Courtesy the Law Office of Donna Furey 

Political insiders in Queens are stirring about the upcoming election for the Surrogate judge, a spot that comes up for election every 16-years. Judge Peter Kelly is the outgoing judge and the court, with about 50 employees, takes care of the disposition of wills and estates. Donna Furey, the Astoria attorney and civic leader is considered the one candidate with experience in this type of law. This week she abruptly suspended her campaign for the post. No word on why, but insiders opine that votes for her would now go to Queens Democratic Party favorite Cassandra Johnson. “These kinds of things happen all the time,” said one judicial insider we spoke with Monday evening. “The party leaders need to continue to maintain control of that court. There was possibly some kind of agreement which made her and the ‘party’ happy,” the insider said.

Cassandra Johnson, a Supreme Court Judge since January, might just have an easy path to victory. Wendy Lee, a Manhattan judge, put up by Hiram Monserrate’s camp, has been working community boards this past month. She showed up at the Middle Village Community Board meeting to introduce herself. People at the meeting were certainly confused as to why she was allowed to speak as she did not say that she was running for any position. “ I just wanted to introduce myself,” she said.

Rules for running for a position of judge are quite different than what’s allowed when running for political office. But records show she has raised almost two hundred thousands of dollars. Johnson has about a tenth of that.

After we posted about our Roosevelt Avenue, Jackson Heights walk with Assembly candidate Hiram Monserrate last week, we got some sparking comments on social media about why we would give this guy any press at all. 

When we sat down with Hiram, he wanted to clear the air about his reputation and questioned a recent article from the Ledger which referred to his past legal troubles. After explaining that our readers are savvy and leaving it out could signify that we were trying to hide his past, he talked about his new life with a wife and young child. He also showed us that the part of his past life that has not changed is his love and fighting spirit for his community. And we will tell you something that is only talked about in the highest of Queens political circles: Monserrate is ‘relevant’ and he has a following which many in the democratic clubs fear fractures Queens democratic politics. He is running for Jeff Aubry’s seat. Larinda Hooks, who is well known at Elmcore, is the choice of county — and Aubry. Stay tuned for that race.

Internet trollers who minimize the message from our reporting about the sex workers and child labor tragedy going on in his neighborhood should focus on the message: that area needs attention. It doesn’t need a sweep once every six months. The illegal activity is rampant and for those living near Roosevelt Avenue, to have a reasonable quality of life shouldn’t be asking too much.

By the way another nugget he suggested is that the MTA should be an agency, not an authority, which doesn’t have the oversight and agency, would. Not a bad thought.

Carl Heastie, the leader of the NY State Assembly is doubling down on his notion on not recognizing that people who loot and harm retail workers should not be considered felons. Mayor Adams disagrees. But the power the Assembly Speaker wields means it goes nowhere. The missing piece in Heastie’s stance is that cops continue to lose the ability to perform their job. It means workers at these retail stores don’t pursue shoplifters. It means that what we continue to witness in drug stores all over the city the lawlessness of looting will not change. Don’t wonder why we will see store after store have simple everyday items behind locked glass shelves. It takes ten minutes to track down a store worker to open the glass showcase to get a bottle of aspirin… if you can even find a drug store within walking distance from your home anymore.

We don’t think reformers of criminal justice had this in mind. If criminal justice is truly to be reformed, laws and procedures like this have to be rolled back. The ‘new common sense’ goes too far when real criminality is not dealt with in a true ‘common sense’ manner.