Bronx Mayoral Forum. May 8, 2013. Christine Quinn, Bill DeBlasio, Bill Thompson, John Liu

As has been the case at these forums or late, Christine Quinn arrives ahead
of the pack and is allowed to speak and take questions first. She is a rather
forceful speaker but could not shake the fact she presided over the City
Council when term limits were thrown out the window to allow the Mayor
to seek a third term. She tried to attain platitudes or favorability with the
crowd but a distinctive flat hollowness and mistrust plagued her debate
performance. In short, few if any, felt she was in the best interest of this
City, our children or of this Union. She strongly favors portfolio schools!

Following Ms. Quinn was Bill DeBlasio, Public Advocate of the City of New
York. A towering man whose voice and physique captured everyone’s
attention. He pointed out how he and the Mayor have fought being on the
opposing ends of most issues. He’s not for closing any more schools and
wants a moratorium. He hasn’t decided if he would like to continue with
Mayoral control but lambasted the selections of Klein, Black, and Walcott. He
even told the story of calling Cathie Black to have a face to face with her and
being told by her she did not have permission to speak with him! Bill wants
guaranteed kindergarten for all New Yorkers and three added hours of after-
school programs for middle schools. He is against co-mingling of schools in
large campus setting, especially if the new schools are charters. He wants
to tax the wealthy to pay for the extra services. He seemed supportive of a
more democratic approach to governing the City and was very favorable to
the outcomes desired by this Union.

The third debater was Bill Thompson who was as down to earth a person as it
gets. His style was to govern from the bottom up and did not hold back one
bit on his attacks on the Bloomberg administrations failings. He is strongly
pro child, parent, and teacher. He wants NY to be an education City and
not have an education Mayor. He is for Mayoral control but wants to pair
back the veto proof power of the Mayoral majority on the PEP Panel. He is
strongly against co-mingling of schools on campus’ like ours. In favor of a
moratorium on closing schools. He seems affable and was received warmly
by the crowd.

The fourth debater was John Liu, New York City Comptroller. An actuary
by trade and a graduate of Bronx Science. He seemed very at home with
the crowd, the issues and with the future of our pensions. He stated at any
given time, his office has between 10 and 15 on-going audits of Tweed. The
Mayor scrambles the numbers and uses editorial boards to cover the truth.
They have had Liu under continual investigation for four years and he freely
discussed the issues with being under such public scrutiny. He’s for limited
Mayoral control, a moratorium on school closings and more complete audits
of all areas of the Bloomberg Administration. He was well received despite of
the dark clouds that surround his campaign’s fundraising from 2009.

Best lines of the night….

“The Mayor fails to realize his view
- that there was no City of New York before him and there will be none after him -
has no basis in reality!”

– Bill DeBlasio

“Pension costs sky rocket Unions will bankrupt the City”
headline from 1914

– John Liu

Donald March was first elected chapter leader of Christopher Columbus HS for the 2001 – 2002 school year. I was his deputy for the first year. He is the longest continuously serving Bronx HS Chapter leader.

In a right triangle, in a plane, the sum of the squares of the legs equals the square of the hypotenuse. (The Scarecrow gets it wrong. He should have held out for a real brain. Or a slide rule.)

That’s for those who like their mathematical laws brief and symbolic.

So Friday I taught the theorem to my algebra classes. And tomorrow we will talk about today’s event: May 12 2013, 5/12/13, a calendar date that makes a Pythagorean triple

Of course we will waste spend considerable class time tomorrow moaning the fact that so few of us marked this special event, but cheerfully noticing that we get another chance in such a short time. And then we will engage in the tedious business of locating when else in our lifetimes we have allowed such a date to pass, without noticing, and when else in our lifetimes such a date will arrive, for us to celebrate.

Others may celebrate π Day, or 2π day, or e day (February 7, 2018, by my reckoning, a big day here if this blog still exists). A few years back I dismissed “square root day. But Pythagoras Days are neither so common as to be ho hum, nor so rare as to be once in a lifetime. I have long appreciated them.

Pythagoras day is clearly the prince of the mathematical holidays. I hope you enjoyed yours.

I know a little about complex numbers and complex functions. Just a little. And along the way I picked up a nice piece of compact notation:   can be written instead as .

My question is a little one, but a historical one. When did this notation come into use, and where?  If I pick up a text in another language, will I also find cis?

March 19 marked 4 years since 400 of us rallied against the abusive behavior of Iris Blige the “leader” who never taught a class herself and holds no teaching certification. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GsiWBO4AI4

I never thought that I’d be sitting here in 2013 and still writing about the injustice of keeping Iris Blige in a position of authority.

The catalyst that sparked the rally was the removal of beloved teacher Raqnel James. Ms. James was a veteran, tenured teacher with an unblemished satisfactory record. But she was more than satisfactory–she was dedicated to her students and one of their favorites. But Ms. James took one of Blige’s friends, Raquel Pottinger-Bird to court for being in arrears on rent owed to her. Pottinger-Bird was given a job by Iris Blige at Fordham Arts after being disciplined in Georgia for complicity in irregularities during standardized testing. Sheet1 – Macon.com The problem for Blige was that Ms. James had tenure. So how to get rid of her? One day Blige produced a letter threatening her life and the life of her child that she claimed was left for her by James. In this way, James could be criminally charged, deported to Jamaica, and out of Blige’s and Pottinger-Bird’s lives. Fortunately, James was granted permanent residence in the US and after three years of inexplicable postponements in the Bronx Criminal Court and three years of being out of work, she was finally found not guilty in December, 2011. There was never any evidence against her and why the case was not immediately dismissed is an interesting question that ties to why Iris Blige still gets away with this misbehavior. Interesting also is why there were no perjury charges forthcoming against Blige based on the sworn testimony about the alleged letter from the assistant principal who purportedly “found” the letter. James is now teaching again at a different school.

The Office of Special Investigations looked into charges that Ms. Blige threatened to withhold the diplomas of any students who participated into the after-school demonstration protesting the removal of Ms. James and abuse at the hands of Blige. She was also banning them from all senior activities. Blige had students pulled out of class and threatened with suspension. One was removed as editor of the school newspaper. The UFT obtained the names of 19 of these students and gave them to Investigator Robert Smalls. It was a clear violation of Chancellor’s Regulation A-421 prohibiting language that caused emotional distress. And these kids were frightened and crying when I spoke to them. There was no action by the Department of Education.

Since the time of the demonstration Iris Blige has been found guilty by the Department of Education of ordering her administrators to hand out career-threatening unsatisfactory ratings to teachers she wanted to remove before they ever observed their teaching! Their punishing rating was predetermined. For this dishonesty and abuse of power she was fined a mere $7500 and allowed to keep her job. That’s the price of ruined careers. http://gothamschools.org/2011/01/21/bronx-principal-keeps-her-job-after-imperiling-the-jobs-of-others/comment-page-1/

Rosa Hidalgo crossed paths with Iris Blige at a job fair one summer. Ms. Hidalgo had a young daughter but was willing to leave a successful administrative career in the private sector to “give back” to her community and become a teacher. Blige personally recruited her at the job fair and Hidalgo accepted a position. For two years and ten months (out of the required three probationary years) she was a satisfactory teacher. She had 100% passing rates for her students on the Spanish Regents. She took professional development classes on her own time and loved her job. As time for her tenure decision grew close, she was suddenly found unsatisfactory and had her probation discontinued. In layman’s terms, she was fired. I testified at her appeal of the firing. The reason Blige gave was that Hidalgo was not properly teaching a certain special education student in her class. At the hearing it came out that not only that student, but a dozen special education students were put in Hidalgo’s mainstream class by Blige in total violation of their IEPs and their rights to smaller classes and additional trained personnel in the classroom. The panel voted unanimously to overturn the discontinuance and return Ms. Hidalgo to her job. Again, one can ask how these things happen but the Superintendent, Elena Papaliberios, overturned the unanimous decision of the panel and upheld the termination of Ms. Hidalgo. Another loved and dedicated teacher removed. Her crime? She joined Dr. Virginia Barden on a UFT chapter committee. Union activity does not bring job security to a probationary teacher.

Blige’s school has received four years of A ratings, whatever that arbitrary figure has come to represent. But be it noted that the assistant principal who reported irregularities on Regents exams to the OSI was also removed and transferred out right after the investigators came to the school.

There are so many other stories and some of the teacher-victims bravely spoke in the video of the rally linked above.

Throughout it all, Iris Blige felt threatened by the Union and the climate of fear at Fordham Arts made it hard to find a strong figure to stand up for the suffering teachers. The first chapter leader, Rick Coscia, was also a well-loved teacher. Coming to the school with him for his hearing was like returning with a rock-star. Blige had him removed on mysterious charges and he spent two years out of the classroom. Lacking evidence of anything other than Iris Blige’s unsupported cheating allegation which was recanted by the assistant principal who was forced to “document” it, Coscia was finally and just as mysteriously released from captivity to resume his successful career at another school. One chapter leader disposed of! The next chapter leader was so afraid of Blige that when he wanted to file a grievance against her for a contract violation, he begged me to do it as UFT District Representative. When Dr. Virginia Barden became chapter leader, Blige met her match. Barden was fearless and stood up for her terrorized members. So Blige put her in a closet. Now she is another chapter leader who now has been removed as well. But Blige and her tyranny go on.

[Lynne Winderbaum, retired ESL teacher from JFK, longtime Chapter Leader, and through much of the Bloomberg years, our Bronx UFT HS District Representative, fought tirelessly against bullies like Blige.]

Time series from 2004 – 2009. (once with all UFTers, once with all in-service members)

Percent by caucus, out of all UFTers

Percent by caucus, in-service vote, out of all in-service UFTers

Notes and comments:

I don’t have a good way to separate non-slate votes from non-votes – in any case the numbers of non-slate votes are relatively small.

The worrisome decline in turnout is most apparent.

These charts reinforce the point about the combined non-Unity vote being fairly constant.

These charts graphically highlight the declining vote for Unity.

A winning strategy for any of the three caucuses will involve reaching the non-voting majority. Reaching those who do not vote is hard, but important. When MORE shifted instead to attacking New Action to skim off votes (which they did, with some success), it looks like they were reaching for second place instead of making a difference. Interesting.

Retiree totals for Unity are flat:

But totals in each in-service division show sharp downward trends:

A friend suggested this reflects decreasing numbers of teachers with tenure – that tenured people probably vote Unity in the same proportion as years ago. This seems possible, as a contributing cause, but easy to overstate. The totals (below) suggest that people who used to vote Unity stopped.

Subtotals and totals:

Ten thousand in service members stopped voting Unity, or retired. But their number of retiree votes did not go up. Any analysis points in one direction: Unity has not replaced significant numbers of the votes it has lost.

How dramatic are the drops?

Unity vote percentage drop by division 2004 – 2013

Remember that this has occurred while the non-Unity vote has stayed small, but fairly constant. (Despite votes flipping this election from New Action to MORE, or last election from ICE/TJC to New Action)

My guess is that Unity doesn’t care much, as long as they win. And despite the dramatic looking numbers, they are not close to losing.

(note:  I am not certain if all retiree numbers are reported as non-weighted. Weighting can change the percentages in the grand total only)

But has the overall non-Unity vote changed? I’m hardly the first to draw this conclusion. It has changed, but not much.

Let’s start with the raw numbers:

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Let’s examine non-Unity votes taken as a single unit:

It might be hard to absorb from a table how uninteresting these numbers are. Try a graph:

The overall flatness is quite apparent. But there are some exceptions. The total number of retirees voting for a caucus other than Unity has increased in absolute terms. Both New Action and the other group(s) have benefited. A second shift, small, and hard to see in the noise, New Action has a small but real increase in votes among functional, leaving that line slightly higher. And the seeming dip in middle school? Illusion, as voters in 6-12 and K-8 schools vote in the other divisions, and there are more such schools today.

Remember, these flat lines are in the context of falling turnout, falling absolute numbers of total votes. The next post on this topic will look more closely at that context, and offer some analysis.

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Look at those numbers. MORE would seem to have won a substantial victory. (I/T/M refers to any and all of ICE, TJC, and MORE)

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Looking at the numbers from 2010 and today, it seems that MORE flipped a chunk of votes from New Action.

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Looking at the numbers going back two elections, a different pattern seems to emerge. New Action flips votes from ICE/TJC in 2010, but they come back to MORE in 2013.

MORE’s 2013 numbers under Cavanaugh fall short of ICE’s 2007 numbers under Wainer (except retirees)

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Pushing the returns back to 2004, it now looks like the anomalous year was 2010. And 2013 is neither the worst year for New Action, nor the best for ICE/TJC/MORE. That’s actually bad news for New Action – this election was, in relation to the other opposition caucus, fairly normal.

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But back to 2010, what might explain the shift? It was, I believe, a more optimistic year. Mulgrew was new, and we preferred his style, and when Weingarten proposed a lousy teacher evaluation system, he said she didn’t get it. He didn’t agree to the outline of the NY State teacher evaluation law until after the election. New Action’s 2010 vote total may have been swelled by voters who wanted to support Mulgrew, but refused to do so on the Unity line.

The ICE/TJC/MORE vote seems to match up most closely between 2007 and 2013, as does the New Action vote, though slightly depressed in 2013 for both caucuses. The Retiree category is an exception, with both groups stronger among retirees in 2013 than they were in 2007.

Raw numbers, by division, by year, with turnout percentages are included at the bottom of this post.

Members by Division, by year

Voters by Division, by Year

It is also worth noting that the areas represent different numbers of members, and of voters.

Members
2004 – 154 thousand
2007 – 164 thousand
2010 – 170 thousand
2013 – 176 thousand

Voters
2004 – 56 thousand
2007 – 49 thousand
2010 – 56 thousand
2013 – 45 thousand

The jump in the percentage of votes cast by retirees is a direct result of the constitutional amendments raising the cap on how much retiree votes count. New Action strongly opposed those amendments. Retirees cast 53% of the votes, an absolute majority, in this election.

The special decline in middle school votes may be due to how teachers in in K-8 or 6-12 schools are categorized. I do not know if this is the correct explanation.

In the course of a decade, the number (not percent) of teachers voting has fallen from 21 thousand to under 13 thousand, and whereas teachers cast just under 40% of the vote nine years ago, they cast exactly 30% today.

See turnout analysis here.

(Click here for Part I of this piece)

In the back, right, were the observers. I found Joel Berger, then found Mike Shulman. They were not wearing their concern on their faces, but I felt it. Before walking out with Mike I said hi to some of the Unity people and some of the MORE people. The Unity people looked bored, and perhaps a bit tired. The MORE people were relaxed.

Mike and I found a quiet place to sit around the corner. We looked through the participation numbers… down 30% across the board. We talked about what that means… not good. And Mike talked about MORE outpolling us 2:1 and 3:1… let me explain.

No results had yet been announced. But one (time consuming) stage in the vote takes each ballot and scans it. An image appears on a monitor for a second, and the next ballot scans. By watching the monitor it is possible to count a number of consecutive votes. Now, as Unity dominates most divisions, it is tempting to count MORE vs New Action for a while (easy to do, as there are breaks when Unity ballots are on screen), and extrapolate.

But that ratio (which is easy to exaggerate – take several samples, worry about the most alarming) does not tell whether there were any breakthrough type numbers. Were there numbers of votes that significantly exceeded what ICE and TJC had done previously? Had New Action’s totals shrunk beyond previous lows in any significant ways?  The answer to both, at 1 PM, was we did not know. When the day was done we learned that the answers were “No” and “No.”

Back in the room I graded, paced. Jack Miller took some posed photos. I chatted with Amy and Eileen and Leroy, and with James (and a bit Ellen. really just a hello with Joan). People say what they are supposed to say, more or less, when discussing politics and elections. Which made a brief discussion with a guy from Unity and a guy from MORE about their children’s schools a welcome break. I wandered up to the monitors, and tried to sample ballots.

And then the American Arbitration Association guy announced the first results – high school and middle school. He only announced slate votes – split ballots would not be added in until Friday. And in high school Unity had 1592, MORE had 1430, and New Action had 452. The seven endorsed by New Action and Unity (including me) outpolled their MORE opponents 2042 to 1430. And the only race where there was any doubt was now decided.

I stayed for two more rounds of announcements covering Elementary, and Functionals, then Retirees. Mike stayed with me. Joel left. The MORE people looked less relaxed as they realized that they had not been so far from winning the high schools. I wonder if they were doubting their decision not to meet with New Action to discuss this election back last summer. Unlikely. They were more likely annoyed that New Action’s high school candidates had, with Unity votes, beaten MORE’s candidates.

As the results came in, a batch at a time, I tabulated them. And I worked them over. And I began to look for patterns. New Action ended down from 11% to 9%, which was disappointing, but no disaster. MORE was at 13%, up from ICE/TJC’s 8%, good, but no breakthrough. Unity’s total fell from 81% to 77%, which does not sound so bad, but in fact, is (I’ll discuss that in a follow up post). And the total vote fell from 53 thousand to 43 thousand, which is a problem for our union.

In any case, I ran back to school (after five now) to pick up the completed work my coverages had left in my box.

The same data, graphed:

The drop from 2004 to 2013 in each teacher division is between 35% and 39%. The drop for retirees over that same time period is 22%, and among functionals 44%.

The big trend is clear. But what of the bigger drops in 2007 and 2013, and the uptick in 2010?  My working assumption is that the blow from the 2005 contract was demoralizing, and is reflected in 2007. In 2010 Mulgrew was new, and had just publicly opposed Weingarten on using test scores to rate teachers. And today?  Danielson, teacher evaluation looming, how many years of Bloomberg, etc. The overall trend is less voting, but that trend is magnified by demoralizing events and conditions.

So why the overall trend?  TFA, NYCTF, low retention…?  But there are not so many TFAers as there once were, and that number has not been increasing. Anecdotally I believe that NYCTF retention is getting a little better. And those categories don’t effect retiree vote, which has dropped a little slower than the rest, but moves the same direction in each election.

Could the delayed vote (April instead of March) made a difference? I think not. And that would just be 2013. And it would not affect retirees.

Could the influx of functionals (home care workers) make a difference? Not really. Our addition of charter school teachers, home care workers, nurses, etc, account for making the purple line in the graph change places with the red line, nothing more. Discounting the growth of the division, turnout for 2013 would have been 18%.

I think there are two major factors. First, there is an overall mood of demoralization. There is a sense that no matter what we do, things will go badly. And second, too many new teachers are indifferent to the UFT (and we do too little to address this).

It certainly had been the case nationally under 8 years of Bush, but despite several important improvements (health care jumps out), four and a half years of Obama have not improved the lot of teachers or the conditions in the schools. Retirees earned benefits over years in the workforce, and are watching renewed targeting of Social Security and Medicare. Few of us can answer the “Are you better off…” question in the affirmative.

And certainly in our schools, the demands of the current system are utterly demoralizing and frustrating: punishing quantities of paperwork, impossible requirements, colocations and school closings,  the ongoing ATR pool, endless testing and test prep, maltreatment at the hands of abusive administrators. The union has pushed back in some places, and we have prevailed in several instances, (we won twice on school closings, that was huge), but those are the exceptions.

The second major factor contributing to the decline in turnout, I think, is that newer teachers don’t vote. And this is a system that is bottom-heavy with newer teachers. Even after the partial hiring freezes of the last few years, it seems clear that the proportion of senior teachers has dropped, and of newer (maybe not brand new) teachers has risen. And the UFT enrolls, but does not induct, new teachers. There is a difference between making people members on paper (sign this card, and then the Health and Welfare form), and making them feel like, think like they are part of an organization that unites them with their colleagues.

When I started blogging, in 2006, before I joined New Action, I knew that retention was one of the biggest challenges facing our school system and our union. I knew that weak chapters were tied to the retention crisis. And I knew failing to recognize the crisis makes things worse. I’ve learned a lot since then. I would add other factors, I would add nuance. And while I knew that rebuilding/repairing chapters was a big job, it is far bigger than I understood, and with the loss of 7 years it has become far, far harder. But I believe that addressing new teacher induction would directly address voter turnout (among other things).

Organize. Build. Involve. From the chapter up, with support from the top. There needs to be a strong, two-way link, from member to chapter leader to district rep to officers and vice versa. Communication must move in both directions. There need to be strong relationships in the chapters. And this need, this lack, should inform much of what we do. This this is not sufficient to solve our turnout problems (demoralization and new teacher indifference to the UFT), but it is necessary.

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The full data set shows the same trend, but also reveals the relative size of each division, and changes in the relative size of each division. The next post will analyze those numbers.

The UFT vote count was underway. I was on my way to the 57th Street Holiday Inn, to watch the American Arbitration Association process the UFT votes.

I texted Mike Shulman, New Action cochair, to get a sense of how things were going, before I got on the train. I was concerned going in. I thought New Action’s vote would fall, and Unity’s would fall, and MORE’s would probably finish ahead of New Action. But I thought we had a chance to edge them. I also was worried that we might lose our 3 high school seats, including mine, on the executive board (we were safe to hold our 7 at-large). Mike’s reply text was not positive:  turnout was down about 20% across the board, and MORE was beating New Action 3:1 everywhere.

The train ride I was trying to imagine the worst. Losing the seat would at least lift the responsibility that comes with it. And New Action has a core of support, a few percent, that is unshakeable. We would have seven seats, and we would do work. But there could be no spin, no self-delusion, nothing to make the drop in turnout into anything but trouble. And if MORE had an electoral breakthrough, New Action’s safe 4-5% would not necessarily mean much.

It turned out, New Action’s result was disappointing, but not a disaster. MORE had a stronger than expected showing, but no breakthrough. The biggest losers were Unity and the UFT as a whole (not for the same reason).

(Story continues here)

I’ll talk about the count, and analyze the vote in the coming days. I may even look back at the campaign… but it’s a bit early.

Now is late. Many people mailed in their ballots when they arrived, Friday or Saturday. Others may have tossed them. Too many. Honestly, even if you vote for one of the wrong slates (Unity or MORE), it is better to vote… But that’s a different post.

So, now is late. But we had bypassed some Bronx high schools, and today a team covered some. And this afternoon I went into one: Grace Dodge.

What good can it do, handing out literature after so many have already voted? I was thinking that, as I was thinking of ditching my assignment.

But as I arrived, and met one person after another who knew me, or who knew who I was… I met the chapter leader, good guy, running with the wrong slate. I met a woman from my first school – we hadn’t seen each other in years. We worked in the same “house” when I started, back in 97. I met a guy from another school, coming for per session… we worked with the Columbus people last year, to help get the UFT involved in organizing the “Chase Chase” rally against a sexually harassing principal. I met teachers in the school, with questions about their working conditions. I heard a paperwork issue. I got questions about being in a phase out school, which I never have been, but the Grace Dodge people are.

I put flyers in the boxes in the two mini-schools. In one I recognized a name on a box, the daughter of a scoundrel who has intentionally done incalculable harm to students, teachers, and communities in the Bronx. But the daughter? she is our colleague, and a teacher, and I hope she develops good union consciousness and ends up nothing like her father. (I had to take a minute and convince myself of this, having cringed in horror, on seeing his name on her box).

But the best?  By the Grace Dodge mail boxes. Schmoozing and talking. Trying to have three conversations at once. A young guy says “Mr. Halabi” (no question mark at the end) “Mr. Halabi, do you remember me?”  He’s mid-20s, big shoulders, but not tall, beard. I don’t recognize him. “It’s me,” and he said his name, and I still didn’t know.

The young man had been my student for five weeks in a summer bridge program, in 2000. The  kid, who I now recall, but barely, looked nothing like the man who spoke to me this afternoon. One was 13, from West Africa. Today’s was 25, graduate of a college in the midwest. He was subbing, and wanted pointers on landing a regular job. I may have been more helpful today than 13 years ago… but I must have done something good that he remembered me all these years later… I smiled.

I also found a few people who said they hadn’t voted, and I may have picked up a couple votes.

For distribution, covering a lot of schools is important. But today I had the chance to go slow, listen to people, share ideas and experiences. And see a former student. I walked out smiling.

New Action approached MORE in August to discuss, among other things, the upcoming UFT elections. MORE set its slate two months later, and only then agreed to meet New Action, making discussion of an electoral bloc or alliance impossible.

On July 31 of last summer, the New Action executive board met. We were discussing one item only: the 2013 UFT elections and our relations with Unity. For a number of reasons, some obvious (impending teacher evaluation which we oppose) some less obvious, there was significant doubt about maintaining our relationship with Unity.

Four proposals went in: (1) maintain our relationship with Unity, (2) do not participate in the elections, (3) run an independent slate in the election, and (4) approach MORE.

By the end of that day we had eliminated only the second option. And we had designated members to make initial, informal approaches to Unity and to MORE.

The decision to approach MORE was not easy, there was some real support, and some solid opposition. We chose to frame the approach to be about both election and non-election issues, to avoid giving the impression we were about to begin negotiations. By late August we had reached out, informally, to two leading members of MORE. And we waited. They asked for a formal request, which we were not inclined to make (in the spirit of the direction our Exec Board had given us.)

Do MORE’s members know that MORE essentially rebuffed an approach by New Action, from before last Labor Day?

And we waited. And waited. September came and went. We put off our decision, waiting for feedback. October came. MORE announced their slate. We got the message. At the next New Action meeting we reduced our choices to running with Unity or running alone. And then, at Halloween, MORE suggested we meet.

And we did meet. Late November. New Action was already making election arrangements with Unity. Which left the six of us (3 New Action, 3 MORE) with a slightly strange conversation. It seemed slightly productive at the time, and certainly cordial. For an account see New Action and MORE representatives met in November.

By delaying a meeting with New Action until after it had set its slate, MORE made clear that they had no interest in pursuing a joint slate.

Would you trust a leadership who wants to sit out the mayoral race?

In 2009, the UFT failed to endorse a candidate.  Bloomberg won a close race over Bill Thompson.

Unity wanted to sit that election out, and used a parliamentary trick to avoid even discussing a Thompson endorsement.

New Action endorsed Thompson and tried to bring the UFT on board.  We endorsed early, even while another attractive candidate, Tony Avella, was still in the race.  But Tony stood not much of a shot, and beating Bloomberg was our priority.

MORE did not exist.  But it’s predecessors, ICE and TJC did.   And they sat the election out.  No endorsement.

Do MORE’s candidates know that their caucus will likely take no position in the mayor’s race?

2013? Unity has not tipped its hand.  There will be a debate at the next DA.   Good.  Members worry that we might endorse Quinn in the primary, or that we might sit the primary out, letting Christine Quinn in by default.

New Action opposes a Quinn endorsement, but would consider John Liu, Bill DeBlasio, or Bill Thompson.

But MORE? MORE will not endorse a candidate.  Do we really want to get Christine Quinn by default? If you care about the UFT’s candidate in this primary and election, you have to wonder about MORE.