By Betsy Scheinbart
Mark Green is the Democratic front-runner in the city’s mayoral race, but in Queens County he is up against two native sons who have a wide base of political support.
Many Queens politicians are supporting the Democratic candidates they have worked with over the years: city Comptroller Alan Hevesi from Forest Hills and City Council Speaker Peter Vallone (D-Astoria), Green said.
But Green, the city’s public advocate, said he has “an enormous amount of positive support” from Queens voters, even though he has not received as many endorsements from elected officials in the borough.
Hevesi was endorsed by the Queens Democratic Party, Borough President Claire Shulman and a host of other Queens elected officials. Vallone’s support in the borough has not been as strong as Hevesi’s, but he has enjoyed endorsements from labor organizations, including District Council 37.
Green was endorsed by the Working Families Party last week and Sunday by the Rev. Calvin Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. He has received support from leaders in the gay and lesbian community and from several citywide unions.
A poll released by Quinnipiac University in Connecticut Tuesday showed 32 percent of registered Democrats in the city supporting Green, 18 percent for Hevesi, 15 percent in favor of Vallone and 14 percent for Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer.
Individual borough statistics were not available, but Green said he has “a plurality of support” in Queens, given the four-way split in Democratic votes.
Green believes that overcrowded schools are the most serious problem facing Queens.
“Of the 10 most overcrowded school districts in the city, five are in Queens,” Green said in a telephone interview with the TimesLedger Monday. “The issue of overcrowded classes in early grades is one that particularly affects Queens classrooms.”
Last year the public advocate convened a “class size summit” to analyze how kindergarten through third grade classes could be reduced to a maximum of 20 students.
Green’s job as public advocate calls for him to defend the right of the average citizen to receive city services such as public education.
He compared his goal to shrink classroom sizes to President John F. Kennedy’s goal to have a man on the moon by 1969.
“It is the most important reform and investment the next mayor must make,” he said of reducing school crowding.
Green, who grew up in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and currently live on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, said while he was a student at Cornell University in the 1960s, he was inspired by the work of the late president’s brother, Robert F. Kennedy, and by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Green attended Harvard University Law School and spent 10 years as a public interest lawyer in Washington.
After moving back to New York City, Green founded and ran the Democracy Project, a public policy institute. He ran for U.S. Senate in 1986, winning the Democratic nomination but losing the seat to incumbent Republican Sen. Alfonse D’Amato.
He served as consumer affairs commissioner during the David Dinkins administration before running for public advocate in 1993. He was re-elected to the post four years later.
Another plan Green developed as public advocate and hopes to implement as mayor is the creation of State Tech Development Zones. Green said Long Island City was one possible location for such a zone, where tax breaks would be offered to new technology-oriented businesses.
“Information-technology is a future avenue for middle-class jobs in this city,” Green said.
The tech zones would be centered around hospitals, universities or other hubs, an effort to build on existing facilities and offer information technology jobs to students, welfare recipients and others.
“We haven’t specified where the technology zones would be,” Green said, but Long Island City is “the next area that could be built up because it is in such close proximity to Manhattan.”
Green is married to Deni Frand, a vice president in corporate philanthropy at AOL-Time Warner. They have two children: Jenya, a recent Cornell University graduate, and Jonah, a student at Horace Mann High School in the Bronx.
Reach reporter Betsy Scheinbart by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 138.
