Park Slope Dems Express Frustrations With Brooklyn Party's Effort

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — Inside the Park Slope United Methodist Church, a questions seemed to be asked over and over again on Wednesday night as the 44th Assembly District Democratic Committee met:

Where are the Democrats?

More specifically, many were aghast at the lack of visible effort from the Brooklyn Democratic Party as voting has already begun for many competitive races.

One member at the meeting, Debbie Herdan, said since the redistricting, she discovered she is now being represented by a new state Senator and wanted to know why there seemed to be little outreach from the Democratic County Committee to educate voters on who is representing who during a confusing redistricting period.

Herdan also wondered why she hasn't received any voter education mailers from the party.

"I know I have a new state Senator," she said, "but I have not received any official anything from anyone telling me that."

District Leader Doug Schneider told the group that while on one hand that's an issue with that candidate's office, the county party needs to step up to supplement and assist candidates in Brooklyn, some who are in danger of losing their seats.

He said that local reports of a seemingly absent Brooklyn Democratic Party during a competitive mid-term election are "upsetting to me, and it should be to all of us."

"It seems like we spend more time and money trying to defeat fellow county committee members than we do Republicans," Schneider said. "There are assembly districts where we have incumbents who are in real trouble. And we have state Senate districts where that were just created that are gonna be a dogfight."

The "luxury," he added, of knowing that Democratic nominees were almost guaranteed to win in Brooklyn is in the past, and the intense focus by the county party to fight a reform movement, Schneider said, is something that cannot be afforded anymore.

"We are seeking to make a difference in our community, in our elections, because that work is not being done," Schneider said.

The Brooklyn Democratic Party's work, aside from a pricy Kings County Democratic Gala held the night before, seems to have centered around combating reform-minded local Democratic parties.

Last month, party establishment heads pushed through county committee appointments, bucking the typical appointment process of allowing local leaders autonomy to make such decisions, via proxy voting — a tool used before by establishment leaders to fend off challenges from rankled reformer party members.

Tony Melone, chair of the 44th ADC and communications director for a reform-minded group, New Kings Democrats, told the room that one of his goals was to reach out to all of the new appointees in the 44th — many of who may not even know they were appointed, Melone said — and let them know they were welcome.

He and another county committee member went to Kensington on Sunday to knock on the doors of each person appointed to a committee seat in the 44th at that last county meeting.

"While we're not happy with how that took place in a surprise appointment that threw a lot of people who have served for many years off county committee," Melone said, "we do want those people to feel totally welcome to be part of our county committee, and we want to get to know them."

"There's 4000 seats in Brooklyn and we can certainly make room for everybody. We don't need to run against each other, we don't need to knock each other out. So that's what I'm going to work towards," he added.

Melone encouraged those interested in participating in get out the vote efforts to sign up for Knock Your Block, an effort started by the reform minded grassroots group, Rep Your Block.

"I am interested in building a party where everybody who wants to participate can participate, and everybody has a voice and the structure is not designed to shut us out," Melone said.

"We are running a democracy here, or we are trying to."