I’M SO BLESSED!
According to our sources, the Bronx Board of Elections was in quite the rush to verify the 16th City Council District election last week.
Our source tells us that Democratic Party appointees at the Board of Elections were scurrying about to ensure that the election was verified so that council-woman-elect Vanessa Gibson could be officially sworn into office later that evening.
This is a slight deviation in plans. Gibson was supposed to be sworn-in with everyone else on January 2, 2014.
This begs the question, why the rush?
The answer given by Councilwoman Gibson’s office when called was: “Well, Helen Foster left the seat to become New York State Commissioner of the Division of Human Rights, so no one was serving the council district.”
Of course I followed that up with, “That’s fine, but now Assembly District 77 is vacant, so why is the council more important than the assembly?”
That was met with, “Someone will have to get back to you, sir. Where are you calling from?”
So I am left with speculation: could Gibson, a drone-like loyalist to the Bronx Democratic Party Machine, be a pivotal vote in the Council Speaker race? Maybe it has something to do with the Kingsbridge Armory Ice Rink development project? Is it even legal to expedite the swearing-in of a councilmember at the expense of leaving an assembly district unrepresented?
Who knows? All we can know for certain is that Vanessa Gibson is just so blessed! And the 77th Assembly District is now represented by no one.