Joe Lazar

Remember that publicly funded mailing sent by Assemblyman Dov Hikind's office which includes the name and photo of possible Council contestant Joe Lazar?

Well, Lazar is a bit closer to being an official candidate than I realized.

He has two committees set up with the state Board of Elections.

UPDATE: I asked State Board of Elections spokesman Lee Daghlian what the official position was on this, and he told me that a non-candidate can establish committees without losing non-candidate status.

"You're not there yet until you file nominating petitions," he said. "So you're not there yet officially. Even then, you have to clear any challenges
to your petitions."

Which means that, depending on the petition challenges, a person's status as an official candidate may not be meet this standard until days before their
election.
 

A helpful reader sent in this recent mailing from Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn which features rather prominently a man by the name of Joe Lazar.

That's the same Joe Lazar who is running for City Council in Hikind's section of Brooklyn, and, hypothetically, could benefit from this kind of taxpayer-funded exposure.

“As of now he wants to run, but he hasn’t made up his mind finally,” Hikind told me just now. “I don’t think anybody has announced to be honest with you.”

It’s an important distinction because, according to Hikind, announced candidates can’t appear in publicly funded mailings like this.
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“The fact that somebody is thinking about running is a whole different ball game,” Hikind said.

More after the jump.