NYC Green Party update

Posted at Green Party Watch by Dave Schwab. Reposted to IPR by Paulie.

In an article for the Brooklyn Paper, Gersh Kuntzman describes David Pechefsky’s mission to get on the ballot as the Green Party candidate for NYC City Council in Park Slope, Brooklyn. The article highlights how Greens have the odds stacked against them in the onerous process of gaining ballot access:

He has one month — starting from yesterday morning — to collect 2,700 signatures, and got his first 34 in about two hours. (Democratic candidates need only collect 900 names.)

Of course, there’s a catch: To be considered valid, the signature cannot appear on anyone else’s petitions — and the five Democrats in the race have already spent a month seeking every last John Hancock.

Evergreen Chou has also thrown his hat in the ring as the Green candidate for City Council District 20 in Flushing, Queens.

Hot Indie News carried Green mayoral candidate Reverend Billy Talen’s response to the undemocratic Working Families Party candidate forum.

The July 2nd mayoral candidate forum hosted by the Working Families Party –with only Mike Bloomberg, Tony Avella and Bill Thompson– hurts New York City and hurts us all. The threesome represents the Republicans and Democrats. No mayoral candidate from any other party was invited, despite our own efforts to reach WFP, and so we’re stuck with these three guys.

The Working Families Party leadership has still not clarified why they excluded Billy Talen from their mayoral forum, as we reported earlier.

In other news, NYC Greens came away from a June meeting with a plan to establish a citywide Green committee. The newly formed Green Party of NYC represents the first effort to coordinate Green Party activities in all 5 boroughs of New York City. On July 20th, representatives from each borough will meet and work out the details. For more information on this exciting venture, keep an eye on http://greenpartynyc.org/.