Blog
Leading the way!
Posted June 5th, 2009 by brad
Here's Jackie Sherman running in the Brooklyn half-marathon in a campaign t-shirt on May 30th, 2009. In 2007, Jackie ran a half-triathlon for a great range of causes related to healing wounds opened up by the war in Iraq. With the campaign, she's already run the New Year's Eve 5k (and made a fantastic dinner for the full crew), knocked on doors, and (together with Caron Atlas & Josh Breitbart) helped make sure seniors don't lose their TV signals when the country shifts to digital TV next week (read her great blog post about it here). This spring, she ran the Brooklyn half-marathon (around Prospect Park twice, then down to Coney Island) in a campaign t-shirt, and recruited at least one volunteer as a result.
Thursday morning, 3 am
Posted May 20th, 2009 by bradHope you'll join us next time
Posted April 29th, 2009 by Vicki WeinerThis past Sunday, I was one of two dozen volunteers who knocked on over 600 doors and talked to our neighbors about Brad Lander's campaign for City Council. Despite the 90 degree weather, we got a great response.
People are excited about Brad's record of results in affordable housing, preserving what's best about our communities, and helping people find jobs in hard times. My favorite conversation was
with an 83-year-old Cuban immigrant with really interesting things to say about the changing neighborhood and our community's need for smart and effective elected leaders.
I hope you'll join us next time. The momentum of the campaign is building as summer approaches, and we need everyone to get involved. We'll be going out doorknocking again on Saturday, May 16th, and then holding an "all-hands" meeting to get ready for petitioning on Sunday, June 7th.
Click here to get the details and sign up.
This Saturday morning, May 2nd: Brooklyn PTA 5k run/walk for public schools
This weekend, my family and I will be joining Brad in a whole different kind of race. On Saturday, May 2nd at 10 am in Prospect Park, the PTAs of many of our community's public elementary schools are coming together to sponsor the second annual 5-kilometer race/walk/stroll/toddle in
Prospect Park.
Last year's inaugural race brought out hundreds of runners, parents, students and school track teams. My husband Joe won last year's race, and will be there on Saturday to defend his title! Don't tell Joe, but I'll actually be prouder of my son Griffin, a 4th grader at the Brooklyn New School, if he can manage to finish his first 5k (to help, we're sending him out on his bike!). This is a great event, and the money raised is distributed among the schools that participate … a really nice way to have fun and help our schools.
You can learn more, and register online at BrooklynPTA.org. I hope to see you there.
Read about Brad at the "Dazzle Me!" candidates forum
Finally, last Saturday I was in a crowd of about 75 people at the Carroll Gardens Library, for the first candidates' debate. The forum was organized by several Carroll Gardens civic and community groups. For three hours, they provided an impressive array of questions and grilled all 5 of the candidates … and of course Brad was terrific. It was very clear that he has the best track record on the topics that matter in Carroll Gardens (community preservation, land use, affordable housing, environmental issues), and the best grasp of the issues. He even made a funny joke or two (ok, not that funny).
You can read a great summary of the debate, from Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, here.
We really need everyone to get involved.
Local elections are generally won by the campaign with the most energetic volunteers.
So please click here to sign up for one of the upcoming events. I think you'll really enjoy meeting and working the other volunteers, and talking to your own neighbors, and I know Brad will very much appreciate your help!
Thanks so much,
Vicki Weiner (a friend & volunteer)
Staying Connected: seniors, digital TV, and public service
Posted April 5th, 2009 by Jackie.ShermanThe day I received the registration materials for my first year law school classes, I called my Grandma. Her first reaction was “You have Arthur Miller as a professor? He’s such a smart man! Such a handsome man! I’m sure that will be a wonderful class!” She went on to tell me what I could expect from Professor Miller, based on her many years as a loyal fan of “Miller’s Court."
Grandma Mae came to mind instantly when Caron Atlas first came up with the idea of organizing a project to help seniors with the transition to "Digitial TV," as part of Brad’s effort to emphasize (and do) community service through his campaign. TV was her Grandma’s lifeline -- one of the primary ways in which she connected with the world -- especially as she aged, her circle of friends and relatives from her generation contracted, and she spent more time at home. Imagining how upset she would have been to lose her connection -- and that plenty of seniors in our communities face the same threat if they don’t have someone to help them navigate the complicated process of obtaining and connecting DTV converter boxes -- made me eager to participate in the initiative.
In June, as a result of a Federal law passed last year, all television signals will go digital. People who have cable or satellite or new TVs are covered ... but people with rabbit ears and older TVs must install new converter boxes, or their TVs will go dark on June 12th. You can get two coupons to help pay for them, but almost every step of the process -- applying for the coupons, buying the boxes, installing the boxes, and getting them to work -- is overly complicated.
So, over the past few months, volunteers from Brad's campaign have spoken about the DTV transition at several Senior Centers in our communities. We have helped provide information, and
offered to help people apply for coupons the government is issuing to help defray the costs of converter boxes, advice about purchasing converter boxes and to help connect converters in people’s homes. (You can learn more about DTV conversion here, or email us at dtv [at] bradlander [dot] com for help).
A few weeks ago at a presentation in Carroll Gardens, Brad introduced me to Agnes, who is 80 and Violet, who is 92. We spent about 10 minutes chatting. Both needed help connecting their converter boxes.
They were skeptical of our offers to help, but I promised to call them to follow up. When I called a few days later to set up a time, I could tell they were surprised to hear from me.
This week, Josh Breitbart and I went to their homes. We started with Agnes. Her grandson had started to connect the converter and a new antenna before our visit, but it didn’t appear to work. After a few minutes of fiddling with the converter box and antenna, Josh got the television to work. He explained how to use the new remote control that came with the converter box and why the reception wasn’t as good as one might expect. Agnes lamented her large collection of remote control devices and the fact that she needs to move her new antenna across the room to get good reception.
Violet had asked that Agnes be present when we went to her house, so we all walked over together. A large “entertainment center” that at one time held a television, radio and phonograph dominated one wall of Violet’s living room. She explained that she has owned the piece since she was in her 20s. Josh took a quick look at the TV and concluded that it was too old to connect to the converter box without an adaptor. We promised to return with an adaptor and connect the convertor box another time. Josh connected the converter box to a slightly newer second television in her bedroom and scanned for channels. After about 10 minutes, he had the TV working and gave Violet detailed instructions for how to use the new remote control.
Both ladies had been happy with their TV reception. Neither seemed to think that slightly improved reception or the addition of several channels was worth the trouble caused by the transition.
As we prepared to leave, Agnes said that her friends at the Senior Center predicted that we wouldn’t follow up on her request for help. She told us that she was looking forward to letting them know that we came and we helped them solve the problems caused by the DTV transition.
As she spoke, I realized that that she spoke to the reason why I have been eager to volunteer on Brad’s campaign and to help out with this initiative: Local government touches people’s lives in a very immediate way. Our elected officials should inspire confidence that that they seek to solve the problems we face and that they will follow through with their promises. And government has a crucial role to play in encouraging us to be engaged (because we see the results that our engagement can reap) and to do our part to help other members of our communities.
I hope that over the next few months we can continue to help a handful of seniors with the DTV transition, that we can find other positive contributions to make in our communities, and that Brad becomes the type of elected official who inspires confidence that government can -- and will -- work to understand and solve our problems.
Breakfast-of-candidates: a lesson in political non-cynicism
Posted April 5th, 2009 by brad
Over at Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, Louise Crawford has been posting writeups from her interviews with candidates for City Council in the 39th District, and her interview with me is now up.
Like her blog in general, these interviews are refreshingly non-cynical. Unfortunately, too much of both political journalism and the blogosphere go for the "gotcha" moment. But each of her profiles really give a nice sense of the person, viewed synpathetically, as though -- well -- you decided to sit down for breakfast and try to get to know them.
A bit of the interview follows. You can read the rest, and her other interviews with candidates for the 39th District (the 33rd is still to come), on her blog.
Brad Lander was already seated at Sweet Melissa's when we met for breakfast one morning in late February. In our emails, we decided to meet "after drop off," which is parent parlance for after dropping your kid at elementary school.
With two kids at PS 107 on 8th Avenue in Park Slope, Brad comes across as an engaged advocate for public education. He admires PS 107's principal Cynthia Holton because, he says, "she hires great teachers and the school has a welcoming, nurturing atmosphere that embraces parent participation."
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We talked about his campaign blog, which featured a touching story (written by Brad) about the memorial for soldier Julian Brennan, the Park Sloper who died in Iraq last year.
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Waiting for breakfast to arrive, I asked Brad questions about his early life. He told me about growing up in a Jewish liberal home in the mid-west, where the ideals of the civil rights movements and "the idea of fairness in society" was always emphasized by his public school teacher mom and Legal Aid lawyer dad.
While an undergrad at the University of Chicago Brad became engaged with the idea of the city. Harold Washington, the African American mayor of Chicago at the time, was another major influence for creating a coalition of African Americans, Latinos and whites. "It was an Obama-like moment in Chicago," Brad remembers.
In 1994 Brad moved to Brooklyn when he got a job at the Fifth Avenue Committee, a group that develops and manages affordable housing, creates economic opportunity, and combats gentrification-induced displacement.
A policy wonk with a deep interest in community organizing, Brad lit up when he talked about the people he helped at the Fifth Avenue Committee.
He tells me about one person in particular, who grew up in the Gowanus Houses. This young man spent time in prison with a felony conviction. When he came back to the neighborhood he showed up at the Fifth Avenue Committee ready to turn his life around. He got a job through First Source Staffing, an employment service run by the Fifth Avenue Committee and is now employed and a husband and father in Brooklyn.
Brad's bio on his website also includes the tale of Carmen and Felisa Soto,two 89-year-old sisters who were able to stay in their apartment after the Fifth Avenue Committee launched the Displacement Free Zone, a way to prevent landlords from evicting families and seniors.
This kind of success seems particularly meaningful to Brad. But friends and colleagues have always wondered when Brad, with his obvious smarts and leadership qualities, was going to run for office.
Women for Lander
At the home of Jackie Sherman
Park Slope, Brooklyn
RSVP for address at nancy [at] bradlander [dot] com
You + Commonwealth Bar + Brad = Fun on Sept 2
Commonwealth Bar, 497 12th Street (at 5th Avenue), Brooklyn
Honor Julian Brennan by Helping Build Schools in Afghanistan
Marine Lance Corporal Julian Brennan, who grew up on 15th Street in Park Slope, was 25 when he was killed in Afghanistan on January 24, 2009. In a remarkable act of compassion, his parents Bill and Thya Brennan are asking us to make contributions to the Central Asia Institute, which builds schools in Afghanistan.