Ben Kallos Wins Election To Represent Roosevelt Island and Upper East Side In New York City Council District 5 - Let's Get To Work Says Mr. Kallos
Councilwoman @JessLappin introducing as Ben says thanks to his vols!!! pic.twitter.com/TrKykbmLOq
— Ben Kallos (@kallos) November 6, 2013
Democrat Ben Kallos won election last night to represent Roosevelt Island and the Upper East in the New York City Council beating Republican Ed Garland and Assembly Member Micah Kellner, who ran on the Working Families Party ballot line, by a wide margin. In this three way race, Mr. Kallos received nearly 57% of the vote to 33% for Mr. Garland and 10 % for Mr. Kellner. Here are the vote totals as compiled by the NY Times
and the official count from the NYC Board of Elections.
Of the Roosevelt Island vote, an unofficial tally has Mr. Kallos with 879 votes, Mr. Garland 147 votes and Mr. Kellner 245 votes.
Upon learning of his win last night, Mr. Kallos tweeted:
Let's get to work!Roosevelt Island Congresswoman Maloney tweeted:
— Ben Kallos (@kallos) November 6, 2013
Congrats Ben @Kallos on being elected to the NYC Council! #progress !Here is Mr. Kallos (right), with campaign staffer Saul Nadel (cener) and Roosevelt Island Disabled Association President Jim Bates (left)
— Carolyn B. Maloney (@CarolynBMaloney) November 6, 2013
in the very early stages of his campaign at the October 6 2012 Roosevelt Island Fall For Arts Festival.
Today he is the newly elected NYC Council Member for Roosevelt Island and the Upper East Side.
Congratulations Mr. Kallos.
UPDATE 11/8 - From Ben Kallos:
I'm honored to be selected as the next Council member for the Upper East Side and Roosevelt Island and want to extend my deepest thanks to the voters and volunteers who made this happen. So many members of our community were part of this campaign and I am humbled by the overwhelming support. Like Councilmember Lappin's office, our office will be open to all and powered by residents as we seek to continue the progress she has made over the past eight years. I am excited to get to work on important issues like opening up seats in schools so all kids can have the opportunities they deserve, keeping housing affordable for seniors and fighting against the proposed garbage dump at 91st St.The East Side Our Town has an interesting article on this race focusing on Assembly Member Micah Kellner loss to Mr. Kallos. According to East Side Our Town:
Five months ago, Micah Kellner was a shoo-in for the city council on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Embraced by the city’s Democratic establishment, including outgoing Council Member Jessica Lappin, the 34-year-old state assemblyman had every hallmark of a rising star.Click here for the entire East Side Our Town article.
Then, in late-July, Kellner’s campaign was derailed when sexual harassment allegations made against him in 2009 became public. The allegations cost Kellner almost all of the endorsements he had won — and lost him the Democratic nomination to rival Ben Kallos, who until then was seen as a longshot.
But despite that loss, Kellner had continued to wage a quixotic – and at times bizarrely personal – race against Kallos that finally ended on Tuesday night....
It will be interesting to see if some ambitious Democrat sees Mr. Kellner as politically vulnerable and decides to run against him in the 2014 Democratic Primary for the NY State Assembly seat he currently holds.
8 comments :
So happy kil
So happy kellner lost
Kellner did nothing as this island was turned over to the 1 percent.
Congratulations to Ben!!
Some analysis on "What Happened to Micah" http://nypress.com/what-happened-to-micah-kellner/
I don't ever recall getting negative campaign
literature that was completely anonymous before. I've gotten it from
organizations that I couldn't trace - like "citizens for a better [name
your entity]" but I and all my Roosevelt Island neighbors got several
flyers that focused solely on Kellner's 2009 alleged misdeeds. Later, Kallos was forced to admit that he had spent his allocation
of public funds on this sleazy smear campaign. Kallos has never done
anything good in the public sphere, but he sure did this. Bad start -
hope he gets dramatically better, and fast.
Kellner was as bad for R.I. as Frank Farance.
Can't believe all these posts on this blog since Friday's edition of the WIRE, and no mention of Rick's boy Frank getting "booted" from RIRA.
For the record, Kallos didn't win - Kellner lost.
He and Farance both got what they deserved.
Working Families: Actually Kellner was, and continues to be, a very good Assemblyman for RI, and would have easily won Lappin's seat had the sexual harassment allegations not surfaced. Kellner was one of 4 politicians who were wiped out in the Sept primary due to sexual misconduct/scandals/ allegations. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/election/new-york-voters-soundly-reject-sex-scandal-ridden-pols-article-1.1451808
However, let us not forget that Kellner is still in the Assembly, and it was largely because of Kellner's efforts that RL managed to win, at least for the time being, its struggle against unjust sub metering; this is just one notable example of how Kellner helped RI.
As far as Frank being voted out of RIRA, there have been a couple of comments on the blog. Probably, most commenters are by now bemused by RIRA's antics. RIRA will continue to have plenty of problems of its own - such as RIRA Pres. Ellen Polivy's seeming inability to run the organization properly - whether or not Frank stays, goes, is booted, or survives.
As far as Kallos winning is concerned: Ben won the primary and the general election. Kellner of course retains his Assembly seat, and if he so chooses to run again, can keep getting elected to that seat. Obviously the sexual harassment complaint against him would have to be resolved one way or another, since the allegations would continue to haunt him if the matter is not resolved. Some say the suggestive emails to the staffer weren't such a big thing. IMO however they are a big thing since they represent an employer taking advantage of an employee - making unwelcome suggestions to date etc. If the suggestions to go out were unwanted, then it's a classic case of sexual harassment in the workplace. Employers once would use their powerful positions as employers to demand various favors from employees, but that time is now over. I didn't like his comments about hiring the employee for her looks - both demeaning to the employee, who is thus "objectified" - and quite unfair to the other applicants that may have been overlooked by Kellner because they didn't fulfill a certain "looks" paradigm. Employees should be hired for their abilities, not for their possibilities as "dates".
So of course Kellner lost the election to fill Lappin's Council Seat. Can you think of any district where Kellner might have won? NYC may be the epicenter of feminism, or at least an important center of feminism. Lappin was term limited out of her seat, and subsequently lost her bid for Manhattan BP. Although I personally did not vote for Lappin for BP I thought she was good as City Councilperson. I did vote for Gale Brewer for BP in both the primary and general elections, and thank goodness Gale won!!
To call Rick anyone's is insulting, Rick stated a position which was straight down the middle. Rick very rarely comments on matters except when his blog is unfairly noted as a place where things clearly did not take place. RIRA calling anyone a bully for stating their opinion is absolutely funny after their attacks against Public safety recently, Patrick Stewart in the past just to mention a few. RIRA record of being right is not good, This blog is a great opportunity to air grievances and Rick monitors it well, only getting involved when it truly gets out of hand. Comment Stupid, as Obama says period
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