WEINER’S CLUB TIES: A Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club member took issue with our assertion last week that Rep. Anthony Weiner has not been particularly close to Councilman Lew Fidler and Fidler’s fellow Democratic district leader Bernie Catcher and therefore couldn’t have expected their endorsements for mayor.

            “Anthony Weiner practically grew up in the TJ club,” the source said. “They helped elect him [to the City Council] in 1991.”

            Also, Fidler’s club in the 41st Assembly District backed Weiner for Congress in 1998, and the TJ club likes to boast that it provided Weiner’s margin of victory in that race. (As if the club could take credit for every vote Weiner got in the 39th Assembly District.)

            We should also note that Crain’s reported Weiner made angry calls to Fidler and Catcher after they endorsed other mayoral candidates. But that doesn’t negate our premise, which was that Weiner’s endorsement for mayor by these clubs was not expected.

            Weiner simply doesn’t have the political capital that Gifford Miller and Freddy Ferrer do to score endorsements. He can’t allocate millions of discretionary dollars and dole out lulus (committee chairmanships, complete with stipends) as Miller can, and he isn’t seen as having a great chance to win, as Ferrer is.

            After his election to Congress, Weiner did hire someone from Fidler’s club (a common gesture that apologists would equate to a thank-you card and cynics would call a payoff), but he lacks the chips to ante up in the high-stakes mayoral endorsement game.

            Now, this is not to say that clubs’ endorsements have price tags. But there’s a courtship ritual involved. Most people asked on a date by someone rich and someone broke would have an easy time choosing.

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            CLARKE BLAMES FDNY, NOT BLACKS: Councilwoman Yvette Clarke issued a spate of press releases last week chastising the Fire Department for not diversifying its ranks. In lengthy statements, Clarke blasted the FDNY’s “segregationist atmosphere” and called on it to recruit more minorities.

            “The FDNY administration is in a serious state of denial with regard to [its] efforts in hiring more women and people of color,” Clarke declared. “There is no excuse that in the 21st century, nearly 58 years after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier of Major League Baseball, that we are still having this conversation.”

            But we didn’t find in Clarke’s literature even one sentence calling on the city’s black men—whose unemployment rate approaches 50 percent in some areas—to apply for firefighting jobs. In other words, she let jobless people off the hook (and ladder).

            At the risk of sounding like Courier-Life columnist Stanley Gershbein, we’ll note that unemployed people should not have to be recruited. They should be seeking work on their own.

            Fire Department job information can be found online in three easy steps:

            1. Google “New York Fire Department”

            2. Click on the first link, “FDNY”

            3. Click on “Jobs & Employment”

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            JEWS, TRAINS, AND WORLD WAR II: The juxtaposition of “freight cars” and “World War II” in a Jewish newspaper announcement conjured up images of the Holocaust in at least one reader.

            While inadvertent, the combination may well have had a chilling effect on some who read the advertisement in the February 2 Torah Times.

            The ad, adapted by the newspaper from a press release sent by Councilman Simcha Felder, was topped by a banner reading “EMERGENCY” followed by “Railroad Public Hearing Monday” and the subhead “Felder Comments On Need For Public Outcry.”

            The text read, “Congressman Jerry Nadler’s Cross Harbor Freight Project will turn back the clock in our neighborhood: back fifty years to the days when 600,000 freight cars ran through Midwood and Boro Park. But our neighborhoods have changed since World War II, and we must now allow—I will not allow— our backyards to be converted to train yards.”

            Felder was not trying to remind people of the Holocaust. It just happens that World War II was the heyday of freight train activity through Brooklyn, said Felder’s spokesman, Arie Lipnick.

            Felder himself said, “For people to come up with conspiracy theories tells me some people are desperate and scared about the fact that, God willing, we will stop the project.”

            As for the statistics in the notice, one was especially curious: “1,000,000 new trucks annually diverted to the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.”

            Nadler maintains that a cross-harbor rail tunnel would remove that many trucks from city roads, not add them.

            Tunnel supporters say it will more likely be one track costing $4 billion than the two-track, $8 billion project cited in the Torah Times, and that any noise from the 20-odd trains per day would be nothing compared to the elevated subway that runs through Borough Park, in part because the tracks would be modernized and sound-muffling measures would be taken.

            Absent the tunnel project, the federal government would not pay for new tracks or noise abatement, but that would not stop the railroad companies from increasing traffic on the lines, which is likely given the increase in incoming freight projected over the next 20 years, according to Nadler’s office.

            But without a tunnel, the delivery of goods would be less efficient because the rail cars would have to be floated across the harbor.

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            FOSSELLA EYED: The Staten Island Advance reported that about 60 Democrats, labor leaders, and Working Families Party members met Feb. 12 to strategize about the 2006 race against Rep. Vito Fossella. First order of business: find a candidate to build on the 41 percent of the vote won by former Assemblyman Frank Barbaro in 2004.

            When the Advance called the congressman’s office for comment, Fossella’s spokesman Craig Donner sneered, “These same left-wing radicals meet every year to plot and conspire. And despite these backroom meetings, Vito continues to win re-election by overwhelming majorities.”

            But it’s worth noting that Fossella’s margin of victory was his lowest ever. Also, the race may have influenced votes in 2004. At the very least, strong opposition would move Fossella closer to the political center.

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            TIDBITS: One insider said Assemblyman Vito Lopez’s blood would boil if Civil Court Judge Margarita Lopez Torres became a viable contender for Kings County surrogate, yet when we asked the assemblyman about it, he responded in low-key fashion. “She has every right to run,” said Lopez. But he noted that the surrogate’s race would be very different from the 2002 Civil Court primary in which Lopez Torres was the top vote-getter. For one thing, surrogate candidates might spend close to $1 million, much more than Lopez Torres could raise…

            …Three candidates are now in this year’s race for public advocate, and none of them is State Senator Carl Kruger, who had been thought to be eying the seat. The latest to enter the fray was Bronx Assemblyman Michael Benjamin, who on February 17 said he’d join incumbent Betsy Gotbaum and civil rights attorney Norman Siegel as candidates. Kruger has $730,000 to spend and could run without giving up his seat in the state legislature…

            …Expect a half-dozen or more candidates to run for the seat to be vacated by Councilwoman Tracy Boyland this year, among them former school board members Miriam Samad and  David Miller, Stanley Kinard, Darlene Miely, and former district leader candidate Danny King…

            …We also hear that Gloria Waldron, a 17-year member of ACORN’s Brooklyn chapter, will challenge Councilwoman Yvette Clarke…

            …Republican Bob Capano resigned as a senior advisor to Borough President Marty Markowitz to focus on his campaign for the Bay Ridge seat held by City Councilman Vinny Gentile. Let’s hope he was bored with his job anyway, because Gentile will not be easy to beat…

            …Assemblyman Vito Lopez was planning to meet with several people this week as he searches for a candidate to challenge Borough President Marty Markowitz in September’s Democratic primary…

            …Kendall Stewart is not only a City Council member, he’s a podiatrist. We heard that Democratic district leader Lori Knipel was reminded of this when she arranged to see him and found him doing someone’s feet. Stewart reportedly continued treating the patient the whole time he was meeting with Knipel. We didn’t verify the story because it’s more fun to just believe it…

            …Doing our bit to save the environment, we recently brought a backpack to a Park Slope supermarket and requested “no bags, please” from the young lady bagging groceries. But, habits being hard to break, she bagged our food anyway in plastic. The cashier reminded her of the “no bags” request, so she removed the groceries, crumpled up the bags, and threw them in the garbage.

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