| HAPPY JUNETEENTH TO ALL! SEE YOU AT CITY HALL TODAY STARTING AT NOON Molti cappelli is Italian* for “many hats” and Mr. Louis Cappelli AKA “Tiny Trump” has certainly been wearing many hats and  has gotten himself in the news recently in three situations which reflect more poorly upon government officials involved rather than upon him per se. He’s just doing his job as a businessman helping his business and spreading money around as the law permits, and he is not the one who was lax on the appropriate campaign finance filings. That was the party bosses and professional politicians.Hat # 1. Luxury Residential Builder/Contractor/New Rochelle Mayoral Candidate Bankroller Here’s a summary of the mysterious and unprecedented $60,000 primary campaign donation saga I’ve already written about. I initially, and it turns out naively, thought that $60,000 must have been a typo because nobody gets money of that order of magnitude from one donor in a local municipal race or in a primary between currently-sitting Democrats, but no one returned my calls, emails and texts asking about it, so that eye-popping number apparently reflects the bounty on my head as an elected official. Throughout this ordeal, my opponent has been Sgt. Schultz. Hat # 2. County Airport Parking Garage Cash Cow Milker Last fall, the County Board of Legislators voted to enable an extension of this very favorable lease to Mr. Cappelli for no particular logical reason by a vote of 13-4, and you certainly know that I was among the four dissenters. Hat # 3. Non-Union Unregistered Apprenticeship Outfitter Back to New Rochelle and Mr. Cappelli’s “Trump Plaza.” In this episode, the City refunds him his Community Benefits payment of $750K and pays him an additional $380K to facilitate operation of a non-union training shop that, in straight-out violation of City policy, is not registered with New York State Department of Labor. Fortunately, if you can believe Uncle Junior in The Sopranos, this will be the last embarrassing revelation about your government officials’ dealings with Mr. Cappelli for at least a while, because “these things happen in threes.” * Unfortunately, my Italian immigrant forebears wanted to assimilate and Americanize so quickly that “la bella lingua” was never used at home, and we lost a great part of our heritage. But you can understand why when, even into the 1950s, my grandmother changed her surname from DelGiudice to “Dell” to get job interviews. Ho studiato italiano nell’universita 48 anni fa, ma… never achieved fluency. Nonetheless, I have been enjoying the beautiful Italian language mass at Assumption Church in Tuckahoe, at 9am on the first Sunday of every month. *** Straight from the Trump Playbook: Blast the Press Last week, my opponent and I sat down separately for well-informed, insightful and audio-taped interviews by New Rochelle High School student Edvardi Jackson, who posts and publishes under the ambitious name World Telegram News. Read his article and listen to the tapes here. It’s a much better forum than having to blurt out 5 or 6 one-minute snippets as we had to do in the LWV debate. Unfortunately, Yadira felt the need to play the race card and float the preposterous proposition that the various media platforms that have been questioning her huge campaign contribution windfall from the biggest real estate developer in New Rochelle — Journal News/lohud.com, Westchester Rising/yonkerstimes.com, CityandStateNY.com, Newroarnews.org (New Rochelle Against Racism), TalkoftheSound.com — are unfairly targeting her as a woman of color. Please rest assured that all these news outlets are equal opportunity investigatory journalists. One reporter said to me, “Look, I go after people who abuse their power. I’ve never written a story like that about a Hispanic person because no Hispanic person around here has ever had any power they could abuse.” *** As most of you probably know, early voting has already started. I hope I will have your support and your vote in this primary. And if you’d like to volunteer to help me get out the vote by phone banking or door knocking, email me or click on the link below. Thank you! Damon |
