Page 113 - Demo

Brooklyn Senator Vander Beatty CrusadesTo Give Voters Recall Options On Elected OfficialsBY IRENE VAN SLYKEAs Mayor Ed Koch walks up the steps of City Hall last Wednesday, the man who would like to dump him from his job, Vander Beatty, is standing at the main door talking to several reporters. Koch and Beatty exchange mumbled greetings and the mayor continues to his office.The encounter is both an indication of the attention the media are paying to the lonely State Senator from Brooklyn, and of Beatty%u2019s strained relations with the man who is now the most powerful inthe city. It also is a vivid testimony of Beatty%u2019s maverick personal style of politics that seems to cultivate confrontation and at the same time make it possible to ignore him.This latest Beatty crusade started in March of this year when the Senator says he became %u201c disturbed by the Mayors attitude of catering to what koch considers to be the majority of his constituents at the expense of the poor.%u2019%u2019 Watching the Mayor trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, Beatty says seems to be the Mayor%u2019s style. For example, he points out that Koch is not trying to close Mount Sinai, a prestigious private hospital in Manhattan, but instead is trying to close municipal hospitals such as Greenpoint and Cumberland in Brooklyn, %u201cwhere people are not organized and poor.%u201dGOOD GOVERNMENT ISSUEBeatty dissatisfaction led to talks about a campaign to recall the Mayor. He found that there was no provision for such an action in the City Charter, so he set out to collect 30,000 signatures that would put a proposed law on the ballot which would make possible the recall of%u2014 ui:%u201e :%u201ei_ pu 1/1 ic v/iiiciaio.Since the Crown Heights Senator was talking about a good government issue%u2014putting recall on the ballot%u2014rather than a recall campaign itself against Koch, he has attracted some support from some good government groups who do not necessarily want to recall the Mayor as well as other groups that do have a bone to pick with Ed Koch.Among the support Beatty has picked up is that investment banker John L. Loeb who heads a new organization V.O.T.E. (Voice Of The Electorate). Loeb says he would like to see the %u201cright to recall%u201d on the ballot. Beatty also says he has support from such diverse groups as the Richmond Hill Association in Queens, the National Association of Colored People (NAACP), the West Side Alliance in Manhattan, the Black Social Workers, Reverend Herbert Daughtry of the Black United Front and Fellow Senator Tom Bartosiewicz who represents Greenpoint in Brooklyn.If Beatty has found some new friends in his drive, he has lost one in City Clerk David Dinkins, who received, what Beatty claims, were more than 80,000 signatures in his petition for a ballot line on the recall law. After examing what was submitted, Dinkins has disqualified more than 29,000 of what Dinkins claims were actually 47,525 (not 80,000) signatures filed, leaving less than the 30,000 needed to put the issue on the ballot.QUESTIONS INTEGRITYBeatty has questioned Dinkins integrity by implying that he is the Mayor%u2019s man and so was not wholly impartial in evaluating the signatures. %u201c Dave Dinkins is appointedby the Mayor with the consent of the City Council,%u201d Beatty says %u201c and his term is up in 1980,%u201d inferring that he might need to stay in the Mayor%u2019s good graces in order to be reappointed.Dinkins, on the other hand, responds, %u201c It is unfortunate that a legislator is not more familiar with the law. I am elected by the City Council, and have been elected twice for six year terms. My term ends in May, 1982,%u201d which is after the Mayor%u2019s term is up. %u201c If it weren%u2019t for actions taken by me keeping the office open until midnight so that Beatty could file his petitions, Beatty would have nothing to talk about now,%u2019%u2019 Dinkins adds indignantly.The City Clerk tells how the deadline for filing petitions was July 6, a Friday, but Beatty was not nearly finished with collating and counting his signatures and so Dinkins says he opened the office on Saturday and %u201c stayed in touch on the phone all day.%u201d Around 11:30 p.m., on the last day for filing, Beatty and his colleagues arrived with four volumes. Some pages were still not numbered and signatures not counted and Dinkins says that the %u201c more than 80,000 signatures%u201d Beatty claims he filed were nothing more than %u201c a wild guess.%u201dMISSING SIGNATURES?Dinkins and his staff, recruited by the Board of Elections, actually counted 47,525 signatures and when asked about the %u201cmissing%u201d signatures says %u201c the suggestion is, or is supposed to be that we took them, or ate them or threw them in the toilet.%u201dBeatty says he will not give up. He says he is going into Federal court because he thinks that thepeople must be registered voters for more than a year%u2014is too stringent. Instead he says the present, more liberal state law should be applied which allows people to sign petitions the day they register to vote.Beatty will also argue in Federal court that in some elections people do not even have to be registered voters, as in the poverty board elections, and in school board elections parent voters do not even have to be citizens to vote. In a campaign to amend the City Charter, Beatty says, something that %u201c affects all the people in the city,%u201d signatures on a petition should not have to be by registered voters.LOSING CANDIDATEState Senator Vander Beatty is not new to supporting unlikely causes or long-shot candidates, and he is proud for doing so. When he ticks off those who he has supported, almost all had losing campaigns in their bids for public office. Beatty supported Percy Sutton in his abortive Mayoral campaign. Then he supported Cuomo in the runoff against winner Mayor Ed Koch. For Brooklyn%u2019s Borough President he supported Frank Barbaro against now Borough President Howard Golden. Beatty was a champion of populist Fed Harris for the 1975 Democratic Presidential Nftmination.Now, Beatty is also quick to point out that he bears no ill feelings for the winners, nor do they to him.%u201c If Koch improves I%u2019ll be the first to support him too.%u201dCITY COUNCIL TWISTIn the coming weeks the issue of whether there will be a recall provision in the Charter willUC-vv-'Uiw in u i t t u iu p iie w iv - u .City Council members have gone to court with an order to %u201c show cause\tures gathered by Beatty should not be invalidated. This is a curious twist since if Beatty had been able to get 30,000 valid signatures, the matter would have landed on the desks of City Councilmembers. The Council would legally have 60 days to decide on the issue. If they voted to change it, or vote it down, Beatty would have to get an additional 15,000 signatures after which the issue would go straight on the November ballot by-passing the City Coilncil. Are the City Councilmembers reluctant to deal with the issue or do they want to make sure that voters do not start taking things into their own hands?Those City Councilmembers who don%u2019t want to see the voters with a Cleveland-style initiative fight cannot avoid it even if the Beatty effort fails because a new petitioning effort is now underway to nullify the pay raises the City Council has voted itself and for the Mayor, City Council President, City Comptroller and the five Borough Presidents.Headed by publisher Edward Kayatt of %u201c Our Town%u201d an upper East Side of Manhattan weekly, a petitioning effort to deny those raises is based on a different provision of the city law. The anti-raise forces must collect 145,000 signatures in 45 days to get the issue directly on the November ballot, a long-shot to say the least, but not impossible. John Loeb%u2019s VOTE organization is supporting the effort and helping to collect the signatures. 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