Kevin Peter Carroll wants to become your state committeeman so badly, he’d even petition Ralph Perfetto for a signature.
And Ralph Perfetto is running against him.
In the latest twist to Bay Ridge’s hottest committeeman battle in over a decade, Carroll shunned Perfetto’s gesture that each not solicit signatures on the other’s block.
“The district is small, and I will campaign everywhere in the district,” Carroll said. “I’m not entering into any political deals, because I want everyone to hear what I am saying.”
But Perfetto feels that, by offering to stay away from his challenger’s turf, he’s doing him a favor.
“I’m offering him an olive branch,” said Perfetto, who pointed out that, last year, his newly formed political club, the United Americans Democratic Organization, had gathered 1,551 signatures for Councilman Vincent Gentile’s re-election, despite having its first meeting the night before petitioning began.
In contrast, he said, the Brooklyn Democrats for Change — of which Carroll is president — gathered only 164 signatures for Gentile.
While the two both proclaimed that neither would challenge any of the signatures gathered by the other, Perfetto wondered aloud how — if he became committeeman — Carroll would work with the assemblymembers he besmirched last week.
“We have five assemblypeople who are doing our business for us,” Perfetto said, noting that Carroll’s running on a platform that claims those five people are not properly representing Bay Ridge. If he’s elected, Carroll will then “have to go back to the same assemblypeople he’s been knocking.”
But Carroll claimed he isn’t knocking anyone, he just wants a contiguous district.
“All the assemblypeople are doing the best they can do,” Carroll said. “I’m just talking about the fact that Bay Ridge deserves one Assembly seat.”
