Council Member’s Impending Leave Draws Contenders
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The Working Families Party is planning to throw its weight behind George Torres to replace Council Member Jose Serrano, who is giving up his Bronx council seat to move over to the state Senate.
The endorsement, which will be announced today, is the first in what is shaping up to be a heated campaign where turnout is expected to be extremely low and family name recognition is expected to go a long way.
Mr. Torres, chief of staff to Mr. Serrano in the council, is up against the daughter of Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, Maria Arroyo; a local community board member, Peter Serrano, who is not related to the exiting council member; political consultant William Alicea, and several others
The special election is set for February 15 and will be, as mandated by the city charter, a nonpartisan race. As a result, the candidates cannot run on any one party line. That, however, does not mean that party members cannot campaign for individual candidates.
A member of the WFP’s executive committee, Wilfredo Larancuent, said yesterday in a statement that the party was endorsing Mr. Torres “because he is the most experienced candidate, with a history of working hard on issues we care about.” Working families has endorsed several other candidates in the past, including Letitia James, who won the seat of late Council Member James Davis after he was killed at City Hall.
The county’s Democratic Party, otherwise known as the Bronx machine, is not officially endorsing anyone. The leader of the Democratic Party, Jose Rivera, has not taken a position.
“There are a bunch of friends running in that race,” said the City Council’s majority leader and leader’s son, Joel Rivera. “So we’re trying to keep out of it.”
The majority leader did, however, say that Ms. Arroyo, who is a senior executive at a health clinic in the Bronx, “seems to be the front-runner.” Her campaign manager said until there’s a winner, being a front-runner is meaningless.
“The only way is if you’re the frontrunner is if you win,” said Robert Crespo during a phone interview yesterday. “If, at 9:01 on February 15 you’re the winner, then I guess you were the front-runner. But, in special elections a lot of weird things can happen.”
