On a charm offensive, misunderstood Brooklyn boss Vito Lopez plays defense
Vito Lopez, speaking with reporters before his Occupy Wall Street march. Reid Pillifant
1:00 pm Oct. 27, 20112
On Tuesday afternoon, Assemblyman Vito Lopez rallied about 100 supporters and sympathetic union members to the windy steps of Brooklyn's Borough Hall, in support of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Beneath a massive banner bearing his name, Lopez, Brooklyn's Democratic Party chairman, was proudly acting as emcee.
By his standards, Lopez has in recent days launched what amounts to an all-out publicity tour. He has granted a handful of interviews, mostly about Occupy Wall Street, and earlier this week, he joined Twitter. (Using the handle @Vito_J_Lopez, Lopez' account was initially protected but has since, like its owner, been opened up to the public.) And he organized Tuesday's march over the Brooklyn Bridge, for which his office even sent out a press release.
Not that he was entirely happy when the press duly accepted his invitation and showed up.
"I've been slapped around and the press likes to do that and that's fine," Lopez said at the rally. "This morning I was slapped around: 'These people that are over there are revolutionaries, anarchists,' and things like that. Well, we're having a peaceful march in solidarity with their cause, alright? The same press and the same media outlets saluted the Tea Party and what they were doing and so it's a little bit of a contradiction, but let the media do what they have to do. And they will continue to do that."
He was referring to an interview earlier that morning, when he made a rare television appearance on Good Day New York to talk about his support for the protesters.
Lopez was one of the first elected officials to visit Occupy Wall Street—their anti-corporate message is more or less in line with the working-class Assembly district he has represented for nearly three decades—and the intense interest in the protests has given him a chance to promote himself as a liberal champion at the front of the fight for progressive causes.
Good Day's host Greg Kelly, after being mostly dismissive of the Occupy demonstration (and invoking Doug Schoen's polling), pivoted to a question about a federal investigation into the Bushwick nonprofit Lopez founded.
Lopez said the question was "totally out of context for why I'm here," given that he was there to talk about his march, and that he had never been contacted about an investigation and was no longer involved with the nonprofit.
Kelly pressed on, asking if Lopez's girlfriend still works there.
"I'm not going to get in to who my girlfriend is, or not," Lopez said. (The answer to Kelly's question is yes.)
Lopez was first elected to the Assembly in 1984 and, over the course of 14 terms, has made himself into one of the more powerful champions of affordable housing and senior-citizen issues in Albany. He was elected Brooklyn's Democratic county chairman in 2005, after the resignation of Clarence Norman. He has not been immune to the controversies that seem to attend everyone who holds that position.
His (former) nonprofit, which still contributes greatly to his political power, is reportedly still under investigation, and there has been an unending stream of questions about other matters, from whether Lopez actually lives in his legislative district, to the placement of polling sites, to his judicial nominees.
Lopez is well aware he has been cast as the villain in the drama of Brooklyn politics, the party boss who presides over a political and social-service empire, with a crowd of New Kings Democratic reformers trying to topple him, as the New York Times editorial board cheers his opponents on.
This bothers him.
"I love the characterization," he said sarcastically in a phone interview earlier this month, when asked about his support for a candidate who's also backed by the reformers who oppose him.
Lopez said he was a "reformer" too when he first ran for office, and that some of his supposedly reformist opponents had recently backed one of his entrenched rivals, longtime congressman Ed Towns, in a race for district leader.
"Towns as a reformer?" he guffawed. "So this idea about labels and where they're at, I wouldn't give a lot of credence to that."
Lopez touted his own support for same-sex marriage—"I was the first county leader in the country to come out for a marriage equality"—and said if you don't believe him, just ask the loft tenants for whom he recently helped secure legal protections.
"If you've ever met loft tenants they're an interesting group of people," he said. "One side of their head is red. One side is yellow. They think I'm a pretty good guy."
He also mentioned a few recent losses other county leaders suffered in district-leader races, and suggested that the press would have made a much bigger deal of it if he had incurred such losses in Brooklyn.
"You think you're going to write that?" he said dismissively.
At his rally at Brooklyn Borough Hall, Lopez worked a complaint about the press into his introduction of nearly every politician and union leader.
"I want to thank this particular politician," he said of his first speaker. "I was walking by and someone said, 'Hey you know, Channel 5 really socked you a little bit.' And I said, 'What are you doing to do?' And they said, 'Not as bad as they did in the New York Times with Marty Markowitz.' And I said, 'I don't read the Times and I didn't know that.' I'm starting to think you wear these articles as badge of honors."
He was in the process of introducing Markowitz, who was standing nearby, looking decidedly less amused than Lopez.
"I like him better because he's getting beaten up," Lopez said.
"Sure you do," laughed Markowitz.
"No, no, no, not because he gets beat up," Lopez said. "But now we have something in common. When we go out to eat, we can talk about, 'Yeah, I got beaten up seven times.' You can say, 'Well, I got beaten up eight times.' They said, 'I'm too short.' I'll say, 'They tell me I'm too tall.' So we can go on and on.
"And this is to take over the world, this rally. This is the beginning of my attempt to take over the world."
I can understand why Lopez seems this is unfair. A former social worker and not for profit administrator who helped to pioneer the development of senior services and affordable housing development in North Brooklyn even before becoming an elected official, his every move is cast in dark, ominous tones, while his opponents, many of whom are wealthy corporate attorneys or come from very wealthy families that finance their campaigns, never receive any public scrutiny.
Take Lincoln Restler. He comes from a family that has made immense wealth (not top 1% but top .0001%) by privatizing the natural gas industry in British Columbia Canada. Talk about back room deals and cronyism, Peter Restler, Lincoln’s father and biggest campaign contributor, seems to be the man behind the curtain of British Columbia’s center right Liberal Party, and those politicians regularly come to NYC to kiss his ring. How can helping to elect judges compare to creating what amounts to Canada's Enron for your own profit? This article below follows the money and goes where NYC journalists haven’t: http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/03/21/SmartMeterRush/
As a resident of British Columbia (BC) I can honestly say that the BC Liberal Party is not liberal in the sense that US citizens understand liberalism.
This party is as conservative as they come and most of their elected members are former members of the Social Credit Party which is a mixture of right wing and ultra right wing voters.
One has to wonder why there isn't an investigation into two directors of BC Hydro (owned by the people of BC) David Emerson and Tracey McVicar voting on a resolution to purchase and install $1 billion worth of so called smart meters from Corix to all homes in BC while they were directors of CAI, the parent company of Corix. Peter Restler, Lincoln's father, is a founding partner of CAI and sat as a Board of Director with MacDonald Detweiller, another Canadian company, with David Emerson.
BC Hydro, once a proud and prosperous 'crown corporation' (people's asset) has been turned into a bankrupt company by those intent on gutting the once prosperous corporation that helped fill BC's treasury from electrical exports. BC Hydro forced to purchase power from private power producers at rates 3 times than of current market prices by the BC Lie-berals along with Corix smart meters has reduced Hydro to a shell of what it was. BC Hydro has asked the utilities commission to increase rates by 50%! The recent government Auditor General's Office report is a story of a company brushing aside its debts and significant future financial obligations. Hundreds of millions of dollars not accounted for!
Under the BC Liberals, BC Hydro was turned over to Arthur Anderson, now Accenture, to operate its administration and management. US citizens should remember the connection between Arthur Anderson and Enron. It is believed that Accenture will get the boot from BC Hydro and another corporation will get the nod to run the people's asset without the people having a say.
Our local news media now one big company, Postmedia Inc. has none other than David Emerson as a director.
Corporatism is alive and well in BC thanks to the Restler's and other backroom dealers for BC riches. When the people's gas company was sold off, thanks to the advice of Restler, we lost close to $400 million a year being pumped into the government treasury. Thanks Peter! As we become impoverished as a province Restler and his Canadian cohorts become even more wealthy.
Lincoln, the money your pops 'donated' to your dubious political cause is from our BC treasury. Give it back! Your refund to BC need only be a cheque with Minister of Finance BC written on it along with the amount. Future inheritance can also be sent back to BC.
The smell of Parfume d'Polecat is ripe in BC. New York news media get a whiff! Just what are all the connections between our Conservative government in Canada and Peter Restler, what connections exist between the BC government, CAI, Corix and Restler? David Emerson was the Canadian Minister of International Affairs and Trade and met with Restler many times. Emerson was once the Deputy Premier of BC and Deputy Finance Minister.
My internet sign for Occupy Wall Street is this:
Headline: Trickle down economics defies gravity
Economists disprove Newton's theory...wealth seen flowing uphill!
The people of BC are poised to defeat the BC Liberals in the polls in 2013. At that time it is hoped that a full inquiry into BC Hydro will take place.