STATEWIDE

RISING NUMBER WANTS CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL RUN, POLL SHOWS

While Senator Clinton remains a polarizing figure, a growing number of voters believe she should run for president in 2008, an independent national poll reported Tuesday.

Marist College’s Institute for Public Opinion poll found 46% of voters want the former first lady to run for the White House while 49% said she should not. The percent favoring a run is up from 38% in a December Marist poll. The earlier poll had 50% of voters opposed to a Clinton run for president in 2008.

Two-thirds of Democrats want Clinton to run for president in 2008 while 74% of Republicans don’t want her in the race. Independents are divided: 48% said she should run while 46% said she should not.

While Clinton could become the nation’s first woman president, female voters were divided – 48% for and 49% against – on whether she should run for the White House.

The Marist poll came the same day aides to President Clinton announced he was going back into the hospital tomorrow for a surgical procedure to deal with complications from his heart bypass surgery last year.

Howard Wolfson, a top adviser to the former first lady, declined to comment on the new poll.

While most advisers to the New York senator routinely avoid commenting publicly about her possible presidential ambitions, her husband has shown no such reticence.

“She would make an excellent president, and I would always try to help her,” he said late last month during a visit to Japan. The former president said he did not know if his wife would run.

Like other recent national polls, the Marist survey found Mrs. Clinton to be the favorite for the Democratic nomination. Among Democratic voters, Mrs. Clinton was the choice of 41% for the party’s nomination. Senator Kerry, who lost to President Bush last year, was the favorite of 22% of voters while Mr. Kerry’s running mate, John Edwards, picked up 13%.

– Associated Press

CITYWIDE

ELECTION COMMISSION QUERIES SHARPTON

The Federal Elections Commission has requested clarification from the Rev. Al Sharpton regarding activity on his presidential election bank account.

In a letter dated March 2, the commission wrote to Mr. Sharpton’s treasurer, Andrew Rivera, requesting an explanation for why the campaign bank account was overdrawn for three consecutive months at the end of last year. The overdraws were all in the $95,000 range.

“Several of your reports disclose negative ending cash balances,” the letter said. “This suggests that you have overdrawn your account, made a mathematical error, or incurred a debt.” According to published reports, Mr. Sharpton, who dropped out of the presidential primary, had extravagant spending habits during his campaign. He must respond to the commission with an itemized explanation by April 1, or submit to an audit by the commission.

Mr. Sharpton’s office could not be reached for comment last night.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MANHATTAN

JUDGE RESENTENCES DEFENDANT UNDER NEW DRUG LAW

A Manhattan judge, with the agreement of the district attorney’s office, re-sentenced a 68-year-old man who had been serving 15 years to life under the harsh 1970s Rockefeller drug laws. The man, Benito Shortridge, was arrested in Washington Heights in March 1999 with more than 9 ounces of cocaine. He said that the car in which the drugs were found belonged to a nephew who had left the country and that the cocaine wasn’t his. In December 1999, Shortridge was convicted of first- and third-degree possession of a controlled substance. State Supreme Court Justice Budd Goodman, the trial judge, sentenced Shortridge to 15 years to life on the first-degree possession charge, which was to run concurrently with a shorter sentence for the third-degree possession count.

Last month, defense lawyers petitioned the judge to re-sentence Shortridge under the Drug Law Reform Act, which was enacted in 2004. They asked for a sentence of eight years with five years supervision after release.

The district attorney’s office supported the petition, and the judge granted it on Monday, making Shortridge the first Manhattan narcotics defendant to be resentenced under the new law.

– Associated Press

ALBANY

PATAKI MOVES TO MAKE KENDRA’S LAW PERMANENT

Governor Pataki released a bill yesterday that would make permanent Kendra’s Law, a landmark measure that provides outpatient services to the mentally ill as well as legal authority for caseworkers, family members, or roommates to seek a court order to force a potentially dangerous patient to comply with treatment.

The law is scheduled to expire June 30 after a five-year trial. Mr. Pataki said the law has provided specialized services to 6,600 people.

An Office of Mental Health study showed the program was a “resounding success,” according to the governor’s office.

“The results are clear,” Mr. Pataki said. “Kendra’s Law works.”

Advocates for the mentally ill, however, are concerned about the law named after Kendra Webdale. The Fredonia native was pushed to her death in 1999 in front of an oncoming New York City subway train by a man who was a sometimes-violent schizophrenic who did not take his anti-psychotic medicine.

“What we object to is the use of court-ordered force,” said Harvey Rosenthal, executive director of the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services. “It’s only a piece [of Kendra’s Law], but it’s the onerous part of it.”

– Associated Press

UNICEF’S BELLAMY APPOINTED TO STATE EDUCATION BOARD

A joint session of the Legislature appointed Unicef Executive Director Carol Bellamy yesterday and nominated five others to the board that sets state education policy.

Nominated to a five-year term was Long Island developer and philanthropist Roger Tilles. The joint session of the Legislature, dominated by Assembly Democrats, was expected to approve him and also reappoint Chancellor Robert Bennett of Erie County, Vice Chancellor Adelaide Sanford of New York City, James Dawson of Clinton County, and Harry Philips III of Westchester County.

Ms. Bellamy was approved 147-12. Assembly Education Committee Chairman Steven Sanders called Ms. Bellamy and Ms. Tilles “two of the most outstanding New Yorkers who, fortunately for us, volunteered their services.”

About 45 candidates were interviewed. Ms. Bellamy is scheduled to leave her Unicef job April 30 after 10 years, the maximum term. Before that, she worked in the Peace Corps for President Clinton, some 30 years after she’d served as a volunteer for the organization in Guatemala. She had previous directed the Peace Corps, the first former Peace Corps volunteer to head the agency. She also served in the state Senate in 1973-77. Mr. Clinton earlier this year called her “a strong and effective voice on behalf of the world’s most vulnerable children.” Last year, she was named among the world’s 100 most powerful women by Forbes magazine.

– Associated Press

POLICE BLOTTER

CORRECTIONS OFFICER MISUSED CITY EMPLOYEES’ TIME

A new bathroom, kitchen, basketball court, and stereo equipment are just a few of the things that on-duty city employees installed in the home of Anthony Serra, the former high-ranking Department of Corrections official admitted in court yesterday, an official from the city’s Department of Investigation said.

Serra also pled guilty to recruiting subordinates as unpaid “volunteers” to serve as poll watchers for his private business of providing elections services to local political organizations. Once charged with managing the city’s jails, Serra himself could now face up to one year in jail and $50,000 in fines. Serra also pled guilty Monday in a Manhattan federal court to charges of tax evasion. Though Serra reportedly earned thousands for his elections services, tax investigators found that he failed to report his income and filed false expenses on past tax returns.

– Special to the Sun

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