Mayoral candidates debate housing

But media stays focused on candidate Weiner’s sexting scandal

Five mayoral hopefuls faced off at a Longwood church on Monday evening, to debate their proposed policies on issues that concern New Yorkers.

But when scandal-plagued candidate and former congressman Anthony Weiner left the forum at Thessalonia Worship Center on Reverend James A. Polite Blvd. long before it was scheduled to end, a flood of cameramen and reporters rushed out after him, leaving the other candidates, a bewildered audience and a few unattended tripods behind them.

City Comptroller John Liu, former City Councilman Sal Albanese, former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion, Jr., and Brooklyn minister Erick Salgado looked to keep the discussion focused on the issues after the media circus had followed Weiner to the street in front of the church, where he had pre-arranged to answer reporters’ questions.

Early on in the debate, the five candidates exchanged views on job creation, housing policies, senior services and the growing income disparity between city residents. The forum had been organized by the Harlem Interfaith Commission for Housing Inequality, an advocacy group.

The income gap “is growing by leaps and bounds, and we need to address it,” said Albanese, pointing out that he voted for the city’s first living wage act in 1996. He doubted his opponents’ sincerity in their stated defense of low-income tenants in the city, arguing that they are deeply indebted to developers who have funded their campaigns.

While Albanese and Salgado called for changing income requirements to allow more poor New Yorkers access to affordable housing, Weiner proposed allowing more middle class incomes into that mix.

“We need to have a ladder of housing that rises up,” said Weiner.

The candidates saw eye to eye on the need for more funding for senior programs, and agreed the city rather than the state should control rent stabilization and wage control policies.

“It makes no sense that so much of our life is controlled by something 150 miles away,” said Liu, who argued that the city’s definition of affordability does not apply to most New Yorkers. An increasing number of landlords are pushing out low-income tenants to make way for others who can afford to pay higher rents, he said.

Albanese, Carrion and Liu pledged to spend one night per year sleeping in public housing, if elected. Five other mayoral candidates—Liu, Weiner, Bill Thompson, Christine Quinn, and Bill de Blasio—spent a night in a NYCHA building in East Harlem on July 20^th, in response to a challenge put to them by Reverend Al Sharpton.

But the fallout from the latest sexting scandal was never far below the surface. Carrion expressed his anger after Weiner and most of the media had left the church.

“I understand that the media wasn’t here for this issue and this community,” said Carrion. “They were uninterested. Shame on them.”

Salgado took issue with Weiner for using the screen name Carlos Danger when he sent texts to over a dozen women during the last year, as was reported last week on a gossip site. He accused Weiner of “masking his bad behavior with a Spanish, Latino name. If he’s going to use a name, why didn’t he use his own name?”

Liu cryptically noted that “smooth talking” could only get a candidate so far and predicted that voters would opt for “basic decency and character,” drawing chuckles from the audience.

But although Weiner’s numbers have dropped in the polls and his campaign manager has resigned, supporters lined the sidewalk outside the church before the forum began, holding up “Weiner for Mayor” signs.

Several audience members who came forward during the question and answer period, thanked the candidates for staying until the end of the forum, despite the media exodus that followed Weiner’s premature departure.

Reverend Nelson Dukes Jr. of Fountain Spring Baptist Church in Tremont echoed the anger expressed by several others.

“The media was a disgrace here this afternoon,” Dukes said. “They disrespected the members of this forum and they disrespected this community. Not only the media, but the candidate, Mr. Weiner,” Dukes said. “For him to schedule a news conference immediately after leaving early, that’s a disgrace.”

Esther Godfrey, a parishioner at Thessalonia for 57 years, said she was impressed with the candidates’ ideas for helping seniors, but was baffled that one of them chose to leave the discussion early.

“Maybe he thought the questions would be heavy and he didn’t want to be involved,” she joked.

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Maya Rajamani

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