He’s Talking To You Mark Treyger, Just in Case You Missed It.
The below letter is in the Courier Life’s Brooklyn Daily Letters to the Editor on July 17th. It’s clearly about Councilman Mark Treyger even though the author is being polite. I am glad that other people are noticing a problem with Treyger’s leadership and #PlayingPolitcs in Coney Island.
I am copying Michael Owen’s letter here just in case some people missed it.
Grandma’s wisdom
To the editor,
I was raised by my grandmother. One of the earliest lessons she taught me was that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. If only some of these southwestern Brooklyn pols had been taught the same lesson!
Because I don’t want to risk diluting the point I am trying to make, I will leave anonymous the names of the current office holders I am condemning. If only because I don’t want people to think I am only writing because I have an ax to grind with someone. To make my point, however, I must mention a former pol no longer in office: Domenic M. Recchia, Jr.
Recchia represented Coney Island with dignity in the City Council, first as chairman of the cultural affairs committee and later as chairman of the powerful council finance committee, back when Mike Bloomberg was mayor and Chris Quinn was the council speaker.
Did Recchia agree with Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn on every single issue? Most certainly not, but he was a smart politician and he knew it was more important to put the interests and welfare of his taxpaying constituents before his own self-interest and self-righteousness. It meant he had to hold his nose here and there, but it also meant he was able to build a great working relationship with the mayor and speaker.
Thanks to that strategic relationship, Coney Island prospered for many years. In fact, many of the large projects coming to bloom now are thanks to Recchia and his partnerships with Mayor Bloomberg and others.
Far too often our distinguished elected officials forget who put them into office in the first place. The power goes straight to their heads, and suddenly it’s all about them and their own moral compass and political ambitions. Being a competent elected official means knowing when to subdue your own self-righteousness in favor of the people who pay your salary to represent their best interests. It calls for some humility and magnanimity. Sometimes you’ve gotta be humble. You can’t always throw a temper-tantrum. You need to act like an adult.
When elephants fight, the grass suffers. When politicians fight, the constituents suffer. I am afraid the people of Coney Island are being done a grave disservice by our current crop of elected officials. The cavalcade of Coney Island pols who locked arms to bash Hizzoner for coming here on Memorial Day to have a Nathan’s hot dog and not stopping by for a tour of city housing was impulsive and foolish.
We may not all love Mayor DeBlasio, but he is the mayor, and in order to get big things done like Recchia did, you’ll need to have a good, working relationship with the chief of City Hall.
It seems our current elected officials feel they can score more points poking the mayor in the eye than they can by working with him, when they should remember what grandma said: You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Michael Owens
Coney Island
Hugs,
marlene
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