The Hour repots:
Democratic mayoral challenger Walter Briggs on Saturday denounced Mayor Richard A. Moccia’s recent veto of the 180-day demolition delay ordinance, saying that if elected, he would only enact a veto under extreme circumstances.
“It would have to be so onerous that we’d be sending someone to the electric chair,” Briggs said, “or something unconstitutional.”
Briggs criticized Moccia’s veto as secretive. “The fact that this veto was done in secret, rather than being announced on the floor of the council, shows that (Moccia) hoped it would go unnoticed,” said Briggs. “(Moccia has) tried to paint himself as a bipartisan politician — but this pocket veto shows that he doesn’t just lack vision, but that he’s the kind of secret-agenda Republican that Americans have come to know so well since 2001.”
According to Common Council president Michael Coffey, D-At Large, who joined Briggs on Saturday for the press conference, he was never formally notified that Moccia had vetoed the bill.
“I’d had some inquiries from members of the public and press about what had happened with the bill,” Coffey explained. After contacting the city’s corporation counsel and the city clerk, he discovered that “it was not passed.”Briggs further criticized Moccia’s veto as being contrary to what the mayor claims to stand for.
“Moccia calls himself a preservationist, but he’s tipped his hand that if he gets re-elected with a Republican council, our laws protecting historic buildings will be the first on the chopping block. We need a Briggs administration and a Democratic council to protect our valuable and irreplaceable historic properties from demolition and neglect.”
Looks like it is truly Dems thar fightin’ words.
source: The Hour, Briggs slams Moccia on veto of demo delay, By LAUREN GARRISON, November 5, 2007
