Jessica Haller, tech entrepreneur and environmentalist who recently finished in third place in the March 23 District 11 City Council special election, announced on Friday, April 16, that she will not be running in the District 11 Democratic June primary race. “After taking some time to reflect on the results of the special election, I am writing to share that our grassroots campaign has come to an end, and I have made the difficult decision to withdraw from the June primary election,” Haller wrote in a press release. 

 

“I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for being part of the campaign. We may not have succeeded in this race, but as Theodore Roosevelt said, we entered the arena and did so while ‘daring greatly’,” she added. 

 

As reported by Norwood News, Haller, whose candidacy we previously profiled, finished with 1,682 votes and was eliminated after Round 5, in the race that was ultimately won, with 5,579 votes, by teacher and male district leader for the 81st Assembly District, Eric Dinowitz, who is also the son of Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz. The assemblyman covers much of the same constituency as his son in his capacity as district leader. The councilman will continue to do so in his new role. Mino Lora, People’s Theatre Project founder and executive director, finished in second place with 3,188 votes. Final exhausted votes amounted to 788. 

 

Haller went on to say that she could not be more grateful for the support she received. “Together, during a pandemic, in the cold winter, we reached out to voters with more than 63,000 phone calls and door knocks and had over 17,500 conversations with our neighbors about the future of our district,” she said. “We were endorsed by eight elected officials and over fifteen advocacy organizations.”

 

Haller raised the most in campaign contributions out of all six candidates in the special election race with $83,027. She had also received a number of high-profile endorsements as her campaign progressed. These included State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi, who also endorsed Lora , NYC Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito, former New York City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley, State Sen. Gustavo Rivera, (second-choice) and New York City Council Member Helen Rosenthal, American Institute of Architects, and Concerned Citizens for Change.

 

Haller is the only candidate, to date, who ran in the March special election who has confirmed non-participation in the June primary. In addition to Dinowitz and Lora, and the three other special election candidates, retired NYPD detective, Carlton Berkley, Bronx Community Board 8 chair and lawyer, Dan Padernacht, freelance filmmaker, Kevin Pazmino, two other candidates, social worker and Columbia University adjunct professor, Abigail Martin, and male district leader in the 80th A.D., Marcos Sierra, have confirmed they are also running in June.

 

The latter two candidates dropped out of the March 23 special election over concerns with signature collection amid the coronavirus pandemic. Martin and Sierra were among two of a number of candidates who had called for the 450-minimum signature requirement to be waived by the mayor in order to get on the ballot for that special election, citing the health risks associated with COVID-19 for candidates, staff and voters through mass person-to-person contact. The governor did eventually drop the minimum signature threshold in the end, but did not eliminate it completely.

 

Martin issued a statement in response to the special election results, saying, “We must rebuild our City into one that works for everyone.” She added, “I congratulate Eric Dinowitz for winning the special election, but with me running in the June primary, Democrats in the northwest Bronx will now have the chance to elect someone with both the independence and the experience to fight for everyone in our district.”

 

Meanwhile, Sierra provided the following comment to the Norwood News, further to news of the results, saying, “I wish him [Eric Dinowitz] much success in his new nine month temporary job!”

 

The New York City Board of Elections (BOE) held a meeting to validate the results of the March 23 special election on Thursday, April 15, but to date, has not announced which candidates have secured a place on the ballot in the District 11 June primaries. Norwood News has reached out to the BOE for confirmation, and will update this story upon receipt of a response. The BOE has since confirmed that it has not yet released the final names.

Meanwhile, Haller continued, “While the election is now behind us, the fight for our core issues – equity, resilience, and sustainability – continues.” She added, “I am excited to share with you that on Monday, [April 19], I begin a new chapter as executive director of 21 in ‘21. 21 in ‘21 is a grassroots organization working to elect at least twenty-one women to the New York City Council’s fifty one seats. I look forward to supporting the dozens of women in NYC who are in the arena, daring greatly.” She encouraged her supporters to join her in support of other such female candidates, and added, “I look forward to keeping in touch with you.”

 

Haller and Lora had previously voiced their support of each other’s candidacy during one of the special election debates.

 

The district leader and newly elected councilman succeeds former Councilman Andrew Cohen, who was elected to the Bronx Supreme Court in November 2020 and who resigned from his City Council seat on December 31, 2020. As reported by Norwood News, the special election was called by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Monday, Jan. 4.

 

Some have criticized the tendency by some candidates, including Cohen and Congressman Ritchie Torres, who previously represented the 15th City Council district, to run for higher or alternative office before finishing their last terms at City Council, particularly in light of the ongoing pandemic.

 

The Northwest Bronx which incorporates parts of both District 11 and District 15 has been one of the worst affected parts of the City in terms of coronavirus rates, and in terms of vaccination rates, the Bronx ranks the lowest, at 35 percent, out of all five boroughs.

 

The District 11 special election, along with the District 15 special election, was one of the first in the Bronx, and among the first in the City, to apply the new ranked choice voting system for the first time. According Eric Dinowitz’s campaign, the election featured one of the highest voter turnouts (9,555) of any special election across the City, in at least a decade, and had a higher turnout than the 2014, 2017, and 2019 Democratic primaries, as well as the 2019 public advocate special election.

As of Feb. 21, a total of 102,617 voters were registered to vote in District 11 in the nonpartisan special election, according to the BOE. Of this number, 13,110 were deemed inactive voters, while 89,507 were deemed active.

 

District 11 includes Kingsbridge, Norwood, Van Cortlandt Village, Wakefield, Riverdale, Woodlawn Heights and part of Bedford Park. Having won the March nonpartisan special election, Eric Dinowitz will now serve until Dec. 31, 2021. Future representation in the District beyond that point will be determined via the June 2021 primary, and the November 2021 general election.

 

On Tuesday, April 13, Pazmino said he wished the district leader well as he finishes out the District 11 current term for 2021. “I look forward to running against him in November, if he doesn’t lose in [the] primaries, this summer.”

 

Reflecting on Eric Dinowitz’s victory, Berkley, who lives in the Wakefield section of the borough, said his current plans are to be on the ballot in the June 22 Democratic primary. “It is time for the candidates fighting against the machine candidate, Eric Dinowitz, to unite against him in the June primary,” he said in a telephone interview with the Norwood News earlier this week. “If we can unite behind a single candidate, I would be willing to step aside, and support that candidate,” he added. “The overriding goal should be to defeat the machine that has dominated the district for far too long.”

 

As previously reported, Padernacht had released a statement following the release of the initial, early results of the race on election night. “I am writing to thank you for your time, dedication and support in our campaign. Words cannot express the appreciation I feel for each of you who have helped in so many different ways,” Padernacht wrote. “While the initial results from the Special Election this past Tuesday are not promising, the lessons learned are invaluable. While I felt disappointment with the results, I strive to be self-aware and use the experience from the election in a positive way.”

 

He continued, “That being said, we are moving towards the Democratic Primary on June 22nd with light hearts and a new approach.” Norwood News has reached out to Padernacht for a follow-up comment following the final results, and did not receive an immediate response.

 

Lora also released a statement on April 13, saying, “During a pandemic, Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz handed our former councilman a judgeship a year before his term was up, leaving District 11 without representation for months, and forcing this extra election to install his own son as the replacement.”

 

She continued, “Only 11 percent of registered voters turned out for the March 23rd special election, and that’s exactly what they wanted. In a district that’s majority working-class and people of color, this is effectively voter suppression. The race for City Council is far from over, as this was always a race to the June 22 primary. This seat doesn’t belong to one family, it belongs to the people of the Bronx. ¡Punto!”

 

The assertion that the assemblyman orchestrated a District 11 special election, the type of election that typically results in lower voter turnout, and favors candidates with strong name recognition is not new. As reported previously by Norwood News, the inference was that Jeffrey Dinowitz, as a senior member of the Bronx Democratic Party, held sufficient sway within the party to gin up enough support among party members at the annual judicial convention to get them to vote for Cohen, for the position on the Bronx Supreme Court bench, thereby requiring him to vacate his council seat, leaving it open to be filled by the assemblyman’s son.

 

Norwood News reached out to Jeffrey Dinowitz, last August, to address the rumors relating to Cohen’s nomination, and the suggestion that Cohen’s ascendency to the bench would help his son’s bid for the District 11 City Council seat.

 

The assemblyman said that Cohen was well-known and well-respected across the entire borough of the Bronx for his level-headedness, record of building consensus, and legal resume. “That is what the delegates based their decision on,” he said, referring to the open vote held at the judicial convention, and adding that three, term-limited council members had sought higher offices this year, including Cohen. The former councilman had indicated his wish to join the Bronx Supreme court bench a few years prior to his eventual nomination by Bronx Democratic Party members in August 2020, and his subsequent win in the November general election.

 

“In addition, it should be noted that Council Member Cohen, Democratic District Leader Eric Dinowitz, and myself did not vote at last night’s meeting,” the assemblyman added at the time. “Alternates voted in our place, as the record shows. Cynics will always find something to criticize, but I did everything I could to inspire confidence in our judicial selection process, and it is unequivocal that Andy won this nomination through his own hard work and qualifications.”

 

Referring to the special election, the assemblyman said at the time that assuming Cohen would win the judgeship race in the general election, which he did, the voters would decide who would replace him at the City Council. “Frankly, I reject the supposition that a special election favors any particular candidate for City Council over another,” he said.

 

According to his campaign, the district leader, whose candidacy was previously profiled by the Norwood News, was able “to build a broad and diverse majority with a positive, future-focused campaign that won every neighborhood and gained votes with each reallocation.”

 

The newly elected councilman said it was a tremendous honor to be elected to serve the 11th Council District. “As our community works to overcome the pandemic, I am ready to be a voice for everyone in the City Council,” he said.