Last night, with just two days until the election, District 40 Council Candidate Brian Cunningham met Incumbent Mathieu Eugene at 157 St. Paul’s Place to engage in one last debate.
The event, that the League of Women Voters NYC sponsored and Ben Max of the Gotham Gazette moderated, asked the two candidates a series of questions about the issues surrounding the district, as well as their respective records. Brian Kelly, the Conservative Party candidate, did not show up.
Last September, Eugene won the primary with a plurality of the votes – 41 percent. Cunningham, who carried 30 percent of the votes, decided that he’d run against Eugene on the Reform Party ticket. Despite his loss, he remained convinced that the majority of District 40 sought an alternative to Eugene, given that the majority of the electorate voted against the incumbent.
“Sixty percent of the Democrats voted against this council member,” said Cunningham. “I think that says something about our party. On top of that, there were over 12,000 independents who did not vote in the Democratic primary.”
Eugene, however, insisted that even though he did not win over the majority of the electorate, he still carried a larger percentage of the Democratic electorate than Cunningham did. He went on to claim that Cunningham was disrespecting the Democratic Party’s choice by deciding to run on the Reform ticket.
“I was the choice of the Democrats during the primary election,” said Eugene. “[Cunningham] didn’t respect the vote of the Democrats. He didn’t respect the democratic principle.”
The candidates espoused similar – though not identical – platforms and ideologies over the course of the debate. Both of them, for instance, claimed to be staunchly pro-choice when asked, and both were in favor of closing Rikers Island. On the other hand, Cunningham supported using congestion pricing, which would toll the East River bridges for outerborough motorists going to Manhattan, to pay for transit development, while Eugene opposed the measure.
But for the most part, the conflict between the two was largely centered around their different interpretations of the primary results, and Cunningham’s evaluation of Eugene’s record.
“We have a council member who’s been on for 10 years, and has only passed seven bills those 10 years,” said Cunningham. “I have a vision, I have plans, and I have an opportunity.”
Meanwhile, Eugene maintained that he accomplished more than Cunningham was giving him credit for. In particular, he claimed that he oversaw the development of over 800 affordable housing units since he took office.
“Affordable housing is just one thing I’ve brought to this district,” said Eugene. “There’s a lot of construction in this district, and you can be sure that it will include plenty of affordable units. This is not rhetoric. This is not empty promises.”
Eugene also claimed that his office was ranked number one in the city for the provision of constituent services – which Cunningham disproved a few moments later, pointing out that Eugene was actually ranked 20th, according to City and State’s city council rankings.
The candidates’ words grew more inflammatory when they got to their closing statements. Eugene attacked Cunningham for leaving the Democratic ticket, claiming that he “couldn’t even stay in one job.”
Cunningham fired back by pointing out that Eugene had previously voted against the extension of City Council term limits, and thus was “flip-flopping” by running for a third term.
“However, we won’t flip-flop,” said Cunningham. “The 60 percent of Democrats who voted against you in the primaries will do it again!”
Right after the closing statements were delivered, the hall erupted into bedlam, with Eugene’s supporters standing up and chanting, “Primary!” and “Democrats!”, while Cunningham’s supporters tried to shout them down. Duane Joseph, one of the organizers for the event, tried to make some closing remarks, but was drowned out by the cacophony from both sides.
The polling for the City Council election will open tomorrow, on Tuesday, Nov. 7.
