The LuLac Edition #261, July 9th, 2007

PHOTO INDEX: 1977 MAYORAL

FRONT RUNNERS ED KOCH AND

MARIO CUOMO.

NYC 30 YEARS PAST

It was the summer of '77, a crazed mailman named David Berkowitz was gunning down couples in parked cars saying his dog told him to do it, a huge electrical blackout crippled the city on a sultry afternoon, Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin came to blows in the Yankee dugout on national TV stopped only by coach and former All Star Elston Howard and in politics, there was a virtual free for all in the Mayor's race. Abraham Beame, the one term embattled Chief Executive of the city was trying to beat down six charismatic challengers trying to take his place. Tonight, on ESPN, a new original series will document that searing summer. The series will run eight weeks. For all of you history buffs out there, here is a review of that Mayor's race 30 years ago this summer courtesy of the New York Daily News. This is how the race stood on this day, exactly three decades ago.

Candidate Profiles
The Candidates: See How They Run … And How They Measure Up

Six men and one woman are applying in the Democratic primary for the job of mayor of New York City. It pays $60,000 annually, includes a car and a driver and a lease on a white frame mansion with an East River view. News reporters Beth Fallon and Robert Carroll compiled sample job applications for the seven candidates. It’s up to you to decide next week which one gets the option on a four-year contract.

BELLA ABZUG
BORN: July 24, 1920, the Bronx
EDUCATION: Bronx public schools; Walton High; Hunter College; Columbia University Law School
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Practiced law for 25 years. Specialties: labor, housing, civil rights; served three terms U.S. House of Representatives, 1970-76, Manhattan’s 20th and 21st CD’s; member, House Public Works Committee; by her estimate, influenced $6 billion in works funds for water pollution, mass transit and other programs to state; chaired House subcommittee on government information and individual rights; helped author Freedom of Information Sunshine Acts; early supporter, Equal Rights Amendment, Nixon impeachment; early opponent Vietnam war.
POSITIONS - On municipal unions: Cops and firemen have right to strike; city should try “to re-negotiate overly expensive pension systems”; overhaul of city’s middle management required; worker productivity would respond to “leadership from City Hall.” On crime: Rehire 1,700 laid off cops; put 1,500 additional administrative cops street; go after repeat offenders in arrests, in courts; increase special police squads; end confidential records for violent juveniles. On taxes: Collect $770 million in back taxes owed city; eliminate business occupancy tax, starting with 20% reduction; remove sales tax on new business equipment. On economic development: Replace Economic Development Administration with NYC Economic Development Corp., to float revenue bonds for capital development and assist existing and new businesses; increase film and TV production; develop South Bronx as manufacturing center for solar energy equipment; create 10 sanitation plants to recycle garbage for energy production and sale of recycled raw materials. On education: Restoration of free tuition at CUNY is “a goal”; wants Legislature to fund CUNY students on parity basis with State University students. On capital punishment: opposed.
PRIORITIES: Organizing a national coalition of mayors and governors “to demand a national urban policy including a Federal Urban Development Bank, improvement of public transit, and federal takeover of welfare costs.”
REFERENCES: District Council 1199, 10,000 hospital workers; Marine Engineers Benevolent Assn; Shirley MacLaine; Marlo Thomas.

HERMAN BADILLO
BORN: Aug. 21, 1929 in Puerto Rico
RESIDENCE: Bronx
EDUCATION: Graduated from City College 1951; received law degree from Brooklyn Law School 1954; received certified public accountant license 1956
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Serving fourth term in U.S. House of Representatives. Member House Committee on Banking , Currency and Urban Affairs, House Committee on Small Business and Select Committee on Narcotics. Bronx Borough president 1966-69. Deputy commissioner of city Department of Real Estate 1962. Formerly practiced law and accounting.
POSITIONS - On crime: Recommends abolishing parole as “the one real way of keeping criminals off the streets.” Would create a task force to curb arson and would improve jail living conditions, get more cops on the street, enlarge the auxiliary police and establish minimum sentences for crimes. On taxes: Urges phasing out the city income tax, the unincorporated business tax, the occupancy tax and the corporation tax. On education: Favors free tuition at City University. Favors parity in state funding of City University and State University, while “continuing City University as a distinct educational entity.” On capital punishment: Favors the death penalty. On health: Urges abolishing Health and Hospital Corporation and replacing it with a hospital commission answerable to the mayor. On neighborhoods: Would give community planning boards broader power, including the right of each board to determine how it will spend 10% of its budget. Would allow for the election of 20% of the membership of each board. Would curtain the “obstructionist” Office of Service Coordination and transfer most of its budget to the Department of the Aging.
PRIORITIES: Believes the central problem of the city is poverty and its first priority should be housing. Urges a governmental coalition of the poor and the middle class, “based on the proposition that programs can be developed that will help the poor move into the middle class and, through that, provide a sound economic base for the city of the future.”
REFERENCES: WCBS-Radio, the West Brooklyn Independent Democrats, several Hispanic labor organizations, actress Chita Rivera, actor Raul Julia.

ABRAHAM D. BEAME
BORN: March 20, 1906, London, England
RESIDENCE: Gracie Mansion; formerly lower East Side; Carroll St., Brooklyn; Belle Harbor, Queens
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Certified public accountant; teacher, Rutgers University; partner, Beame & Greidinger, CPAs; district captain, Madison Democratic Club; Budget Director under Impelliteri, Wagner; elected controller, 1961; defeated at Democratic candidate for mayor, 1965; investment counselor; re-won controllership, 1969; elected city’s 104’s mayor, 1973.
POSITIONS - On municipal unions: Says any cost-of-living increases must be reflected in greater productivity; says renegotiation of vested pension rights impossible, but favors “review” of non-vested rights; favors residency law for new city employees only. On crime: Wants special legislative session to enact mandatory minimum sentences for violent crime; elimination of parole in felony cases; “total revision” of present juvenile justice system, with more stringent penalties for violent youth. On taxes: reduced real estate tax 4.5c per $100 assessed valuation; pledged “cap” for five years on current rate; reduced commercial occupancy tax 10%; wants elimination of excise tax on manufacturing machinery. On economic development: creating Business Marketing Corp., for city to absorb EDA functions, offer “one-stop” help for business; favors Westway, Convention Center; On education: Abandoned plan to abolish Board of Education; now wants appointed, policy-making board of lay persons headed by chairman/chancellor serving at mayor’s pleasure; wants more state money for CUNY; says free tuition “unaffordable at this time.” On capital punishment: Favors, for killers of police, correction officers; terrorists; hired assassins.
PRIORITIES: “Crime is our toughest problem. It is not enough to catch criminals. We must also remove them from our streets and stop the revolving door of criminal justice.”
REFERENCES: Central Labor Council; ILGWU; UFT; TWU; John DeLury, Bert Powers, Stanley Steingut, Donald Manes.

MARIO CUOMO
BORN: June 15, 1932 in Queens
RESIDENCE: Queens
EDUCATION: Graduated from St. John’s University 1953; received law degree from St. John’s Law School 1956
Professional Experience: Served as New York secretary of state. Ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1974. Also in 1974 served as a fact-finder in nursing home controversy at the request of Gov.-elect Carey. In 1973, negotiated Forest Hills, Queens, low-income housing dispute at request of then-Mayor Lindsay. Former partner in law firm of Corner, Finn, Cuomo & Charles. Former professor of law at St. John’s University.
POSITIONS - On municipal unions: Wants all future city employees to live in the city. Favors ban on strikes by cops and firemen. Would allow the city and unions to reach only “tentative agreements,” until the mayor made the proposed labor contracts public, gauged public opinion and then made a decision. On crime: Would put 2,000 more cops on the street “without increasing the size of the force.” Would seek mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes, streamline the judicial procedure and improve living conditions in the jails. Urges appointment of a special investigator “to root out corruption at all levels of city government.” The investigator would be named by the mayor but with the advice and consent of the City Council and the Board of Estimate. On taxes: Urges reduction of taxes on business. On capital punishment: Opposes the death penalty. On neighborhoods: Would abolish the mayor’s Office of Service Coordination and distribute its $5 million in funds to neighborhood preservation organizations “with successful track records” who submit satisfactory plans to their community planning boards. Would right red-lining by establishing a “neighborhood reinvestment task force” of bankers and community groups “to make banks re-examine their present lending practices” and to establish mortgage pools for areas and are risky investments.
PRIORITIES: “We must institute the rule of law and the expectation of order—on our streets, in our schools, shops and subways, in our lives.”
REFERENCES: The Liberal Party, the Times, the Village Voice, Gov. Carey, Robert F. Wagner Sr., 26 labor organizations.

JOEL HARNETT
BORN: Dec. 3, 1925, Brooklyn
RESIDENCE: Sutton Place
EDUCATION: Abraham Lincoln High School, Brooklyn; University of Virginia; graduate studies, New School for Social Research
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Former vice president, Look Magazine; founder 1969, Media Horizons, Inc., publishers of trade magazine; former president, City Club of New York.
POSITIONS - On municipal unions: Favors introduction of competition through contracting out of work to private sanitation services, highway repair firms, etc.; negotiations with unions based on city’s ability to pay as indicated through tax base and unemployment rate then current; wants citizen participation in collective bargaining, with publication of union demands, city offers, cost and benefits to citizens. On Crime: Wants repeat youthful offenders “organized into some form of Youth Corps,” with a work discipline; “complete re-evaluation of money going to police, courts, corrections, saying “we are starving the courts and prisons”; expansion of auxiliary police; adult penalties for juvenile felons; retention of state Special Prosecutor’s office. On taxes: wants $500 million annual cut, including phase-out of commercial occupancy and reduction in business income, sales and personal income taxes. On economic development: “We need to attack power costs, develop alternatives to Con Ed, convert garbage to fuel”; favors development for South Bronx for industry; more money to EDA (“$7 million is peanuts”); development of city’s “information industry.” On education: favors voucher system so parents may chose private schools “and force competition on public system”; accountability for financial and learning performance for principals and teachers; favors free tuition at CUNY; admissions based on capacity or “modified open admission based on a clear chance of success” in college. On capital punishment: Favors, “for any kind of wanton, or premeditated, killing.”
PRIORITIES: “Crime, job development, cutting city costs. You can’t pick one, think arithmetically. You have to think algebraically.”
REFERENCES: Don Pippin of “Chorus Line;” Phil Newman, business.

EDWARD I. KOCH
BORN: Dec. 12, 1924 in the Bronx
RESIDENCE: Greenwich Village
EDUCATION: Attended City College, received law degree from New York University 1948
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Serving fifth term in U.S. House of Representatives, Member of House Appropriations Committee, secretary of bipartisan New York congressional delegation, one of four congressional observers on Emergency Financial Control Board, one of two House members of Federal Privacy Study Commission. City Councilman 1966-68. District leader of Village Independent Democratic Club 1963-65. Formerly practiced law with firm of Koch, Lankenau, Schwartz & Kovner.
POSITIONS - On municipal unions: Favors disciplinary action against police and firemen who strike. Urges “strength” by the city at the bargaining table. On crime: Expand the auxiliary police force tenfold. Get more police on the street by switching cops from desk jobs. On taxes: Urges reduction of the occupancy tax and use of tax abatements and credits to create new jobs. On economic development: Favors more city services for small business, including creation of a city-state loan guarantee pool. On education: Recommends “standards of performance” for teachers, administrators and students. Urges abolition of the Board of Education with its powers transferred to the mayor. On capital punishment: Favors the death penalty. On health: Urges appointment of a deputy mayor for health to coordinate all health services. Urges elimination of 5,000 “excess” hospital beds and suspension of new hospital construction.
PRIORITIES: “The fundamental issue…is economic recovery and development. The question then becomes who can and will lead us in these efforts, because only when we are in the process of recovery and are in vigorous pursuit of development can we fully address all of our remaining problems.”
REFERENCES: The News, the Post, Citizens Union, Bess Myerson.

PERCY E. SUTTON
BORN: Nov. 24, 1920, San Antonio, Texas
EDUCATION: San Antonio public schools; Hampton Institute, Virginia; law degree, Brooklyn Law School
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Captain, combat intelligence officer, trial judge advocate, U.S. Air Force. Member, State Assembly, 1965-66; author, Wilson-Sutton divorce reform law. Appointed borough president of Manhattan by City Council, 1966; elected that November; re-elected 1969, 1973.
POSITIONS - On municipal unions: Sans an intelligent mayor would use the leverage of public opinion to avoid confrontation, attain agreements. Supports some work rule review and change. On crime: “Crime is the number one concern of almost everyone.” Wants 60,000 to 100,000 auxiliary police; additional funding of district attorney’s offices; stiffer penalties for crimes against elderly. On taxes and economic development: Advocates turnover of landlord-abandoned buildings to tenant co-operatives. Wants state-administered pool of money from banks, insurance firms, others to combat redlining, back mortgages. Wants new city department of Housing and Neighborhood Preservation. Supports “carefully controlled” legalized casino gambling. Wants conversion of empty commercial space to budget-priced hotels, increased tourist-assistance programs. On education: Wants mayoral control of Board of Education and Board of Higher Education through budgetary control. Favors free tuition at CUNY but says, “first you have to find the money.” Wants end to enrollment cuts, since “educated workers attract business and pay taxes.” On capital punishment: Opposed. “I favor removal of those convicted of ‘capital’ crimes for their natural life span, so they are ‘dead’ to society.”
PRIORITIES: “Crime in our city is at epidemic proportions and we cannot afford to wait for all the social reforms needed to remove (its) root causes. Every criminal must know that he or she can expect swift and certain punishment with justice.”
REFERENCES: The Amsterdam News, The New York Voice; Ellen Sulzberger Straus, Nicholas Katzenbach, Rep. Charles Rangel; Local 144, Hotel, Hospital, Nursing Home and Allied Health Services Union; N.Y. Ministerial Alliance, AME church; Baptist Ministers Conference of Greater New York and Vicinity.
(Originally published Monday, August 29, 1977)
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