Anti-Bloomberg Citizens Prepare for the Worst
By Katharine Jose
Intern Glenna Goldis is once more bravely stationed in City Hall as Michael Blomberg's term-limits legislation goes to the City Council committee for a vote. (Update: it passed committee unanimously.):
Most of the crowd members this morning are press or aides, but a few diehards citizens are sprinkled around.
Upstairs, Roxanne Delgado from Morris Park expected the legislation to pass today. "Hopefully I'll be suprised," she said. She waited eight hours to testify against it at last Thursday's hearing. She claimed that at that hearing Bloomberg supporters had been "ushered to the front of the line" ahead of her.
Another young woman in the balcony, who asked not to be identified, was keeping tabs on the proceedings for her employer, a nonprofit. She said her office was outraged by the report that Bloomberg pressured nonprofits to testify for him.
Downstairs, bond broker Robert Puca from Prospect Heights broke out laughing during the vote. He wore a "Develop Don't Destroy" shirt.
"We're witnessing the trashing of democracy," said his friend David Galarza of Sunset Park. Both oppose Bloomberg because of development projects in Brooklyn. (Develop Don't Destroy, of course, is a group that opposes Atlantic Yards.) All planned to attend this afternoon's vote.
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Syndicate
Student Mother running for Mayor
Frances Villar, a 26-year-old mother of two and City University of New York student, will challenge New York City’s richest man in the 2009 New York City mayoral race. Villar will run on the Socialism and Liberation ticket.
"In the middle of the worst economic crisis our country has seen in decades, New York City deserves a candidate that speaks in the name of poor and working people, not for the billionaires,” Villar announced.
“My campaign will put the issues of unemployment, evictions, education and police brutality as the first order of business for the city to tackle—not the interests of the banks and billionaires,” she continued. “We live in the richest city in the country, but you would never know it by walking through the communities where most of us live.”
Villar is a student leader who has worked tirelessly against the city's and state’s efforts to make CUNY students pay for the budget crisis. She is the president of her building’s tenants association. She has organized against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against the occupation of Palestine.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation was formed in 2004. The PSL fielded presidential candidates Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear in the 2008 elections, and were on the ballot in 12 states, including New York.
Villar formally announced her campaign at a Saturday, May 23 PSL Public Conference under the banner, “Billionaires, your time is up—and we don’t just mean Bloomberg."
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