Chons donated heavily to Queens Dems

From the NY Post:

Spa Castle CEO Steven Chon and several members of his family gave $31,300 to Queens Democratic Party Chairman Joe Crowley; $35,200 to Rep. Grace Meng; and $12,350 to Queens Borough President Melinda Katz since 2006, according to federal, state, and city campaign filings.

Crowley welcomed Chon as his guest to see South Korea’s then-President Park Geun-hye address Congress in 2013. The invite came six weeks after Chon and four relatives pooled $12,700 for Crowley’s campaign coffers, records show.

A rep for Crowley did not return messages.

How about that $4,500.00 for Paul Vallone?

Stavisky ballot signatures deemed valid

Times Ledger

From the Times Ledger:

A hearing at the Manhattan office of the city Board of Elections Tuesday found objections to state Sen. Toby Stavisky’s (D-Flushing) campaign petitions to be insufficient to knock the incumbent off the ballot for the upcoming election.

The challenges raised by her Democratic opponent, S.J. Jung, and other residents within the district, claimed the signatures to qualify her for re-election were illegible or had addresses outside of the district, leaving only 13 out of 3,519 valid. Commissioners from the BOE, however, determined there were 2,243 valid signatures, which met the minimum of 1,000 required for Stavisky to make it on the ballot.

So she submitted 1,276 bogus signatures, and that's okay?

Will Toby finally get sunk?

From the Queens Tribune:

Democrat S.J. Jung, Flushing resident and former President of the MinKwon Center for Community Action, announced this week that he would make another run for State Senate in the 16th Senate District, setting up for another primary challenge against longtime incumbent state Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Flushing).

Stavisky has survived competitive primary challenges in her last three races. Besides Jung in 2014, she held back a challenge from John Messer in 2012, who also received 42 percent of the vote, and she fought off two challengers – Messer and Chemist and former City Council candidate Isaac Sasson – in the very competitive 2010 primary.

The district was redrawn in 2010 and has an Asian American plurality, and includes Chinese American enclaves in Downtown Flushing, Fresh Meadows and Elmhurst, as well as heavily Jewish American communities such as Rego Park, Oakland Gardens and Electchester/Pomonok.

S.J. is gunning for Toby

From the Times Ledger:

Flushing activist and businessman S.J. Jung has launched a bid to unseat State Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Flushing).

The former executive director of the MinKwon Center for Community Action announced his candidacy for District 16 Tuesday morning.

“I enter this race as a reformer who refuses to accept politics as usual,” he said. “I am determined to weed out public corruption and restore the public’s faith in our state government, but we must first clean up our house if we are going to make significant progress on the everyday issues facing working and middle-class New Yorkers.”

Council District 20 debate video

From BoroPolitics:

The six Democratic candidates running for the seat — John Choe, Yen Chou, S.J. Jung, Constantine Kavadas, Isaac Sasson and James Wu — duked it out during a forum sponsored by TimesLedger Newspapers, part of the Community Newspaper Group, last Thursday.
Michael Bloomberg for Mayor

An otherwise civil discussion on District 20 issues turned ugly when the candidates were asked about the role of ethnic politics in the race, briefly descending into a screaming match between Kavadas and Sasson, who have each been accused of racism during the campaign.

For more about the elections, visit the Queens Campaigner.

District 20 debate turns into Royal Rumble

From the Queens Campaigner:

It was billed as a debate, but it turned into an airing of dirty laundry.

The six Democratic candidates running for the seat of City Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing) participated in a candidates’ forum in Flushing Monday night, but what started as a cordial discourse on issues affecting District 20 quickly devolved into a fracas replete with allegations of everything from racism to planted questions.

During the course of the forum, held at Korea Village by Terence Park’s Our Political Coalition, candidates Yen Chou and Isaac Sasson were openly called racists, John Choe was criticized for calling the United States imperialist in a 2006 speech, S.J. Jung was accused of living in another state and Constantine Kavadas erupted against forum panelists whom he accused of asking questions planted by opposing campaigns.

Tomorrow night is round 2 at the Flushing Library! Don't miss it!

A challenging time in the 20th Council District

From the Queens Campaigner:

In the race to replace City Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing), even getting on the ballot is a battle.

With just under two months until the Democratic primary, 46 objections to candidates’ ballot petitions had been filed with the city Elections Board in the race for Liu’s seat — easily the most for any city race in Queens.

According to board records, as of 3 p.m. Monday all six Democrats and the lone Republican registered for the race had at least four challenges filed against them.

Constantine Kavadas received 10 challenges, S.J. Jung and Isaac Sasson each received seven, James Wu received five and John Choe and Yen Chou each received four. Peter Koo, a Republican, received nine challenges.

Jersey boy wants Flushing Council seat

This filing shows that Council District 20 candidate S.J. Jung lived in Bergen, NJ until earlier this year.

So, he's in NJ; Peter Koo lives in Port Washington and has a fake address in downtown Flushing that Evan Stavisky camped out in front of for two months; and Yen Chou lives in Bayside. Bayside Assemblywoman Ann-Margaret Carrozza was caught living in Nassau County and Paul Vallone can't decide whether he's from Astoria or Bayside.

That's what Queens neighborhoods are viewed as by the tweeders: Nice places to make money off of, but they wouldn't want to live there.