By Jonathan Schuppe
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
Washington Heights - Voters in Washington Heights headed to the polls yesterday to replace disgraced City Councilman Miguel Martinez, who was caught in the Council’s ongoing slush fund scandal.
Six virtually unknown candidates were vying for the District 10 seat. Martinez resigned this summer and pleaded guilty to federal charges of misusing taxpayer money, allegedly pocketing more than $100,000. He's expected to be sentenced to more than five years in prison.
Damian Gonzalez, a retired cab driver in the tenth district, said he had a hard time choosing.
“Politicians are all the same: b.s.,” he said as he walked from his polling place at Public School 132 on Wadsworth Avenue. “But sometimes you have to vote for somebody.” He chose teacher Cleofis Sarete.
Whoever wins, he said, the important thing is that it will be someone new. “The troubles starts when people are in office too long,” Rodriguez said.
Georgina Donis Sanchez said she voted for Francisco A. Spies, a Human Resources Administration caseworker who is financing his own shoestring campaign, because he appeared furthest from the political mainstream.
“I want someone who is independent, someone who won’t compromise themselves at the expense of the people,” she said.
As she spoke, a volunteer from one of the campaigns walked by and blurted, “No one is independent.” Sanchez rolled her eyes.
In District 7, Washington Heights' other Council district, which extends north into Inwood and south into parts of Harlem, popular incumbent Robert Jackson was seeking a third term.
Jackson was one of several established officials who are taking advantage of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s rollback of the city’s term-limits law. Voters in the seventh district said he’d served the area well, helping to solve their everyday problems and steering funding toward an array of community groups.
Mary Torres, a retiree in her 60s who voted at The Holyrood Church on 179th Street, remembered Jackson stepping into her dispute with her landlord three years ago to get her apartment painted.
“I really like him,” she said in Spanish, which was translated by her son, Henry Santiago. “When you have a problem, you can walk over to his office on 180th Street and he’ll talk to you.”
Anita Flanagan, who volunteers for an organization that helps clean up Fort Tryon Park, said Jackson has responded quickly to their complaints about garbage and rats.
“He gets stuff done,” she said. “He makes our community better.”
