A campaign worker for a City Council candidate says someone driving an SUV "adorned" with posters for his boss's rival threatened him at gunpoint yesterday in Brooklyn. 20-year-old James Soyers was collecting signatures for candidate Anthony Herbert in Bedford-Stuyvesant around 4 p.m. yesterday when he says the vehicle hurtled toward him and his co-worker and "scared the pants off" him. The driver allegedly told the men to leave, and when they refused, he brandished a chrome gun with a black handle. Soyers tells the Times, "I was stuck frozen. My feet didn’t agree with my brain. My brain was telling them to run, but my feet just wouldn’t move." Oddly enough, Herbert's rival, Councilwoman Darlene Mealy, was at an event just half a block away. She denies that the gunslinger works for her, but Herbert says other candidates viying for Mealy's seat are "having trouble collecting signatures" to get on the ballot in the Democratic primary. He also adds that Mealy is "not the friendliest person." more ›

The NY Daily News and NY Post seize on the same City Council member item today. Here's how the News tells it: "The neighborhood lunatic of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, is getting $5,000 of your tax dollars to teach classes in a City Councilwoman's office about the origin of words." And here's the Post: "Here's your tax dollars hard at work. A city councilwoman set aside $5,000 in next year's budget for a wacky Brooklyn man with a rap sheet to teach courses in etymology at her district office." more ›

If the events of City Councilwoman Darlene Mealy's day on Thursday are any indication of what went into garnering the necessary votes in order to pass term limits legislation that same day, it doesn't paint a pretty picture. The Post reports that Mealy was so upset over changing her vote in favor of extending term limits due to pressure put on her that she vomited twice beforehand and got into a car accident on her way home from it. Mealy told another councilman that "people she considered to be political allies were threatening her" that actions would be taken against her for trying to sponsor a $25,000 grant for a Brooklyn block association run by her sister. Meanwhile New York 1 talked to people in Mealy's district who could not make sense of her about face. One constituent said, "I'm like, wow. I was like, she's on the right road, and then she just switched back I don't understand it." more ›