BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER
David Reck, who has been Democratic district leader for the 66th Assembly District, Part B, for seven years, said of the unpaid job, “The district leader is a holdover from another era. There really isn’t a lota of power and authority. The district leader job really is what the individual person makes of it, and I’ve made quite a bit of it.”
Reck would like to hold onto his position for another two-year term, but John Scott, another Downtown community leader, is determined to unseat him.
On Saturday, Scott held a press conference announcing his candidacy. State Senator Daniel Squadron was there to lend his support, as was City Councilmember Margaret Chin.
“Nobody holds a press conference for district leader!” Reck said when told of the event. However, not only was there a press conference, there were T-shirts that said: “Shoot for the Stars! Vote September 13. John R. Scott Male District Leader” — and around two-dozen people were wearing them in addition to the candidate himself.
Squadron explained his support for Scott by saying that when he started his own race for the state Senate, Scott was the first person who supported him.
“He said that he cared more than anything about having representatives who really fight for our community,” Squadron recalled, adding that Scott also said, “If I support you, there’s only one thing I want in return and that’s someone who will really work for the community — and that’s who John is. He is someone who is an aggressive and effective fighter for the community. I would not be an elected official if it weren’t for John Scott, and I am very proud to be supportive of his campaign to become an elected official himself. We’re very lucky to have him in Lower Manhattan, and I’m honored to endorse him for district leader today,” Squadron said.
Chin was also effusive.
“It’s a great day to be here for John because John has been there for us for many, many years,” she said. “And I thank him for his support in my City Council race. He’s been here for our community, fighting for affordable housing, for our schools… . We need district leaders who are going to work for us.”
After the press conference, Scott asserted that Reck had supported Senator Squadron’s opponent, then-incumbent Martin Connor.
“Absolutely a total lie!” Reck said. “Ask Daniel Squadron. I organized people to go out there and work. I did more — I even went over to Brooklyn and worked with Daniel Squadron [in the Brooklyn part of the Senate district]. That’s an absolute lie.”
It takes 500 signatures from registered Democratic voters to get on the ballot for the primary. Reck figures that he will have to collect three or four times that many because he anticipates petition-signature challenges from his opponent. Rather than holding a press conference, he and his wife, Eli Hausknecht, were pounding the streets on Saturday looking for people to sign the nominating petition.
Scott is a candidate of the Downtown Independent Democrats club. David Reck is the nominee of the new Lower Manhattan Democrats, a group that split off from D.I.D. in 2009 during the race for the City Council’s District 1, when D.I.D. supported Pete Gleason and the splinter group supported the incumbent, Alan Gerson.
“The reason everyone’s concerned about district leader is that it does give any club more status to have a district leader,” said Hausknecht, “and that is one of the reasons why those who stayed in D.I.D. were very upset when David left.”
A number of well-regarded community leaders left D.I.D. with him, including Linda Belfer and Jeff Galloway, both of whom are running for district leader in the 64th Assembly District, Part C, against D.I.D.’s candidates, Paul Newell and Jenifer Rajkumar.
Scott said he wants to be district leader because he wants to “fight for progressive candidates.”
In support of his re-election, Reck said he’s proud of his record as a member of Community Board 2 for 14 years, on which he chairs the Land Use and Business Development Committee. He’s also a founding member and president of the Friends of Hudson Square, which, he said, opposed “rowdy bars and clubs, advertising signs, zoning and development issues and street construction projects.”
Reck also served as co-chairperson of Borough President Scott Stringer’s New York University Task Force, and said that Stringer is supporting his candidacy for district leader.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve been very effective,” Reck said. “Most district leaders do nothing. I’ve done a lot.”
Then he returned to what seemed to be really bugging him: “I’ve known John Scott to be down here as an active person for a long time. I’m surprised he’s participating with D.I.D… . They’re attacking us. They have all along. We would just as soon they would go away. We left to avoid this kind of nonsense. That’s why we have a second club.”
