Results tagged “violaplummer”

Councilman Charles Barron, who is a frequent lightning rod for controversy in New York's City Council, was involved in a five-car smash up in Brooklyn last night. The accident occurred in the councilman's district of East New York on Linden Boulevard and Van Siclen Avenue late last night as Barron was driving home. Barron's car was struck in a chain reaction started by an SUV striking a livery cab attempting to turn at an intersection. Barron is humorously quoted in the New York Post saying that he wasn't afraid because he has so much to live for: "I just braced myself and I said, 'I can't have anything happen to me because [Mayor] Bloomberg and [Council Speaker] Christine Quinn would miss me so." The former Black Panther has butted heads with Mayor Bloomberg over the unauthorized renaming of a Brooklyn street after radical Sonny Carson, and with Speaker Quinn over the dismissal of one of his staffers for making a perceived death threat against another council member.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: smoke inhalation victims at Centre and White Sts. in Manhattan, a shooting on Neptune Ave. in Brooklyn, and a truck vs. overpass at 155th St. and South Rd. in Queens.
• Design firm EDAW was chosen to plan the Steeplechase Plaza for a now-vacant lot near the Coney Island boardwalk. The development beneath the Parachute Jump may include a water park and a platform for viewing Cyclones minor league baseball games.
• A large brokerage firm in Williamsburg, Brooklyn is saying the Corcoran Group's report claiming an 8% increase in average condo prices in the neighborhood during 2007 is incorrect. Aptsandlofts.com says that it's seen a 10-12% retreat in condo prices since the market's peak in early 2006.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is seeking the dismissal of a civil suit against her filed by Council Member Charles Barron's former chief of staff Viola Plummer. Quinn gave Plummer the boot when the councilman's aide refused to sign a pledge to compose herself while the City Council was in session.

A federal judge dismissed defamation charges against City Councilman John Liu related to an incident last year when Liu called radio personality DJ Star a "sick, racist pedophile." The characterization was a reaction to an on-air taunt at a rival DJ, when DJ Star (Troi Torain), solicited information on where DJ Envy of Hot 97 lived so he could sexually defile his four-year-old daughter. DJ Star also called DJ Envy's wife, who is Asian, several racist epithets. Torain was arrested following the incident and eventually fired from Power 105.

Usually married people, when not fighting, are pretty supportive their spouses, but that's not the case with Congressman Gregory Meeks and his wife Simone-Marie Meeks. Rep. Meeks is backing his congressional aide, Brian Simon, instead of his wife for the City Council seat being vacated by Leroy Comrie because of term limits. The seat for the 27th District represents parts of southeast Queens and Comrie started the movement to ban the N-word and was threatened by Viola Plummer.

Yesterday, we briefly mentioned that Viola Plummer, former City Council staffer under Councilman Charles Barron, was forcibly removed from a City Council meeting. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn fired Plummer, who had heckled her during meetings and referenced an "assassination" of another City Council member (assassination of his career, Plummer later claimed), for not agreeing to behave during meetings. Plummer filed a $1 million lawsuit against Quinn and continues to work for Barron as a volunteer.

Because September 8, 2009 is 776 days away, let's talk the 2009 mayoral race.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn fired Councilman Charles Barron's chief of staff Viola Plummer yesterday. Quinn had required Plummer to sign a letter agreeing to behave during meetings, after Plummer heckled Quinn during a meeting about street namings and made reference to an "assassination" of Councilman Leroy Comrie, but Plummer refused (she has maintained that she meant a "assassination" of Comrie's character and/or political prospects). And Plummer filed a $1 million racial discrimination suit against Quinn.

When you're a public employee who threatens a City Councilman with assassination, the logical step would be to A) apologize B) lay low and hope people forget about the incident C) accept a temporary suspension D) sue the city for $1 million. Charles Barron's chief of staff Viola Plummer is going with the latter choice and suing New York City for "severe mental anguish and emotional distress." Mind you, this is for an incident that began when she threatened to have a man killed for voting the wrong way in the City Council. Plummer was then suspended from city employment for six weeks by Quinn, initiating the lawsuit.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a church shooting on Schenectady Ave. in Brooklyn, a pedestrian struck on West 17th St. and Union Square West in Manhattan, and a water rescue in Raitian Bay between Staten Island and Sandy Hook, NJ.
• City Councilman Charles Barron's chief of staff, Viola Plummer, was suspended for six weeks from the City Council and by Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who she's also heckled, with a promise of reinstatment if she promises to behave herself. Plummer is in her 70s, but threatened another Councilman with assassination on a contentious vote.
• A grand jury in a federal court case voted to indict four alleged plotters that wanted to blow up JFK airport, kill thousands, and cripple the U.S. economy with a harebrained scheme to take out a pipeline that runs towards the airport.
• "...the red, white and blue leader of the Avengers was felled by an assassin's bullet on the steps of a New York federal courthouse." Captain America got capped, by Marvel Comics no less.
• A 21-year-old White Plains worker at the Rye Playland Amusement Park was killed when thrown from a gyrating ride. Gabriela Garin had changed shifts with another ride operator and then got on the ride to make sure visitors were properly secured, when her replacement started the ride.
• The new rules against noise and trans-fats go into effect tomorrow. Somehow we feel that NYers will remain louder, skinnier, and better looking than the rest of the country, regardless of what laws are passed.
• The City has a list of all the designated grilling areas around the five boroughs. The Parks Dept. says "Designated Barbecuing Areas," but frankly, we don't want to get into all that right now.
• We've pretty much given up on listening to radio, but this blog may point us to something it's possible we'll want to hear. Thank you New York Radio Guide.
• The Staten Island Advance points out that Mayor Bloomberg's ambitious plan to make all yellow cabs hybrid in a few years overlooks the livery cabs that service the outer boroughs. Car service owners and drivers would prefer to keep it that way.

Despite having been defeated in a City Council vote, where his chief of staff heckled Council Speaker Christine Quinn and threatened a black councilman with assassination, Councilman Charles Barron renamed a street in Brooklyn "Sonny Abubadika Carson Avenue" anyway, declaring that the renaming "is official whether they [presumably the city] take that sign down or not." Sonny Carson's name was struck from a list of people who would get honorary street signs earlier this spring. Council Speaker Quinn felt he was too divisive a figure in the city's history. This sparked a City Hall battle that frayed nerves and invoked additional police protection.

As if the whole failed Sonny Carson street naming proposal brouhaha needed more wackiness! Today, The New York Sun takes a look at City Councilman Charles Barron's chief of staff, Viola Plummer. During the Sonny Carson street naming debate, Plummer heckled City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and later threatened an assassination "on" another member, Leroy Comrie, who abstained from voting. Barron had laughed the incident off as political squabbling between political opponents, but one couldn't help be reminded of the assassination of Brooklyn Councilman James Davis in 1994

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn struck Sonny Carson's name from a list of of New Yorkers to be honored with a street named after them because she thought the political activist was too divisive a figure. Carson was a proponent of black economic empowerment and was distemperate in his views of other New York groups (e.g., whites, Jews, Koreans). Councilman Charles Barron, who shares Carson's past as a radical activist, thought Carson's exclusion from the list was more divisive than anything Carson had ever done, and indeed, voting on an amendment Wednesday to re-add his name split almost entirely down racial lines and the session was extremely acrimonious.

Things got heated in the City Council yesterday as former Black Panther and Council Member Charles Barron squared off against Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who had removed the name of Sonny Carson from a list of people to be honored with having streets named after them. Sonny Carson was an activist who railed against Korean grocers and, not wanting to limit himself to an accusation of anti-Semitism, said he was anti-white in general. Quinn feels that Carson was a divisive figure in New York's history and Barron thinks he was an important individual who united his community.