Brooklyn Ron

Democracy Alive in Bed-Stuy, as Candidates Speak with Community

Five candidates hoping to beat incumbent Al Vann and become Bed-Stuy's next City Councilmember kept their hope alive on Saturday.

They appeared at Brownstone Books and summarized their positions, essentially introducing themselves to those who showed up for the early morning event.

They also answered questions and were very civil with each other.

We will post more on the event, culling from our notes, but in the meantime we offer here a little slide show that is hopefully a visual taste of what occurred.

(In photo here, Frantz Cayo, president of the Stuyvesant Heights Parents Association, presides over the gathering, which included candidates, left to right, Tremaine Wright, Saquan Jones, Robert Cornegy, Jr., Mark Winston Griffith and Adrian Straker.)

See slide show below. (Please note that, in dealing with YouTube, the creator does not have full choice in selecting the opening image.)

Sounding Off About the Widening City Council Race in Bed-Stuy

Well, there seems to be considerable political energy building in Bed-Stuy, early into the election season.

The primary is almost six months away and already folks are tossing their hats into the ring, like in the olden, olden days.

Names that have come up are Mark Winston Griffith, Robert E. Cornegy, Jr., Saquan Jones and Tremaine Wright. There have been others mentioned also, and we will get to them. They all say they want to replace incumbent Al Vann as City Councilmember.

What do we think about all this? Well, listen for a quick moment. [Just click the right-pointing arrow in the below image.]

Son of a Late Local Minister, Father of Six Children, He's Going for Al Vann's Seat

As we're jotting this down, Robert E. Cornegy, Jr. was slated to be holding a crime prevention workshop that featured officers from the 81st and 79th precincts.

Please, anyone who was able to attend, send thoughts on how things went.

Father of six children -- Robert E Cornegy III, Nicholas Ethan, Nia Imani, Nala Catherine Ellen, Noah and N'Kosi -- Rob says he's ready, willing and able to be Bed-Stuy's Councilman, replacing incumbent Al Vann.

On his website, Rob Cornegy says:

"Now more than ever, our community needs leaders with the understanding to guide us into the future, the wisdom to improve the mental, physical, and financial health of the people and the unwavering conviction to be a voice of change for the voiceless, the forgotten, the real voice of change in action."

I've put Cornegy's bio here.

In a previous posting, we wrote that Mark Winston Griffith is declaring himself the one with the chops -- chops in this instance being money and money-backed support -- to take on Vann. Griffith has a strong background as an activist and is well schooled in the now critical issue of the housing market and its urban victims. (See that post.)

Another candidate, Saquan Jones (see his website here), sent me an email saying he takes issue with Griffith's assessment of Griffith's financial position, and Jones argues that Griffith's money is in large part from comparatively well-to-do relatives.

Hopefully we'll be following up on all this.

The question comes to mind: With candidates sniping at each other, and with incumbent Vann seemingly sitting on the sidelines and watching (or maybe not watching and not even caring), is this all really a threat to Vann's incumbency?

All thoughts from concerned citizens will be gratefully received. Send those thoughts as a comment or copy and paste the email address, which is brooklynron@optonline.net.