Norwood News

City Council candidate Tony Cassino is flying down the Grand Concourse in his red Nissan hatchback on his way to a debate, one of several between him and his opponent. Weaving between cars, Cassino gives a drive-by tour of his childhood, talks about campaign issues and, hold on a minute, he needs to call somebody to get directions.

“Write this down,” he says to the reporter sitting shotgun. “You got it? Okay, where were we?”

Such is the fast-paced, multi-tasking life of Anthony Perez Cassino, a.k.a. Tony Cassino, a rookie candidate who’s making an insurgent bid to unseat an incumbent, Oliver Koppell, who boasts a long record of service. The two will vie for victory in the Democratic primary on Sept. 15, tantamount to victory in the heavily Democratic district.

Regardless of whether he wins or not, Cassino, who has matched Koppell dollar for dollar in fund-raising and garnered a couple of key endorsements, is a Bronx success story.

Valentine Ave. to Riverdale

He was raised in the northwest Bronx by his Puerto Rican mother who moved to the states in the 1950s and often struggled to hold down a job. His mother split with his Italian father when Cassino (it’s an Italian name) was very young, leaving him with somewhat of an identity crisis.

“My father wasn’t around and I really had no contact with that side of the family,” he says. “I didn’t know any other Cassinos.”
Cassino, 44, managed to stay mostly out of trouble while living in what’s become a very tough neighborhood around 198th Street and Valentine Avenue. He graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in Kingsbridge, then went on to Fordham University and NYU Law School.

After a few years working as a corporate lawyer on Wall Street, Cassino dipped his toe into politics, taking a job as an aide to Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz in 1994. Following a two-year stint with Dinowitz, Cassino was appointed to the State Bar Association as director of pro bono affairs. In 2000, Cassino took a job, which he still holds, managing the pro bono work of lawyers at the Manhattan law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCoy.

In 1993, Cassino moved to Riverdale, where he now lives with his wife, two young children and his mother. In 2001, Cassino joined Community Board 8, where he would serve as chairman from 2004 to 2008. As chairman, Cassino also took a seat on the monitoring committee for the Croton Filtration Plant, a project controversially sited in Van Cortlandt that is now vastly over budget and behind schedule. (Both Cassino and Kopppell argue that the other didn’t do enough to stop the plant in the first place.)

A Political Rival Emerges

In 2001, Cassino also helped start a Riverdale political club, the Northwest Bronx Democratic Alliance, to rival the entrenched Benjamin Franklin Club, which counts as its members all of the area’s primary elected officials, including Koppell, Dinowitz and Congressman Eliot Engel.

Two years ago, Cassino decided to run for the 11th District Council seat, which covers all of Riverdale, but also parts of Norwood, Bedford Park and Woodlawn.

At the time, he thought the seat would be wide open, with Koppell’s second term ending this year. But last fall, Mayor Bloomberg made a push to extend term limits from two to three terms and Koppell was a major ally in the effort. Twice before, the public had voted to keep terms for city elected officials at two through a citywide referendum. A divided Council approved the extension and, soon after, Koppell announced he would run for re-election.

Cassino highlights Koppell’s support of the term limits extension as a prime example of everything that is wrong about politics in the Bronx and elsewhere. He says the “state of politics is at an all-time low.”

“I’m tired of political interests being put ahead of our interests, the people’s interests,” he says. “[The extension of] term limits is a great example of that. It says to the public, ‘My career is more important than your vote.”

Recently, Koppell has been in attack mode, filing complaints with the Campaign Finance Board and contacting the media to say Cassino is “skirting” campaign rules by using nonprofit groups and unions to help his campaign. (His campaign, however, has not received any violations or reprimands and Cassino says his campaign is totally above board.)

Cassino says this is the sign of a desperate campaign. “[Koppell’s campaign] is just throwing stuff on the wall and hoping it sticks and even if it doesn’t, it might appear to stick,” he said over the phone last Friday.

“It’s the sign of a candidate who’s out of ideas and has been for years,” he added. “Why isn’t he talking about real issues? It’s because he loses on the real issues.”

Breaking a Vicious Cycle

As an example of the work he would do as a councilman, Cassino points to how he created a coalition of public and private schools in the Riverdale and Kingsbridge areas that allows them to share space and resources. “They’re all stronger because of it,” he says.

The biggest complaint he hears from voters, especially in the Norwood and Bedford Park areas, is that the city doesn’t respond to them when there’s a problem in their neighborhood, whether it’s dirty parks or gang violence.

As councilman, Cassino says he would bring attention to the problem by “stitching together” community leaders and organizers, get them to articulate their concerns, and then standing with them to demand a response from city agencies. “I think it’s a vicious cycle and we have to break that cycle and say, ‘that’s unacceptable.’”

Being an advocate for his constituents would be his biggest role, but he also has some ideas for what he wants to accomplish policy-wise. He says he would work hard to get rent regulations back in the hands of the city, rather than the state. As part of mayoral control for schools, he would work give more power and autonomy to the Community Education Councils, putting them under control of the borough presidents and not the Education Department. He would also make the distribution of member items (discretionary funds) more equitable between Council members.

It’s hard to tell without polls, but Cassino seems to be gaining momentum. He recently opened up a new campaign office on Gun Hill Road at DeKalb Avenue, and is also enjoying the support and help of SEIU 1199, a large and influential health care workers union.

Angela Doyle, an organizer with 1199, which endorsed Koppell in the last election cycle, said, “We endorsed Tony because he represents change.”

Driving back from the debate to his Norwood campaign office on Gun Hill Road, Cassino passes a campaign poster of Koppell in a bus shelter.

He calls the ad “fluff” and says he’s taking a hands-on approach to the campaign by spending seven days a week knocking on doors and talking to people. He wants voters to see, he says, that “I’m right here in front of you, ask me a question, I’ll answer it.”