By Alex Ginsberg
The owner of a telecommunications company will challenge both incumbent City Councilman Eric Gioia (D-Sunnyside) and Republican/Conservative hopeful Patrick Hurley in separate primary elections in the 26th Council District.
Walter Iwachiw, a 46-year-old Sunnyside resident, said he was mounting the campaign to bring attention to the city and state’s failure to adequately respond to the Sept. 11 attacks. He also accused the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey of improperly leasing the World Trade Center site before it was destroyed.
At the same time, Hurley, 40, stepped up his own campaign, criticizing Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s tax policies and arguing for the return of unanticipated tax revenues to the “hard-pressed taxpayer.”
Iwachiw, who filed dual petitions to run in both the Democratic and Republican primaries Sept. 9, was a write-in Green Party candidate for mayor in 2001. Gioia has held the seat for one term.
In an interview last week, Iwachiw slammed the City Council for not taking an active role in redevelopment plans for the World Trade Center site.
“I don’t think they’ve adequately handled the situation,” he said. “The process has taken over the will of the people. The will was to set up a proper memorial, but the process is morphing it into whatever the powers that be want at that site.”
Those powers — real estate interests and commercial developers — were interested only in redeveloping the site for maximum profit, he said.
Iwachiw also called for an investigation into the Port Authority’s 1999 leasing of the World Trade Center site. He said his own company, World Network International Services Inc., responded to the initial request for proposals for telecommunications provision and maintenance, only to see the contract awarded to another company after a second RFP was issued.
Iwachiw believes the process was not fair.
“I wasn’t meant to be the awarded vendor,” he said. “I don’t think they really envisioned an open process.”
But Port Authority spokesman Greg Trevor said Iwachiw was mistaken. According to the agency, only one request was issued, and it was a request for qualifications, or an RFQ, not a request for proposals.
An RFQ asks prospective applicants to document their ability to take on a contract, while an RFP asks for concrete outlines of how they will execute the contract.
Perhaps the candidate’s most deeply felt issue is tied to a personal tragedy. Iwachiw’s domestic partner, a former nurse at Brooklyn Hospital, fell into a coma in April, an affliction he believes was brought on by post-traumatic stress disorder related to the woman’s experiences treating victims in the emergency room at Brooklyn Hospital on Sept. 11, 2001.
Iwachiw now devotes most of his time to caring for the nurse he identified as Roxanne, whom he visits twice each day on the fourth floor of Jamaica Hospital. He said because a doctor could not verify her illness was sustained in the workplace, Roxanne was denied worker’s compensation benefits from the state. He cited her ineligibility as just one example of the inadequate level of aid provided in response to Sept. 11.
“I’ve asked the Council to try to help these people and it doesn’t seem they are able to,” he said.
A spokesman for the state’s worker’s compensation board declined to comment, noting that it was illegal to speak about any individual claims.
If Iwachiw makes it on the ballot in September after challenges are filed, he will face off in the Republican primary against Hurley. Hurley, a security director and president of a local Republican club, is seeking both the Republican and Conservative nominations.
Earlier this month, Hurley intensified the anti-tax rhetoric that has been a staple of his campaign to unseat Gioia. He hammered the mayor and the City Council’s “Draconian property tax hike and economically and socially destructive smoking ban extension” in an open letter to the mayor that was given to the TimesLedger July 8.
“While the budget and these other punitive measures may realize the short-term objective of a revenue windfall, their provisions guarantee the ultimate effect of a shrinking tax base,” Hurley wrote.
Hurley said $1.3 billion in extra tax revenues that were not anticipated in the mayor’s and City Council’s budget should be returned to taxpayers as a “first-aid measure.”
“The citizens of New York City can be trusted with their own money,” Hurley wrote. “We can be confident that they will wisely use any relief to rejuvenate our sagging economy.”
The 26th Council District covers Long Island City, Sunnyside, Woodside, and parts of Maspeth and Astoria.
Reach reporter Alex Ginsberg by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 157.
