EXCLUSIVE FIRST REPORT: NYC Councilman Simcha Felder, a close ally of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg who supported his campaign to revise term limits, plans to resign from the Council to work for the new comptroller, John C. Liu, according to a City Hall official with with direct knowledge of the situation.
Mr. Felder, of Brooklyn, is expected to become a deputy comptroller for Mr. Liu, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the move is not yet official.
Simcha’s resignation would create an immediate vacancy in the city council that would be filled by a special election. Sources tell Yeshiva World that David G. Greenfield, Esq., Director and Counsel of TEACH NYS would run for Council under this scenario. David is the leading advocate on behalf of Yeshivas in New York State and that alone would give him a tremendous electoral advantage. Sources also tell us that perrenial candidate Judge Noach Dear would run for the seat, as well. Finally, we’re told that Joe Lazar, who intended to run for this seat, realized that he can not win this race and is most likely going to drop out.
Of course, we’ll keep you updated on this breaking story.
PRESS RELEASE BY SIMCHA FELDER:
Brooklyn, NY – Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn) will be joining incoming Comptroller John Liu as a Deputy Comptroller of Budget and Accounting. Councilman Felder has been serving in the City Council since 2002, and is excited to be continuing his work on making the City run more efficiently. In the new post, Felder will help the Comptroller eliminate waste and make sure that taxpayer’s dollars are being spent wisely.
The Deputy Comptroller for Budget and Accounting leads a staff of roughly 120 employees, and is responsible for many aspects of managing the City’s books. The position is responsible for putting together the Comptroller’s Comprehensive Annual Financial Report, it oversees the payment of the City’s bills, and leads the design and management of the accounting functions of the City’s central accounting and budgeting system, Financial Management Systems.
“I am humbled to have been given this opportunity,” commented Felder. “It has been my honor to serve in the City Council, where I have had the privilege to serve a community my family and I have lived in our entire lives. That said, I am excited to take on the responsibilities inherent in working in the Comptroller’s office on behalf of all New Yorkers. I’ve worked with Comptroller John Liu in the Council for the past eight years, and I look forward to working closely with him.”
“I am excited to have Councilman Felder joining my staff,” said Liu. “He has shown exceptional leadership and financial acumen, and impeccable integrity through his work in the Council, and I am confident that he will help my office perform at the highest level.”
In his eight years in the City Council, Councilman Felder has fought for his district, while accomplishing a number of reforms that benefit all New Yorkers. He has secured funding to build and expand playgrounds and to open parks. As Chair of the Governmental Operations Committee, Councilman Felder collaborated with Mayor Bloomberg and Speaker Quinn to greatly limit the effects of lobbyists and to pass the toughest campaign finance laws in the country. He has also fought to make parking and sanitation enforcement fairer, and to end the ticketing culture of Gotcha! tickets, most recently sponsoring legislation to give New Yorkers a five minute parking grace period, which will go into effect on March 21st. Councilman Felder also brings extensive financial experience to the position, as he is a Certified Public Accountant, holds a Masters of Business Administration from Baruch College, and worked as a tax auditor for the New York City Department of Finance.
There will be a special election to fill Councilman Felder’s seat in the coming months, and he will be working closely with Speaker Quinn to ensure that his district receives constant support and community services in his absence.
(Yehuda Drudgestein – YWN)
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31 Responses
Go David Go!!!
A smart move by Simcha given that he can’t run for reelection and he will be in the council with a lame-duck mayor. Also his seat got him no-place on a citywide level neither to a position in state politics, so after a fantastic record he’ll serve us right in the comptrollers office and go on to new heights. Mazel Tov Simcha and much Hatzlacha!
It isn’t right that Simcha is abandoning his loyal voters. He should wait until his term is over that is what we voted for.
But John Liu is associated with the Workers’ Families Party. How is this going to help?
david grenfield has showed us through YWN that he has what it takes!! Dear we like you too but you had your chance
I would vote for Joe Lazar!
I am happy for David Greenfeld and hope he wins this. The community is sick of Dear, and David will be a strong advocate.
Everything depands who our askunim and yeshiva’s will support. and i think Noch Dear was very good for the BP people.
I will not vote for greenfeld
I cannot conscientiously vote for David or Noach. One is a career politician who should be happy with the public position he currently holds and the other is a lobbyist who only knows how to placate, please, and for want of a better phrase,”bend the truth,” which is not something I believe an ehrlich yid should do.
Joe Lazar is someone who should be running, it’s a shame he isn’t. He has done so much work administratively with this city and knows the system like the back of his hand. I don’t think he has done anything to tarnish his reputation and would make a wonderful candidate. He’s also an “old timer” and can relate to the many sects and groups within Simchas district…
once again, boro park has to deal with elected the lesser of two evils and not the real deal.
כי בשמחה תצאו
this is a continuation of the extremely weak leadership the boro park community has had over the years. greenfield may or may not mean well but he cannot stop talking and people run in the opposite direction when they see him coming. he also has a bad habit of taking credit for other people’s work so those with real power will not work with him; dear was a lousy councilman and even though he has gotten good reviews as a judge one wonders which noah or noach is going to show up.
How soon they forget.
Noach Dear was a wonderful councilman who represented his constituents, especially when it came to Jewish and frum issues. How soon they forget.
And Noach Dear didn’t rubberstamp Bloomberg types of huge tax increases or toeiva colleagues either. And Noach Dear was totally accessible and was the conduit for many Yiden who were out of work and were desperate for city jobs. How soon they forget.
Noach Dear fought for us. Yes, Noach Dear made some wrong calls; I guess he is human after all. But I’d rather have him on my side than worried about those who find comfort in feeding some birds.
Wow. As someone who actually lives in the district, for me the choice is clear – David Greenfield. He has my vote. After all, he is a leader for getting funding for yeshivas and he’s young and smart. He’s someone I would like to have working on my behalf.
Mr. Dear is nothing more than the epitomy of a by-product of the political machine. Community board to council to TLC commissioner to judge (and questionably qualified for each of those positions)? Come on! He is a recycled serving of cholent being offered at Cafe Pomegranate as beef stew pate a la Midwood. A competent independent councilman would be far more beneficial for the district.
#12 I beg to differ. I’ve known Noach since his days and Brooklyn college and as a Council member he was an embarrassment. From what I’ve read, surprisingly he is a very capable sensative judge presently dealing with debtors and creditors in the court. Let him remail a judge until he can get his pension in a few more years.
Noach Dear was a wonderful councilman? I don’t think we’re the ones who have forgotten. Anyone remember 1991?
The jewish people need help. This is an extremely important time coming up. We need a person with wisdom and long term experience dealing with the outside elements that surround us. Youth is not a plus here. Dear is a clear choice. He has plenty of ahavat yisrael yirat shamaim and is known throughout.
# 8 Amrom youre right Noach is not good for BP Let him hang out by Munkatch. # 13 All Dear was good for was Photo ops. Did everyone forget the Gideon Busch tragedy? Whos side was noach on? He went against his own people in BP and took sides with NYPD killers who murdered Busch in cold blood. eh, if you ask me theyre all pretty much the same. ten of these or a dozen of those. Everything depends on what’s in it for the politicians. Ever try getting a favor out of Dear while he was councilman? but you didnt. I did. and had no interest helping me. Theyre all worth their weighty in gold. Not that there arent MANY good people out there. There are. Its just hard to find them.
David Greenfield has proven himself to be a true askan.
just listen to any of the audio shows each week on YWN.
He amazes me each week!
Try it yourself! http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news_cat.php?cat=20
for the life of me i cant figure out why noach dear is doing this.
he has a job as a judge for life!!!!
if he loses the race against greenfield….which he WILL, then he is out of work and we will once again need to be shelling out money for his lousy campaigns.
noach, just stay where you are
dear is only running cuz hikind is making him run….only to make sure that his public enemey #1 (aka david greenfield) wont win.
of course hikind wont admit this, but we all know the truth.
and poor noach will be out of a job, and hikind will run scurry away into the dark. just as he always does.
tipshis mammish
Enough with the 60 y/o hashed-brown politicians.
It’s time for fresh young blood.
David GO FOR IT!!!!!!
Oh, and a message for Hikind, your time is running out reeeeeeal fast.
You might as well start looking for a nice job.
David Greenfield is a true mentch. He has my vote, and he will win.
BIG.
Will David still give YWN a weekly newscast if he’s a councilman?
I sure as heck hope so.
VOTE DAVID GREENFIELD!!!!!!!!!!!!
Councilman Simcha Felder;Council Speaker Christine Quinn; Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg: Which one is not like the other?
Answer: All are the same – three peas in one pod.
What’s the payoff for being a good ‘ole boy?
Answer: Deputy Comptroller
Its very funny. becuse i see news reports that Greenfeld is helping yeshivas,but when i am talking to yeshivas administrators, they dont even know who Greenfeld is…
whats going on ??????????????????????
REALLY?
You are such a blatant liar!
You didn’t speak to any Yeshiva administrator.
NAME THEM.
Read this article by YWN. Are you saying it’s a lie?
Shame on you.
I know who you are, and your lucky that I don’t expose you for the two-faced fraud you are.
EAT THIS:
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=31019
After 15,000 people call the Governor to protest his proposed $62 million in cuts to New York’s private schools, how do you send an even stronger message to the powers that be in Albany? If you’re TEACH NYS, you arrange for fifty of the most important Jewish leaders from throughout New York to travel to Albany and tell their legislators ‘we need help.’ That’s exactly what TEACH NYS did yesterday. They arranged for a coach bus to pick up yeshiva leaders from Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, Long Island, Monsey & Westchester. In total nearly 50,000 yeshiva students were represented by dozens of yeshiva leaders in Albany. The group met with over forty elected officials in one day and had one clear message – stop the disproportionate cuts to private schools in New York. “This was an unprecedented display of Achdus,” stated David G. Greenfield, Director and Counsel of TEACH NYS, “by working together we sent a clear and united message that our community’s top priority is the affordability of a yeshiva education. It’s simple – we need government to provide our yeshivas with their fair share of government funds.”
TEACH NYS worked with the Orthodox Union, Yeshiva University’s National Tuition Initiative, the Sephardic Community Federation, the UJO of Williamsburg, Mosdos Bobov, Satmar Mosdos, Lubavitch Mosdos and dozens of yeshivas to bring together an incredibly diverse group of school administrators and askanim. After an initial burst of meetings in Albany, the group was welcomed to a Glatt Kosher lunch and reception hosted by Brooklyn’s powerful Democratic Chairman – Assemblyman Vito Lopez and the influential Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee – Senator Carl Kruger. At the reception, over a dozen legislators stopped by and spoke of their support for yeshivas in New York State. The Governor sent one of his top advisers, Deputy Secretary Marty Mack, to address this important gathering. Mr. Mack was incredibly gracious and pledged to work with the Jewish community leaders
Of course, the askanim spent most of the day rushing from one meeting to the next advocating on their top priority – restoring the CAP funding for private schools. CAP is a state mandated program for all schools. It is a security measure that requires schools to take attendance at the start of every period to ensure that students are attending their classes and not leaving the school during class time. While the Governor proposed a 3.3% cut for public school funding in his December budget, he wanted to cut funding to yeshivas by an astounding 44% primarily by eliminating CAP funding for private schools. The average yeshiva receives over $100,000 in CAP funding each and every year. Unless the proposed budget is changed before it is passed into law by April 1st, yeshivas will lose these funds forever.
TEACH NYS extended special thanks to the nine ‘team leaders’ that volunteered to lead the groups of community leaders to key meetings with elected officials. Those team leaders were: TEACH NYS Director & Counsel David Greenfield, SCF Policy Director Jeff Leb, Yeshiva University’s Eli Shapiro, the Orthodox Union’s Howard Beigelman, TEACH NYS’s Andres Berry, Village of Lawrence Trustee Michael Fragin, Political Consultant Michael Tobman, International Political Strategist Shai Franklin and Former Assemblyman Ryan Karben.
“Yesterday was the culmination of several months’ worth of work. We took an issue that legislators were barely aware of in December and have moved it to the top of their respective lists. Everyone from the Assembly to the Senate to the Governor’s office now recognizes the importance of the CAP program not just to our communities but to the state of New York as a whole,” said TEACH NYS Vice President & CUNY Trustee Sam Sutton.
TEACH NYS is the only organization exclusively dedicated to solving the tuition crisis and works each and every day on behalf of the 500,000 private school students in New York State.
DAVID GREENFIELD is the only way to go.
David has proven that he is an honest, sincere individual who has worked for the community’s best interest in mind. With immense yiras shamayim, he has been able to bring tremendous positivie result in favor of the Jewish community in such a short amount of time. Immagine what he will be able to do to benefit the Jewish community as a city councilman!
Hatzlacha to you David.
There are 100,000 frum jews that will be sweltering in the heat this summer that don’t have pools. Greenfeld did absolutely nothing to try and get one block of beach out of thousands of miles of American coastline for separate swimming. I think this clearly demonstrates that we need someone who can hear the people’s needs to really get the job done.
Dear # 14 Dont you compare my pomegrante to Noach dear. Thats an insult. I”ll take pomegrante anytime over Noach. At least from pomegrante, I get some satisfaction!
My family and I are Voting for Jonathan Judge, He would make a great Councilman for our Community, I meet him through the Community Board on which he tirelessly works for our community every day