In an investigative report today City and State reporter Sarina Triangle reports the Bronx Democratic Party has 1,653 members of its County Committee. The County Committee meets every two years to decide who will rule the county party, and do select the party candidate if a special election is called in an assembly district.
In each election district (which can be made up of many blocks in the assembly district) there may be two to four county committee members depending on the population, and the amount of election districts in the assembly district. County Committee candidates are placed on petitions with candidates for office, but generally are only on Bronx Democratic County organization candidate petitions. Challengers to the county organization will have a candidate for the office of assembly and maybe district leaders on them, but rarely county committee candidates.
In one such Assembly District it is written that a 62 unit building just south of Fordham Road in the district has 17 of the districts county committee members. County committee members are elected in the September primary for the County Committee meeting a few weeks later. Notices are sent out to winning County Committee members as to just when and where the County Committee meeting is to be held.
The City and State article goes on to say that people are placed as candidates usually not in their own election district, but in other areas of the assembly district where they do not live. That practise is legal as all one has to do to be a county committee member is to live anywhere in that assembly district. City and State however writes that they found people who did not know they were county committee candidates. Should an elected County Committee member be absent at the meeting they can be replaced by anyone who lives in the assembly district, again perfectly legal.
City and State goes on to say that almost all Bronx Democratic County organization candidates give the county organization their petitions to hand in to the Board of Elections. That is so the Crack lawyers of the county organization can give the petitions a final go over to see that all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed. Only two Bronx Democratic County organization candidates did not hand their petitions to the county organization this past year City and State writes, that being State Senator Gustavo J. Rivera and Assemblyman Michael Blake.
City and State investigates claims that names of county committee candidates were added to the petitions after the petitions were handed to the Bronx Democratic County organization, as well as interviewing several people who said they never knew they were candidates for the county committee in their districts.
I went to the Bronx Board of Elections today to view some of the petitions from the September Democratic Primary, and was told that they have not been declared official yet. I was also told that both the Democratic and Republican heads of the Bronx Board of Elections were downtown at a meeting, and that I should come back tomorrow to view any petitions. I tried calling Ms. Valarie Vazquez of the Board of Elections Press office to ask why I could not see the petitions that I was told are in the borough offices, but only got a voicemail, and have not received a call back yet. A call to the Executive Director of the Bronx Democratic County organization Mr. Anthony Perez was answered that he was not in the office and would get my message asking him to call me. A final call to Assemblyman Marcos Crespo the current Bronx Democratic County Leader received a similar response. Last week in my column 100 PERCENT in the Bronx Voice I wrote that Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz stepped down as the Bronx Democratic County Committee Chair due to the fact that he has not gotten a raise in over 20 years, to continue to be able to receive certain outside income that he said he could no longer receive if he remained the County Committee Chair. I now wonder if there is an investigation into the selection of county committee members which may have added to Assemblyman Dinowitz's departure as the County Committee Chair.
Here is the link to story on County Committees by City and State.
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