For god's sake, Carlina Rivera is the worst choice

New York City NY

Description

Carlina Rivera is out begging for votes again. She's been a complete failure on City Council. Kicking her up to Congress would be a huge mistake. I ran into some of her staff when they were out shilling for support not so long ago at Tompkins Sq Park. What a disaster of a group. As soon as I started asking about the East River Park fiasco, they became very prickly, defensive, etc. No matter how you feel about that issue, one thing is clear: there was a serious lack of transparency in what happened. To sum it up briefly: there was a plan developed with community input and then - boom - it was replace, basically overnight, with a new plan that no one had seen before. Rivera then went about promoting this plan. And as I saw firsthand any questioning was responded to with complete contempt. That's just on one issue. Consider affordable housing. Rivera is again a complete failure on probably the most important issue in the city (though, of course, there is lots of competition for "most important" right now, what with the mentally ill causing all sorts of problems and young people getting their hands on guns, etc.). But Rivera has never seen a development plan she doesn't like. It's pathetic. We have all manner of luxury buildings to choose from - but very little affordable housing. This has been an issue for the last 20 years (longer really) on the LES. And just look at who has held the City Council seat for this area for 20+ years really - Margarita Lopez who handed it off to Rosie Mendez who handed it to Carlina Rivera. And "handed" is the right word - these people all worked for each other, passing the seat like a baton. The results have been truly pathetic. Carlina Rivera has got to go. Not to Congress. She's term limited and I'm sure she's busy lining up the next developer-friendly person in her office or in the district to take over and continue the miserable non-results we live with in this neighborhood. Her ridiculously hostile staff is just a sad indication of how out of touch she is. Time to go, Carlina. Get the f out.