Archie Spigner's dead.

 QNS

 Former longtime City Councilman and District Leader Archie Spigner died Thursday, Oct. 29. He was 92 years old.

The Guy R. Brewer United Democratic Club announced the news of Spigner’s death on its Facebook page on Friday. Oct. 30.

“It’s with great sorrow that we announce the passing of our great leader former City Councilman and District Leader “The Dean” Archie Spigner,” the Facebook post reads. “We will keep everyone updated on memorial services.”

As news of his passing became public, tributes dedicated to Spigner were shared on social media.

The Queens County Democratic Party said the borough lost “an absolute giant.”

Late last night our Queens family lost an absolute giant.

From South Carolina to St. Albans, from shoe shining to City Council, from volunteer to legend– Archie "The Dean" Spigner lived an almost fabled life that personifies the #Queens story.

Rest in power, Archie. pic.twitter.com/pkx5VNUS2p

— Queens Dems (@Queens_Dems) October 30, 2020

Queens Congressman Gregory Meeks, said on Twitter that southeast Queens “lost a godfather of politics.”

“New York City lost a great leader last night, and our nation lost a great man,” Meeks wrote. “Archie Spigner will be missed dearly. May god rest his soul.”

Southeast Queens lost a godfather of politics last night. New York City lost a great leader last night, and our nation lost a great man.

Archie Spigner will be missed dearly. May god rest his soul

— Rep. Gregory Meeks (@RepGregoryMeeks) October 30, 2020

The Queens Machine makes a special endorsement

Hilarious update, BP candidates Costa and Van Bramer are bellyaching about this: 

NY Post 

 
The Queens Democratic Party machine was up to its old tricks Monday — holding a hastily called, barely publicized meeting before 9 a.m. to endorse leaders’ chosen candidate for borough president, critics said.

“This could’ve been that opportunity to bring in those who want to be part of something larger,” contender and city Councilman Costa Constantinides tweeted. “Sad that won’t appear to happen.”
Party leaders were voting on who to endorse to replace Beep Melinda Katz, who is Queens’ new district attorney, in a special election likely to be held in March.

City Councilman Donovan Richards easily won the executive committee’s vote.

But Constantinides and other contenders were furious over the way things went down, saying the move smacked of a backroom deal.

“Received a letter yesterday, not email, saying @Queens_Dems will hold a district leader meeting this Monday at 845am. No agenda is set …,” the councilman tweeted.

City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer also railed against the endorsement process.

“The corrupt Queens Democratic Machine is the opposite of democratic, and Monday’s meeting & endorsements are clearly a sham,” he tweeted. “I beat the county machine in my 2009 insurgent progressive campaign for Council and have proudly stood up against the machine since.
“Queens needs an independent Borough President, not another machine puppet.”

The Queens Machine is suffering from AOC derangement syndrome

NY Post

 If the Queens Democratic establishment was badly rattled by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning victory against incumbent and kingmaker Joe Crowley last year, then a largely ignored civil court race this summer shook the city’s most powerful political machine to its core.

During primary elections in June, a Hispanic woman from the Bronx routed the candidate hand-picked by the Queens County Democratic Party for a seat on the county’s Civil Court — a race that had not been contested in nearly four decades.

“It was an incredible moment, and it was as important as AOC’s victory,” said a political strategist active in Queens and the Bronx. “Suddenly, people smelled blood.”

Insurgent candidate and lawyer Lumarie Maldonado Cruz, 47, beat Wyatt Gibbons, 56, with nearly 62% of the vote compared to 38% for Gibbons, a Queens attorney.

“AOC’s victory reminded me of my obligations to stand up for what is right,” Maldonado Cruz said when she entered the race earlier this year.

Still reeling from the victory of Ocasio-Cortez over Crowley, a 10-term Congressman and longtime Queens party boss who was also chair of the House Democratic Caucus, the party was again caught “asleep at the wheel” with no discernible strategy during the June primaries, said the strategist. He, like many of the political consultants and elected officials interviewed by The Post, did not want to be identified for fear of antagonizing the Queens party or AOC.



In addition to the judicial race, the party nearly lost the election for Queens district attorney. Party-backed candidate Queens Borough President Melinda Katz should have trounced little-known, late-to-the-race progressive Tiffany Caban, but instead squeaked by, after a month-long series of recounts, by 60 votes.

“They hate AOC,” said Baruch College political scientist Doug Muzzio, referring to the leaders of the Queens County Democrats. “She killed their meal ticket.”

But as they battle for relevancy against a progressive wave, the moderate Democrats in the Queens party are still mired in the past, observers say.  The party is still controlled by Crowley’s old backers — “the three white men in the room” who have controlled Queens politics for more than three decades and reaped the benefits.

Michael Reich is the longtime executive director of the political party, and Frank Bolz is the law chairman. Gerard Sweeney has held his appointment as counsel to the Queens public administrator since 1992. In that capacity, he has raked in tens of millions of dollars for the law firm, administering estates of those who die without wills in Surrogate’s Court.

In March, party delegates elected a scandal-scarred lawmaker as the new kingmaker. But observers told The Post that Rep. Gregory Meeks, an 11-term Congressman from southeast Queens, is a lightweight.

“Meeks is essentially a backbencher in Congress, who lacks Crowley’s gravitas,” Muzzio told The Post. “He’s their puppet.”

The true political powerhouse in Queens is obvious.

AOC has national stature, demanding the attention of the House Speaker and the president. She has more than 5 million Twitter followers.

Congressman Gregory Meeks is the new chairman of the Queens Machine

 

Patch

 U.S. Representative Gregory Meeks was unanimously elected Monday as the new chairman of the Queens Democratic Party. Meeks succeeds former U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley, who stepped down in February.


Meeks was considered the most likely successor to Crowley, according to a City & State report that broke the news ahead of the Monday election. Crowley left the post after he joined one of the country's top lobbying firms. Meeks, a Crowley ally, is unlikely to spearhead radical changes within the party, City & State reported. He's a vocal opponent of a bill that would raise taxes on Wall Street traders and supported the Amazon HQ2 deal for Long Island City.

In 2013, Meeks was named one of the 13 most corrupt Congress members by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonprofit that investigates the influence of money in politics. In 2006, Meeks paid a below-market sum for a St. Albans house built by one of his campaign contributors on land owned by another contributor, according to the CREW report. He has also failed to report loans on personal financial disclosure forms, CREW found.

Utterly disgraceful. And they talk about the President and his own sordid corruption and abuse of  power? This political neoliberal gangster has made a productive and lucrative career with his own dirty deeds and wheeling and dealing in his career as an elected official. And Jamaica is still blighted in the two decades since he's "represented" the district.