Backed by a hall packed with extremely vocal supporters, one Republican Assembly hopeful turned a recent candidates’ forum into a freewheeling attack on the incumbent she is hoping to unseat.
At the forum organized by the Dyker Heights Civic Association (DHCA), candidate Lucretia Regina-Potter – who is also running on the Conservative and Independence Party lines — accused longtime Assemblymember Peter Abbate, a Democrat, of not standing up for the needs of his constituents.
Abbate, a 22-year legislative veteran, appeared unfazed. As he spoke to the crowd, Abbate noted that during his career, he had been prime sponsor of over 200 bills that had become law, including, “in the past year, probably 23 bills that affect the working families of not only this district but the state of New York.”
Among the bills of which he was an original sponsor, Abbate said, was Granny’s Law, legislation that ups the penalty for individuals who assault senior citizens.
Indeed, Abbate pointed out that 25 of his bills that had become law had been sponsored in the State Senate by Republican State Senator Marty Golden. “That means the two of us, working together, have taken care of literally 1000s of people in the state,” Abbate stressed.
However, Regina-Potter contended, “Anybody can go out and write 200 bills. The bills need to pertain to the community. Most of the bills he wrote,” she argued, “pertain to civil service. Very few pertain to the community and help the community.”
Regina-Potter also complained that Abbate had chosen to support the $300 child care credit, some years back, rather than a $1,500 credit.
“Three hundred dollars,” she contended, “is just not going to cut the mustard for working families, in this day and age. Parents should receive at least $3,000 per child, regardless of where they go to school.”
The arena of discretionary funding was another bone of contention. Abbate had told the group, “Over my tenure, each senior center has received over $25,000. Each public school in the district gets a grant. The state constitution prohibits funding to Catholic schools. We worked on that, Senator Golden and myself, giving to athletic associations at the parishes and youth groups.”
But, said Regina-Potter, “$1,500 a year is not enough for any group to function.” Specifically, with respect to senior centers, she said they should have enough funding to send a meal home with the seniors who attend them. “Our seniors don’t like to cook for themselves. They need something to take home. I, as the assemblywoman, would make sure seniors have something to take home.”
When he was talking about funding he had brought back to the borough, Abbate mentioned Assembly grants to Brooklyn institutions that serve the entire borough – such as the Brooklyn Museum, the Aquarium and the Brooklyn Public Library –as well as educational institutions that serve area youth such as St. Francis College, Brooklyn College, and NYU Dental School.
“Students from this neighborhood come up to Albany and say, can you keep in the budget money for the NYU dental clinics where we do our hands-on training?,” Abbate noted.
But, Regina-Potter and her supporters assailed Abbate for, in their view, shortchanging the 49th Assembly District by backing funding for institutions and organizations located outside the district, rather than increasing funding to local groups, senior centers and schools.
Money for local organizations, Abbate said, comes from a $300,000 pot which is given to each assemblymember to split up among worthy groups in his or her district. Boroughwide groups are funded separately, with the entire Brooklyn delegation deciding on those allocations, Abbate said.
Nonetheless, Regina-Potter remarked, “The $620,000 that goes to NYU, wouldn’t that money have helped Reaching Out food pantry,” a group that had made a pitch earlier in the evening for assistance. “This type of wasteful spending has got to stop,” Regina-Potter contended.
