Brad Lander (D): 15,279 (70 percent)
Joe Nardiello (R): 3,650 (16.6 percent)
David Pechefsky (G): 1,524 (7 percent)
Democrat and Working Families Party standard-bearer Lander trounced easily his two challengers in a rare spirited campaign that featured a liberal Republican and a Green Party candidate who hammered Lander on his commitment to reforming the Council.
“I feel great,” Lander, who handily won the Democratic primary in September, told The Brooklyn Paper from Johnny Mack’s, a Park Slope bar. “I’m thrilled and honored. And can’t wait to get to work.”
For his part, Pechefsky said he was proud to have “talked about real issues,” such as the Council’s corrupt member-item slush fund.
“I would have liked to have done better in the vote total, but I accomplished some of what I set out to do,” he said.
Nardiello made the biggest splash of the campaign by putting fake parking tickets on windshields all over the district — which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be fliers lambasting Lander for his support of residential parking permits, which Nardiello considers a tax on car owners.
“We’re still laughing over the fake tickets,” he said. “And I’m proud of the hard race we fought, getting 17 percent without taking public funds.”
Lander said he would focus on progressive issues in the Council, including a proposed paid sick day bill and developing affordable housing — a remnant of his former job as head of the Fifth Avenue Committee and the Pratt Center for Community Development.
— Gersh Kuntzman
