Does Paula Katinas Think Bay Ridge’s Republican Party is Desperate and We Need to Look to Staten Island for a Candidate?
Why does The Brooklyn Eagle Reporter, Paula Katinas think the Republican Party in Bay Ridge is SO desperate that it needs a Staten Island resident to run and represent us in Bay Ridge? Is Paula Katinas telling us that Bay Ridge is in a position like Coney Island was in 2013, when they didn’t have a rep. candidate and Andy Sullivan went to run against Mark Treyger? I would think there are several Ridgites who would be interested in the position!
I live in Bay Ridge and when I go to the Brooklyn Eagle’s website – Bay Ridge section, I should see stories about my community. Instead, I see stories about people who live in another borough. Our current elected officials must not be doing much as this reporter, Paula Katinas continues to give away the Bay Ridge news space to a Staten Island resident.
Katinas entitled the article: “Capano Offers Ideas on How the GOP Can Win.” Yet, Ms. Katinas failed to mention that Capano lost two elections in Bay Ridge in 2008 and 2009 and also withdrew from an election in 2003. How does Ms. Katinas think that a two-time election loser could advise the Republican Party on how to win an election? In addition, Capano has worked as a campaign manager to Eric Ulrich who also lost his political run, so that makes the title even more ridiculous! Doesn’t Ms. Katinas owe Bay Ridge the truth about Robert Capano’s background? She could have put a small blurb at the bottom of the article explaining Capano’s political background in Bay Ridge, but she didn’t.
I’m not sure if Ms. Katinas was present for the meeting that Robert Capano spoke at. The picture published with the article was provided by Bob Capano. If Katinas went, won’t she have taken a picture for her article? Basically, the man could have sent in a press release and it could have been turned into an article. But should The Brooklyn Eagle have printed it? If The Brooklyn Eagle had a Staten Island edition, then the story would be relevant, but this is a Brooklyn paper and it should be about our residents. The Home Reporter didn’t run any stories about this man because he isn’t news in Brooklyn. Capano had to purchase space in their paper to be included in it. Like I said, I don’t know if this is a press release. I have written to reporters and editors of all our local papers and asked them to stop printing press releases and print the news because the politicians in our area think they can fill the newspapers with worthless press releases when they aren’t doing what they should be doing for us.
Since the newspapers won’t tell us who Bob Capano is, we went to the web. Robert Capano doesn’t have a Linkedin account (there’s just four listed on Linkedin)- nothing listed for Bob Capano either (that shows us a lot right there) and there are just small blurbs about him on different webpages.
In 1999 – Bob Capano worked for Brooklyn Borough President, Howard Golden. Golden was term-limited out of the office in 2001.
In 2000 – Capano began teaching political science at John Jay (noted at the bottom). SeeThroughNY shows he is an adjunct professor. (Interesting info on CUNY adjuncts : Adjuncts are paid an average salary of $3,275 per course, and are are given an average total of four courses a year, “earning $13,100 in total” (info from here). A NYC Councilman salary is now $148.500
In January 2002, Markowitz became the Brooklyn Borough President and Bob Capano worked as a Senior Advisor for Community Relations for him. (In the 2009 election, Markowitz endorsed Capano’s opponent).
In 2003, Bob Capano ran for City Council, but withdrew from the election because there was a stronger candidate (Rosemarie O’Keefe).
In 2003, NYC under Mayor Bloomberg, planned to seize private property and sell it to real estate developers (this is an abuse of eminent domain). My family purchased property in Downtown Brooklyn many years ago for their business. When they purchased the property, no one wanted it and the area was dilapidated. When Bloomberg, decided to use eminent domain in Brooklyn, they made no contact with the property owners. They placed notices (just a piece of printed paper with tape) on the building doors. No one on the block received notice by mail or any other contact. The City of NY has records for everyone and they purposely avoided contacting these property owners by phone or mail (you would think the City would be required to send everything registered, but they weren’t). My family hadn’t heard anything about this meeting or eminent domain before that. My family and others never intended to sell their property. They invested in Brooklyn years ago because it is where they wanted to have a business. My family attended the meeting (you can read about it here and see the mentality of the politicians and developers). After the meeting, two developers set up appointments to make offers to the businesses on the block (the offers were less than half of the value of the property). When the developers saw that the business owners weren’t interested in their low ball offers, they ended their meeting by saying, “well it’s more than the City will offer you when they take your property.” My family stopped entertaining the meetings because it was a waste of time. We contacted many politicians and discovered some many had sided with the developers. We called Borough President, Marty Markowitz and spoke to many people at Marty Markowitz’s office. Yet we never spoke to Mr. Capano. Mr. Capano held the title of Senior Advisor of Community Relations and he never reached out and called my family. As a Republican, he never spoke out against the seizure of property under eminent domain abuse. Leticia James, City Council Representative for Downtown Brooklyn at the time (now Public Advocate) was the only politician who stood with my family and these Downtown Brooklyn property owners throughout the whole ordeal. She brought the press and fought with these Brooklyn property owners. For years, eminent domain stopped these owners from making improvements to their buildings because they were waiting to hear from the Courts. When the judge heard my family and another’s experience, he declared the City could not take our property using eminent domain. Some of the owners on the block had their property seized under eminent domain for well under the value. Ten years later, their property sits vacant because the city never built the park it planned to build. The property wasn’t blighted then when it was owned, but it certainly is now since it has been unused for so many years! If I was Bob Capano, I would not let Brooklynites know that worked for Markowitz.
In August 2004, Brooklyn property owners found out about this through the newspaper. (info) (more info). No one made the call for this woman to step down.
In December 2004, there was controversy over Capano holding a position in Markowitz’s office and running for a City Council seat. ( Brooklyn Paper – Capano to Quit Boro Hall – starts on the bottom right cover). The story made the front cover of the paper!
In September 2005, Vito Fossella opened a Brooklyn office at 8505 4th Avenue (now the Smoke Shop) and Bob Capano was his staffer. In the Spring of 2008, there was a lot of scandal with Vito Fossella as he was married and had a child with his mistress and then was arrested for drunk driving. Disgraced, Fossella resigned from office. January 2017 Update: Ironically, Capano does not mention this on his own site.
In 2008, Capano ran for the NY Assembly position against Alex Brook-Kransy. Brook-Kransy beat Robert Capano BY A LOT. Ballotpedia.com showed the results below. Brook-Kransy served as our Assembly man until last Spring. When Brook-Kransy resigned, Bob Capano wrote to the Brooklyn Eagle about Brook-Kransy – how inappropriate! Can you imagine spending years of your life working at a job and when you leave someone you barely know publishes a salute to you — UGH – Sorry Alex. (Notice that the paper that published Capano’s article was The Brooklyn Eagle).
In October 2009, an article entitled “The Last Gasp of GOP in Bay Ridge” and this appeared:
Ironically in 2005, Kassar told The Brooklyn Paper he would choose another candidate over Capano.
In November 2009, Bob Capano tried to grab Vinnie Gentile’s City Council seat and Capano LOST AGAIN – by A LOT.
Citizen’s Union endorsed Gentile over Capano because ” Gentile’s long-standing relationship with the community and leadership to protect the quality and character of the district.”
Three times Capano tried to be a representative for this area are AND THE PEOPLE HERE HAVE SAID NO – NOT YOU! Who keeps telling Capano to run here? Why hasn’t anyone close to Capano said, “this isn’t working for you – try something else.”
I didn’t write this to be mean to Bob Capano. I wrote it because Paula Katinas of the Brooklyn Eagle failed to share this any information in her article and the title of her story is very misleading to our community. We deserve the truth in our papers. I am tired of politicians playing politics and newspapers publishing press releases instead of the news!
After the 2009 election, Capano said this:
The first line of that statement is strange.
In 2009, Bob Capano worked as a manager for Gristedes Grocery Store (also called Red Apple Group) owned by former Mayoral Candidate, John Catsimatidis. The article states that he took time off for politics, but returned (March 2016 article). In this article, Capano is interviewed about coupons.
In October 2011, Bob Capano started working for Bob Turner, a Queens Congressman (our of Turner’s Sheepshead Bay office). If you never heard of Turner, it’s because he was only in office for a very short time – Bob Turner replaced Anthony Weiner after Weiner was involved in the sexting incident. O’Brien Murray was Turner’s campaign manager. In 2012, Turner’s district was eliminated after redistricting. Turner made a run for US State Senate, but lost the primary. Negatively, Turner was known giving big bonuses during a time of cuts and is noted in this article entitled, Congressmen Spend Like It is Going Out of Style. I didn’t see any articles from Capano complaining about this, yet he went on Twitter in November 2015 to complain that NYC Council bonuses.
In 2012, Bob Capano was the campaign manager of Eric Ulrich from Queens. Ulrich ran for senate and was defeated by Joseph Addabbo.
In 2013, Robert Capano endorsed John Catsimatidis for Mayor. I’m not sure why he was endorsing anyone as he wasn’t an elected official. Nowhere in the letter did I see Capano say that he worked for Catsimatidis at his grocery story or refer to John Catsimatidis as his boss or former boss. Why did Capano leave that part out? Being honest about his relationship was this man should have been included. Since Capano wrote about Catsimatidis employing people, he could have mentioned that in the letter as well . Lhota won the primary over Catsimatidis (and then Lhota lost to DeBlasio).
In the Fall 2015, Robert Capano is elected to the Staten Island Richmond County Republican Party Committee (info is on the middle of this page). I don’t know why it shows so few votes in total, but that’s what’s online. I guess a lot of people didn’t vote in that area of Staten Island. If Brooklyn was Capano’s concern, he would be on the Committee in Brooklyn. Capano is a Staten Island resident with ties to his political organization there. Capano doesn’t share his current position in his profile.
December 2015 – Capano writes a letter to the head of Community Board 10, Brian Kieran. Capano also called for Linda to resign from Community Board 10 (Golden, Malliotakis and Gentile don’t call for it, but Capano does). An experienced leader wouldn’t go to the media, they would have gone to speak to Linda.
We moved to Bay Ridge in 2009 and we never heard the name Bob Capano until this 2015 when his name popped up in the paper because he was criticizing a woman in our community. Capano condemned Linda S. for her views in the newspaper. Yet Robert Capano never called, spoke to or even privately messaged Linda. I don’t personally know Linda, but when I didn’t support something she wrote, I wrote to her and she responded. Linda’s past and her views are different from mine because of her experiences (as well as that of her family/friends). Linda was very open and took the time to explain her views to me privately. Lesson learned – Twitter allows us to share our passion in 140 characters, but not the story behind the passion.
.
Linda is attacked on twitter just because people think they know who she is. She was born in Brooklyn and yet people still write junk like this to her. If Bob Capano was interested in running for office in Bay Ridge, he would have asked to meet with Linda. He wouldn’t be “calling her out” over social media and then run away and not respond to anything that she said. Social media isn’t a one way microphone. The lack of responses to Bob’s rants and lack of retweets tells me that Bay Ridge isn’t interested in Capano as a representative.
If Bob Capano took a few minutes of his time to talk to Linda, he would understand she is a community activist who is speaking about topics she is passionate about. Her experiences are different than yours or mine and that’s what makes her views different. In December, I asked if Capano if he spoke to Linda. Linda responded that he didn’t. Capano didn’t respond. We don’t people who are going to talk tough and then remain silent when asked for the truth.
Capano sees Linda as Irresponsible was a news title. In 2008, Bob Capano explained to Brook-Kransy how he should communicate (below).
Yet, Capano not contacting Linda and speaking with her is irresponsible as well. (see Otey’s personal notes at the bottom of the article – that’s very telling as well). Also note that Linda’s comments are not in the article – nor does it say that Linda declined to comment. Hey Ridge provided the other half of this story that the papers forgot to tell us about.
What Capano doesn’t seem to understand is that Bay Ridge is a community where people talk with each other and don’t “Call Each Other Out” on social media – that’s a Staten Island thing!
Besides calling out Linda, Capano tries to call out Gentile, Community Board 10 and even Kevin Carroll over twitter.
Carroll let’s Capano know he doesn’t play the social media nonsense game.
What about Bob Capanos’s silence all of these years? In the 2008 Assembly race, Capano chose the Verrazano Bridge toll as an issue for his campaign. He took the same picture that Marty Golden and Nicole Malliotakis take each year when they claim they are fighting for us in Bay Ridge. Back in 2008, Staten Island residents had a bit of a break, but in recent years they got a bigger break from Cuomo and Brooklyn residents were not given any breaks. When Malliotakis and Golden put out a silly website in 2014 to collect our names and make us think we were participating, Capano didn’t call them out in the paper or in social media because he played politics the same way eight years ago. In February 2015, Malliotakis and Golden pushed the same petition again and people spread it around again because they thought it was “real.” Local papers were sent press releases again but by 2016 everyone knows that either Golden and Malliotakis can’t get things done or are just “playing politics” because nothing happened. We don’t need another politician who is going to take a picture near a sign, we need a legitimate representative who can take on this issue.
How many politicians will take selfies in front of that sign and pretend they are doing something to fix the problem before one of them gets a clue that’s not how business is done?
February 2016 – Capano recently called out the Council speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito for her recent bill. Mark-Viverito will be out of a job soon enough Capano has never called out Marty Golden for such a ridiculous bill. Incidentally, a lot of residents in Bay Ridge don’t know that Golden introduced such a bill because reporters like Paula Katinas never reported about it. (But blogs shared info about it and so did the New York Times) Many of our local papers just write about politicians press releases and Golden didn’t release a press release saying, “hey everyone I just gave them some huge tax breaks to some developers in Manhattan.” Nicole Malliotakis remained silent on social media about her for vote for Golden’s bill (sponsored by Keith Wright and Shelly Silver). Where has Capano been all of these years when he could have spoken out against things that weren’t right for Bay Ridge?
Also in February 2016, Capano spoke out about taxes. If Capano was interested in Bay Ridge and our taxes, why didn’t he speak out about Marty Golden’s bill for developers? Golden introduced a ridiculous bill into the Senate which gave huge tax breaks to developers in Manhattan and nothing to residents. When developers didn’t paying their fair share of tax, NYC home owners got hit hard. Where was Bob Capano then? Capano was silent. Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis also voted in favor of Marty Golden’s bill to give those tax breaks. The bill originally was Shelly Silvers so you would think Malliotakis would have vote against it. Yet, Malliotakis voted in favor of the bill. Bob Capano was nowhere to be found. Did Capano stay silent because he didn’t want to upset the party or did he just not care? Either way, this shows Capano is not a representative for our area.
I write the above to Capano in December 2015. Bob didn’t respond. If he can’t respond now, what would he be like as a representative?
March 2016 – Currently Bob Capano is employed at Gristedes.
Why isn’t Bob Capano trying unseat Councilman Steve Matteo in Staten Island where he lives? Is Capano running in a different election in another area of the state? I found this on the Livingston County Conservative Party website which is located in Lima, NY. and it says DONATE. At first I thought maybe it was leftover from the 2009 election, but then I noticed the wedding pic. Capano wasn’t married until years after that ’09 election. This organization which is South of Rochester is collecting donations for Capano for…?
Paula Katinas wrote about Capano’s views on financing college. It’s sad when a politician chooses the cost of college as their platform. Why? Because there are many NYC residents who went to college and whose families paid for a college within their means. How about telling people to go to a less expensive college? My three brothers and I went to a college my family could afford. Lee and his brother went to a college their family could afford as well. Isn’t there a politician who has the common sense to say, “People stop the nonsense and buy the education you can afford.” There’s all this debt because people have a feeling of entitlement and keep living beyond their means.
Capano has supported Lucretia Regina-Potter in her run for office (here). Capano spok at a fundraiser for Regina-Potter. Regina-Potter has run for office several times in Bay Ridge and lost (most recently she unsuccessfully ran to replace Alex Brooks-Kransy). Potter has also backed Capano.
If Bob Capano should read this far, it’s time for you to PIPE DOWN BOB. If you want to run for office -> run in your borough where chose to live – not in mine! Do me a favor Bob, before calling someone out on social media, try talking to them. I know you see Staten Island reps call out the mayor and other officials, but in Brooklyn we see that’t just ineffective leadership. Don’t send anyone to my house and ask me to sign your petition because you live in Staten Island and you have not spoken out for Bay Ridge in the past seven years since we have been here.
To the Republican Party – C’monnnnnnnnnn stop putting up people who have already run and lost If Bay Ridge says, “No we don’t want this person” and they lose an election -> move on to someone else.
Hugs,
marlene
Topics: Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Politics | No Comments »