Alayeto, the only Bronx-based candidate who aims to secure the City Council seat representing East Harlem and the South Bronx, is officially on the ballot for the Democratic primaries, judges ruled on Wednesday.

Community Board 1 Chair Clarisa Alayeto, who is running for the local City Council seat. (Photo courtesy of DREAM/X.)

A version of this story was originally published by the Mott Haven Herald, a student-powered news outlet at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism covering the Bronx neighborhoods of Mott Haven, Melrose and Port Morris.

Clarisa M. Alayeto, the only Bronx-based candidate who aims to secure the City Council seat representing East Harlem and the South Bronx, is officially on the ballot for the Democratic primaries, judges ruled on Wednesday.

The Mott Haven Herald previously reported Alayeto’s legal challenges in securing her ballot spot after an April 28 decision from the state Supreme Court upheld her removal from the primaries. Now Alayeto, who chairs Bronx Community Board 1 and co-chairs the NYC Public Health Advisory Council, has won a complicated legal battle to defend her candidacy. So far, she has secured the most campaign donations from Bronxites in the highly competitive race.

Alayeto did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

Since filing her petition with the New York City Board of Elections on April 2 to be in the June primaries, Alayeto encountered trouble. Her lawyer, Jorge Luis Vasquez, first submitted a cover letter with the incorrect zip code of her residence.

Vasquez rectified the error by submitting a new cover letter after the Board of Elections prompted him to do so, but there was yet another mistake: her name was misspelled as “Claris” instead of “Clarisa.” The BOE disqualified Alayeto from the race on April 11 given that “the amended cover sheet had errors not present in the original filing.” Soon after, several legal challenges ensued. 

The Appellate Division ruled against an April 28 decision by Judge Jeffrey H. Pearlman, who had rejected Alayeto’s attempts to overturn the BOE’s decision and her claims that the objections from members of the Ending Homelessness and Building a Better NYC PAC (EHBB) “lack standing.” 

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Notably, given the central role typographical errors appeared to play in Alayeto’s disqualification, Pearlman’s written decision to keep her off the ballot was riddled with misspellings of her last name as “Aleyto” instead of “Alayeto.” 

The Appellate Division judges sided with Alayeto on Wednesday and rejected the BOE’s grounds for removing her from the ballot in the first place. They noted the cover letter’s errors were not “fatal defects” but rather a “scrivener’s error“—the sheet itself “substantially complied with the Election Law.”

Alayeto’s back-and-forth with the BOE and elections commissioners for the City of New York only grew more complicated when the Wall Street-backed political action committee, Ending Homelessness and Building a Better NYC, entered the fray.  

Tomás Ramos, the PAC’s founder and CEO, first filed objections on April 7 against Alayeto and four other candidates in the District 8 race: Elsie Encarnacion, Nicholas Reyes, Raymond Santana and Federico Colon.

The PAC endorses Wilfredo López, one of Alayeto’s competitors, and has spent $145,143 in digital ads and mailers for his campaign. It also endorses four other City Council candidates across the city. It has not yet filed any objections outside of District 8, the BOE’s objection ledger shows. 

“In the course of Ending Homelessness and Building a Better NYC’s standard review of petition submissions to the Board of Elections, we found various instances of filing irregularities that do not abide by election law and in some cases align with serious allegations of election fraud,” wrote Michael Brady, spokesperson for the group, in an emailed statement. “This is about protecting the integrity of our elections—not just for this race, but for every race moving forward.”

The latest ruling from the Appellate Division noted that EHBB members “did not comply with Election Law” while filing the specifications of their objections and that the Supreme Court “erred in dismissing” Alayeto’s petition after she did not mention the PAC as respondents in her previous appeal to reinstate her name on the primary ballot.

The PAC’s allegations against Alayeto include that her campaign collected invalid signatures for her petition to be on the ballot. The PAC made similar allegations against other District 8 candidates, including Nicholas Reyes and Federico Colon. No objections have been filed against López, according to a BOE objection ledger. 

Reyes, an East-Harlem native vying for the City Council seat, said the legal challenges set by the PAC have been troubling. 

“I want to say to all the candidates who are going through this—listen, hold your head up and we’re going to do this together,” said Reyes. “Some of the actions that have transpired towards my campaign through legal actions have been downright evil, in my opinion, and that’s something we cannot have—we cannot have an elected official that’s willing to go that far.”

EHBB’s challenges against Alayeto and the four other District 8 candidates have not been successful, THE CITY reported.

To reach City Limits’ editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

The post Clarisa M. Alayeto’s Bid for City Council is Officially on the Ballot, Judges Rule appeared first on City Limits.

Now it’s a playoff series.

An old saying suggests a series isn’t a series until the road team wins a contest on the opponent’s home floor. That actually occurred in Game 1, when the Warriors won at Target Center.

But a truer indication that things are up and running are what occurred Wednesday, when both head coaches started to complain about the officiating.

That didn’t take long.

Wolves coach Chris Finch fired first. Asked about Golden State’s rebounding the day after the Warriors grabbed 10 more boards than Minnesota, Finch said the Warriors “do a lot of fouling, shoving, holding, pushing and tacking Rudy (Gobert.)“

“That’s clear. We sent a bunch of those clips into the league,” Finch said. “In fact, I’m not sure I know another player in the league with Rudy’s pedigree that is allowed to be physically beaten on the way he is. And so we’ve got to address that one way or another.”

Finch said the Timberwolves will “try to take justice into our own hands whenever we can.”

“I think that’s the nature of a physical sport, but by the same token, my God, you should see some of these clips,” Finch said. “They look like pulling guards and linemen out there just taking shots at Rudy.”

Throughout the Lakers series, Finch noted Minnesota wasn’t going to worry itself with the officiating. But that’s easier done when a team is in the driver’s seat of a series. The second a coach senses a disadvantage, he’s likely to bring it to the forefront.

When made aware of Finch’s comments Wednesday, Golden State coach Steve Kerr jokingly responded, “I didn’t see a single foul on any of those plays.”

“No, yeah, there’s a lot of physicality in the lane, for sure,” Kerr added, “and they definitely could have called a couple of those.”

But Kerr has his complaints, as well. The coach noted he was upset for the opening 10 minutes of Tuesday’s bout as he watched Minnesota get ultra-physical with Steph Curry as the star guard tried to move away from the ball, a continuation of what Houston did to Curry during Golden State’s first-round series.

Kerr said Curry “hasn’t had any freedom of movement” throughout the playoffs.

“Everybody’s fouling each other. I just feel like (the officials) have a really hard job because playoff basketball is — yes, it’s physical and they’re going to allow more, but I think they could have called a foul six, seven straight possessions with them guarding Steph. So, I’ve got my complaints, too. Trust me. We all do,” the Warriors coach said. “And this is how it works in the playoffs.

“We watch the tape, we see all the fouls on them that aren’t called. They watch the tape, they see all the ones on us that weren’t called. It’s a physical game. It’s just going to be, and both teams have to adjust. I’m getting ready to send my own clips in to the league.”

Kerr said he watches teams consistently “bear-hugging” Curry, and there is no whistle. He also cited a play in which Donte DiVincenzo was constantly bumping Jimmy Butler when Butler was posting up on the interior.

“I’m sure Chris’ complaints are warranted, just like mine are,” he said. “Both teams are going to have a lot to complain about at the end of every playoff game. I don’t know what the solution is, other than what I just said: Can you call stuff early to set a tone and try to get both teams to understand where the line is? And that’s the best that the officials can do because, like I said, you call every foul, it’s a parade to the foul line, nobody wants to watch that, either. So, they have a very difficult job.”

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By LEANNE ITALIE

NEW YORK (AP) — Like all brides, Elana Goldin had high hopes for her wedding photos and video.

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“I loved their images,” she said of the company picked by her dad and future mother-in-law. “They were award-winning. They were in a ton of magazines. I really liked the vibe of the owner.”

The feeling didn’t last.

The photographer, who showed up 45 minutes late with a team of two, wasn’t the owner, as the company had promised. She was someone Goldin had never spoken to. The fill-in had a bad attitude from the start, said Goldin, who lives in Chicago and got married last May in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

Among other things, the photographer criticized Goldin’s bridal shoes, jewelry and perfume as second rate for traditional close-up shots, and she picked apart the bouquets without permission to get images before the ceremony.

“She and the florist got into a fight. There was friction from the moment she walked in,” Goldin said.

Looking back, Goldin said she would have done a few things differently.

We asked wedding planners and photographers to also weigh in on how they think photo disaster can be averted.

Don’t be afraid to voice concerns

Goldin wishes she had been more assertive. She had provided a shotlist ahead of time, but the photographer assigned to the bride and bridesmaids started making demands on where she wanted Goldin to pose.

“I’m in my dress and she said let’s take a picture in the shower, because it was a very big, glamorous shower. My sister was like, absolutely not. Not happening,” Goldin recalled.

At the venue, the photographer insisted on taking photos outside. The weather was rainy and windy, and the lighting was dreary.

“It was disgusting outside. My dress got all dirty at the bottom. My hair starts frizzing. The bridesmaids came out and our hair was blowing everywhere. The pictures were awful,” Goldin said.

Don’t hire friends or family unless they’re pros

You love them dearly. But New Jersey-based wedding planner Danielle Rothweiler of Rothweiler Event Design advises against it.

“I always tell my couples, stop hiring your friends and family because if something goes wrong, think of that conversation that you’re going to have. No one wants that,” she said.

One client took up an uncle on his offer to shoot her wedding as his gift. He missed half the shots and didn’t understand the importance of timing. He also spent a good amount of time just being a guest and not taking pictures at all.

“She never said anything. The pictures weren’t great,” Rothweiler said. “I have a wedding coming up this year and half the vendor list is friends and family and I’m terrified. I’m so scared about it.”

Read up on the process and get technical

Michelle Jackson, who owns the photo vendor Bambino International based in Cincinnati, Ohio, said some basic questions about equipment can go a long way.

Make sure your photographers have back up camera bodies and other crucial equipment of the same quality as their primary gear, she said. Cameras with dual slots for SD cards or XQD cards are optimal.

“Everything’s being copied onto two cards,” she said. “The worst disaster for a photographer is you have no pictures at all because of equipment failure. Couples don’t think about that.”

In the same vein, San Francisco wedding photographer Oscar Urizar, the proprietor of Red Eye Collection in San Francisco, said couples should ensure they have the rights to personal use of their photos. That allows them to print, share and display them for non-commercial purposes.

“I started in the film industry. If you didn’t get your negatives, you couldn’t print your photos. It’s kind of that same thinking,” he said.

Plan group shots meticulously ahead of time

There’s nothing more chaotic than organizing group shots at weddings. The larger the wedding, the more chaotic it can be.

Wedding planner Tirusha Dave, founder of the luxury market Bravura Brides, serves South Asian couples around the world with guest lists up to 300 or more.

She puts together a shareable document and asks couples to list every person expected in each group shot, but she doesn’t stop there. She has them designate one person to serve as wrangler. The wrangler must know every person in the group by sight so they can be chased down if necessary.

“I tell my couples, I’m really great at what I do but I don’t know your second cousins, your extended aunts and uncles,” Dave said.

Each group is assigned a number that’s announced when it’s time to gather.

Good photos mean a schedule must be kept

Dallas-area photographer April Pinto, founder and co-owner of April Pinto Photography, has a stable of shooters. They can juggle up to four weddings a week.

They sink or swim by how well the timeline is observed. Not an easy task, Pinto said, “when you have a coordinator timing you and the mother of the groom who wasn’t on the Zoom call making her own agenda and stressing out the bride. We’re in the middle of all of that.”

But that’s just part of the challenge. The other part?

The rowdy bridesmaid, Pinto said. She’s somebody who might have had a bit too much Champagne and feels like she should be in charge.

“If a bridesmaid is feeling a little too spicy, we try to give her tasks,” Pinto said. “I find that keeping people in general engaged and involved can go a long way. You can turn all that stress into a happy time.”

A former contract employee for the city of Lakeland charged with stealing – and then pawning – several items from the city was given 18 months of supervised probation on Wednesday and put into a diversion program.

Shane Lawson Jacks, 44, of Lakeland, was charged with felony theft in Washington County District Court in August for stealing three chainsaws, two trimmers and a leaf blower from a city building on June 10 while working for People Service, the company that operates the city’s water treatment plant and also provides public works-related services.

The stolen items were valued at $2,180, and officials were able to identify Jacks by pawn shop surveillance video and his Minnesota driver’s license. The pawned items, with serial numbers that matched items missing from the city, totaled $1,410, according to the criminal complaint.

Jacks, who was fired by People Service, was accepted into Washington County’s diversion program, which allows first-time offenders to avoid convictions by successfully completing the conditions of probation. Jacks must complete 24 hours of community work service or three days on the county’s sentence to service program and pay $1,479.98 in restitution to the city.

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