Perhaps there’s something about their youthful political energy or the fact that many of their meetings come with some open bar time, but I always enjoying making a New Kings Democrats (NKD) political club event.
And such was the case last night, when this reporter took the G and L trains over to Williamsburg’s The Well, 272, Messerole Street for a NKD held event titled, TRUE BLUE: A Celebration of the Brooklyn Reform Movement.
The club, which top Mayor de Blasio Administration Lieutenant Lincoln Restler founded as a reformist movement several years back to topple former Kings County Democratic Party Boss the late Vito Lopez, bestowed awards on two progressive organizations – the Workers Justice Project (WJP) and the Young Women’s Advisor Council (YWAC).
The WJP helps Brooklyn’s low-wage immigrant workers including domestic workers and day laborers. The YWAC focusses on improving the lives of young women and transgenders in the city by addressing racial, gender-based and other social disparities.
While this reporter certainly admires the club’s progressive and reformist-minded values and work, he found a great deal of mirth when NKD President Anusha Venkataraman addressed the crowd saying how the club was also committed to transparency.
That’s because for all of the de Blasio Administration’s commitment to progressive values, it is about as transparent as a wall of concrete. Just ask the mayor’s top advisors, who often also represent lobbyists. Oh, I forgot, you can’t because the mayor labeled them “agents of the city” who are not subject to open records requests.
That being said, and wanting to give only a love bite on the hand that pours the drinks, this reporter did find the political debauchery most enjoyable.
Among those this reporter enjoyed conversation with was Restler, who he’s known since his early political days as secretary of Community Board 2; David Schwartz, a smart political junkie and religious Jewish man from Williamsburg who works for Assemblyman Dov Hikind, Marcos Masri of Axle PR, and Adem Bunkeddoko, a young Crown Heights by way of Uganda political junkie that is at Harvard going for his MBA.
Among the elected officials and/or those running for office that this reporter ran into said hello to was Downtown Brooklyn Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon, 44th Assembly District seat candidate Robert “Bobby” Carroll, and Williamsburg Democratic District Leader Nick Rizzo.
Finally, the NKD is backing two insurgent candidates in the upcoming September Democratic primaries. They are Debbie Medina, who is challenging state Sen. Marty Dilan in the 20th Senatorial District, and Emily Gallagher, who is challenging incumbent Linda Minucci as the female Democratic district leader in the 50th Assembly District.
