PolitickerNY.com.    Six Brooklyn Council Candidates Get Creative, One Also Gets Mad.    Last night, six of the seven Democratic candidates in the 33rd Council District gathered at a Williamsburg preschool for a forum that was provocatively promoted by a host group, Neighbors Allied for Good Growth, as the “Ultimate Verbal Smackdown.” Only one candidate seemed to take the promotion seriously.

Doug Biviano, a building superintendent and first-time office-seeker who had been cordial in previous debates, repeatedly attacked fellow candidates Evan Thies, Jo Anne Simon, and Steven Levin as agents of the Democratic "machine," who were collectively to blame for the unfulfilled promises of a major 2005 rezoning in Greenpoint and Williamsburg rezoning. Thies is a former aide to the incumbent Councilman David Yassky; Simon was a Democratic district leader; and Levin, who did not attend the forum, is an aide to the Brooklyn Democratic party chair, Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

“They never stood up, they cowered away, and you’re seeing Steve Levin right now being a backroom coward...Are you going to stand up for 8 to 12 more years of the Yassky-Levin-Simon machine?” Biviano asked the crowd." Read article...

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