Thursday, September 5, 2013
Your District 2 City Council candidates
In this week's issue, The Villager profiles the two candidates for District 2 City Council, which includes the East Village, part of the Lower East Side and Union Square, among other neighborhoods.
Read the profile on Pastor Richard Del Rio here.
Read the profile on two-term Councilmember Rosie Mendez here.
8 comments:
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So del Rio's a Republican preacher man who's basically running a vague populist campaign against a genuinely progressive incumbent, and he wants to... what, exactly? Does he have a policy platform besides "Give my church unfettered access to public buildings," "Something something NYCHA" and "Something something sweet kids and old people?"
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of supporting Del Rio based on the basic information he had put forward (working with gangs/elderly/public housing tenants), but the articles here changed my mind.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I'm not against using schools for church services on weekends, especially with the archdiocese selling off/ demolishing the existing structures. I'd rather see people going into a school to pray than having to pray on the street.
He does make a good point in that Rosie is on the Committee on Public Housing and of course buddies with Margarita Lopez who has done a poor job in getting repairs done at NYCHA. If it were a key issue for her then she has the means to help solve the problems.
ReplyDeleteRosie Mendez's office was instrumental in getting HPD to deliver heating oil to our building in the winter when our landlord went bonkers and stopped paying the oil company. With a number of elderly tenants who had no place to go, prolonged, complete lack of heat and hot water could have turned tragic. I'm grateful that Ms Mendez and her staff advocated for us and she has my vote, especially against Mr Del Rio.
ReplyDeleteI don't think churches belong in schools in any way, and if that's an important issue for him, considering all the real issues our community is dealing with, he needs to get his priorities straight.
Pastor Rick is a stand up guy. He doesn't have political experience but works his a$$ off and will fight for the community. Rosie is OK but has been dissappointing in many regards.
ReplyDeleteI wish my boss would let me come in 80-90% of the time. A four day work week sounds terrific.
I don't see what the concern is about having private church services in a public school. The article says that he is renting the space. It's not like they are teaching the bible to public school students. It's private services and they are paying for the space. The city should do more of that to earn money to better maintain the schools.
ReplyDeleteRick has my vote. 16 years of Lopez / Mendez is enough. It's time for a change.
Rick Del Rio might call his work the “compassion industry,” , but The Assemblies of God, the church he represents, is an extreme branch of fundamentalism- with little compassion for gays, non-Cristians, etc. Del Rio is a missionary, not a politician. When the rapture comes- he'll be gone :)
ReplyDeleteI'm sticking with Rosie.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assemblies_of_God_Statement_of_Fundamental_Truths
Rosies Facebook page yesterday:
ReplyDelete"Excited to join our next Public Advocate, Letitia James and TenantsPAC this morning!"
Good way to piss off our next Public Advocate, Daniel Squadron.