HYNES, YASSKY TRADE BARBS: Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes didn’t take kindly to this quote in The New York Times from Councilman David Yassky, a potential challenger in this year’s D.A. race:

            “When I started to think about running for DA, more than one person said to me, ‘You better be clean as a whistle and even if you are, you might still get indicted.’”

            Responding on New York 1, Hynes said, “None of that’s true. I think it’s irresponsible for him to say that. I think it might even be actionable under the disciplinary rules that guide our conduct as lawyers, but I’m not going to waste time reporting it.

            “The real problem with David Yassky, he doesn’t have an ounce of experience. He has nothing to do with the criminal justice system. He’s never been in the criminal justice system. I don’t believe for a moment he’s going to continue this race. He’s raised a lot of money through developers.

            “But there is nothing about me that suggests that if you run against me, I’m going to be involved in getting you indicted. It’s ridiculous.”

            Yassky, through a spokesman, offered a rejoinder: “I thought it was amusing that Hynes denied he would use his post to attack a political opponent in the first part of his rebuttal of my statement, and then, in the second part, threatened disciplinary action against me.”

            The issue stems from the curious fate of three of Hynes’s enemies: former Assembly and City Council candidate John O’Hara, former judge John Phillips, and attorney Sandra Roper, who lost to Hynes in 2001.

            O’Hara was convicted on felony charges and disbarred for illegal voting and false registration (he became Hynes’s enemy only after the charges were brought). Phillips was thinking of running against Hynes in 2001 when the D.A. intervened to “protect” Phillips, whose assets were then seized and sold off, leaving the old man homeless and penniless. And Roper was indicted after Hynes forwarded what some have called a baseless complaint against her to a special prosecutor.

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            BROOKLYN BRIDGE PARK BROUHAHA: The proposal to make Brooklyn Bridge Park financially self-sufficient by bookending it with two apartment towers set off a flood of angry e-mails among local activists.

            Sifting through it, we found a single voice of reason, that of Cobble Hill resident Howard Graubard, a former aide to State Senator Marty Connor.

            Graubard urged fellow park supporters not to kill the plan by clinging stubbornly to their precious 13 “guiding principles.”

            He warned, “A battle royale over this park might be its burial. We are in tough budget times and it’s highly likely that those officials who’ve committed to give our community a pile of cash and a large stretch of extremely valuable real estate might conclude that if such a prospect makes us unhappy it might be better to end our unhappiness and expend their resources on a community that might appreciate them rather than on a bunch of spoiled ingrates.”

            Graubard continued, “As to the guiding principles…They are a document signed by five elected officials, four of whom are out of office (one is dead). The state and city have sometimes given them lip service, but they’ve never explicitly signed onto them. We are in a position to ask that their spirit be adhered to, but we are not in a position to enforce them. And most importantly, they are an ideal, but they are not a suicide contract; if we want a park, we may sometimes have to give here and there. It ain’t pretty, but it’s a fact of life.”

            But some folks would rather have their principles, which don’t allow for apartments on 10 percent of the site. “There is going to be a fair park,” wrote one, “or there will be no park.”

***

            NORMAN PASSES HAT, NOT MUSTER: When Assemblyman and Brooklyn Democratic leader Clarence Norman asked other elected officials to fork over $500 each to help pay County’s office rent, two Democratic district leaders balked.

            Alan Fleishman and Jo Anne Simon of the 52nd Assembly District (Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn Heights) fired off a letter demanding to know where County’s money is going.

            They requested “a full explanation be made as to why County is so financially strapped that it has had to go hat in hand to members of the executive committee and elected officials.”

            They noted that County was supposed to disclose its income and expenditures last July but never did.

            “We raise no objections to County’s expenses at this time,” the two wrote. “We simply don’t know what they are.”

            Their note also said, “We are at a loss to understand how we can be asked to contribute to an operation for which no accounting has been made.”

            The civility of the letter’s language hardly masked its intent to shame and embarrass Norman into action. It was, simply put, a slap-down.

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            JUDGES EYE RACE FOR CONGRESS: What does a congressional race and a Supreme Court judgeship have in common? Glad you asked.

            Some Civil Court judges interested in being elevated to Supreme Court are wondering if they might help their chances by quietly rounding up support or campaign contributions for State Senator Carl Andrews to succeed Rep. Major Owens in Congress next year.

            They figure the gesture would be appreciated by Assemblyman Clarence Norman, the county Democratic leader, since Norman is a close friend of Andrews. All Supreme Court judgemaking goes through Norman.

            Of course, judges aren’t supposed to be involved in politics, so their involvement in other campaigns must be low-key and through intermediaries.

            In other news on the 2006 race for the retiring Owens’s seat, sources said former City Councilman Stephen DiBrienza has decided not to run. A political consultant recently approached DiBrienza with statistics showing the Italian-American could win if multiple black candidates split the black vote. But the district is just 21 percent white, so any white representative would face a daunting election challenge every two years—not an appetizing prospect.

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            SHARPE CARVES PATH TO PERRY SEAT: With Assemblyman Nick Perry apparently serious about leaving Albany to take a shot at the congressional seat to be vacated by Rep. Major Owens in 2006, veteran candidate Wellington Sharpe told us he’d run for Perry’s Assembly seat.

            And if Perry backs out and instead runs for reelection?

            “Then that’s his problem. I’ll run anyway,” Sharpe told us.

            “He’s declared. He’s made it known to everyone that he’s running” for Congress, Sharpe said. “If he gets cold feet and changes his mind, then that’s not my responsibility.”

            Sharpe said one of his reasons for changing his voting address and running against State Senator Kevin Parker last year was to boost his public profile in East Flatbush for the 2006 Assembly race.

            He noted that establishing his candidacy early could scare away potential competitors.

            “Hit early, hit hard, show them we have the money, the organization, and the name recognition, and some of these guys might back out,” Sharpe said.

            We asked, who exactly? He named Abu A.Q. Abu and Democratic district leader Gail Reed-Barnett as possible candidates.

            “I’ve heard a couple of names, but none that I’ll lose sleep over,” said Sharpe. Tough talk from a man who’s lost every election he’s ever been in.

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            ERLENE KING REDUX: Despite her last-place finish in 2003, mortgage loan officer Erlene King plans to run again in 2005 against City Councilman Kendall Stewart.

            Her presence in the race would assure multiple challengers for Stewart, who would prefer that to having just one.

            King, Stewart, and second-place finisher Sam Taitt might be joined in the race by a fourth Caribbean candidate, Sam Nicholas, who is Haitian.

            But King doesn’t see herself or anyone else splitting the anti-Stewart vote. People go to the polls to vote for someone, not against someone, King said. The 10 percent who voted for her in 2003 would not have voted if she were not running, she said, so it’s unfair to say that had she not run, Taitt (who lost by a hair) would have won.

            King told us she didn’t know how to campaign last time and would do much better in 2005 by running the way that Noach Dear did in nearly upsetting State Senator Kevin Parker in 2004.

            “Look at Noach Dear. He connected to the people and he got the votes,” King said. “Voters are pulled out individually. They come out to vote for a specific person.”

            But King would be lucky to raise 10 percent of the money Dear did or have nearly as much time to knock on voters’ doors.

            King has started to poke her nose into the Junction mall project, trying to get minority contractors hired, because, she said, Stewart is asleep at the switch.

            “This councilman is not stepping forward to do anything, so I have to do it,” she said.

            Sounds like the campaign is in full swing already.

***

            TIDBITS: If John Kerry had won the presidential election and named Rep. Nydia Velazquez to his cabinet, Councilman David Yassky would have strongly considered running for her seat, even though the district was carved to elect a Latino…

            …Two days before Christmas, The New York Times filled space during the slowest news week of the year with an article about Republican mayoral hopeful Steve Shaw of Park Slope, a nominal candidate the Paper of Record would normally ignore—which is exactly what the Times did in a January 15 article about former Councilman Tom Ognibene joining the Republican primary.

            “It’s important that somebody challenge the mayor. I looked around and I didn’t see anyone willing to do it,” Ognibene told the Times, which let the quote stand with no mention of Shaw…

            …Not long ago, someone raising money for Councilman Lew Fidler secured a generous $1,000 contribution from Vornado Management Corporation, which runs the Kings Plaza mall. Fidler sent the money back. He and many of his constituents consider the mall an anathema to the area, and Fidler didn’t want anyone to think his positions on mall issues were being compromised by campaign contributions.

            The mall was built by Macy’s in the late 1960s over the bitter opposition of many of the same residents who continue to complain about it today. Herb Berman, who was the area’s councilman for years, could probably tell you all about that. But it didn’t stop him from accepting a whopping $28,000 from Vornado executives when he ran for comptroller in 2001…

            …The Campaign Finance Board completed its audits of the 2003 campaigns of Councilwoman Diana Reyna and her challenger, former school board president Juan Martinez. Reyna’s campaign was fined $22,359 for three over-the-limit contributions and one late filing. Martinez, whose only discrepancy was filing one statement two days late, was not penalized…

            …Rep. Jerry Nadler is critical of President Bush’s failure to address nuclear proliferation, including the failure to safeguard Russia’s weapons-grade plutonium. “We should buy it all immediately,” Nadler said.

            He added that the U.S. should harden its nuclear and chemical facilities, implement 100 percent inspection of imported containers, and install missile deflection systems on commercial airlines.

            Planes are at risk because the number of shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles unaccounted for worldwide has tripled since the invasion of Iraq, according to a recent U.S. intelligence estimate…

            …Assemblyman Peter Abbate believes the media has exaggerated the notion that the Assembly essentially consists of one person, Speaker Shelly Silver. He said Silver earnestly represents the consensus of 102 other Assembly Democrats, who arrive at their positions in conferences that can last six or seven hours.

            Not to suggest that Abbate’s comment has ulterior motives, but we should note that Silver allots Abbate enough money to maintain two district offices. Most assemblymembers have just one. “It’s something that is not done anymore,” Abbate said.