Mario Cilento

This year's Labor Day parade has been cancelled, according to The Chief.

The head of the Central Labor Council, Ed Ott, is quoted as saying the group felt it best "to remain focused on our organizational priorities and review the various observances of our Labor Day events as we consider how to march forward in the best way possible for workers."

The group did hold a parade last year, immediately after Ott's predecessor, Asssemblyman Brian McLaughlin, was indicted for misusing public money and steering contracts to allies.

"This shows there is new leadership," NYS AFL-CIO head Mario Cilento just told me. He denies McLaughlin's scandal had anything to to with this year's decision. He said around the time this year's parade would have been held, the group will instead honor labor workers by focusing on the health care needs of World Trade Center heroes and relevant legislation in Congress. That'll taje place on September 8th (more info on that after the jump, along with Ed Ott's statement).

Although it's not unprecedented for the parade to be canceled, it's the first so far to be done strictly for the sake of a legislative priority.

The parade was cancelled in 2001 because of the terrorists attacks, and in 2004 because the Republican National Convention was held in the City and, as Cilento said, "labor was squarely behind the Democratic candidate." But Cilento did say the parade was held more frequently in previous years.  read more »

Here's a palm card the state Democratic Party printed up, presumably before the Hevesi chauffeur incident turned into a full-blown feeding frenzy.

I'm not sure how widely it'll be distributed, but one political operative in City Hall said, "They got to hand it out. Hevei's got to win so they can replace him."

There's one more piece of lit after the jump.  read more »

Update: Here is that flier from the AFL-CIO, one of the union's backing Hevesi, which Fred Dicker noted shows every Democrat running for statewide office, except Hevesi. A spokesman for the union explained it was printed during the primaries and Hevesi didn't have a Democratic opponent. So, instead of throwing them away, spokesman Mario Cilento said, they were still being handed out. New ones featuring Hevesi are being sent out, he said. --Azi Paybarah