As it heads toward the finish line, the crowded race for the Bronx’s 14th District Council seat is sprouting more subplots and mysteries than a season of “Lost.”

In the last 10 days, the incumbent successfully turned an opponent into an ally. A young upstart who seemed to be gaining momentum dropped out mysteriously. Another candidate deflected propositions from all sides. And yet another candidate who it seems no one has heard of came completely out of the blue to make a last minute effort to get on the ballot.

“This situation is very unique,” said Miguel Santana, a first-time candidate in the race who is fighting a serious funding disadvantage.

Santana, one of five candidates still in the race, was speaking on his cell phone from the New York City Board of Elections headquarters in downtown Manhattan where he was sorting out issues related to the petition signatures he had filed in order to get his name on the ballot.

In order to get on the Sept. 15 primary ballot, all Council candidates must file at least 900 good petition signatures (see page 2). They were due last Thursday.

The day before, on Wednesday morning, the incumbent, Maria Baez, announced she had a new campaign manager, former opponent Yesenia Polanco.

On Wednesday night, Yorman Nunez, a 20-year-old former community organizer, gave a rousing and very political speech after working tirelessly to gather the necessary signatures to get on the ballot. Two days later, on Friday afternoon, Nunez announced he had not submitted his signatures and was dropping out of the race.

Then, on Saturday, Santana went down to the Board of Elections to discover that not only had three separate objections to his signatures been filed, but that one of them had been filed by a mysterious candidate named Kevin Ennis who had filed his own petitions.

“He’s a plant,” Santana said of Ennis, adding that his presence was probably part of the “gamesmanship” going on. Nunez said he’d never heard of him, either.    

Santana says he’s been lobbied to both stay in the race (by Baez’s camp) and to drop out of it (by the camp of the most endorsed opposition candidate, Fernando Cabrera’s), but that he remains steadfast and committed to the race, no matter how crazy it gets.
In other 14th District developments:
 
An Idealist Drops Out
Over the past four months, Yorman Nunez had turned himself into one of the most intriguing stories on the campaign trail. The son of a struggling single mother from the Dominican Republic, Nunez found his way out of a troubled adolescence through the power of community organizing. By organizing people to fight back, for their rights, their jobs, their homes, Nunez felt he could make a difference.

In March, while sitting around the kitchen table in the Sedgewick apartment he shares with his mom, brother (who he also shares a bed with), twin sisters, cousin and dog Diego, he and several friends decided to get into politics. Nunez, they decided, would be the candidate.

In 30 days, they built up a small army of volunteers and raised more than $17,000 through small donations. They turned his family’s apartment into a makeshift campaign headquarters and launched a full-tilt signature-gathering mission. Last Wednesday he said he felt confident in his signatures.

And then, he dropped out of the race.

In a telephone interview, Nunez said he made a “stategic decision” not to file his petition signatures. Despite what others might think, he said, he wasn’t pressured into dropping out and didn’t make a deal with any of the other candidates.

Although he was disappointed he wouldn’t see this race through until election day, Nunez said his candidacy was never just about getting elected. “What our campaign was about was changing the political landscape of the Bronx and educating the community,” he said. “We’re trying to change the way candidates are chosen. We don’t want it to be three people in a room deciding who our candidates are.”

Nunez, a product of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition and their youth arm Sistas and Brothas United (SBU), said he made the decision after countless meetings with friends, campaign staffers and advisors.

Nunez said he and his “team” are still deciding where and how to direct their energy. He dropped a few hints about what that might mean. “We are ending the campaign, still seeing what we want to do next. There’s some big fish to fry. That could mean [controversial State Senator] Espada, it could mean this mayoral race,” he said. “For sure what we’re interested in is building the base.”

For now, he has not decided to throw his support behind any of the other candidates in the 14th District. “They have three months to convince me who to vote for. I don’t think we’re going to help out our candidate,” Nunez said.

Embattled Baez Fights Back
The Bronx Democratic Party may have cut loose Maria Baez (the party’s supporting Cabrera, as are the Working Families Party and most of influential unions), but she still has friends in high places.

Last week, Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn all announced their support for Baez.

“She’s been a great friend to her district, a great friend to the Bronx, and a great and loyal friend to me,” said Quinn, speaking at a rally outside Baez’s campaign office on East 181st Street on July 16.

Also present to show their support were Assemblymen Jose Rivera and Nelson Castro, and Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo and her mother, Assemblywoman Carmen E. Arroyo.

Assemblywoman Arroyo said people have tried to convince her to walk away from Baez, who has faced mounting criticism about her appalling attendance record at council meetings and hearings. In the 2009 fiscal year, for example, she had the worst record in the council and showed up just 56 percent of the time, according to the New York Post.

But Arroyo said the district could not do better. “I said ‘bring me a person who could do better than Maria,’” she said. “But they don’t have that person. That person doesn’t exist.”

Arroyo talked about Baez’s “strength, character, and integrity.” She said she called her the “quiet storm” because she works “very quietly, very consistently.”

The event was billed as a “Women for Baez” rally, and perhaps 80 percent of the 100-plus crowd was women, most of them seniors.

“She’s done a lot for the seniors, the schools, and she’s not stuck up, I’ll put it like that,” said long-time Morris Avenue resident Willie Simmons.

At the rally, Baez introduced her new campaign manager, Yesenia Polanco, who until recently was one of Baez’s potential primary opponents. Polanco said she realized that now wasn’t her time, and so she decided to throw her weight behind the incumbent. “As a young Latina woman … [Baez is] very inspiring,” said Polanco, a former state legislative aide.

“I’ve been in this community for 40 years, 30 years politically,” Baez said. “I will not stop fighting for this community. I’m not going anywhere.”