Vote for Melissa
This Wednesday, the City Council is expected to elect its new Speaker and that leader should be Melissa Mark-Viverito.
The councilwoman, who represents East Harlem and parts of the South Bronx, last month announced that she has 30 votes more than the 26 needed to clinch the Speakership.
Since then, questions have emerged over whether she will hold Mayor Bill de Blasio accountable. De Blasio, who Mark-Viverito endorsed for mayor, backs her candidacy for Speaker.
The doubters need only to look at her strong record. Mark-Viverito has a history of firmly standing up for reform, first as a community activist and then as an elected official. This includes taking on the Bloomberg administration and former Speaker Christine Quinn when they resisted placing restrictions on the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Rikers Island.
Mark-Viverito’s candidacy, which emerged out of the Progressive Caucus of the Council, has changed the dynamics of the Speaker’s race, long decided by borough party bosses. She has taken her ideas and accomplishmentssuch as the implementation of participatory budgeting in her district to New Yorkers. The engagement of the public through a series of forums has been unprecedented in the history of the Speaker’s race.
Supporters of her rival, Councilman Dan Garodnick, say that he will be independent. What they leave out is that he is the status quo candidate of political chiefs, Congressman Joseph Crowley and Assemblyman Carl Heastie.
Colleagues who have worked closely with Mark-Viverito have no qualms about her. Councilman Daniel Dromm acknowledges that she has a healthy relationship with the new mayor, “but when she needs to speak truth to power she will not be afraid to do that. Her entire career has prepared her for independence.”
We agree. Tomorrow, we urge the 30 council members who publicly pledged to vote for Mark-Viverito to stand firm and for others to join in this historic change.
