Pillow Cases! KKK! Snake Oil! Bloggers!

Wow!

That'll teach GA for going to bed before the 1AM showing of "City Council Drama Queen Theater" STARRING:

• Mike  'Lives in all-white publicly subsidized housing'  Russo 
  
• Tim  'I Bark for Dollars'  Occhipinti
• Terry  'I'm not sucking lemons, it's my face'  Castellano 
• Beth  'I dropped $46K in Jersey City and all I got is this lousy-shirt'  Mason

GA woke up to 192 emails about the meeting (yes!), then read MSV's re-cap. 

Apparently, the fireworks started in the final 2 hours. If you missed them, the KKK attack (launched by Russo) is at the END of Part 3 of 4: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/32886193

Here is how a reader described it:

Russo said something like:

why don't you just go home, get a pillow case , cut 2 holes in it and put it over your head so everyone can see who you really are...that's right you are a member of the klu klux klan

Statesman Russo calls CC President a Ku Klux Klan member

Wow!

The exchange resumes at the start of  Part 4 of 4: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/32891279 with Ravi Bhalla angrily challenging Russo that "as the only person of color" on the Council, was he accusing him of being a member of the Klu Klux Klan!  So Russo clarifies that no, he'd fired the Klan-missile at Council President Cunningham!

Well...

Not only is the suggestion that Cunningham ruin a pillowcase conduct unbecoming of a City Council member, but does Mrs. Russo let him cut up their pillowcases?  No?  Then why suggest it to Peter?  Why not suggest Cunningham  throw a bucket of paint over his living room furniture?  Or shrink his wife's wool sweaters?  Or take a piss on their dinner table? (Please let Timmy read that excerpt at your next meeting).

There is really something wrong with a City Council member inviting another to cut up his wife's pillowcases.

And folks, if you think the discourse got all high-brow after that, guess again!

In just the first few minutes of Part 4,  Russo reads 3 comments posted on MSV (one was mine; naturally I'm the only one mentioned by screen name) and calls Council President Peter Cunningham "a joke".   Then, when Mello starts talking about how no one on the Council "gives more time to people who are impoverished..."  (Mello is a public school teacher in the Bronx), Russo lights up like a Roman candle: KABOOM! Prompting this 3-bagger exchange: (3 bags of popcorn)

Russo: Move into a unit (HHA), move into a unit then we'll talk!

Mello: Let somebody move into your unit (Church Towers), let somebody move into your unit!  Desegregate your building!   (addressing HHA Executive Director Carmelo Garcia) You want to talk about the conversations... who do you think burned out people's families?   Director, why don't  you talk about who burned down peoples families 20 years ago? Why don't we have those comments?

Russo: Let's have them, Councilman!

Mello: Be my guest, Director!

 Russo: Where were you when the shootings were going on?  Where were you when the stabbings were going on?

 Mello: Director, why don't you talk about whose funeral you refused to go to because you because you blame him for the burnings?

Russo: You're a joke!

Mello: You're a joke in a segregated complex!

WOW!  And that was just the first 10 minutes!

All the fuss was about 2 resolutions pulled out after midnight: a 'Resolution of need' and one for a  30-year PILOT.

GA will reserve specific comment until after I've heard it all but one thing is clear: the strident desperation displayed with cries of  "Klu Klux Klan!" led by Russo, the urgency to shove an UNEXAMINED massive redevelopment of our City through in the wee hours of the morning-- with a 30-year developer tax break, raises enough red flags for reasonable, responsible people to ask: what's that smell?

Cause it really stinks.

Martha says: "Don't cut my pillowcases, motherf*cker."