Under Cover
What a race
The ballot is a long one for this year’s Community Board 1 elections. A whopping 11 candidates are vying for five positions— that’s 22 percent of the entire community board taking a crack at an elected post. The tightest races are for the dazzling assistant secretary and treasurer posts.
Board members don’t see the crowded field as a sign of any unrest on the board — in fact they see it as a sign of one big, happy volunteer board. “I don’t think there’s any upheaval — those people [running] have either held positions before or always run, they’re just used to running,” said board member Pat Moore, who, like every board election she’s voted in, is not running for anything.
Outgoing assistant secretary Albert Capsouto is running against Janiece Brown Sptizmueller for secretary. For the assistant secretary post, outgoing vice chairperson Richard Kennedy is up against outgoing secretary Sheila Rossi and Marc Ameruso, who ran three unsuccessful campaigns for chairperson. Tom Goodkind, Joel Kopel and Linda Roche, former vice chairperson, are all vying for the treasurer’s seat.
The only candidate running unopposed is chairperson Julie Menin. “I really think it’s a testament to the unity on the board,” said Menin, who was elected last June to a one-year term in a special election.
Sources say Menin has thrown her weight behind World Trade Center Committee chairperson Catherine McVay Hughes for the vice chairperson post. “I’m not officially endorsing anyone, but of course, like any human being, I have my opinions,” said Menin when asked if she would endorse Hughes.
Hughes’s opponent, Anthony Notaro, ran an unsuccessful campaign against Menin last year and lost by a landslide — securing only a single vote. But Notaro is not deterred. “I’ve learned from my experience,” he said. “I think it’s a completely different race.”
Head of the class
After only one school year, Claremont Prep is changing principals. Head of school Shari Silverstein will not be returning next year. Irwin Schlachter, the former headmaster of Rodeph Sholom on the Upper West Side, will take her place at the Broad St. school. Schlachter, who ran Rodeph for 25 years, will begin his new post at the K-8 private school next year. Michael Koffler, chief executive of Metropolitan Preschools, Inc., which owns Claremont Prep, declined to elaborate on the swift switcheroo, saying only, “I’m sure that she’s [Silverstein] well. We wish her the best in the future.” Koffler did not know where Silverstein was heading next.
Tri-what-eca?
Move over Tribeca, here comes Triburbia. The neighborhood once famous for sex and drug crazed Andy Warhol-frequented parties at the Odeon is now no wilder than a crowded gymboree class. So tame, in fact, that residents have taken to calling it Triburbia, the New York Sun reports. The locale’s population has boomed since 9/11 and most of the newcomers are young families more concerned about finding a spot at one of the area’s top pre-schools than getting past the red rope at the hippest club. The Sun predicts the new moniker will stick in an area where residents are proud to describe their home as something of a suburban oasis in the city; only this suburbia has lofts in lieu of cul-de-sacs.
Almost 20 years ago today…
Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg, the man who could have been a Supreme Court justice had he not smoked pot as a Harvard Law School professor, will be blowing into Tribeca Thursday, June 22 to deliver the 15th annual Telecommunications Policy Lecture at New York Law School. Ginsburg, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals in the Washington D.C. circuit and a “distinguished adjunct professor of law” at George Mason, was nominated by President Reagan for the highest court in 1987 after the Senate voted down Robert Bork. Ginsburg withdrew after the embarrassing revelation, opening the door for Anthony Kennedy to join the bench.
