Met Council Endorses
Steve DiBrienza for Public Advocate
Marty Markowitz for Brooklyn BP
Steve Banks for Council
in Sept. 11 Democratic Primary
by Kenny Schaeffer

Met Council enthusiastically endorses Stephen DiBrienza for New York City Public Advocate. DiBrienza, head of the City Council’s general welfare committee, has earned tenant support by speaking out forcefully and frequently on a wide range of issues of critical importance in the fight to preserve and expand affordable housing. He has opposed the Rent Guidelines Board’s poor tax; called for a rent freeze; demanded the repeal of the Rockefeller "Urstadt" law that deprives New York City of home rule over rent regulation; and called for the repeal of $2,000 vacancy decontrol and high-income decontrol, the wedges created by pro-landlord politicians like George Pataki, Joe Bruno and Peter Vallone to undermine rent and eviction protections. As chair of the Council’s welfare committee, DiBrienza has also led the resistance to the cruel policies of Mayor Giuliani and Human Resources Administration Commissioner Jason Turner to throw hundreds of thousands of needy families off the welfare rolls. Time and again, using the Council’s rarely invoked subpoena power, DiBrienza has forced Turner and his aides to admit the hollowness of Giuliani administration claims, for example that those denied public assistance have found jobs that brought them out of poverty. DiBrienza has also worked to creating meaningful, well-paying jobs for low-income New Yorkers, and to expand the "living wage" law for those doing business with the city. As public advocate, Steve DiBrienza can continue his strong advocacy for low, moderate and middle-income tenants in New York City, improved public education, and a government that is on the side of working families. Tenants are encouraged to volunteer for Steve DiBrienza’s campaign by calling (212) 964-8260.

Met Council endorses State Senator Marty Markowitz for Brooklyn Borough President. Markowitz, founder of the Flatbush Tenants Council in the 1970s, has remained an active and effective champion for tenants’ rights and affordable housing. His eloquent testimony at last year’s RGB hearing, that he had to spend 60% of his relatively large salary as a state legislator to find a decent two-bedroom apartment to raise a family when he recently got married, brought home the fact that New York’s worsening housing-affordability crisis has hit the middle class, and is no longer only a concern for poorer New Yorkers. Marty Markowitz’s campaign number is (718) 332-7171.

As previously noted in these pages, Met Council also endorses Steve Banks for City Council in Brooklyn’s 39th District, which includes the neighborhoods of Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Kensington and Borough Park. Banks has been a community activist and fighter for housing and tenants’ rights for over 20 years, most recently as head of the Legal Aid Society’s Homeless Families Rights Project. Steve Banks has developed expertise working closely with the Council as an advocate on both policy and budget issues, and is exactly the kind of new leadership needed as a response to the term-limits law. To volunteer for Steve Banks’ campaign, call (718) 972-9736.