More from intern Glenna Goldis at the Council term-limits hearings:

The second set of testimony on term limits today included Comptroller Bill Thompson, who yesterday said he would run for mayor even if it meant challenging Bloomberg. Several times, the audience began to clap but then stifled itself to avoid censure from the chair.

But there were other testifying officials who received more attention from the Council.

Representative Nydia Velazquez, who testified first, said that times of crisis were exactly when the electoral process needed to be respected. She said that the proposed legislation to allow term-limited incumbents to run for an extra term would hurt minority opportunities for office, which could in turn draw a veto from the federal justice department.

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I just came across this video of Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries speaking at a forum in Brooklyn recently (according to the YouTube user, it was on May 31).

Jeffries slams the mayor for promoting so much development in the city, and jokes that there should be a movie called “Development Gone Wild," which Jeffries says would be "starring Mayor Bloomberg and co-starring Dan Doctoroff.”

(It’s not my favorite visual, either.)

Jeffries says his issue is less with safety than with the problems associated with gentrification.

Here's Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn inadvertently igniting a "Yes we can" chant during a rally for Barack Obama on the steps of City Hall yesterday.

How many black elected officials from Brooklyn were at the rally for Barack Obama on the City Hall steps this afternoon?

Enough that State Senator Bill Perkins of Harlem muttered to himself at the podium, “Oh man, we’re going to have to mix this up a bit.” He then introduced state Senator Eric Adams--who's from Brooklyn.  read more »

Football at presidential debate, shunned by Democrats, Governor Spitzer has become political pariah of party; Roger Stone gleeful, Anthony Weiner stressed out.  read more »

Roger Stone doesn’t think much of the suggestion (based on my reading of a Weekly Standard story) that he had any role in drumming up a controversy over the fact that Eliot Spitzer’s father and MTA nominee Dale Hemmerdinger were members of the racially un-diverse Harmonie Club. Hemmerdinger's membership became a contentious political issue after an angry letter from Democratic Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries.

Stone emails:

Azi
Just for the record, I never spoke to Hakim Jeffries, never spoke to his people and never asked anyone to speak to him. In fact, until I read the story I never heard of him.

He also said, “I admire what Jeffries did.”

In another email, Stone wrote:  read more »

A new Weekly Standard profile of Roger Stone has a suggestive nugget implying that he is still playing a quietly active role in a broad-based anti-Spitzer coalition.

From the story:  read more »

Hakeem Jeffries, the freshman Assembly Member, was once accused of being a toady for the developer of Atlantic Yards, Forest City Ratner. But he had gradually become more critical, and the last minute carve-out in the 421a housing incentive bill that The Observer reported on Wednesday made him fairly seethe at the project's cost to taxpayers.

“The Atlantic Yards project has feasted on government funds for far too long,” he said in a statement this afternoon. “Enough is enough. There is absolutely no justification for treating Atlantic Yards better than any other development project in New York, when Forest City Ratner has already received $300 million in government subsidies.”

Mr. Jeffries, along with five other Assembly members, voted against a technical amendment to the 421a reform as a protest. He missed a vote yesterday morning for the main 421a reform bill, which greatly expanded the number of neighborhoods in which developers will have to include low-income housing in new apartment buildings in order to qualify for tax abatements.  read more »

I'm up in Albany for the New York State Democratic Committee Spring Business Meeting at the Desmond Hotel, a few miles away from the capitol.

Since the first meeting I was hoping to attend--the Council of Black Elected Democrats-- is closed to the press, I figured I'd post notes from chat with two Assembly members I spoke with yesterday.

The two officials, Assemblyman Keith Wright of Harlem and Hakeem Jeffries of Brooklyn, have something in common. Unlike some Democrats -- Eliot Spitzer, Sheldon Silver, Andrew Cuomo, David Paterson and Malcolm Smith, among others -- they won't be endorsing Hillary Clinton on Monday.

Jeffries said he would probably make his decision sometime in June, along with Brooklyn lawmakers Rep. Yvette Clarke, State Senator Eric Adams and Assemblyman Karim Camara.

Wright, by contrast, doesn't seem to be on any timetable at all.

“So far, I don’t have any plans,” Wright told me. “I haven’t had my chat with Hillary. I know she’s busy. And lord knows I haven’t had any talks with Barack.”

I asked Wright if he was more disappointed in not getting a call from Clinton or from Obama.

“I’m not disappointed in either,” he said, laughing.

“I remember in ‘92, Clinton was calling people left and right. I just haven’t heard from any of them, if you will,” he said, referring to the 2008 candidates. “I’m not making anything of it.”

And, based on the line of questioning about black officials in New York still holding out on their endorsements, he also offered me the following:

"It sounds like you’re going to write a story. I love it. I love it. Make us important with our unimportance.”

Yes, sir!

Jeffries told The Real Estate on Tuesday that he had a conversation about a week to 10 days ago to express many of the same concerns as Assembly members Jim Brennan, Joan Millman and Annette Robinson did. In the order Jeffries mentioned them, his concerns are: building more affordable housing early on as part of the project, the lack of transparency regarding the project's financing, the lack of public involvement, and, upon prompting, its density. Jeffries said that he would speak with Silver again soon.

"I have always felt that eminent domain is one of government's most exceptional powers. I don't believe that a private developer should be able to use it to build a basketball arena." But he also said that the courts should be allowed to decide the issue.

Jeffries, like his colleagues, does favor slowing the approval process down, starting with the Empire State Development Corporation. "I'm not particularly clear they have done all they were supposed to do to make sure they included all the public comments."