Al Vann

The 16 members of the Brooklyn City Council delegation - the Council's largest - are now accepting nominations for the position of delegation leader. The term is up for the current leader, Eric Dilan, although he is not prevented from running for the mostly ceremonial position again.

The position had previously been held simultaneously by Bill de Blasio and Al Vann, back when Brooklyn Democrats were somewhat less cohesive than they are now.

Suggestions?

After he spoke at Barack Obama’s watch party in Manhattan, I sat down with City Councilman Al Vann of Brooklyn, who compared this campaign to the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign, which Vann said he spearheaded in New York.

“The primary engine driving that campaign really was the black church,” Vann said of the Jackson campaign. “

Vann goes on to say, “Both have charisma, both drew a crowd. Jesse’s crowd was not the magnitude that Barack would draw.”

One more thing on Hillary and the Brooklyn Democrats:

According to party chairman Vito Lopez, Hillary Clinton was endorsed after that Williamsburg meeting yesterday by a vote of 29 to 2.

The two nay votes came from council member Albert Vann and district leader Olanike Alabi.

Barack Obama is in town today – look for him on The Daily Show later tonight – and the non-vacationing Azi was on hand at a rally near Times Square that the Illinois senator held to show off some endorsements from New York pols.

You can get a summary of the event here, but Azi took note of the presence of one particular elected official:

Given that one of Obama’s themes is “turning the page” on the past, it seems ironic that he’s touting the endorsement of City Councilman Al Vann. Vann is a product of the Civil Rights generation who got his political start during the Ocean Hill-Brownsville fight over school control. But he’s dabbled in the kind of racially polarizing politics that Obama talks about overcoming. For instance, he rallied opposition to David Yassky’s Brooklyn last year – in part, by pointing out that Yassky was “a white individual.”

 

Al Vann isn't the only person who can hold a Stop Yassky meeting.

Sent to my inbox a little while ago was a notice about several Independence Party leaders who are planning their own Stop Yassky meeting because he "neglected his duty as chairman of the waterfront committee."  read more »

The question, though, is whether getting dissed by the Indpendence Party really such a bad thing right before a Democratic primary. Full message after the jump.

-- Azi Paybarah

It made for fairly gripping stuff last night when Michael Myers and Al Vann took on the issue of race in the 11th district election.

Myers accused Vann of "racial hustling" for calling on David Yassky, the only white candidate in the field, to withdraw.

I'm telling you that the Voting Rights Act was designed to eliminate racial barriers in terms of voting and elections, not to add to them. And I say to your viewers it is an Orwellian double talk to use the Voting Rights Act, to use the name of Martin Luther King, Jr. to say that Yassky shouldn't win this office simply because of his skin color.

Vann responded that we are not yet at the day where a decision in this race can be based soley on qualifications.

We all look forward to the day that we can walk hand in hand, black and white, you know, free at last, free at last, but we are not at that day yet. Until we can bring about equality for all people in this city, empowerment is a critical issue.

Of course you bring your qualifications to the table and the best person wins. However, there is a history to that district, and other Voting Rights districts, that is different--it's exceptional.

Whose interpretation is right?

—Nicole Brydson

We stopped by Kenneth Clark's funeral at St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Harlem this morning.

The funeral, which was packed with civil rights types, was clearly a Big Deal in New York, and in black New York particularly, if not in the overtly political world. Still, pols from David Dinkins to Al Vann were there, as well as -- and perhaps more importantly -- much of the older civic elite. The eulogies came from a federal judge, academics, a former head of the ACLU.  read more »

Anyway, Mike was there, and we saw Virginia walk in as well.

The other candidates had other things to do.