City Council Member Mark Treyger (Coney Island, Bensonhurst), who is also running for male Democratic District Leader in the 46th Assembly District (Coney Island, Bay Ridge), this weekend called his district leader opponent Chris McCreight disingenuous for his comments about undermining the Democratic process concerning the time honored political strategy of challenging a opponent’s petitions to get on the primary ballot.
McCreight made his comments in an item that KCP posted in Friday’s Campaign-Related Odds & Ends, in which KCP failed to contact Treyger for a response.
Treyger’s petitions were circulated as part of a team effort that includes incumbent Assembly Member Pam Harris and female District Leader Dilia Schack. McCreight’s petitions were circulated as part of a team effort that includes Assembly candidate Kate Cucco and female District Leader candidate Brigitte Purvis.
The two teams are locked into a highly contentious political battle that has implications that expands beyond the district and throughout Southern and Southwest Brooklyn.
“People with McCreight’s campaign filed general objections to Pam’s petitions which I’m on. Then, we did the same to review theirs since he’s on a joint petition with Cucco,” said Treyger in an email.
“He’s being very disingenuous about challenging petitions. No one took anyone to court. He wanted to review ours first and then we wanted to review theirs. It is called filing general objections and not filing a courtroom challenge.
“Second, his team had a paid petitioning operation while ours was volunteer grassroots door to door. Anyone can pay people to stand at busy intersections and collect random signatures. We didn’t do that. They did.
Third, he has some chutzpah to call me a carpetbagger when he is from Chicago and lives in New York City less than a decade while I’ve lived in southern Brooklyn my entire life.”
EDITORS NOTE: KCP strives to find balance and get in all candidates point of view in its election coverage. Treyger should have been contacted for a response. This is his response. We regret the oversight.
