Page 5 - Demo

Off the Record B Y J o n C in e rCouncil UnderpaidThe Citizens Union has made a tradition out of attacking the City Council, either demanding procedural reform or castigating the Council for acting like a %u201crubber stamp.%u201d But recently, the Citizens Union, a non-profit, good government %u201cwatchdog,%u201d issued a report that said in essence that New York%u2019s City Council salaries are below the average for comparable municipal legislative bodies.The study, %u201c Pay Raises for Legislators,%u201d by Richard F. Ropiak and Gary H. Sperling, says that cost-of-living figures and \Council members who get $20,000 a year and $5,000 expenses, are underpaid. And that also takes into consideration the new $11,000 vouchered expense allowance voted into this year%u2019s budget.The whole pay raise issue blew up in the Council%u2019s face last December when that body attempted to vote itself a $10,000 pay raise. An advisory board formed by Mayor Beame had recommended a $5,000 raise, but the public outcry%u2014and the MayorElect%u2019s opposition%u2014eventually led to the Council rescinding the pay raise. Mayor Koch for the record then issues raises to his top management people.Although the report from the advisory board last year %u201c may well have been correct in its recommendations,%u201d the Citizens Union now says, %u201c its lack of complete, well-coordinated research appears to have been a principal determinant in dooming the pay raise for elected officials.%u201dThat may be true. But just see what happens if the Council decides to vote itself another pay raise.The analysis, incidently, also shows that state legislators, with their $23,500 salary, are paid above the comparable state legislative bodies, which get an average of$21,500 per official.And the winner in the City Council sweepstakes is Los Angeles, which pays their representatives $33,000 a year.The question of part-time/full-time legislators, however, did not figure heavily in the report because %u201cthis fundamental issue is beyond the scope of this study.%u201d A lot of Council members also have outside incomes, many of them operating thriving law practices.Out of a Job%u201c In as much as you are seeking the election to public office, your employment with the New York State Assembly has been terminated at the close of business on June 30,1978.%u201dThat was an excerpt from a letter Beatrice DeSapio received this week from Mary Paci, director of personnel for the New York State Assembly. DeSapio had, until last week, worked in editorial services for Assembly Speaker Stanley Steingut. But because she decided to challenge Assemblyman Joe Ferris in the 51st A.D. (Park Slope/Sunset Park), who is supposedly a staunch adversary of Steingut%u2019s, she lost her job. It%u2019s the %u201c policy%u201d of Steingut%u2019s office not to have any of its employees running against incumbents.%u201c It doesn%u2019t come as a total shock,%u201d DeSapio says. %u201c It just gives me more impetus to get elected. Now I need a job.%u201dFerris had complained several times to the Speaker%u2019s office. A member of the assembly staff that serves all Assemblymen, he argued, should not be working against him as a %u201c double agent.%u201d %u201c It%u2019s an inherent conflict of interest,%u201d Ferris says. %u201c It defies reason, ethics and logic to have someone working in the Assembly and running against an Assemblyman at the same time.%u201dDeSapio says its \In any case, DeSapio%u2019s new employment situation should preclude any speculation that her candidacy is a negotiable item, that she was \Anthony Carraciolo and Louise Finney%u2014 longtime Ferris rivals%u2014so that a deal could be made where all incumbents would get free rides in the primary. DeSapio now has nothing to lose%u2014having lost her job%u2014and, it would seem, Ferris definitely has a primary.Whether Ferris could forge a %u201cdeal%u201d anyway seems doubtful. As we%u2019ve noted in these pages several times before, Ferris%u2019 home club, the Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats (CBID) is sharply divided. In fact, right now there are two CBID members circulating petitions for male district leader against Carraciolo, John Carroll and John Wojick. There also may be two CBID members running for state Senate in the 21st S.D. (Park Slope/Bay Ridge). Jackie Carroll is a definite candidate%u2014he says he already had the required number of petitions to get on the ballot. John McGettrick is a %u201cmaybe,%u201d although he has yet to start circulating peitions and time is running out. That would make four Johns, two of whom may be challenging Zito for State Senate.Zito is Carraciolo and Finney%u2019s candidate. Finney, whose first name isn%u2019t John, will definitely not be running for State Senate as some had speculated after the powerful incumbent Republican William T. Conklin announced that he would not be seeking a 12th term in Albany. In fact, at a fund raiser for Zito last week, both Carraciolo and Finney reaffirmed their support for Zito. Another candidate, Matt D%u2019Emic, has been circulating petitions in Bay Ridge and Sunset Park, so there could be a crowded field in the Democratic primary. They willbe running against Christopher Mega, now an Assemblyman from Bay Ridge, and another one of those rara avis: a household Republican name from Brooklyn.Strange BedfellowsSome people can work miracles. State Senator Martin Connor (South Brooklyn/ Lower Manhattan) performed a minor miracle recently when he managed to get together some strange bedfellows for his committee on vacancies, the crew that would choose a successor to Connor it he decided to decline his candidacy. Among the committee members are Nancy Wolf, Nina Gerges, Ben Tenzer and Leo Barrile. Wolf ran unsuccessfully for City Council last year against Abe Gerges, Nina%u2019s father. And she and Tenzer, members of the West Brooklyn Independent Democrats, are both longtime adversaries of Gerges, a regular out of the Seneca Club in Williamsburg. Wolf and Tenzer were also political enemies of Barrile, until the two political factions in South Brooklyn and Brooklyn Heights sat down this spring and forged a truce. God forbid something should happen to Connor. Then the four would have to meet in one room!While we%u2019re on the subject, another Connor ally is on another Committee on Vacancies. Bob Schmukler, an attorney and Connor%u2019s counsel, is on Ben Berger%u2019s committee. Berger is running for District Leader in the 43rd A.D. in Flatbush against Michael Feinberg, who is running out of State Senator Jerry Bloom%u2019s club. If all of this is confusing, it may be necessary to add that Connor%u2019s primary opponent, Leoriore Waller from Manhattan, is the mother of a longtime Bloom associate, Joel Waller. The message seems to be %u201c You scratch my back and I%u2019ll scratch back.%u201dCoping B y J o d y L in s c o f fOne of the many (or few, depending on how you look at it) advantages to living in the city is that you%u2019re somewhat protected from the ravages of nature. By that I don%u2019t mean floods and dust storms. I mean more terrifying elements like cliffs, snakes and small boats.Cliffs, snakes and small boats may not appear to the rational person to have much in common. But those of us who suffer from the totally manic, thoroughly irrational and highly active symptoms of the common phobia will immediately know what I mean, with a swift, sweet and sick sympathy shared only by the chronically ill.Now I am fully aware that there are phobias in this world other than snakes that creep up on you or heights that look down on you or little things that are immediately out of control in their vast %u201c natural%u201d element. But I am of course talking about sensible phobias, not crazy ones, like a fear of crowds or small places. Anyone who fears crowds and small places shouldn%u2019t be living in the city, and for that matter reading this, and thus is a bona fide nut%u2014and irrelevant.Bad things in the country are always sneaking up on you, and unlike in the city, you can%u2019t make conscious choices about whether or not you%u2019re feeling sufficiently cocky to deal with them. No one in the country ever says: %u201c Would you like to go to Bear Ridge Pond where there are lots ofslippery snakes around and where we will all climb into a tiny boat and sail out into the middle of an immense and choppy water, which actually constitutes a huge lake? By the way, we shall get there by1 may be one of thefew people inNew York who won'ttravel tothe Bronx Zooexcept via carzipping over Bear Ridge Mountain, elevation 10 million feet, where the best views are available from a tiny road commonly known as Death Lane.%u201d No, what they casually ask is: %u201c Wanna go to Bear Ridge Pond and have a picnic?%u201dThe trick is that in the country, once you%u2019re in the car, you%u2019re stuck. Not like in the city, where you can hop off the subway at 59th Street, pleading sudden memory of a pressing errand in Bloomingdale%u2019s chocolate shop.They%u2019re sneaky in other ways in the country, too. Everything is a misnomer, so that %u201c Snake Ledge%u201d is most often a place where a harmless garter snake hasn%u2019t been sighted in 80 years, and %u201c Goose Pond%u201d is likely a place that harbors man-eating mountain lions or nests of killer bees. You can drive yourself crazy trying to figure out beforehand what they really mean and which harmless afternoon%u2019s outing will rapidly turn into a fortnight in hell. Better not to bother, since you%u2019re bound to get stuck. In the, country they%u2019re accomodating with their horrors, and if \\yherever it is you%u2019re going doesn%u2019t have snakes, it%u2019s bound to have a good, stiff, unavoidable cliff or three.Now speaking of cliffs, I have a dear friend who once remarked that she could never live in New York City because she would have to spend her time going up and down elevators in skyscrapers. But that%u2019s plain silly. High places are quite avoidable in the city, particularly if you stay clear of corporate structures.And we don%u2019t fool around here, either; we let people know what they%u2019re in for. In fact, we advertise our phobia traps, so that when someone asks you if you want to go to the Empire State Building or the World Trade Center, you don%u2019t have to think twice before pleading your long lost twin sister%u2019s imminent arrival from Taiwan. Everybody knows that if you go to Staten Island you go by boat, so no sane person goes when agale is brewing; or if you take the safe but obscure way, via the Veranzanno Bridge, you don%u2019t go when the winds are up (cars have been known to blow off bridges, you know, and can you think of a less attractive way to die?)I may be one of the very few people in New York who has yet to visit the World Trade Center. No matter what they tell me about that fine and fancy restaurant atop, I know better than to be lured there by the temptation of good food. In part because I suspect I know exactly what would happen to that food, and one might sensibly ask if that%u2019s any way to spend hard earned money. I may also be one of the few who won%u2019t, travel to the Bronx Zoo except via car, since I know perfectly well that you have to travel over that horrible elevated, shaky subway track via MTA.I%u2019m no fool, after all, and 1 know that getting there is only half the battle. For every meager success in getting up, or there, there%u2019s always the far more terrifying prospect of getting down, or back. The result is that the buik of the afternoon%u2019s outing is likely spent fecerishly dreaming up ways to hijack a car, or wondering if, after all, the South Bronx might not be a charming place to put down permanent roots.Not that hijacking cars or homesteading in the South Bronx aren%u2019t necessarily worthwhile vendeavors, but is that any way to spend an afternoon at the Zoo?Inklings B y B o n o S u c h m aJuly 13,1978, PHOENIX, Page 5