the fast track to nowhere. (Sheepshead Bites)

(From left: David Greenfield, Jonathan Judge, Joe Lazar, Avraham Shlomo Tischler. Photo credit: Brian Hedden)

The Jewish Press organized a debate last week with the participation of four of the candidates running for the empty 44th City Council seat (click here for their coverage). The Orthodox news site Vos Iz Neias had video produced of the entire two-hour function (their analysis is here). All 12 video clips are reposted below.

And of course, I was there as both a resident of the 44th, and as the South Brooklyn blogger!

One of the participating candidates – Avraham Shlomo Tischler – has already been dropped from the ballot, following successful challenges to the meager number of signatures on Tischler’s petitions.

The Daily News portrayed the 18-year-old Touro College student as the truth-to-power candidate, as some sort of modern-day David striking fear into the Goliath campaigns of David Greenfield and Joe Lazar. It’s stories like this that make it hard for me to take the Daily News seriously.

Tischler’s performance at the debate was beyond dismal – he definitively demonstrated that he was not, in any way, even remotely qualified for the job of City Councilman. He even said at one point, “I will have a well-trained staff that I know will guide me through each and every step of the way… I will learn becoming a Councilman the right and proper way” (video clip 4 below the fold, 6:05). Actually, he said that a lot. As if voters were somehow looking for an intern to fill the vacancy in the 44th.

As for the grown-ups in the room…

The core of Joe Lazar’s campaign has been to emphasize his experience in government (budget director at the DOB, regional director of the state’s mental health agency). During the debate, he specifically cited the experience and ability to delve into agency budgets, identify waste, and reappropriate the spending for worthwhile projects as his leading differentiator from the other candidates (video 3, 6:25).

What Lazar didn’t do was directly attack anyone else’s experience. In prior published reports, Lazar has basically said Greenfield lacks any relevant experience whatsoever. Last Wednesday, he settled for a call to the audience to vette out the statements of accomplishment made by himself and the others (video 4, 2:58).

Greenfield made sure to play up his most recent experience – founder of the education advocacy organization TeachNYS – and highlighted the accomplishments of that organization in winning funding in Albany for yeshivas and computers, and winning refundable tax credits for parents.

Jonathan Judge wants you to know he is a conservative Republican, and “the first and foremost priority of your next City Councilman has to be to make the cost of living in this city lower” (video 3, 4:05). He certainly got in the best zinger of the evening. When Greenfield railed against the high-profile endorsements for Lazar while failing to mention his own high-profile endorsements, Judge owned him in the response. “Both of the two colleagues sitting next to me have been endorsed by the very establishment people that left us with the massive corruption that we are dealing with right now… The people who are messimg up the system are trying to get more of the same people in it to join in the fun” (video 8, 7:45).

While Judge and Lazar emphasized identifying waste in the City budget, Greenfield made it clear his role would be one of community advocacy. “The role of the Councilman is not the role of the Mayor. We don’t manage the budget, we don’t write the budget, we don’t root out waste and fraud. There is one job that I have, and that is to demand more for this community, to bring the resources back and deliver to you” (video 4, 7:50). Lazar later replied that you have to work within existing funding streams during the economic downturn, and anyone who tells you they’re going to get you new programs “is out and out lying to you.”

And now, roll the tape…

P.S. Video 6 has a conversation about parking tickets that is far more interesting than you would ordinarily think.

Video 1 – Opening statements by David Greenfield and Jonathan Judge begin at 4:35.

Video 2 – Opening statements by Joe Lazar and Avraham Shlomo Tischler.

Video 3 – As a member of the city council you will be an integral part of the city’s budgetary process with both the Mayor and the Comptroller. You would have to find the proper balance of higher taxes and reduced spending, and find ways to help get our city through these difficult economic times. What makes you more qualified for this task than your opponents?

Video 4 – The City Council has 51 members and is often described as a body that functions by virtue of alliances among the members. What better suits you than your opponents for such coalitions? Additionally, you would be 51 out of 51 in seniority. How would you overcome this obstacle?

(Starting at 8:40) You all have talked about cutting expenses. Do you plan to push for any new programs on the City Council? If yes, how do you propose to pay for them? Please include in your answer the issue of increasing aid to yeshivas and other private schools.

Video 5 – (Starting at 6:30) – Audience question – …curious what your stance is on congestion pricing.

Video 6 – (Starting at 1:40) – Aside from writing a letter to the Commissionor, what other actions will you take to curb the problem of parking tickets?

Video 7 – What is your position on the lack of available housing in the district, and what specific steps would you take to address this problem? In your answer, please address the issue of affordable housing. Also, if you like, include the problem of the low number of public parks in the district.

Video 8 – Regarding issues such as gay rights, parochial schools, to the extent that they come before the City Council, should a Councilmember vote in accordance with his personal views, or the views of their constituents?

(Starting at 4:20) – Audience question – Many people think the system needs revamping. Many of you tout your experience in the system as the reason to vote for you. Don’t we really need people from outside the system to affect real change?

Video 9 – (Starting at 2:45) – A Jewish Press reader identifying himself as an Italian-American asked whether you would be able to represent all of the constituents in your district, and not just those from your own ethnic group?

Video 10 – Many of our Borough Park readers have expressed grievances concerning the lack of timely services in the community. Among their specifics have been poorly timed sanitation pickup, inadequate job of cleaning up the snow, especially this winter, and a litany of problems with the Access-A-Ride program. How would you fix any of these problems?

Video 11 – Closing comments – Avraham Shlomo Tischler, Joe Lazar, and Jonathan Judge

Video 12 – Closing comments – David Greenfield

Some pictures around Bensonhurst on Friday morning, after the snow storm. (All photos: Brian Hedden.)

More: Coney Island, Bay Ridge (here, here, and here), Gerritsen Beach, and Sunset Park.

Did you hear the one about the major cable TV and Internet news outlet that got punked by those crazy carnies on Coney Island? CNN, the Darth Vader network, picked up a News 12 Brooklyn video about the unearthing of a 140-year-old hot dog at the demolition site of Feltman’s Kitchen. Too bad the story was so ridiculously ridiculous that an autistic five-year-old could have called bullshit on it.

I really can’t describe the depths of my antipathy towards CNN – the English language simply lacks the words for that kind of bile. I quit them cold turkey after Balloon Boy – another fine example of their abandonment of all principles relating to the topic of “journalism.” They’re a major player in media coverage of the American political process – an industry filled with men and women hired for their ability to lie on camera – but they get taken for a ride just by walking past the Seashore Sideshow. (NY Post via Gothamist. Video on YouTube, until CNN gets it yanked.)

• A Brighton Beach-based variant of the Jersey Shore theme puts out a casting call. Any cable TV deal will be contingent on the casting, so folks – WE NEED TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN. Lean on the Russian-American stereotype in your own life to audition for a part! (Sheepshead Bites)
• After the Brooklyn DA was rumored to be considering gang-assault charges against firefighters involved in a bar brawl at the Salty Dog in Bay Ridge, police have arrested three people… and only two of them were charged and arraigned. (Bay Ridge Journal)
• CB15 throws its weight behind a Plumb Beach memorial for LGBT hate-crime victim Michael Sandy. (Sheepshead Bites)
• I’m not sure if this WABC investigative piece really shows State Senator Carl Kruger skirting campaign finance laws, or if it shows such laws don’t exist. (Sheepshead Bites)
• Russian eatery Chinar Restaurant is moving from Avenue U/Gerritsen Avenue to Coney Island Avenue (Sheepshead Bites, GerritsenBeach.net)
• Sunset Park resident realizes she moved to Dowisetrepla. (Sunset Parkour)

(All photos: Brian Hedden)

It’s probably about two hours after the snow turned to rain in this scene. I am standing on a patch of packed snow/ice/wintery mix, and I see that the property to my right has cleared off their sidewalk quite well. These people are my dry cleaners, and I’m sure they have shoveled the sidewalk because they are all-around nice guys. And maybe a little because $1.50 for a shirt isn’t going to pay for anyone’s accident claim or ambulance chaser trial lawyer fees.

Ditto to the Orthodox establishment to my left. Like I said, it’s only two hours after the snow stopped. Property owners have six hours, I believe, to get their sidewalks cleared. But these good folks are already on it. They met their “perception due-date,” so to speak (a corporate buzzword I could really have done without this week).

So who is this douchenozzle that wants the Bensonhurst and Borough Park masses to slip and fall on their tuchuses?

Yeah, I know. The “MTA” tag kinda gave it away. But you weren’t really surprised by this anyway, were you?

Oh, and watch that first step. It’s a doozy.

This N-train station at 18th Avenue is going to need a little more than a fresh coat of paint to cure what ails it.