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April 23, 2007

With Only Days to Stump, 3 Seek Brooklyn Council Seat

The campaign posters have just begun appearing in store windows along the major thoroughfares of the Flatbush and Crown Heights neighborhoods in Brooklyn. The campaign sound trucks that typically snake through the streets before an election are nowhere to be found.

There is only the slightest evidence that a second special election is about to take place for a vacant seat on the City Council, with the lethargic pace of campaigning in the streets reflecting the recent uncertainty over who would ultimately be on the ballot.

In the last few weeks, the race in the 40th Council District has played itself out chiefly in state and federal courtrooms, where developments have been dizzying and turbulent.

It was not until late last week that it became certain that there would be three candidates on the ballot tomorrow: Mathieu Eugene, a doctor who runs a youth community center and who won a 10-candidate special election in February; Wellington Sharpe, a businessman, who came in third in that race; and Harry L. Schiffman, the director of government and community relations at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, who finished fourth in February.

The election tomorrow is nonpartisan, and the candidates may not run on the lines of the established parties.

For more than a week, the campaign seemed to be at a standstill while various courts sorted out challenges and counterchallenges.

On Friday, a justice in the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court decided that Dr. Eugene could remain on the ballot, rejecting a challenge by Mr. Sharpe. A day earlier, a federal judge in Brooklyn had placed Mr. Sharpe back on the ballot, nullifying a challenge by Dr. Eugene.

The Council seat in this heavily Caribbean-American enclave of Brooklyn became vacant after the incumbent, Yvette D. Clarke, was elected to the House of Representatives last fall.

Dr. Eugene's victory in the special election on Feb. 20, in which he received a third of the vote, made him the first Haitian-born New Yorker elected to the Council.

But he never took his seat.

Dr. Eugene acknowledged that he had lived in Canarsie, outside the 40th District, but maintained that he had moved into the district before the Feb. 20 election. Before he could be sworn in, however, the City Council asked for an affidavit and documents to prove his residency.

Dr. Eugene, rather than provide the material, declined to take the seat, and last month he asked Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to take the highly unusual step of calling a second special election.

At first, five candidates sought to run. But the city's Board of Elections ruled that only Mr. Schiffman and Dr. Eugene had submitted at least the 1,000 valid signatures required to get on the ballot.

On Thursday, Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of Federal District Court in Brooklyn restored Mr. Sharpe's name to the ballot. He ruled that Dr. Eugene, by declining the seat and planning to run in a second special election, had obtained an unfair advantage. Dr. Eugene's "manipulation gave him a head start against his would-be rivals," the judge said.

Even Dr. Eugene's supporters were unclear about his status until the next day. Mr. Sharpe had challenged Dr. Eugene's candidacy in State Supreme Court, contending that a clause in the Public Officers Law made it illegal for a candidate who had declined election to run in a second race for the same office within the same term.

Dr. Eugene's lawyers successfully argued, however, that the provision applied only to candidates who declined to take office because they had been convicted of a crime. There was so much litigation in the race that at one point last week, Dr. Eugene's lawyers were due simultaneously in the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court and in Federal District Court.

With the list of candidates finally settled, the rivals adjusted their strategies and campaigned feverishly over the weekend.

"What this means is that I have been left with three or four days to run a campaign," Mr. Sharpe said. "But I'm depending on the fact that I have some strong name recognition in the district and that the people know who I am."

Campaign posters for Mr. Sharpe started to appear, and Mr. Schiffman campaigned around the district.

Dr. Eugene said Saturday that he had as many as half a dozen campaign activities planned for each day before tomorrow's election.

He also had campaign statements recorded and broadcast by telephone over the weekend to hundreds of voters. Those calls included the voices of two supporters: Representative Clarke and Wyclef Jean, the Haitian-American rapper formerly of the Fugees.

Dr. Eugene said that he had not been focused on the recent court cases, which he described as "a distraction that keeps me from the important business of the people."

He added: "This has been a long campaign, and I'm ready to move on."