Highlights of a Political Season

Mother knows best – Congratulations to Russell Squire who was re-elected to a second term as Chair of Community Board 8. Voting for Squire was CB member Lori Bores whose son, Alex Bores, was a candidate for Assembly. He won and is now Assembly Member-elect for the 73rd AD. One of his opponents was Russell Squire. Mothers are fierce proponents for their own and the race was, well, a race and hard-hitting. Good for Lori! Board member Shari Weiner, who lost to Squire in last year’s vote for CB chair, abstained although Squire was running unopposed. The term for CB chairs is one year. They can run for a second, but not a third, consecutive term, but are eligible to run after the interim year, with the same rule in effect. There may be interesting times ahead if Squire, Weiner, and Lori Bores go-head to-head to-head for Chair.

Don’t mess with Menin – Acting Supreme Court Justice Leslie A. Stroth put the kibosh on a defamation lawsuit brought in NY County Supreme Court by the Upper East Side’s Comedy Strip Promotions, Inc. against Council Member Julie Menin and two other defendants, when she dismissed the case finding that Menin’s tweet and letter in response to an Instagram post by the plaintiff regarding various COVID-19 mandates were her opinion. Quoting from the Stroth decision, “Subsequently, the website ‘UpperEastSite’ published an article entitled ‘Iconic Comic Strip Club Posts Anti-Semitic, Anti-Vax message on Instagram’ which referred to plaintiff’s Instagram post as anti-semitic and included several individuals’ opinions about the post.” Menin, who represents the UES where the Comic Strip club is located, posted a tweet, which in effect said that the post was deeply offensive, that as a daughter of a Holocaust survivor she could not condemn strongly enough the references in the plaintiff’s posts. The letter Menin wrote to plaintiff’s general manager was on official City Council stationery and ended by saying “As a longstanding establishment within our neighborhood, I urge you to apologize and lead community solidarity against hate and persecution.” Sounds like a thing, especially with Chanukah coming up.

Governor redux – Days before the votes were counted, and confirming that Gov. Kathy Hochul would be NY’s first-elected female governor, she and her husband William wined and dined at Mirso Lekic’s Tudor City Steakhouse. The NY Post’s Cindy Adams reprised the dinner in a recent column, titling the item “Gov chows down,” and noted that, in addition to “Champagne plus Sancerre, and beet salad and branzino,” the Hochuls were good tippers. And they – the Hochuls and Mirso Lekic – were all smiles in anticipation of the victory.