Posted on Monday 8 May 2006
If all politics is local (as was once asserted by former House Speaker “Tip” O’Neill), it is the actions on the streets that agglomerate to form the whole of our political reality. With this in mind, on May 6 {open} hosted a screening of Street Fight, the Academy Award-nominated documentary about the highly contentious 2002 Newark, New Jersey mayoral race between four-term incumbent Sharpe James and 32-year-old councilman Cory Booker. But the screening doubled as a chance to meet Brian Ulaszewski, a candidate for the vacant Second Council District seat—fitting, considering that Ulaszewski shares many of admirable qualities evinced by Booker, including running a substance-based campaign and heavy involvement in the community he hopes to represent. {open} co-owner Sé Reed is an enthusiastic supporter. “I’d never seen any of the other candidates at any event in the district until they became candidates,” she reports. “Brian shops here, he eats here…He is in the district and of the district.”
Reed, who is also president of the East Village Arts District, first became aware of Ulaszewski when she heard him speak at a Central Project Area Committee (CPAC) meeting, where she was struck by the depth of the information he communicated. This initial impression was only buttressed as she got to know him. “There are a lot of people who care about being involved in community issues who don’t know their stuff,” she says. “Brian knows his stuff.” She offers as an example Ulaszewski’s proposal for Armory Park. An architect by trade, Ulaszewski conceived of the idea on his walk to work, which takes him by the intersection of 6th St., Martin Luther King Ave., and Alamitos Ave. His plan would result in both the creation of a one-acre park without necessitating the acquisition of new property; and the rectification of the most dangerous intersection in Long Beach. Ulaszewski has gotten the Redevelopment Agency (RDA) to budget $1 million for construction, and the City is currently in the final stages of an intensive traffic study of the site. “That sort of initiative is unique, to say the least,” says Reed. “That’s what it’s going to take to get our city where it needs to go.”