NEW YORK — Seven Democrats want their party’s nomination for mayor and the frontrunner is a woman who would be the first of her sex to lead City Hall. Two Democratic candidates of color may eat into each other’s bases. Credible candidates on the Republican side have a good shot at a win. Minor party designations could play a major role come November. The New York Post is angling to have a big say in who gets elected.

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The 2013 mayoral race? No, the 1977 free-for-all — the last big, multi-candidate election for mayor where almost nothing was predictable.

A look back at the contest that marked a shape-shift in the city over 35 years ago demonstrates how much has changed in both our politics and our social and economic make-up since then.

But to Kenneth Sherrill, professor of political science at Hunter College and was elected Democratic District Leader in 1977, it is the voters who have changed most of all.

“A lot of the voters of that election are dead, the city is much less white, the make-up of white ethnics has changed, there was no Asian American vote then, and the immigrant population wasn’t what it is now,” he said. “Today there isn’t the bankruptcy or crime that there was then, so the inferences about what, for instance, the African American or Jewish vote would do now are very different.”

A TUMULTUOUS TIME IN POLITICS

The year 1977 was a tumultuous and pivotal one in New York City politics.

It was best remembered for a steaming hot July blackout that was followed by looting and arson, the “Son of Sam” murders that had the city on edge, the rise of Rupert Murdoch’s transformation of the once-liberal New York Post into a sensationalistic rightwing Brit-style tabloid, and the first Yankees World Series win under owner George Steinbrenner.

The Bronx was burning — figuratively and literally — and the city was still simmering from Republican Gerald Ford initial denial of a bailout two years earlier.

The year 2013 is no less pivotal and tumultuous for the city’s politics.

The longtime incumbent mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who was not supposed to have a third term and got one after changing the term limits law with the help of the City Council and Speaker Christine Quinn, is about to depart after overseeing a prosperous period of growth and development — at least for those at the top — that had the business elites cheering.

As his term winds down, the mayor is warning against a return to “the bad old days,” trying to answer the rising indignation of a coalition of progressives, people of color and civil rights advocates who have called attention to what they say have been overly aggressive police tactics during Bloomberg’s tenure, such as stop-and-frisk and the surveillance of Muslims.

Even without the public debate over police tactics, there would be enough to shape the mayoral election: school reform and whether to continue mayoral control; rebuilding after Superstorm Sandy and responding to future disasters; and the erosion of the city’s middle class and the inequality gap that has widened over the past decade.

1977: A Stellar Field Of Candidates

In 1977, despite presiding over the city’s economic meltdown, Democratic Mayor Abraham Beame — who had the added liability of having been the comptroller when the city’s books were coming apart at the seams — ran for re-election.

In addition to Beame on the Democratic side, two liberal Manhattan Congress members jumped in — the relatively unknown Ed Koch and the famous Bella Abzug, who was coming off a razor-thin primary loss in 1976 to Daniel Patrick Moynihan for the Democratic nomination for US Senate.

Manhattan Borough President Percy Sutton also got in the race — the first black with a credible shot at becoming mayor — but so did Herman Badillo, a Congressman from the Bronx who had served as Bronx borough president and was the first Latino with a serious chance of winning the top spot in City Hall.

The longest-shot Democrat in 1977 was the former chair of the City Club of New York, Joel Harnett, who got on the primary ballot but would only go on to garner 1 percent of the vote.

And last but by no means least there was Mario Cuomo, Gov. Hugh Carey’s secretary of state, whose claim to fame then was mediating a dispute for Mayor John Lindsay over a public housing project planned for upper middle class Forest Hills.

It was Carey, one of the architects of the bailout for the city, who pushed Cuomo to run for mayor.

There was a Republican primary in 1977, too, with liberal state Sen. Roy Goodman of the Upper East Side, heir to the Ex-Lax fortune, squaring off with popular conservative radio talk show host Barry Farber.

Minor parties played a key role in 1977 as they very well may this year. Farber lost the Republican nomination to Goodman but had the Conservative Party line. And Cuomo won the Liberal Party line.

The conventional wisdom made Abzug, who died in 1998, the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination — based on her name recognition and strong showing for US Senate — and all the talk was about who in the crowded field would end up in the runoff with her after the initial primary vote.

Legendary journalist Doug Ireland, who is still writing today, managed Abzug’s Senate campaign but tried to discourage her from running for mayor and to instead try again for Congress, which he said he felt was more suited to her talents.

“I told her she wasn’t prepared and it would kill her chances for future office,” he said. “It Stassen-ized her,” he said, referring to Harold Stassen, a wartime Minnesota governor who ran for the Republican nomination nine times starting in 1948.

Abzug lost two subsequent U.S. House races on Manhattan’s East Side in 1978 and in Westchester in 1986. She also tried to get her old West Side seat back in 1992 when Ted Weiss died, but was beaten in a party convention by Jerry Nadler, who still holds the seat today.

A Violent Summer Shaped the 1977 Race

The 1977 race was very much a creature of external events, primarily the “Son of Sam” murders that had begun the previous year, with most victims young lovers in parked cars, and the arson and the chaotic aftermath of the July 13 blackout.

As Sewell Chan of the Times wrote on the 30th anniversary of the blackout: “1,000 fires were reported, 1,600 stores were damaged in looting and rioting and 3,700 people were arrested. Neighborhoods from East Harlem to Bushwick were devastated. The authorities later estimated that the total cost of the blackout exceeded $300 million.”

While these events by themselves might not have been enough to turn voters away from the more liberal candidates — particularly Abzug — the sensationalizing of these events by the New York Post under its new owner Mudoch were.

As Jack Doyle wrote in “Murdoch NY Deals: 1976-77,” the Post blackout headline was “24 HOURS OF TERROR.” He quotes Pete Hamill of the Daily News writing, “Something vaguely sickening is happening to that newspaper, and it is spreading through the city’s psychic life like a stain.”

When Murdoch decided to endorse Ed Koch, he was running at about 4 percent in the polls and was a virtual unknown citywide.

While Koch might have been the bachelor congressman from Greenwich Village — and was gaybaited by some in the Cuomo camp with “Vote for Cuomo, Not the Homo” posters in conservative precincts — Murdoch picked up on him as one of the only pro-death penalty Democrats who was willing to take up the banner of “law and order.”

“There are many reasons why Mr. Koch became the next mayor,” wrote Joyce Purnick, a reporter for the Post during that election, in a story a few years ago in the New York Times, “but I will always believe that the blackout separated him from the pack.”

Koch also hired legendary political consultant David Garth, who had guided John Lindsay to re-election in 1969 and went on to make Rudy Giuliani and Mike Bloomberg mayors. Garth's famous winning ad slogan for Koch was: "After eight years of charisma and four years of the clubhouse, why not try competence?” -- digs at both Lindsay and Beame respectively. In 2010, the NY Times wrote, "Just by signing on with Mr. Koch, Mr. Garth had conferred instant credibility on his fledgling campaign. 'Without him,' Mr. Koch said, 'I would never have been mayor.'"

Koch was also helped by an innovation taken for granted now — overnight polling. The Fix reported in an article titled "Ed Koch, polling pioneer" that polling data in 1977 had to be filtered through university computers, a process that took days. Garth hired Mark Penn, then still a college student, and his pal Doug Schoen, to do their polling, and Penn built his own computer to be able to process their polling data immediately — such as testing Koch's famous slogan for impact.

While Abzug is generally regarded as the most liberal candidate in the race — Ireland calls her “the first radical elected to Congress since Vito Marcantonio” (the East Harlem Communist elected as a Republican to the House in 1934), Badillo was also running to the left as “a champion of the poor,” Ireland said, “and then he went on to work for Koch and Giuliani who were declared enemies of the poor."

To help Koch, the Post focused its negative coverage on Abzug and Cuomo.

About two weeks before the primary, a Times/CBS News poll had Beame and Abzug at 17 percent each, Cuomo at 14 percent, Koch with 12 percent, Sutton with 9 percent, and Badillo with 7 percent. It was anybody’s ballgame.

When the votes were counted on Sept. 8, 1977, Koch led the pack with 19.81 percent followed by Cuomo, who had the Times’ endorsement, with 18.74 percent, putting them in the runoff triggered by no one getting 40 percent.

In third was Beame with 17.98 percent and early frontrunner Abzug finished out of the money with 16.56 percent. Sutton got 14.42 percent, Badillo 10.97 percent, and Harnett 1.53 percent.

Koch beat Cuomo in the runoff for the Democratic nod 55 to 45 percent, and Cuomo ran hard on the Liberal line in the general election losing 50 to 41 percent with Goodman the Republican and Farber the Conservative getting 4 percent each.

How did Koch win?

“One, I lost the black vote because they came and asked for a deal — a commitment for a black vice mayor,” Mario Cuomo told the Gotham Gazette. “I didn’t think that such a deal was a good idea. Badillo asked for same thing. I told him no. Meade Esposito, the Democratic boss in Brooklyn, asked for a deal and I said no. That was the Koch victory. Nothing illegal or terrible for them asking for it, I just wasn’t comfortable in giving it.”

Koch did make those deals to get elected, but they didn’t work out for him in the long run. He appointed Basil Paterson, a Harlem leader and father of former Gov. David Paterson, and Badillo as deputy mayors. But neither lasted much longer than a year — Paterson becoming secretary of state under Carey and Badillo quitting in a dispute with him over his failure to deliver for the South Bronx. The deals with boss Esposito, Queens boss Donald Manes and Bronx boss Stanley Friedman didn’t catch up with Koch until his third corruption-scarred term.

Role of Minor Parties

Barry Farber, still a conservative radio talk show host, said there was one big difference between 1977 and 2013: “There was a meaningful Liberal Party and a meaningful Conservative Party in ’77.”

Indeed, though Farber ended up with 4 percent in the general election in 1977, “there was a scenario for me to win on the Conservative line and doing an insurgency on the Republican line if the Democrats had lived up to their habits and nominated the leftmost candidate” — Abzug.

In Farber’s view, he was preempted by conservative Democrats.

“Ed Koch took the biggest broad jump in history and adopted the social welfare policy of Genghis Khan. He didn’t edge toward right. He came out as though there had never been a leftist,” he said. “Cuomo was considered the second most conservative and he finished second. Beame, the incumbent, was the third most conservative” and he finished third with Bella fourth.

The Liberal Party hasn’t enjoyed automatic ballot status since Andrew Cuomo had their line for governor in 2002 and then refused to campaign and opposed the Democratic nominee Carl McCall, having already dropped out of the Democratic primary.

But this year, the Liberals, which were the key to Rudy Giuliani’s two mayoral wins, have given their line to grocery store chain billionaire John Catsimatidis who wants to be the next Bloomberg.

The Working Families Party, which supplanted the Liberals, has yet to designate a candidate and may be unable to settle on one in the crowded primary given their complex, consensus-building nomination process.

The Independence Party, which gave Bloomberg the minor party help he needed to become mayor three times, has designated former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion as their nominee.

Carrion and Catsimatidis along with former Giuliani Deptuy Mayor and Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joe Lhota and homeless advocate George McDonald are running for the Republican nomination with Lhota the early favorite — though no poll has come out since his labeling of Port Authority police as “mall cops” got a lot of pushback from his base and he had to apologize.

The Conservative Party, long led by Mike Long, has not yet made a pick, but will before the September primary.

Carrion doesn’t want his nomination, but the others in the Republican primary do and Long will pick one of them (despite some of their socially liberal positions) because he fears the leading Democrats “would really take the city backwards a lot of years,” he told Crain’s. 

2013 a Different Time

What has changed since 1977? To Bill Lynch, it is the voters who have changed.

“The difference is the voters have changed drastically,” said Bill Lynch, a Harlem-based political consultant who managed David Dinkins’ mayoral campaigns and served as his deputy mayor. People of color — once called “minorities” — have became the majority.

But the city has also become what Bloomberg calls “a luxury product,” which in recent years has attracted the people of means who fled urban America in the 1970s but have returned to New York City en masse, driving real estate to stratospheric levels while the market still languishes in most parts of the country.

“One lesson of 1977,” said Sherrill, “is that once you have a certain number of candidates, it is impossible to go over 40 percent, and it is hard to predict who will be the top two. The other lesson given who ended up in the runoff is never to underestimate anybody. There were some people who predicted Koch-Abzug, but nobody predicted Koch-Cuomo.”

This year, the Democratic field is as crowded as it was in 1977 and gaming out who will be the top two in the expected runoff following September’s primary is anybody’s guess. Three seem to be vying for most liberal — Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Comptroller John Liu, and former City Council Member Sal Albanese — while former Comptroller and 2009 Democratic candidate Bill Thompson has moved toward the center.

Quinn is to Thompson’s right, though even she is tacking left with proposals to oversee the police department more closely after she agreed to back a bill that would impose an independent monitor over the NYPD, and finally giving in on a paid sick leave bill — albeit in a much watered-down version.

If former Congressman Anthony Weiner jumps in — and he comes in second to Quinn in recent polls — he would fit somewhere between the left candidates and Thompson.

Sherrill said that for all the help Koch got from the Post, the election came down to a message that resonated with voters. And, so far, he said he had not heard a message from any of the 2013 candidates that resonates.

“You go to the boroughs outside Manhattan and you hear about an unresponsive government that took care of the affluent on Wall Street and did not help them,” Sherrill said. “I think a candidate who makes an appeal to frustrated working-class people that he or she will stand up for against the relatively well off who saw a much more rapid recovery can do very well in the parts of the city that were devastated and haven’t bounced back. With the rising inequality, there is a strong sense that no one is looking out for ‘people like me.’ I would not be surprised to hear Anthony Weiner take that up. I would not be surprised if the election turned on personality and style more than the issues. I think an angry candidate can do very well, I’m afraid.”

Andy Humm is the co-host of the weekly Gay USA cable TV show, a contributor to Gay City News, and a former city Human Rights commissioner.

UPDATE: This version is updated with more information on Koch's 1977 campaign.

NEW YORK — City Council Speaker and Democratic mayoral frontrunner Christine Quinn confessed to her struggles with bulimia and alcoholism. Ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner appeared to hire a campaign manager for his own bid to be the next mayor. And the latest embarrassment to public integrity in Albany leached into one City Council race.

That and much more — from campaign finance filings to a cameo appearance of former Sen. Al D'Amato — made this week a busy one in the race for City Hall.

VITO LOPEZ — FROM THE ASSEMBLY TO CITY HALL?

Assemblyman Vito Lopez, facing mounting calls to leave office after being accused of sexually harassing several members of his staff, said earlier today that he will leave his seat in Albany at the end of the legislative session in June to focus on his bid for the 34th City Council District.

"Because the citizens of my district voted me back into office last November by an overwhelming majority, I feel obligated to serve out this session of the Assembly," he said in his statement.

But Lopez may be forced to focus on the Council race sooner than that: Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who has faced criticism over his handling of the Lopez matter, said he will move to expel the aging politician from the chamber. And Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that Lopez “should not spend another day in office.” 

A special prosecutor said Wednesday that he had found no reason to bring criminal charges against Lopez — at least in Brooklyn — for his unwanted advances on female staff on various occasions.

Lopez, in his statement announcing his resignation, said he was "gratified" by the special prosecutor's decision and added that he had maintained his innocence "throughout this matter" and believed no criminal investigation was warranted.

But on the same day the prosecutor announced his decision, the state's Legislative Ethics Committee released a Joint Commission on Public Ethics report on the sexual harassment complaints brought against Lopez by staffers.

In the days since JCOPE released its report, politicians have called for his resignation, including Frank Seddio, who replaced Lopez as chairman of the Brooklyn Democratic Party.

In a statement late today, Seddio also said Lopez should reconsider running for Council.

"He best serves the Bushwick and Ridgewood neighborhoods he's worked so hard to build up by stepping back from political life completely," Seddio said. "He should not let personal ambition stand in the way of their continued progress."

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn also found the idea of Lopez running for Council distasteful, telling reporters just as much yesterday.

“Because to allow Vito Lopez, after what he did in the state capital, to be allowed into this building to potentially in the name of representing New Yorkers conduct himself in such a horrible way would be an outrage," Quinn said.

That won't stop Lopez from trying, who wrote that the decision on who represents the 34th District, covering the Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bushwick and Williamsburg, should be left to the voters.

"I expect to run a vigorous campaign on the issues facing the citizens of my community and hope to continue to serve them as a member of the City Council," he wrote.

A BIG LABOR FORUM

Without saying a word, Comptroller John Liu was met with raucous applause and scattered boos at a mayoral forum organized by the city's largest public employee union last night.

Despite being one of three candidates to arrive late at the District Council 37 mayoral forum yesterday, Liu cued up the audience for even louder cheers when he touched on stop-and-frisk and education reform. DC 37 represents a variety of public sector employees.

While the embattled comptroller didn't have to put much effort to rile up the more than 300 attendees, he sealed the deal when he invoked the federal investigation into his campaign's fundraising tactics.

"Look, they can throw everything and the kitchen sink at me," Liu said as the audience erupted one last time, repeating a line he's used often — before adding: "And I'll be ready for the stove."

Liu was one of five Democratic candidates to show up at the forum, albeit late. Public Advocate Bill and former Comptroller Bill Thompson eventually joined fellow Democrats Erick Salgado and Sal Albanese.

Made up of mostly DC 37 members, the audience was anything but shy as it pushed back against anything that displeased it, including Albanese's defense of mayoral control of schools.

Albanese, a former school teacher and Council member, also tried to lob his usual criticism about how his fellow candidates receive donations from real estate developers. The line was tepidly received by the audience, which reacted much more strongly to de Blasio's defense of public workers and his unabashed attacks on the mayoral race's absent frontrunner.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn was slated to attend the forum yesterday, but canceled at the last minute due to other commitments. Her absence irked the union members, who booed and bristled at the mention of her name. De Blasio added fuel to the flame when he revived his attack on Quinn for her support of 2008's term limit extension.

De Blasio continued to link Quinn to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who de Blasio also accused of "union busting with a velvet glove," and compared to New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

Whenever DC 37 decides to endorse a mayoral candidate, its executive board will have to mull over three candidates that it already supported in 2009: Bill Thompson's unsuccessful mayoral bid, as well as Liu and de Blasio for their respective offices.

DC 37 might be closer to picking a candidate after last night, but de Blasio doesn’t have to wait any longer for some support from big labor. Late today, the New York Times reported that he picked up the endorsement from SEIU 1199, city’s largest healthcare union.

SHOW US THE MONEY

While the rest of candidates wait for big-ticket union endorsements, they continued to rake in donations as the September primaries get closer.

DNAinfo reported on Tuesday that Thompson led the pack in fundraising totals with $600,000 earned between March 12 and May 11. Fellow Democrat Quinn came in close with $510,000 in the same period, but was out-raised by Republican candidate Joe Lhota's $558,000 in donations.

Both de Blasio and Liu raised less than half of what Thompson reportedly brought in: the public advocate reportedly raised $240,000, and Liu with $104,231.

Meanwhile, rumored mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner reported no campaign contributions. Even so, the former Congressman has more than $4 million on hand and other signs are beginning to point to his official candidacy for mayor.

WILL HE OR WON'T HE?

Politico reported this week that Weiner was bringing in campaign manager Danny Kedem to help revive his political brand.

Kedem previously worked on the failed campaign to unseat Republican Rep. Michael Grimm from his Staten Island congressional seat, and as a field organizer for Hillary Clinton in 2008.

Kedem couldn't be reached to confirm.

Weiner, who also allegedly hired an unnamed press secretary, was most recently spotted near his childhood home in Park Slope with his wife and a film crew, supposedly making what's assumed to be a campaign video.

A CAMEO APPEARANCE

Republican Senator Al D’Amato made a surprise appearance in the mayoral race when he mocked Quinn after confessed to The New York Times that she previously suffered from alcoholism and an eating disorder.

D’Amato took to NY1’s Road to City Hall and called Quinn a "political hack" for trying to "soften her image."

Quinn’s campaign responded with a force that it hadn’t previously shown, sending out an email yesterday that directly linked D’Amato’s comments to Thompson’s campaign.

The former comptroller tried to build some distance between him and D’Amato’s comments, calling Quinn’s revelation "touching" and "inspiring."

Seemingly unconvinced, the Quinn campaign sent out an email to supproters lambasting Thompson for his alliance with D’Amato, who has been one of his strongest allies.

"The last thing Democrats are looking for in a mayor of New York is someone who is 'proud' to have Al D’Amato’s support," the email said.

That same afternoon, Thompson’s campaign emailed its supporters to launch Women for Thompson with a letter signed by State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and former Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum.

"This election is about real leadership on the issues women — and all New Yorkers — care about," the women wrote letter said. "For us, the choice is simple. Bill Thompson is the only candidate with the experience and temperament to get things done."

NEW YORK — What would likely be the nation's largest expansion of voting rights to immigrants under a proposed city law may not hold up under an expected deluge of legal scrutiny.

Hundreds of thousands of immigrant New Yorkers could be added to the voter rolls if city lawmakers approve the bill that would extend to them the same right to cast ballots in local elections as citizens.

The bill, which has been re-introduced into the City Council amid a national debate on immigration policy, got its first official hearing yesterday.

"Voting rights legislation is American legislation," said Queens Councilman Daniel Dromm, who first sponsored the bill in 2010 and is backing it once again.

He called the bill an opportunity to enfranchise an estimated 850,000 documented and tax-paying immigrants in the city that otherwise have little say in how the city operates.

"We should be the leader on this," Dromm said in an interview before the hearing. "We should set the tone for the rest of the nation."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is largely seen as immigrant-friendly and has backed other Council immigration reforms even when they strained relations with federal authorities, has questioned the bill's legality and has said he would veto it.

"Mayor Bloomberg believes voting is the most important right we are granted as citizens and you should have to go through the process of becoming a citizen and declaring allegiance to this country before being given that right," Bloomberg spokeswoman Evelyn Erskine wrote. "That being said, this bill violates the State constitution and the administration does not support it."

Dromm has secured 34 sponsors for the non-citizen voting bill — more than enough to beat a mayoral veto.

But Bloomberg is not alone in his skepticism over the legality of the bill. Scholars, too, are taking a hard look at the proposal, and some don't think it can survive court challenge.

Political science professor Stanley Renshon, of the City University of New York, has written extensively on the movement for non-citizen voting, including proposals for New York City. But he said the bill before the Council is "questionable."

Every state in the U.S. has laws on the book that prohibits documented immigrants from voting in state and national elections, Renshon argued. As such, he said that the legal precedent allows for the reasonable conclusion that voting rights are intrinsically tied to citizenship.

He said, however, that the courts haven't had many opportunities to explicitly rule on non-citizen voting rights on a local level. In his writings for the Center for Immigration Studies, Renshon cited judicial precedent that "states have the power to impose reasonable citizenship, age and residency requirements on the availability of the ballot," at least according to the U.S. Supreme's Court take on the 1969 case Kramer v. Union Free School District No. 15.

Morris Kramer of Nassau County filed suit against his local school district for barring him from voting in local school district elections. Kramer had no children and did not own or rent property because he lived with his parents.

Regardless, the Supreme Court found at the time that New York State and its education law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The majority said that Kramer met what it considered to be prerequisites for voting rights, including citizenship.

The president of the city's Board of Election, Frederic Umane, also questioned whether such a law would be constitutional during a hearing of the commissioners on April 30, as well as the costs that would have to be borne by the BOE to create new voter registration forms, institute new training for poll workers and printing of new materials. However, Umane said at the meeting of the board's commissioners that they should "take no position on the law," except to underscore the costs associated with expanding voter rolls.

Non-citizen voting isn't foreign to the United States. From its founding up until the 1920s when citizenship requirements became widespread, nearly two dozen states and federal territories and local jurisdictions granted immigrants the right to vote. A 1996 federal law prohibits non-citizens from voting in federal elections. 

However, as recently as 2002, the city allowed documented immigrants with children in the city's public schools could vote in their community school board elections. Chicago still offers the same right to non-citizen parents, and have since the late 1980s.

And a number of small towns in Maryland and some jurisdictions in Massachusetts already offer non-citizen voting rights, and various countries offer the same albeit with range of restrictions and requirements.

Dromm and supporters of the bill couch their argument for the legislation on the same grounds that other groups do when it comes to voting rights: those who pay taxes deserve proper representation.

The bill is primarily aimed at those documented immigrants who intend to stay in New York for the long term, Dromm said, and is limited to local elections. Even if City Council Speaker Christine Quinn lets the bill go to a vote this year, the bill wouldn't be implemented in time for the 2013 elections.

Dromm said the bill would largely benefit green card and student visa holders, but its language only requires that qualified immigrant voters spend at least six months in the country before they can vote.

In May 2011, Baruch Survey Research conducted a survey about immigrants and immigration issues, during which pollsters found that a plurality of respondents had no issue with non-citizen voting.

The study found that half of the more than 1,200 adults asked would favor a law that granted voting rights to non-citizens who have lived in the city for five or more years. Of those responses, Baruch found that 67 percent of New Yorkers aged between 18 and 29 supported non-citizen voting rights, compared to 31 percent of support from New Yorkers older than 65.

The numbers are indicative of a larger debate happening on a national level, a discourse that Dromm said he thinks helped bring about the attention and support that his bill began to receive lately. He has been able to capitalize on Congress mulling over a bipartisan effort for immigration reform and the show of force from immigrant and minority communities for President Barack Obama's reelection campaign.

"All those things combined helped make it possible to bring the bill back to City Council," admitted Dromm, who as chair of the Council's immigration committee has championed many immigration-friendly bills. They have included legislation that brought a citywide halt to deportations resulting from cooperation from the city's Department of Corrections and Police Department.

Advocates who are backing Dromm seem unsurprisingly unfazed by the legal argument against the bill.

Among the groups standing up for the bill's legitimacy are the New York Civil Liberties Union, Make the Road NY, the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrants' Rights and the Working Family's Party.

Attorney Jerry Vattamala of the the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund said he is confident that the Council's bill is on firm legal ground.

Vattamala said the state constitution gives authority to local governments to pass laws that best suit their own needs by way of the home rule, including granting non-citizens voting rights in local elections.

"Generally speaking, the New York State constitution gives wide authority to local jurisdictions to determine how they elect their representatives," Vattamala said.

He added that the state doesn't expressly limit voting rights to non-citizens. If the city were to adopt the bill into its charter, he said, the home rule would force the state to cede to city law.

More to the point, Vatamalla said he sees the bill as a way to incorporate immigrant communities that factor into government operations without legitimate representation in the immigrant-heavy neighborhoods.

"Our experience is that elected officials salivate at these areas," Valamatta said, calling neighborhoods with high non-citizen residents political fillers. "They pump up the numbers in your district and yet you don't have to be responsive to them."

Valamatta also said that this bill can politically legitimize immigrant communities, including Queens' growing Asian community. "We'd like to have all leaders on board, because New York City really is a city of immigrants," he said.

It's the same message being circulated by the New York Coalition to Expand Voting Rights, of which Queens College professor Ron Hayduk is a co-founder. Author of the 2006 book "Democracy For All: Restoring Immigrant Voting Rights in the United States," Hayduk said he is confident that documented immigrants would exercise a newfound ability to vote.

But he acknowledged that non-citizen voting right is not a panacea to low voter turnouts, adding that the bill's goal is larger than increasing overall voter engagement. New candidates and new voters will bring about new debates and lines of conflict that all New Yorkers should welcome, Hayduk said.

"It could really invigorate the city's political dynamic in ways that we've never seen," he said.

NEW YORK — The hard-earned lessons of Superstorm Sandy shaped a mayoral forum yesterday where candidates fielded questions on waterfront development, expanding ferry service and creating a new agency to oversee the city's vast coastline.

While there was little consensus on a range of topics, most of the candidates agreed that ferry service and renewed infrastructure investments were critical to the future of a working, sustainable waterfront.

The forum was held on a boat moored off of Pier 40 in lower Manhattan for a conference organized by the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance. Six candidates were asked to respond to a policy proposals put forward by the alliance that touches on everything from docks to land use, as well as questions that were submitted by the public. Chris Ward, the former executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, hosted the forum.

Unsurprisingly, the discussion kept turning back to Hurricane Sandy and its aftermath.

"Make no mistake," said Democratic candidate and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, "you get to say once, 'It was an unprecedented storm.' You don't get to do that again."

RELATED: WHAT FUTURE FOR THE CITY'S WATERFRONT? 

Quinn has long described Sandy reconstruction efforts as the single "most important infrastructure project of our time," also telling the audience that she has worked to be a waterfront speaker and would be a waterfront mayor.

She said that the first mass transit service to come back after Hurricane Sandy hit in October was the East River Ferry, which came about during her time as speaker. Quinn, like many of the other candidates, said that her long-term vision is to incorporate cross-borough ferries into the existing mass transit system that includes subways and buses, partially funded by city subsidies not unlike the East River Ferry.

"That's how mass transit works," she said. "It's about the greater good of the city."

Most of the candidates also said that they saw expanded ferry service as an answer to the city's growing population, a problem that Comptroller John Liu said most cities would love to have. He, along with fellow Democrats Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and former Comptroller Bill Thompson praised Mayor Michael Bloomberg's work on a blueprint for the city’s long-term sustainability, PlaNYC 2030, and recognized the future mayor's role in further sustainable development.

Thompson also repeated his call for the creation of a deputy mayor for infrastructure, who he said would focus on overseeing a comprehensive plan and timetable for development projects, including those related to Sandy recovery and others that may be in the path of future storms.

"The challenges of Lower Manhattan aren't the same challenges in Staten Island, aren't the same challenges in the Rockaways," he said. "That deputy mayor for infrastructure has to coordinate that, has to work in conjunction with the mayor to assume that leadership role."

Thompson was the only Democratic candidate to plainly advocate the creation of a new seat at the new mayor's table. Liu and Quinn both dismissed the idea of a new city agency devoted specifically to the city's waterfronts. Both said such an agency would duplicate responsibilities already given existing agencies affected by Sandy, such as the city's Housing, Education or Homeless Services departments.

Supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, a Republican, called the idea of either a waterfront department or czar a great idea in unspecific terms. But only former Bronx Borough President and Independence Party nominee Adolfo Carrión declared a waterfront-devoted agency to be a smart solution.

"I know that bureaucracy is a bad word," he said, referring to such a department as a “sledgehammer” to be use for waterfront development.

A former regional director for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Barack Obama administration, Carrión said that the next mayor needs to works across the various levels of government to secure investment in the city's transportation infrastructure.

"I think, without risk of offending too many people, we're kind of dysfunctional in this region," Carrión said, adding that the job of the mayor is to educate the State Legislature about the city's economic force as it doles out federal money for development.

De Blasio also emphasized the idea of a stronger relationship between levels of government, specifically pointing to the mayor's relationship with Washington D.C., and calling the current dynamic unsustainable.

De Blasio, who served as a regional director for HUD under President Bill Clinton, said that the next mayor needs to use his or her bully pulpit to spotlight infrastructure issues on a national stage, not unlike how Bloomberg has dealt with gun control and climate change.

"If you can do Mayors for Gun Control,” he said, referring to Bloomberg’s effort to organize mayors across the country to fight for more limits on guns, “you can do mayors for infrastructure investment."

Part of the public advocate's argument for responsible development, he said, is economic realism. He invoked said pragmatism in response to a question about the ongoing Brooklyn Bridge Park project. The proposed development plan for the park's expansion received criticism from a number of elected representatives and residents who opposed the inclusion of private housing development as a means to pay for the park.

"The purists who were concerned about private investment," de Blasio said, "their concern could have led to no park for all those people who needed it."

The balance between public need and private investment came up again when Liu promoted the idea of mandatory inclusionary zoning for waterfront properties. The comptroller disagreed with de Blasio on the development of luxury housing at the park. However, Liu said he sees great value in public projects subsidized by private investments.

Those types of projects, Liu said, should require that any new construction offer affordable housing for residents with low to moderate incomes.

"I want to emphasize that we're talking about public-private partnerships," Liu said, with a heavy emphasis on the former. “Not,” he continued, “where the privates get all the increase in the economic value."

Economic value of the city's waterfronts was just as important to Catsimatidis, who said he was the only candidate with actual investment in waterfront development, having recently purchased a petroleum terminal along Long Island's northern shore. He added that he’s the only candidate to create hundred of thousands of jobs.

The lone Republican to speak at the forum — organizers said former Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief Joe Lhota was unable to attend — Catsimatidis said that he sees waterfront development and ferry expansions as a means to bring about new jobs. In turn, he said they would be boosted by one of his main economic development proposals: bringing back the World's Fair.

Catsimatidis also suggested introducing a bond issue to for capital expenditures, especially for the waterfronts. He speculated that raising an extra $100 billion dollars — a concept that appeared to take moderator Ward by surprise.

"I remember when I built my first store, I said i'm going to raise $50,000 to remodel it," Catsimatidis said. "People thought it was fantasy. No; you have a vision and you do it."

The Democratic candidates also recognized the potential jobs that waterfront development could bring the city, both in term of tourism and port activity. For her part, Quinn recognized the city has historically counted on waterways for economic growth and should do so again.

"We owe the 21st century immigrants the same opportunities that my relatives had when they came here and worked on the docks on the Westside," Quinn said. "They'll be different jobs, but they can be waterfront jobs that are sustaining families and helping them move into the middle class."

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Images by Emily Field. 

NEW YORK -- The arrest of state Sen. Malcolm Smith on allegations he orchestrated a scheme to bribe his way onto the ballot to run for mayor is bringing renewed attention to the role of party patronage in shaping elections.

The corruption allegations against Smith, detailed in a complaint unsealed in federal court yesterday after he was arrested, demonstrate the powerful if limited role that county party leaders continue to exercise in elections through their ability to reward access to their ballots.

“The road to elected local office in New York still often goes through county organizations,” said Doug Muzzio, a professor of political science at Baruch College.

This outsize role of parties even led Mayor Michael Bloomberg to weigh in on the Smith arrest by criticizing partisan elections.

“What happens is only people that can go through whatever the majority party is, whether it’s Democrats here or Republicans someplace else, they’re the only people that really can face the voters and have any meaningful chance of winning," he said at a press conference.

Each of New York City’s five counties has two party committees, one Republican and one Democratic. And each of those organizations has an executive committee led by a chairperson. During election years, candidates go to their parties’ respective county committees for an endorsement for the primaries, a move all the more important in a year with a crowded field of candidates.

That influence has played a role in New York City politics since the days of Tammany Hall, the infamous political organization that controlled Democratic politics in Manhattan for more than a century. Efforts to reform how elections are run by making them nonpartisan have failed in recent years.

Muzzio argued that today no one party leader has the same degree of city-wide influence as they did back in the days of Tammany Hall.

“Clearly, they are considerably weakened,” he said. “The bottom line, however, is that these county organizations still have juice.”

Among those remaining powers, Muzzio said, are a county party's ability to both nominate or prevent candidates from appearing on any number of ballot lines, as well as their political clout in local judicial races. Party bosses also lead the vote in nominating candidates in special elections.

Those vestigial powers are what attract candidates to jump political parties, especially whenever the field is particularly crowded — as it is this year. Bloomberg went this route in 2009, running on the Republican Party line when he was a registered independent. And Adolfo Carrion, and independent candidate running for mayor this year has also courted GOP leadership, hoping to secure access for a run on the Republican ticket.

Anyone running for a citywide office anyone running for a citywide office as a member of a party to which he or she does not belong is required to get consent from the party’s county committees by obtaining what are known as Wilson Pakula certificates, named for a 1947 law.

Federal prosecutors say Smith schemed to get Republican party officials to get him Wilson Pakula certificates in exchange for thousands of dollars in bribes. Prosecutors say two of the party officials who accepted money in the scheme, Joseph J. Savino, the Bronx Republican Party chairman, and Vincent Tabone, vice chairman of the Queens Republican Party, were arrested on charges they accepted $40,000 in exchange for agreeing to get their county committees to put Smith on the Republican ballot line.

Republican City Councilman Dan Halloran, of Queens, was also arrested and accused of accepting bribes.

Savino and Tabone were both brought into the bribery scheme by Halloran, who an undercover FBI agent and a confidential informant worked on to connect with party leaders from the five boroughs, federal prosecutors said.

Smith's attorney has said his client would fight the charges, and a spokesman for the senator said Smith would be "vindicated."

Late Tuesday, the Queens Republican party sent out a statement that called the allegations against Tabone and Halloran “sad,” and that the chair has “asked Tabone to resign from his position on the committee pending the outcome of the proceedings.”

Halloran’s own office sent out a statement to reporters on Tuesday evening fighting back against the allegations, including that he was willing to direct Council money that would have normally gone to organizations in his community as part of another scheme.

In the complaint, Halloran is quoted as saying to a confidential witness that he had no problem redirecting the funding.

"That's politics, that's politics, it's all about how much. Not about whether or will, it's about how much, and that's our politicians in New York, they're all like that, all like that," the complaint quotes him as saying. "And they get like that because of the drive that the money does for everything else."

Halloran's office sent out a statement denying the allegations. “When the full story comes out, [Halloran] is confident that he will be vindicated," the statement said.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn’s office released a statement that called the allegations “a reprehensible abuse of the public's trust,” and that “if true, then the full weight of the legal system should be brought to bear on all parties implicated.” The Council will vote next week to strip Halloran of his committee assignments.

Smith, a member of the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference was also stripped of his chairmanship and committees. The leader of the IDC, state Sen. Jeff Klein, also sent out a statement implying that Smith might want to consider resigning from office. “Given the level of criminality alleged, I believe that Senator Smith should seriously consider whether or not he can continue to effectively serve his constituents,” he wrote.

The U.S. Attorney in Manhattan whose office is prosecuting the case, Preet Bharara, said the case was an example of how “a show-me-the-money culture seems to pervade every level of New York government.”

“Sen. Smith drew up the game plan and Republican Councilman Halloran essentially quarterbacked it by finding party chairmen who were wide open to receiving bribes,” he said at a press conference yesterday.

In the complaint against Smith and the other defendants, it appears that the senator was persisting with his goal of clinching a GOP ballot line even though party officials had already announced their support for or were working on behalf of other mayoral hopefuls.

Bronx chair Savino had announced his support for former Metropolitan Transportation Administration chief Joe Lhota. And Queens GOP chairman Phil Ragusa had already endorsed supermarket mogul John Catsimatidis, who had hired Tabone — Ragusa’s vice chair — as a campaign aide.

Catsimatidis told Politicker that the arrest of Tabone was "very, very sad."

Federal prosecutors say Smith worked with the undercover FBI officer posing as a real estate developer and a government informant to persuade party leaders to back his mayoral ambitions in spite of their endorsements. The leaders seemed ready and willing to commit for the right price.

“I run the Queens County Republican Party,” Tabone said to the agent after he was asked if he could secure a Wilson Pakula certificate as vice chair, according to the federal complaint. “Nobody else runs the party. I run the party.”

While Smith was prepared to spend thousands to get the Republican nomination, the apparent disarray and disorganization among the five county groups might inadvertently hurt the prospects of a Republican mayor and the party’s overall influence in City Hall.

Michael Krasner, a Queens College political science professor, predicted that the fallout from yesterday’s news could hamper citywide Republican campaigns for years to come. Krasner argued that New York Republicans have relied on Democrat scandals to portray themselves as an alternative to voters.

“This demonstrates that, despite all their protestations about being the party of virtue, the Republicans have demonstrated that they have all the same flaws and vices of the Democrats,” he said.

Muzzio also said that New York Republicans have ceded the moral high ground after yesterday's arrests, adding that it’s been a long-term decline.

“They are a rent-a-party,” Muzzio said. “So the fact that they’re caught in this web doesn’t surprise me, but at the same times it’s almost shocking in its hallucinatory qualities. I mean, what are they smoking?”

Last night's public safety mayoral forum featured citizen questions from six leaders with the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation, who were picked to represent the views of New Yorkers. After the program, we asked each questioner whether the candidates addressed their concerns and whether one of the mayoral hopefuls stood out on the crowded stage.

Blanche Romey

Member, Duncan Genns Senior Center, Brooklyn

QUESTION:  New York is a much safer city than it was more than 20 years ago. In the last two years, I’ve worked with local precinct commanders to shut down two drug dens on my block. But there are still parts of the city that remain unsafe. My question is will you drive crime lower than it is  today and what would be your three most important strategies?

Did the candidates answer your question? Well I give them a “fair” because we’re going to keep our eyes on them. This is our city and not theirs. They could do better.

Which candidate gave the best answer? Quinn. I like her. She understands what we are going through and that the main thing is sitting down with police to stop crime in our communities.

Brandon Gibson

Member, Hope Christian Center, Brooklyn

QUESTION: I have a question for all of you. Just out of a show of hands, how many of you have been stopped and frisked? Well I have, at least 20 times. What is your best estimate for how important stop, question and frisk has been in reducing crime?

Did the candidates answer your question? They’re politicians so they emotionalize things to get a response out of the crowd. But I appreciate those candidates who got to the core of the issue.

Which candidate answered your question best? Honestly I liked Joe Lhota and I liked Bill Thompson. I liked Lhota because his answer was measured and there was no pandering. Although Thompson emotionalized his answer, he also raised a good point in talking about his son.

David Haberer

Pastor, Church For All Nations, Manhattan

QUESTION: There’s no question that the city is safer now than when Commissioner Kelly came in. My question is simple. If you were elected mayor, would you keep Commissioner Kelly, yes or no?

Did the candidates answer your question? Some people did well. De Blasio had a point — do you teach an old dog new tricks? When do you bring in someone new to shake things up a bit? This question about an inspector general is a real question. This is New York City, it’s a mayor-centric town. That person has to be responsible for all things that happen to the city.

Which candidate answered your question best? I don’t know if there’s a best answer. At this point, it’s not an either/or, it’s you revealed your position, so how are you going to translate that into good government?

Kadeem Mullings

Sophomore, Andrew Jackson High School, Queens

QUESTION: Two months ago, I was heading from school to a church program when I was mugged. Too many students are victims, and that has to stop. My question is will you commit to providing more safe corridors for students, and, if more control is needed, how will you do it?

Did the candidates answer your question? They did, I thought. John Liu answered my question and so did Bill Thompson.

Which candidate answered your question best? Thompson. When he had referred to history, I felt he knows how hard it is.

Maribel Baez

Tenant, Melrose Houses, Bronx

QUESTION: These days crime is often indoors. It’s in the hallways, elevators and stairwells of NYCHA where 600,000 New Yorkers live. I’m tired of risking my safety and life when I go home. In your first year as mayor, will you make safety in NYCHA a priority and what are two or three specific things you will do?

Did the candidates answer your question? A little, not much. When one of them becomes mayor, we’ll see what happens.

Which candidate answered your question best? Thompson. He came straight out. But, then again, all of them said the same thing. I’m looking for someone that’s going to bring down crime in our buildings.

Richard Gibbs

Former police officer, Queens

QUESTION: The NYPD is one of the largest purchasers of guns. As mayor, will you lead the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies to push firearm manufacturers to end sales to dealers whose guns are frequently used in crimes in New York City?

Did the candidates answer your question? They all want to do something about it, although nobody gave me an exact plan. There’ll be more interviews and open discussions like this, so if we don’t see that in their rhetoric then there’s a problem somewhere.

Which candidate answered your question best? They all basically commented that they would do something. I didn’t hear something specific, but they all agreed that it’s a concern. 

NEW YORK — Comptroller John Liu appeared to win the popular vote for mayor at a candidate forum on public safety in Queens last night.

Liu, the latest Democratic candidate to officially announce his candidacy, got some of the loudest applause from the crowd as he reaffirmed his opposition to the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk crime reduction strategy.

Liu has said he would end the policy on day one, if elected mayor.

Stop-and-frisk is the focus of a federal trial that got underway earlier this week. In the class action lawsuit, the plaintiffs have argued that the NYPD unlawfully targets blacks and Hispanics with its policy of stopping, questioning and frisking people on the street.

Liu said stop-and-frisk should be abolished.

“There’s a cost in the humiliation that young black and brown men have to suffer,” he said at one point during the forum. “And, of course, there is a cost to taxpayers. We can do better and we will do better.”

Raheem Harley, 54, a local barber who works across the street from the church in Jamaica where the forum was held said he agreed with Liu. “You get much more in life by using honey rather than vinegar,” he said.

Sherri Kaughman, 49, who works for the Department of Social Services, also spoke well of Liu. “He’s on the line with the people in the community,” she said.

The latest in a round of mayoral forums, hundreds of New Yorkers packed First Presbyterian Church to hear seven top candidates including Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Republican nominee Joe Lhota discuss crime and public safety. But it was stop-and-frisk that got most of the attention.

While Liu took the most aggressive stance on stop-and-frisk, rival candidates stressed the importance that a good relationship between police and the community can have on improving policing tactics and lowering crime rates overall.

Though the majority of the audience Tuesday night appeared to favorite Liu, some still weren’t 100 percent sold on the candidate but said that the event helped move them closer towards a decision.

John Rodriguez, 49, said he cut his list down to four candidates — Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, former Comptroller Bill Thompson, Quinn and Liu — after attending the forum.

“These events are great because they give you an opportunity to actually see the candidates in person, candidates that you might have only heard or read about in the newspaper,” Rodriguez said.

Liu, who currently ranks last out of the four Democratic candidates, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll, needs every vote he can get. A federal investigation into his campaign’s fundraising, including the arrest of two aides, may also have hobbled his prospects.

But Liu was the by-and-large the audience favorite of the night, and even some of the youngsters in the audience were cheering him on.

“I think tonight was a big deal at refreshing our mind of what’s going on in our community, but also all over the city,” said Jahkai Smith, 11, a fifth grader at P.S. 13 in Brooklyn who recently participated in a stop-and-frisk panel at his school with the Amsterdam News.

Sharron Kennedy Frost, a teacher at P.S. 13, said that even some of her fifth graders have been stopped and frisked. She brought Smith and two of her fellow fifth graders — Reinaldo Bermudez and Kayla Smith — to the forum “to be aware of the candidates and their positions.”

“These kids are going to make decisions for me later on in life so I want them to be in tune,” Frost said. “They wanted to speak and ask questions, too.”

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Image of John Liu by Emily Field/CUNY. 

NEW YORK — Whoever takes the reins from Mayor Michael Bloomberg will have to reconcile the city’s historically low crime rates under Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and his department’s aggressive, often divisive tactics.

At a mayoral forum on public safety in Queens last night, seven candidates wrestled with the legacy of Kelly's department, answering questions from the public about stop-and-frisk tactics, the surveillance of Muslims and the creation of an inspector general to independently monitor the police.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn was the only candidate to raise her hand when the moderator, Errrol Louis of NY1, asked if anyone would keep Kelly in his job. 

“I have often said Ray Kelly has been an outstanding police commissioner. He’s taken crimes to lower rates than we ever imagined possible,” she explained as the crowd booed her. She later added: “I don’t think for people to work together you have to agree on everything.”

Quinn said that she supported legislation before the City Council to create an inspector general who would monitor the NYPD and have subpoena power — a proposal that the police have flatly rejected as unnecessary because of various levels of oversight already in place.

Related: Questions For the Candidates

She said she is confident the Council will approve the measure, co-sponsored by Councilmen Jumaane Williams and Brad Lander of Brooklyn, next month.

“You can have a lot of entities, and if they’re not getting it done, then we need more agencies,” she said, emphasizing that “systemic change” at the NYPD is necessary.

Rival candidates Bill De Blasio, a Democrat, and Joe Lhota, a Republican, disagreed that the solution to policy challenges at the NYPD, particularly stop-and-frisk, was the creation of a new office.

“I think building another bureaucracy on top of this problem of stop-and-frisk is not the right answer,” said Lhota, a former deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani who quit as chief of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to run for office.

De Blasio said that stop-and-frisk could be reformed and that police shouldn't be making stops based on a quota system, which has been one allegation surrounding the policy.

"We need to send a message to every young man of color that they are beloved, they are valuable, they are our future," he said. "You can't do that if you're constantly treating people as suspects." 

The crowd at First Presbyterian Church in Jamaica, Queens, seemed to cheer loudest when candidate John Liu, the city’s comptroller, spoke out against the practice.

"This is the largest system of racial profiling going on anywhere in America," said Liu, the most recent Democrat to officially announce he’s running. He was the only candidate to say he would abolish stop-and-frisk if he were elected.

NYPD data shows that nine out of 10 people stopped in 2012 were black or Hispanic men, and that the vast majority — 89 percent — were innocent. A federal judge began hearing a case Monday that could lead to the reform of the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk policy and the appointment of a monitor to oversee changes. The NYPD has argued that the strategy saves lives and reduces crime.

Related: Liu The Most Popular At Forum?

Last night’s forum was the last of three mayoral forums hosted by the New York Daily News and Metro Industrial Areas Foundation, a network of religious institutions, schools, senior centers and homeowners assocations. 

Voters asked tough questions and said they would hold the eventual mayor accountable.

Moderators selected eight local voters to ask the candidates about their thoughts on crime and safety.

Brandon Gibson, 27, a leader with the Hope Christian Center of Brooklyn , claimed he had been stopped and frisked by police more than 20 times and asked the candidates if they had ever been stopped-and-frisked. The answer was a unanimous no.

Bill Thompson, the city’s former comptroller and one of the four Democratic candidates for mayor, told a story of how he explained stop-and-frisk to his 15-year-old son, but when Liu asked Thompson to join him in calling for an end to the practice, Thompson grew animated and pounded his fists on the table.

Thompson said he would be the one to worry about parenting his son.

Republican hopeful John Catsimatidis, a billionaire supermarket magnate, said he would keep stop-and-frisk as is, though the crowd snickered as he floundered on the topic. After the debate, he said an imaging device would help police tell if a person is carrying a gun, and stop-and-frisk will eventually be unnecessary.

Most of the candidates discussed a proactive strategy that changes the relationship between the police and the community.

“We need to restore a community policing model that gets police officers out of the SWAT cars and walking the residential streets in our city,” said Adolfo Carrion, the Independent Party candidate and former Bronx borough president. “That requires more police officers.”

Thompson suggested the city would be able to afford to hire more police officers if the NYPD would staff precinct desks with civilians.

Maribel Baez, a tenant of Melrose Houses in the Bronx, said she wanted more security in New York City Housing Authority buildings.

“These days, crime is often indoors,” Baez said. “I’m tired of risking my safety and life when I go home.”

Baez explained that elevators, lobbies and dark stairwells are common places for crimes now. The candidates said improving safety at public housing would need to be a priority of the next mayor.

“When something is broken and not working, like our education system, you need to turn it upside down and fix it,” Carrion said. “The New York City Housing Authority needs a makeover and I intend to do it.”

Quinn also promised a shakeup in the leadership of NYCHA.

Kadeem Mullings, a sophomore at Andrew Jackson High School, said he was mugged recently on his walk home from school. He asked if candidates had plans to increase safety along the routes kids walk to and from schools.

The candidates were short on specific tactics, but said again that they would hire more police officers. De Blasio said children should have access to safe after-school programs.

“We should tax the wealthiest New Yorkers so we can have after-school programs for every middle school student who needs it,” he said.  

While the candidates disagreed on policy, they were unanimous in their commitment to reducing citywide crime.

“We can and must continue to drive crime down,” de Blasio said. “As we’ve gotten safer and safer, no one in this room, no one in the media, can pretend that that was evenly distributed.”

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Image of candidates at debate by Emily Field/CUNY. 

NEW YORK — Five mayor hopefuls contending for the Republican nomination debated critical issues facing the city including paid sick leave and income inequality — as well as the legacy of Rudy Giuliani — at a forum yesterday.

Each of the candidates labored to distinguish themselves while also promoting their appeal to party stalwarts as well as the overwhelmingly Democratic electorate of the city.

The participants in what was billed as the first Republican-only debate included Joe Lhota, the former Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief; Tom Allon, owner of Manhattan Media; former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion; supermarket magnate John Catsimatidis; and George McDonald, founder of the Doe Fund.

The event was hosted by Crain’s New York Business, and moderated by Greg David, a columnist for the publication.

At one point, David referred to Giuliani as a “jerk.” Lhota, who served as a deputy mayor under Giuliani, took umbrage with the comment, pointing out that Giuliani had elected at a time when the city was called “ungovernable” and “unmanageable.”

After the event, he told reporters: "Using a pejorative to describe Rudy Giuliani in a forum like this is unfortunate.”

Much of the debate, though, focused on economic issues including raising the minimum wage, the paid-sick leave bill that has been stalled in the Council and income inequality.

Lhota said he didn’t think it’s the job of city government to legislate a living wage or paid sick leave at a debate yesterday.

“Our children need to be properly trained so they can work in a global economy and pull themselves up the way we have done,” he said. “It’s not the role of the city government to determine that all private business should have an HR policy and that it should be determined by the City Council.”

And he didn’t think inequality in New York was noteworthy. “New York is not any different or any worse in inequality than what’s happening in the United States of America,” he said.

Carrion, who is technically unaffiliated with the Republican Party but has been promoting himself to their leadership as an independent-minded alternative to the current crop of contenders, said inequality was the result of “a failed education system.”

Allon and Catsimatidis both proposed a tiered minimum wage, with workers 23 and under earning the current minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, and a higher wage for workers 24 and up.

For Carrion, a minimum wage requirement is not a solution.

“The living wage bill became a killer for the Kingsbridge Armory,” he said, referring to the plan to turn the long-empty Bronx armory into a mall, which failed after developers refused to agree to a minimum wage requirement of $10 an hour.

He seemingly reversed himself later in the debate when talking about renegotiating contracts for city workers, which expired in 2010.

“We have to index raises and benefits packages to the cost of living,” he said. “You can’t have a city workforce that can’t afford to live here.”

McDonald drew on his experience as founder of the Doe Fund, which provides job training for the formerly homeless and incarcerated, to argue against raising the minimum wage and mandating a paid sick leave policy.

“If the minimum wage were $50 an hour it wouldn’t make a bit of difference to a man or woman who doesn’t have a job,” he said. “At the Doe Fund, we’ve always paid above minimum wage, and our graduates get jobs that pay over $11 an hour. Why do we need government to create an artificial wage?”

All the candidates agreed that the next mayor will need to fix the city’s education system.

Lhota, who left his job running the MTA to run for mayor, noted that the city’s education budget doubled in 10 years with little improvement in test scores.

Allon called for better teacher training and retention. “Fifty percent of teachers leave within five years,” he said. “We are committing educational malpractice by allowing our teachers to leave so quickly.”

Catsimatidis proposed vocational training for high-school students.

New York City property taxes drew universal condemnation.

Lhota said the biggest problem with the current tax system is lack of transparency.

“No one has any idea as to how the assessments are being done,” he said. “The Department of Finance is told how much they have to generate by the Office of Management and Budget, and then they back into the number.”

Allon and Carrion suggested that tax assessments were unfair to outer-borough property owners, but stopped short of calling for higher taxes.

“It’s not fair that people living in buildings on Park Avenue pay less than people in outer boroughs,” said Allon.

Carrion, who has a home on City Island in the Bronx, said his parents’ property taxes on their Rockland County home are six times his.

In closing, the moderator asked each candidate to explain his Republican credentials, but referred to former Mayor Giuliani as a “jerk.” In response, the candidates took turns praising Giuliani’s legacy.

Lhota said his experience in the private and public sector gave him an ideal background to build on “the transformation of New York City that started with Rudy Giuliani.”

“We need to be fiscally conservative, we need to try new ideas, we need to be socially progressive,” said Lhota. “It’s out of sync with the national Republican Party, but after all, we are New York City. We are always leading the charge forward.”

Allon, who changed his affiliation from Democrat to Republican in October 2012, touted his appeal as a “fusion candidate.” Allon, who has been endorsed by the Liberal Party, said Giuliani’s 1993 victory margin came from Liberal Party voters.

But he was not the only candidate promoting crossover appeal.

Catsimatidis also said he could appeal to constituencies from both parties, saying “a pure Republican cannot win in this city.”

“I’m probably one of the only candidates running for mayor that can sit down, put my arm around both sides and make a deal, he said.”

Carrion, who is running with the backing of the Independence Party which helped Michael Bloomberg to victory in the last election, said he was frustrated by the partisan gridlock on the federal and state level, and that his ideas square with the Republican platform.

“I am a social progressive, which makes a northeastern Republican. And I’m a fiscal conservative, which makes me a northeastern Republican,” Carrion said.

In an audience poll, 63 percent said Lhota would be most likely to win a general election. Catsimatidis came in second with 20 percent, and McDonald with 10.

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Photos by Irina Ivanova.