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New York Times Endorses Senator Velmanette Montgomery

State Senate District 18 (northwest Brooklyn: Sunset Park, Red Hook, Downtown, Bedford Stuyvesant, Ocean Hill) State Senator Velmanette Montgomery is facing a challenge from former City Councilwoman Tracy L. Boyland, a member of the Boyland political family. Ms. Montgomery is a far better voice for her district, even though we don’t agree with her that the Atlantic Yards project should be scrapped. The senator is perhaps best known in Albany for speaking out for the disenfranchised, most recently arguing against the use of shackles for female prisoners giving birth. We endorse Velmanette Montgomery.

So the Times has endorsed Senator Montgomery despite her staunch and 3-year-old opposition to "Atlantic Yards." While it is surely welcome news to the Senator to receive the Times endorsement (and we congratulate the Times for not letting that issue get in their way and in the way of rejecting the last-minute, Ratner-fueled entrance of the Boyland family into the race for the 18th District) it seems the height of Manhattan-centric arrogance that the Times thinks it knows better than the district's 22-year incumbent Senator–who they say is a "far better voice for her district"–when it comes to the Ratner proposal. When it comes to "Atlantic Yards" we suppose the Times is a "far better voice"–is that their point?

(Remember, the Times also thought there were WMD in Iraq).

Further illustration of the Times' editorial distance from the district–after last week's under-informed and arrogant endorsement of the project (and inconsistent too)–is that they startlingly negate the neighborhoods in Senator Montgomery's district that would encompass and abut the proposed "Atlantic Yards": Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Boerum Hill, a part of Park Slope and the part of Prospect Heights where Ratner's proposed footprint is located. (Not terribly surprising as the Times also has had frequent trouble locating the proposed development site.)

(For those who want to say that by our logic the Times shouldn't endorse anyone outside of Manahattan, that is not our point. Our point is that when they do, they ought to do more due diligence in consideration of that candidate's positions–AND–get her district's neighborhoods correct in full.)