Petitioning Underway by Six for Open East Side Council Seat
Council member Keith Powers is term-limited. Looking to fill his seat: Vanessa Aronson, Faith Bondy, Lukas Florczak, Virginia Maloney, Rachel Storch, and Ben Wetzler.
| 03 Mar 2025 | 03:04
Keith Powers (rear), the term-limited City Council District 4 member, has not endorsed anyone in the Council race, but is instead spending time on the campaign trail with five of six of them. Here he campaigns with Ben Wetzler on the Upper East Side. (
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Virginia Maloney (center) with campaign staffers as petitioning to get on the Democratic primary ballot got underway on Feb. 24. (
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Ben Wetzler gathers petitions in his bid to land on the Democratic primary ballot for City Council District 4 seat. He’s running against five other candidates. (
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The Power’s on: In 2017 Keith Powers, CD4’s current Council member, ran in a primary against a crowded field of eight candidates, including him, and he prevailed. Now, five years later, Powers is term-limited and running against State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal for Manhattan Borough President, leaving the CD4 seat up for grabs. Now comes a field of six to compete for it: Vanessa Aronson, Faith Bondy, Lukas Florczak, Virginia Maloney, Rachel Storch, Ben Wetzler—each with petitioners out gathering signatures from registered Democrats in CD4 so they can get on the June 24 Democratic primary ballot. All candidates, except Florczak, have endorsed Powers, and all candidates, except Florczak, are carrying petitions with Powers’s name.
In order to get on the primary ballot, each candidate must file 400 signatures with the Board of Elections. Signatures must be “good,” meaning the signers must be registered Democrats residing in CD4, as well as other mandatory requirements. After the petitioning period and once all petitions are filed, the process of counting, eliminating, and determining which candidates will appear on the November ballot begins, followed inevitably by court challenges from candidates whose petitions were rejected.
Gathering signatures is an onerous process and it’s important to have petitioners out on the streets during the petitioning period. That’s where Democratic Clubs play an important role. When a club endorses a candidate, the club’s members carry petitions with the name of the club’s endorsed candidates. Can be one or more candidates. Here’s the rollout of CD4 clubs and their endorsement candidates in the CD4 race:
Lexington Dems endorsed Vanessa Aronson. Tilden Dems endorsed Faith Bondy. Four Freedoms Dems endorsed Ben Wetzler. Eleanor Roosevelt Independent Democrats endorsed Wetzler and Maloney. Hence, ERID’s petitions carry neither candidate on their petitions. While Powers’s name appears on all petitions, except Florczak’s, Powers hasn’t yet (if at all) endorsed a candidate. According to what I’ve heard, he will be holding joint events with all candidates, except Florczak, as well as Rachel Storch who was not endorsed by any club.
Storch is the only CD4 candidate who has opted out of matching funds, which has left some of the candidates kvetching because it means that those candidates accepting matching funds have to raise more money to qualify for the matching funds.
At presstime, neither Powers nor Congress member Jerry Nadler has made an endorsement in the hotly contested, highly competitive race. CD4 is in Nadler’s 12th Congressional District. I’m on it. Stay tuned.