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Scoopy’s Notebook, Week of Aug. 17, 2017

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G.O.P. candidate Jimmy McMillan is chosing not to join the Democratic District 2 Council candidates at the Theater for the New City debate, but is raring to take on the primary election winner. His key campaign plank remains “The Rent Is Too Damn High”…and, yes, it certainly is! McMillan still lives in the East Village on St. Mark’s Place where he’s battling with his landlord over whether his apartment should remain rent-regulated. Photo by Rainer Turim

Primary news flash: And then there were five. … Erin Hussein told us Wednesday that she is dropping out of the Democratic primary race for District 2 City Council and will be endorsing one of the other candidates for the East Village seat. Hussein is an attorney and a tenant leader at Stewart House, at E. 10th St. and Fourth Ave. … In other District 2 race news, Jimmy McMillan, who coined the memorable (and totally spot-on) slogan “The Rent Is Too Damn High,” has declined our invitation to participate in Monday evening’s candidates debate at Theater for the New City from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. His campaign manager, Casey Hill, told us that, basically, McMillan is happy to let the Dems mix it up among themselves without him, but then would be up for debating the primary’s eventual winner. “I’m guessing it’s going to be Carlina,” Hill quipped, referring to District Leader Carlina Rivera, former legislative director for the district’s current councilmember, Rosie Mendez, who has less than five months left before being term-limited out of office.

Post-Squadron mob squad: Assemblymember Yuh-Line Niou says she is not interested in running for Daniel Squadron’s former state Senate seat, following the latter’s resignation last Friday. But we’re hearing some more names now as possible Squadron successors, including former Lower Manhattan Councilmember Alan Gerson, Rosie Mendez and even Margarita Lopez, who held Mendez’s East Village City Council seat before her.

Hospital health survey: Mount Sinai Health System is conducting an online survey as part of a “community needs assessment” for its new Mount Sinai Downtown health network, of which a new M.S.B.I. mini-hospital at E. 13th St. and Second Ave. will be the centerpiece. The survey is for Manhattan residents living below 34th St. and will be open until Aug. 31. The survey asks respondents what type of medical services they feel are most important to them and which ones they and family members have used in the past year, among other things. Find the survey at https://www.mountsinai.org/locations/downtown . Terri Cude and Jamie Rogers, the respective chairpersons of Community Boards 2 and 3, are both urging people to fill out the survey and say it’s important to do.

Park perils: The heat is on the Central Park Conservancy after an elm tree toppled in the Uptown park at W. 62nd St. on the West Drive on Tuesday, critically injuring a mom who suffered a broken neck while shielding her small children. Meanwhile, Washington Square Park also saw a tree scare of its own this past Sunday. Around 5 p.m., a limb fell off a tree on the park’s western side, near the Holley Monument, striking a woman who was sitting on a bench. Veteran Village activist Doris Diether, as usual, was on the scene. “I came just after the branch was on top of her,” she told us. “They had just taken the branch off of her. It was at least 15 feet long, maybe 4 inches thick. They had her on a stretcher waiting for the ambulance. The musicians told me what happened. They had just stopped playing. The guy who was on the front page of The Villager — Rasheed — told me what happened,’ she said, referring to horn-blowing double threat Rasheed Richard Howard. “It’s funny, because the day before, they were cutting off branches there on the other side of the path.” Meghan Lalor, a Parks Department spokesperson, told us, “A thorough inspection of all trees in Washington Square Park was completed earlier this month, and we are in the process of pruning more [of the] approximately 270 trees in this park. Although the tree in question was inspected, no conditions were found that would warrant emergency pruning.” As usual, Diether was just where the action was. “I usually wander around the park once a day,” the octogenarian activist noted. “I saw the crowd and then I saw the branch.” She also was there on the morning of Sun., Aug. 6, when Tucker, 32, a longtime park denizen, was found dead. “I saw the body under the tarp,” Diether said. “They said I knew who he was, but I couldn’t see him. But they tell me he was a nice guy.” There was also some action — not a branch, but a club — on Monday. “There was a guy chasing a guy around the park with a club,” she said. “I don’t know what that was all about. He was a white guy, he didn’t have a shirt on and he was chasing a guy wearing a red shirt. People were scattering.” In this case, it sounds like that was a pretty good idea!

R.I.P., Erin: Judson Memorial Church held a memorial for former East Village squatter activist Erin O’Connor, 50, this past Sunday afternoon at El Jardin del Paraiso, between E. Fourth and Fifth Sts. and Avenues C and D. The Villager’s obituary on O’Connor in last week’s issue has had a huge online readership, showing how much she was loved and also the reach of the squatter / homesteader community.

Corrections: An article in last week’s issue on the planned E. 14th St. “tech hub” said that Civic Hall — which will run the community-oriented tech space — had given money to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s re-election campaign. In fact, it’s Andrew Rasiej, the founder and C.E.O. of Civic Hall, who has contributed to de Blasio — specifically, $4,950 this past May. In addition, the original version of the “tech hub” article stated that Civic Hall would have three floors of the 20-story building. In fact, it will have six floors. … Also, a photo caption in last week’s issue about the mini-gardens along the Sixth Ave. bike lane incorrectly said that Shirley Secunda is co-chairperson of the Community Board 2 Traffic and Transportation Committee. As she reminds us, she is the committee’s sole chairperson and has been for the last 10 years.