Vacation listening

I've been a little busy with other things lately, but I wanted to give you a couple Roberto Perez interviews to listen to regarding the 72nd Assembly District, the "Dominican" seat in Washington Heights. As you may know, half-hearted transit champion Eric Schneiderman is running for State Attorney General. Adriano Espaillat, who notably failed to support bridge tolls, is running for Schneiderman's Senate seat, leaving his own Assembly seat open.

Angus bookmarked an interview that Perez did with candidate Julissa Gomez, where she argues that the "commuter tax" would probably not be a bad thing. As Angus points out, in the context talking about the commuter tax doesn't really make sense, so Gomez probably means congestion pricing. Honestly, I don't care what she calls it as long as she supports it.

I would like to add this interview that Perez had with former Assemblymember Nelson Denis, who is also running to represent the 72nd district even though he's not Dominican. It's a revealing look at how the Assembly works. At the end, he points out that "you can't vote to cut money to the MTA and then come back and protest the cuts that you voted for." He doesn't propose any real solutions to the transit funding problems, but it's better than the same old crap we usually get from transit people. You also get to hear a Puerto Rican say the word "finagle" when talking to a Dominican.