Fireworks between Brooklyn’s fractured Republican Party members will be flying hotter than the fourth of July come Friday, Nov. 4.
That’s the day New York State Republican Party Chair Edward F. Cox set for the Kings County Republican Party Committee organizational meeting to elect officers including a Chair, Secretary and Treasurer.
Cox also ordered Richmond County Republican Chair John Antoniello, to preside over the meeting.
Cox set the meeting on the order and decision of Kings County Supreme Court Judge Edgar G. Walker, who ruled for a do over of the September 30, 2015 Brooklyn GOP reorganizational convention to elect a county chair and members of its Executive Committee.
State Sen. Marty Golden
At that meeting, then GOP County Chair Craig Eaton, who has a long-standing feud with State Sen. Marty Golden, the borough’s highest ranking elected Republican, unexpectedly stepped down and nominated Former Dyker Heights Assemblyman Arnaldo Ferraro.
Golden and his supporters came to the meeting and nominated Bay Ridge Attorney Ted Ghorra. They also came in with 438 proxies of committee members supporting Ghorra, while Eaton submitted 201, and his ally Lucretia Regina-Potter submitted 117.
With Eaton controlling the executive committee, however, all but 17 of Golden’s proxies were thrown out and Ferraro was installed, starting a screaming match at the convention and the ensuing litigation.
Ghorra said he is looking forward to a transparent and fair process and expects his supporters to be successful in naming him the chair of the Brooklyn Republican Party at the meeting.
“The organizing work and infrastructure building that has gotten us to this exciting point will help to reestablish the local Party as an important voice in policy and politics at every level of government in New York. We also sincerely look forward to bringing together the party’s members and future members to execute the many positive goals for the benefit of our citizenry at this important juncture in our city, state and country,” said Ghorra.
But the meeting is not expected to be a cakewalk with one Brooklyn Republican attorney source opposed to the Ghorra faction already claiming the organizational meeting is illegal and threatening to take the matter to court.
Another Republican source opposed to the Ghorra faction claimed that Ghorra is nothing more than a puppet to Golden, and that 98 percent of Golden’s 438 proxies were given by four Board of Election workers including former chief clerk Diana Rudiano, who was fired following the fiasco when over 100,000 Brooklyn voters were purged from the rolls.
Regina-Potter and Ferraro said the first they are seeing anything about the organizational meeting is when KCP informed them about it today. As such they have no comment until they look further into the matter.
The Kings County Republican Party organizational meeting is slated for 11 a.m., Friday, Nov. 4 at the Knights of Baron DeKalb, 3000 Emmons Avenue in Sheepshead Bay.
