Charles Barron

Charles Barron may be hoping that the artwork removed from the Committee Room in City Hall will usher in some diversity on the walls.

But actually, it's just being restored.  read more »

Charles Barron said he'll be "glad" to see Hillary Clinton vacate her seat for a job with Barack Obama, so she can push "his" foreign policy. (It's close, but not official yet).  read more »

Councilman Charles Barron just pointed out to me that a painting that used to hang on the wall of the Committee Room in the City Hall is no longer there.  read more »

Jimmy Oddo and Charles Barron, two of the more outspoken City Council members, got into a yelling match during a Council hearing at City Hall, according to a witness.  read more »

David Yassky spoke about his amendment to put the issue of extending term limits before the voters by creating a charter revision commission to put the issue on the ballot as early as February.  read more »

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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Another dispatch from the term-limits hearing, by intern Glenna Goldis:

Mario Cuomo was the first person to testify at the hearing on the City Council's term-limits legislation.

"The way they did it in my case was perfect," he said, referring to the voters' ouster of him in 1993 by general election.

He added later, "Anything that perpetuates term limits is not a good thing."

Councilman Simcha Felder, who presided over the hearing in the Council chamber, opened the proceedings by allowing the sponsors of an anti-extension bill to speak in alphabetical order. Cuomo testified after those brief statements.

At one point, Councilman Charles Barron challenged Cuomo, arguing that term limits had created the most progressive council in memory and that Bloomberg "robbed the poor to give to the rich.

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I saw Charles Barron in City Hall earlier this morning and asked him what he thought of Barack Obama's trip to the Middle East.

Barron said he's unhappy to hear that Obama wants to send more troops into Afghanistan, but at least, in Barron's opinion, Obama is using his time better than John McCain.

Yesterday afternoon at City Hall, Congresswomen Yvette Clarke and Nydia Velazquez announced jointly that they are endorsing Bill de Blasio for Brooklyn borough president.

These early endorsements follow announcements of support for de Blasio from UNITE-HERE and The NY Hotel Trades Council. Combined with the campaign's announcement yesterday of having raised "nearly $1 million dollars" ("$177,454 this filing period and $621,891 this cycle"), de Blasio is looking a bit like a foregone thing. (It's unclear at this point exactly who else is running.

The endorsements were announced on the City Hall steps, with about 25 or so supporters standing behind the congresswomen and de Blasio, squinting into the sun and holding "For Brooklyn '09'" signs.  read more »

Here’s Councilman Charles Barron in City Hall yesterday, sounding off on the political situation in Zimbabwe.

I asked Barron, a longtime admirer of Robert Mugabe, what he thought about Mugabe’s behavior, considering the horrific violence reported against the democratic opposition to his government in Zimbabwe. Barron's answer was the same as always: the West and Western media is biased against Mugabe because he took land back from colonial white settlers.

(Barron invited Mugabe to City Hall in 2002.)

“In the year 2000, when he said one farm, one farmer, he was vilified,” Barron told me. “For 20 years they loved Mugabe because they didn’t take the land from the whites.  read more »

CUNY leadership and two members of the City Council today called on the Bloomberg administration to pony up more money to demolish and redevelop Fiterman Hall, one of two remaining buildings awaiting deconstruction after being damaged by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The comments came at a hearing held by Councilmen Alan Gerson and Charles Barron on the Borough of Manhattan Community College’s (BMCC)--a division of CUNY-- Fiterman Hall, a building student union representative Horace Henry called the last “open sore that is yet to be healed.”

The fist-pounding, uproarious 200-plus crowd that overflowed the main floor and gushed into the mezzanine of Council Chambers—unusual for a Friday afternoon Council hearing in the summer, to say the least— was a testament to the fervor that has come to accompany this almost seven-year project.  read more »

 

City Councilman and Obama supporter Charles Barron thinks Barack Obama was wrong to denounce Jeremiah Wright.  read more »

Inez Barron, wife of outspoken City Councilman Charles Barron, just kicked off her campaign for State Assembly, and, while vowing to be an independent voice for change, hasn’t ruled out seeking the support of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.

“No I have not been in touch with Shelly Silver -- our campaign is a grassroots campaign,” she said.

When asked if that meant not seeking Silver’s support, Inez replied, “I didn’t say that.” So, would she? “I might.”  read more »

The rally to launch the state assembly campaign of Inez Barron, Charles Barron's wife, just got underway on the steps of City Hall.

In the audience right now is Charles Barron's controversial chief of staff, Viola Plummer, and MTV star-turned-hip-hop writer, and now Brooklyn congressional candidate, Kevin Powell.

Mrs. Barron is seeking Diane Gordon's assembly seat, after Gordon was convicted on bribery charges. 

Al Sharpton just finished a press conference with friends and family of Sean Bell, saying they hoped justice would be dispensed by the trial judge, who will announce a verdict Friday.

Sharpton also refuted the notion that their supporter need to be reminded not to act violently if they are unhappy with the decision.

He went on to say that it was the police who acted recklessly when they approached and fired on Bell and his friends without just cause.  read more »

So, in case you hadn't heard, rapper Foxy Brown was released from prison today.

And who picked her up at Rikers?

Charles Barron.

From Reuters:  read more »

About 100 people turned up at a rally in Harlem on Saturday aimed at blocking the Bloomberg administration’s plan to rezone 125th Street to allow for denser residential and commercial development. But the rally quickly turned into an omnibus protest about everything from Columbia’s Harlem expansion to Robert Mugabe’s teetering government in Zimbabwe.

The Coalition to Save Harlem planned to create a human chain stretching across 125th Street from Second Avenue to Broadway. In the end, “Hands Across Harlem” only spanned about one block of the area to be rezoned, from Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard to Lenox Avenue, though we heard one organizer remark that it was a “pretty good turnout.”  read more »

Charles Barron isn't the only member of the City Council who regards Christine Quinn's discretionary-fund shell-game as a grave offense. Barron is generally outspoken and has been critical of Quinn in the past, but another member, who has had a considerably more collegial relationship with the speaker, said on background that her conduct was pretty much indefensible.

"The story is, you know, there's like no other budget code [for setting aside money]," this member said.  read more »

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A congestion pricing measure before the Council just passed, 30 to 20.

Domenic Recchia, who is planning to run for Congress, took a pass on voting the first time around, but eventually voted yes. Eric Gioia, who had told the New York Times on March 8 that he was voting no, also voted for it. Comptroller candidate Melinda Katz voted no, but her likely rival David Yassky voted yes. The two candidates for Brooklyn brough president, Bill De Blasio and Charles Barron, both voted against.  read more »

Inspired by the ado over Barack Obama's use of Deval Patrick's phrasing, and similar use by Hillary Clinton of at least one Obama phrase, I emailed a few quotable people in New York for them to give them the opportunity to put a catchphrase of their own on the record.

Here they are:

Simcha Felder:
“Do not place unsolicited advertising materials on this property."

Brian Ziff-Levine:
“It’s the undecideds, stupid.”

Joe Mercurio:
“Silence is an incredibly stupid communications strategy. No wait I actually stole that from Frank Luntz.”

Doug Muzzio:
"'If a frog had wings he wouldn't be bumping his ass on the ground' (cribbed from my father-in-law, Darrell Saunders)."

Phil Anderson:
"No reform, no raise."

Charles Barron:
“The renter's rebate. Rock Hackshaw gave me that idea when I was running for mayor in 2005. The next thing I know, Gifford Miller is talking about it, and now, Christine Quinn is."

More after the jump.  read more »

Here's City Councilman Charles Barron's take on Speaker Christine Quinn's State of the City address, which he suggested was a thinly disguised mayoral stump speech.

Before Marty Markowitz gave his State of the Borough last night in Brooklyn, his deputy borough president, Yvonne Graham, gave her own address, which sounds a lot like a kick-off stump speech for her much-discussed, but undeclared, bid to succeed Markowitz.
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"White America will not allow Barack Obama to say, ‘I’m proud to be black and I want to make history as the first black president of the United States of America,’” City Councilman Charles Barron told me this afternoon.

To help get that message out, Barron told me he’s printing 10,000 of these fliers and distributing them all over East New York and the rest of the 10th Congressional district, (home of Representative Ed Towns, a Clinton supporter).
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Here’s Charles Barron complaining about a previous investigation by Eliot Spitzer of a black-owned charity based in Harlem, the Black United Fund. “He investigated. Now, where they had their office, is a bar. So, you’d rather have bar up in Harlem than the United Fund?”

Barron sees a pattern.

“He did that, and he did the same thing to Hale House, which is a black organization. I don’t see him doing the same thing to the white organizations, to some Jewish organizations that had some questionable dealings. But when it came to the black organization, he destroyed it.” [the video cuts out in the middle of the quote]

When asked if Spitzer has a problem with the black community, or with black elected officials Barron said, “Not black elected officials, because they suck up to him.”

Barron and others sent out an advisory that they will protest the issue on the City Hall steps next Tuesday.

A Spitzer spokesman referred my initial question to a press release Spitzer issued at the time of the investigation, in 2003, and questioned why the issue is coming up now.

I left messages for Barron, the contact person for the press conference, and one of the people removed from the Black United Fund, and have not heard back yet.

 

In preparing for my reporters' roundtable, which will air on Friday, I spoke to former Black Panther and City Councilman Charles Barron, who is one of the major candidates for Brooklyn Borough President.

He gave me a good rant, not about police brutality (that came later), but about affordable housing and development.
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“Right now, developers are fat cats who are getting over tremendously, particularly with not having to do affordable housing, and using eminent domain and using other state and city powers to gain access [to] subsidies. They call it subsidies, but it’s really corporate welfare,” Barron told me.

He went on to say he “would scrap the 421a housing program.”

Any other insights or things to keep in mind about this race, let me know.

 

Barack Obama just picked up the endorsement of Councilman and outspoken black activist Charles Barron, who fended off questions that Obama represents a less militant, less aggressive form of black nationalism than Barron.

Barron, on the City Hall steps just now, told reporters:

“He came from the South Side of Chicago. That’s a black community where he took care and fought for black people on the South Side of Chicago. He’s introduced racial profiling legislation in the state of Illinois. His pastor, Jeremiah Wright believes in black liberation theology. He’s done a lot. He’s speaking about poverty now.”

When asked about the differences between Barron and Obama’s approaches to black nationalism, Barron replied:

“He said he supports the black community. He’s said he’s been black all his life. You said he’s against black nationalism. He never said that. Matter of fact, he goes to a black liberation theologist church where they believe in a black Christ. So, he is for black people."

Buried inside this recent Courier Life article about Michael Nelson, the Councilman from Brooklyn who spent an unusually high amount of city money on local advertisements, is this interesting factoid:

“Nelson is now a candidate to succeed Marty Markowitz as Brooklyn borough president.”

If that's true (Nelson's office didn't return a call for additional information), that would make three candidates for the seat so far. The other two are Bill de Blasio and Charles Barron.

Anybody else making a stealth announcement?

UPDATE: Nick Perry is in the race. 

Here is Councilman Charles Barron, who once invited Robert Mugabe, president of Zimbabwe, to City Hall, saying another controversial leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, should be allowed to visit Ground Zero.

"If anybody wants to mourn that, let them do it," said Barron.

Everyone’s favorite cast member of The Real World, Kevin Powell, is making another run for the 10th congressional seat in Brooklyn, currently held by Ed Towns.

Powell aborted a short-lived race in 2006, but is kicking off his current campaign with a music filled fund-raiser this Friday at Five Spot Famous Soul Food. (No RSVP required!) Powell, according to his site, already has a staff that includes a campaign manager and a "national finance director."

Last year, Charles Barron challenged Towns and came surprisingly close (considering the fact that a third challenger basically split the opposition vote) said he’ll run for Borough President instead.

UPDATE: A fund-raising email for Powell is after the jump.  read more »

On July 6th, a lawyer for the City Council sent out a request to members asking them to preserve all documents related to "VIOLA PLUMMER "AND THE PROPOSED CO-NAMING OF STREETS FOR SONNY CARSON" because of a lawsuit that Plummer -- the chief of staff to Charles Barron who was recently dismissed from her job by Christine Quinn -- filed against the Council Speaker.

Yesterday, according to sources in one member's office, City Council staffers went looking for those documents.

Aides to one City Council member in the Bronx said that computers in their district office were searched yesterday by members of the “computer services” division of the City Council. Those same aides said they expected to have the computers in their City Hall office searched today.

Plummer filed suit to overturn Quinn's decision to terminate her employment with the Council for saying that a Councilman who opposed a plan to rename a street after black nationalist Sonny Carson should be "assassinated." Plummer said afterwards that she was referring only to killing the Councilman's political career.

I'm still waiting for a comment from Quinn's office about the computer searches.

The email is after the jump.  read more »

Viola Plummer's brief-but-triumphant return to the City Council chambers was greeted with, well, a lot of police.

I got there just after a welcoming committee of officers escorted Plummer to the balcony, since, technically, she doesn't work here anymore. I caught up with Plummer and her boss, Charles Barron, as they were leaving. Barron told me he thought the whole incident was "totally disrespectful" and that the Speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn, "has lost her mind."

At a boisterous campaign rally on the City Hall steps Sunday, Charles Barron announced his candidacy for Brooklyn Borough President. He was introduced by one rally organizer as “our comrade, our leader, our teacher, our god, our motivator, our inspirer.”

“We're tired of complaining of ineffective leaders. It's time to replace them,” Barron said. “That's why when we say operation, you say ‘POWER!’”

And then came the campaign promises. “Am I gonna be a borough president for all the people? Absolutely. But I'm letting you all know now, I'm taking care of black folks."

Also in attendance was Al Sharpton, who said, “I’ll do whatever we gotta do to elect Charles Barron the president of the borough of Brooklyn.”

Later, in an interview with Observer super-intern Andrew Mangino, Barron had this to say about the coverage of his run: “Most media outlets are run by white, male editors, correct? There's no way in the world that, 99 percent of media outlets controlled by white males, that there's not going to be no hint of racism in it? I mean that's unrealistic."

Then, he added, “The Post, I think, is a racist newspaper, because anybody who is pro-black they consider controversial. The Post is racist. FOX 5 is racist. You know, I think there's racism in everything."

So much for that endorsement.

Charles Barron is announcing his bid for Brooklyn Borough President this Sunday, with Al Sharpton by his side.

Barron’s campaign put out word of the announcement, and Sharpton’s attendance, just moments ago. It’s a departure from Barron’s original plan, which was to challenge Rep. Ed Towns, who he almost defeated in 2006. Barron spoke to me earlier about his change of plans, explaining that he feels it simply takes too long to do things in Congress.

The public statement Barron’s campaign sent out includes information about how much money he’s brought into the district. But voters, and opponents, will likely be talking about some less substantive but considerably more volatile stuff: Barron’s support for renaming parts of Gates Avenue after black nationalist Sonnny Carson, and his continuing support of his chief of staff, who suggested a pretty extreme means of dealing with an opponent of the street renaming.

A federal judge ruled just now that the City Council can move forward and fire staffer Viola Plummer if she does not sign a statement promising to behave herself. Plummer, who works for firebrand councilman Charles Barron, landed in this trouble after making outbursts during a Council meeting in May, after which she expressed the hope that someone would "assassinate" one of her opponents. After Council Speaker Christine Quinn moved to punish Plummer last week, the city employee filed a lawsuit.

 

But losing this legal round didn't prevent Plummer and Barron, from leaving the federal court house in Manhattan with their arms raised in victory. Speaking to reporters after the judge's ruling, Plummer said: "I feel this is a continuation of white supremacy that began when we were kidnapped and brought here."

When asked about the "assassination" remark attributed to her, she said, "In my heart, I believe the words that I used are the words that I said. Straight up, okay?"

Barron, not for the first time, ripped up the apology letter that Plummer had been ordered to sign by 5 p.m. today. Although Plummer's lawyer said his client will likely be fired by the end of this afternoon, Barron predicted that she would be back to work starting Monday (and joked he may even ask her to work the weekend).

Plummer may not return to City Hall, but she will get a day in court, it seems. A jury trial for her civil case is set to begin September 24th.

As Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz considers a run for mayor in 2009, an interesting undercard race is shaping up for the office he is vacating. It’s well known that city councilmen Bill de Blasio and Charles Barron have an eye on the beep’s office. A third contender could be Deputy Borough President Yvonne Graham.

Graham, who is originally from Jamaica, is participating in a Caribbean Heritage celebration in Brooklyn today, one of several similar appearances that seem designed to raise her profile around the borough.

Of course, Graham has a long way to go before she matches the ribbon-cutting prowess of Markowitz. In an interview, she said no one should read too much into her heightened visibility. “Actually I’ve worked with diverse cultures ever since I landed in this country in 1979,” she said. When asked directly whether she was planning to run for the borough presidency, she replied: "Well, I haven’t ruled out anything.”

“I have not yet made a decision,” she added, “and that’s all the information I have at this time.”  read more »

The unofficial street renaming for black nationalist Sonny Carson is going forward in Brooklyn this Saturday at 4 p.m., according to a City Hall source. And leading the unofficial event will be Charles Barron.

The fact that the City Council already rejected this plan isn't stopping supporters. In fact, I'm guessing this is going to end quite well, politically speaking, for Barron and the Carson supporters: The event is going to draw a crowd, and reporters. The attention could be used to strengthen supporters' claims that the will of the people is being crushed by City Hall. And the (inevitable?)images of the sign being removed by city officials or the police will only add to that perception.

That is, unless Barron's chief of staff Viola Plummer steals the show. Again.

The City Council is beefing up security for two Council members who were the subject of separate (but related) death threats, Christine Quinn told reporters at a press conference earlier today.

The first threat was directed towards Leroy Comrie by Viola Plummer, who is the chief of staff to Charles Barron.

The second was directed at Barron by an anonymous commenter on a popular police chat board.

Quinn said, "We are taking both of these sets of statements incredibly serious. In both matters, we have spoken to the Council member in question. My director of security has spoken to both Council member Comrie and Council member Barron and offered them whatever additional security they believe they need. We’ve offered to do security assessments of their offices."

Quinn said she's spoken to top police officials about whether a police officer may have made the comment about Barron. As for Plummer, Quinn said they are looking into whether she, as an employee of the City Council, can be punished.

"We are researching what our legal options are as a speaker and as an institution to take action," Quinn said.

“If it takes an assassination of his ass, he will not be borough president in the borough where I live.”

That was the chief of staff to Charles Barron speaking about another City Council member, Leroy Comrie, who is black and voted to abstain today on a failed proposal today to rename a street after black nationalist Sonny Carson.

The chief of staff, Viola Plummer, was speaking outside City Hall to a group of reporters and advocates for Carson. When asked about her comments, Plummer later said, “So, to assassinate Leroy Comrie’s ass, because that’s what I said, means his whole stuff, his whole run for Queens Borough President.”

When Plummer was asked by a reporter to identify herself, she first indicated that she lived in Queens and ran a community program in Brooklyn. Later she identified herself as a Council employee.

Plummer’s “assassination” remark was very much in the tradition of the sort of militant language employed by Carson himself. (“I’m not anti-Semitic, I’m anti-white,” he once said.) Carson's supporters have said that it's unfair to judge his entire life by his most extreme comments.

Sonny Carson is being honored at 1 p.m. today with the renaming of a park on Linden Boulevard and Vermont Avenue in Brooklyn.

Which is weird since a plan to co-name a street after him has stalled in the City Council. Did the Parks Department authorize the Carson renaming?

“No, we’re not waiting for approval,” Charles Barron told me today. “We’re exercising self-determination. We’re going to put up a sign and if they take it down, we’re going to keep putting it up until they leave it up.”

Barron also said he has the support of about twenty members of the Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus leading up to the May 30th vote to co-name a street after Carson in Brooklyn. There is also an amendment to remove Carson’s name from an omnibus co-naming bill.

Critics of Carson point note that the outspoken civil rights figure declared himself “anti-white” and played a prominent role the boycotting of Korean stores that polarized parts of the city.

“Let's say all of that is true," Barron said. "We still have a right.”  read more »

Practically every major Democrat in the city was at the corner of 14th Street and First Avenue yesterday afternoon to announce the formation of a what they say is the largest housing coalition in the city’s history.

The group, New York Is Our Home, includes labor and tenant groups, the Working Families Party and others.

The most heated rhetoric (video here) came from the Central Labor Council's Ed Ott, who said, “The price of housing in this city is effectively theft” and that affordable housing units, like the ones in Stuyvesant Town behind him, “are being stolen by the greed of developers and the market.”

Which drew applause and energetic head nods from the crowd of elected officials behind him.

In attendance at the rally were Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, Betsy Gotbaum, Tom Duane, John Sabini, Ruben Diaz, Jr., Keith Wright, Jonathan Bing, Linda Rosenthal, Dan Garodnick, Eric Gioia and Charles Barron, among others. Most of them spoke but none matched Ott’s directness.

After the speeches, the group formed a human chain around Stuy Town, which is several blocks long, and marched down to Union Square.

Practically every major Democrat in the city was at the corner of 14th Street and First Avenue yesterday afternoon to announce the formation of a what they say is the largest housing coalition in the city’s history.

The group, New York Is Our Home, includes labor and tenant groups, the Working Families Party and others.

The most heated rhetoric (video here) came from the Central Labor Council's Ed Ott, who said, “The price of housing in this city is effectively theft” and that affordable housing units, like the ones in Stuyvesant Town behind him, “are being stolen by the greed of developers and the market.”

Which drew applause and energetic head nods from the crowd of elected officials behind him.

In attendance at the rally were Christine Quinn, Bill Thompson, Betsy Gotbaum, Tom Duane, John Sabini, Ruben Diaz, Jr., Keith Wright, Jonathan Bing, Linda Rosenthal, Dan Garodnick, Eric Gioia and Charles Barron, among others. Most of them spoke but none matched Ott’s directness.

After the speeches, the group formed a human chain around Stuy Town, which is several blocks long, and marched down to Union Square.

UPDATE: Adolfo Carrion, Brian Kavanagh and Adam Clayton Powell IV also attended.

Here's Council member and newly announced Brooklyn Borough President candidate Charles Barron yesterday on the City Hall steps, where I got the chance to ask him why he chose to pass up another run for Congress against Rep. Ed Towns.

His answer: it takes too long to do things in Washington.

“I mean, look at Harlem, it took Charlie Rangel what, 30, 40 years, and Harlem was still not transformed. Look at Jose Serrano and the Bronx. It took him all that time and Bronx still has 42 percent poverty in the South Bronx. I just think I can serve the people of Brooklyn and New York City better staying in the city rather than going five days a week in Washington.”

The John Whitehead who ran for City Council - as opposed to the one who got yelled at by Eliot Spitzer -- was fined $10,000 today by the city's Campaign Finance Board for “fraud and material misrepresentation.”

In total, Whitehead, who ran in the 42nd District in Brooklyn against Charles Barron in 2005, was fined $11,889.

Other fines levied today:

• Public Advocate candidate Jay Golub, $5,460, mostly for taking $27,800 over the contribution limit
• Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, $175, mostly for taking $500 over the limit
• Councilman Mike McMahon, $125, for taking a corporate contribution