Hot take on the New York City Council District 26 circus

You have to do some work to differentiate between the 15 Democratic primary candidates.

Nobody else seems to be doing it, listening to the candidates themselves is mostly unhelpful because nobody is challenging any of them, so here’s how I got my five by way of research.

Of the 15, I’d only ever heard of four before the campaigning started: Young, O’Leary, Sharpe and Forman.

To me, that means they’re the only ones who’ve been actually active in the community they’re asking to represent. So that’s who I’ll look at first.

Can’t rank Young because so much of her fundraising has come from real estate. Can’t trust that she won’t sell us out.

Can’t fault O’Leary’s love of and commitment to our community. But can’t rank him, because he’s a political car crash.

• Advocates for safe cycling while advocating against the Skillman bike lane
• Advocates for defunding police, while holding a police event at his office

This makes it seem like he’ll say anything to agree with anybody.

More than 37% of his fundraising came from outside the city, and the average contribution was $157 , which I think is the highest of any candidate.

Sharpe, I like, and is probably the most progressive of the four, so I’ll rank her, but she doesn’t seem to have any experience working with/for the city, so it’ll be #2.

That leaves Forman. Between having heard of her because she’s been active in the community, and her experience working with the city, she’ll get #1.

Of the ones I never heard of before their campaigning…

Bagga, Laymon and Raga seem decent, but their experience and plans — all fantastic progressive stuff — never speak specifically to the district.

Bagga gets all these endorsements because of his work under De Blasio. Allegedly also because these unions somehow got money from his census work. And at 29:07 in the Anthony Weiner documentary, his immediate response is to deny the scandal erupting during Weiner’s 2013 campaign. But hey, that’s eight years ago.

Brea keeps saying he grew up in NYCHA in Ravenswood, but his committee address is in Maspeth.

That address was last sold in 2006, which means he would have been five or six when he moved there, so claiming he grew up in NYCHA is a stretch.

His mailer says we need black leadership, but he isn’t black. His ad on the Queens Post website says we don’t need politicians, when he’s looking to get elected as a politician. That’s all very weird.

Won claims she doesn’t take real estate donations, except received several individual $1,000 donations from real estate. They were refunded, but if you’re genuinely running as a candidate who’s not taking money from real estate, why are they donating that amount of money in the first place? There’s something off about that.

How can somebody who has received more than 20 individual donations of $1,000 — that’s more than any other candidate, even after refunds — claim to be a grassroots candidate?

More than 35% of her donations have come from outside of the city.

Is wifi the most detached perception of the most pressing need of the community?

Between her conflicting real estate stuff, and the way she’s pushing for public-private partnerships, she’s right up there with Young as the candidate most likely to sell us out, but at least Young isn’t pretending to be progressive.

Her responses when she didn’t get the 21 in ’21 or WFP endorsements were petty. Her response to the postering thing was petty. Allegedly, her team put up posters on businesses without going inside to ask first. Maybe her posters were taken down by the businesses because of how obnoxious that is?

She’s positioned herself as the cycling candidate, but the box car she hired for early voting was spotted parked in a cycle lane.

She says she wants to defund the police, but some people somewhere are picking up on her being a pro-cop candidate for some reason.

I can’t guess the outcome of this election, but I know Won has contested it before it’s even happened.

Keehan-Smith is interesting. I completely disagree with her platform, but I don’t think any other candidate comes close to her bond to the community, and I can respect that. So I’ll rank her, but it’ll be #5

Kim, Gomez, Maruf, Bailey and Khan seem nice. That’s as much of an opinion as I’ve been able to form on them. Nothing about their plans stands out. Although Gomez and Kim have interesting backgrounds, and might bring an underrepresented voice to the table. I’ll rank them #3 and #4.

Khan seems to have just changed “congress” to “city council” on her stuff, without actually changing the platform to speak more specifically to the community.