Is the 43rd Council Election Rigged by a Placeholder Candidate?
We have been hearing about John Bruno, “the placeholder candidate” for two months now. John Bruno is running on the Conservative Party line for Vinnie Gentile’s seat at City Council and we have no idea who he is. The other nine candidates running for the seat have appeared at forums and debates, but John Bruno hasn’t. (See here and here)
Vito Bruno was at the 3rd Avenue Festival. We stopped to talk to him and thought that he was “the Bruno” running for City Council. We were surprised when Vito Bruno told us he was running for Brooklyn Borough President. We haven’t seen John Bruno and papers haven’t done any articles about him until today. Strangely, Jerry Kassar, the Conservative Party Chairman was unable to put the paper in contact with the candidate they endorsed.
John Quaglione, one of the candidates running on the Republican ticket for the city council position knows about the placeholder deal as well. Quaglione told the paper: “The winner at the primary, winner of the Republican primary, is going to get the Conservative line. They put a placeholder in,” “[Bruno’s] the candidate for now, but the committee to fill vacancies, he’s going to become a judge if the election works out well.” (Source) Quaglione worked with Kassar at Senator Marty Golden’s office.
Apparently the deal is that John Bruno will slip out of the Conservative Party City Council spot and into the the State Supreme Court slot after he is nominated in late September. Then the Conservative Party will push in the Republican Party candidate, John Quaglione on the ticket.
If this “just happened to happen” then it would be fine, but it appears as if it has been planned for quite some time, since the information about “the deal” has trickled down to regular people living in Bay Ridge. Is the Conservative Party is trying to rig our Election? Is anyone going to investigate this?
If John Bruno does vacate the seat, the Conservative Party should not have any candidate running on that line. Strangely, Liam McCabe did not get the endorsement even though he has been with the Conservative Party for many years. John Quaglione had the Conservative Party endorsement in 2013 and they didn’t give it to him this year.
Should this plan go through, any other candidate who accepts the Conservative line would be participating in this scheme. John Quaglione admitted to knowing about the deal already – would he participate in that?
The paper revealed that Jerry Kassar, the Brooklyn Conservative Party chairman, who gave Bruno the ballot line denied the placeholder plot existed. Read here for more information
Hugs,
marlene
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