Heard in the Hall

Kenyatta Johnson defends Council win

State Rep. Kenyatta Johnson, the apparent winner of the tight race for the Democratic nomination to replace Anna Verna in City Council, asked a Common Pleas judge Tuesday to throw out an election challenge from his closest competitor, Barbara Capozzi.

9 comments

Kenyatta Johnson defends Council win

POSTED: Tuesday, June 14, 2011, 6:33 PM

Bob Warner

Capozzi, 40 votes behind Johnson in the official count, filed a petition last week suggesting that the results should be modified or tossed because the name of another candidate, Damon Roberts, had been improperly stickered over on some machines. Roberts had decided to drop out of the race a week before the May 17 primary, too late to remove his name from the ballot.

Johnson filed a response Tuesday saying that Capozzi's challenge was not specific enough to meet the standards established for election contests by the state Supreme Court.

Capozzi had suggested widespread problems with Roberts's name being covered in both the 36th and 40th wards. But Johnson's lawyer, Kevin Greenberg, noted that one of Capozzi co-petitioners in the election challenge, Gregory Moses, was a paid inspector for the Board of Elections, responsible for inspecting 17 divisions inside the 40th ward. Moses signed reports that identified sticker problems in only three of the 17 divisions he visited, according to Johnson’s filing.

Common Pleas Court Judge Allen Tereshko has set a July 6th hearing in the dispute.

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9 comments

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Comments (9)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:10 PM, 06/14/2011

Kenyatta Johnson is an embarassment to the 2nd district, he will stop gentrification in favor of those who vote for him and as we know the Point Breeze section is drug infested etc. and they are his voters

— the commodore

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:55 AM, 06/15/2011

Barbara is right to challenge a 40 vote margin. It is possible one lone division supervised by a renegade judge of election, could have fudged the results. Go for it Barb.

— Francis J Graff

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:26 AM, 06/15/2011

Capozzi's theory is all the white must have voted for me and all the black people voted for someone black.
She is going to prove this how?
She should have spent her money and time on getting a hundred more voters before the election was over.
Sore loser with a large dose of racial coded phony legal argument.

— canaldog

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0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 10:08 AM, 06/15/2011

Kenyatta is bought and paid for by johnny doc just ask him how progressive do u think johnson will be what a disgrace

— the commodore

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 1:08 PM, 06/15/2011

hmmm... weren't there 2 or 3 black candidates in this race. so conceivable the black vote was split. and she still couldn't beat him even if all the white voters voted for her and the black vote was possibly split. just saying though...

— ihatenewyorkers

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 3:34 PM, 06/15/2011

(a) It was an ugly campaign, there's no doubt about it, with lots of jerks trying to use race to stoke voters' fears (notably the candidates didn't engage in this nonsense). (b) Race wasn't that much of a factor in the outcome -- Johnson did quite well in the 8th Ward, which is predominantly white. Those who would like to make this a race thing, really should check the facts first.

— chuck.goodwin