NY Observer > Mike Lupinacci http://www.observer.com/taxonomy/term/25728/feed Articles from Observer.com en UWS Education http://www.observer.com/node/28680 Rounding out last night's double header, Jason and I dropped in on the last candidates forum on the Upper West Side.

Favorite lines: "I'm basically a socialist. I'm as left as you get." Mike Lupinacci "I manage a class full of teenagers; its not that much different [from joining the Assembly]." Emily Csendes Going into the Feb. 28 election, Linda Rosenthal is boasting of almost every major endorsement, including that of the UFT. Impressive, considering there are two educators in the race. But the UFT endorsed Linda without interviewing any of her challengers, her three opponents have said.

Hmm.

And one more education related hmmm. Linda and one other candidate, Mike Lupinacci, said at last week's forum they favored keeping the current cap on the number of charter schools in the state [time clarified]. Mike and Joel Klein have said they need the cap raised.

Remember City Hall's whispering campaign against that state senator they said was interfering with the City's goals in Albany? He was in Queens. This race is in territory more familiar to Mike. The UWS is where he launched Democrats for Bloomberg. --Azi Paybarah]]> http://www.observer.com/node/28680#comments Politics Albany Mike Lupinacci Thu, 23 Feb 2006 05:17:07 -0500 Observer Staff 28680 at http://www.observer.com West Side Tammany http://www.observer.com/node/28497
My story a couple of weeks ago about the new West Side machine -- Tammany, the headline writer called it -- was truer than I knew. Jerry Nadler and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer -- freshly elected on a "reform" platform -- have spent the past few days leaning hard on County Committee members, in order to swing the vote to their favored candidate for State Assembly, Linda Rosenthal.

It's an unreformed, utterly inside process that gives a candidate the Democratic line and big leg up in the February special election.

"I felt like I was in some backwater town in Arkansas or something," said Mike Lupinacci, an outsider running on an education platform who made his way to a rules committee meeting one recent evening. "It's like the 19th century -- they don't know how to use modern technology.... They've just decided they think Linda's the person, which is fine, but the County Committee members won't even have met most of us until Sunday."

I asked him if this seemed like a "reform" process.

"Oh please. Give me a break. They're not even reforming their own back yard. The whole thing is so pathetic."

Another outsider, Charles Simon, said he hadn't been following the process closely.

"It's kind of old-school," he said. "I did have a few conversations with Scott over the course of the past several months in which Scott said he was happy with the process and he wasn't looking ot play kingmaker." The Beep apparently changed his mind.
]]> http://www.observer.com/node/28497#comments Politics County Committee Linda Rosenthal Manhattan Mike Lupinacci Fri, 27 Jan 2006 08:40:00 -0500 Observer Staff 28497 at http://www.observer.com