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Campaign Truck Blaring Election Messages Sparks Altercation in Inwood

By Carla Zanoni | September 2, 2010 7:13am | Updated on September 2, 2010 9:44am

By Carla Zanoni

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

INWOOD — Tensions over campaign trucks that blast loud messages throughout the neighborhood boiled over recently when an Inwood resident fed up with a noisy truck took matters into his own hands and dismantled a pair of speakers on the vehicle.

A campaign manager for assembly candidate Guillermo Linares also claims that the resident threw dog feces at the truck and tried to intimidate the worker who operated it.

The truck, which was broadcasting messages for state Senate hopeful Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat and Assembly candidate Guillermo Linares, was set up at the corner of Broadway and Isham Street last week.

Linares' campaign manager Laura Acosta said a man cut the wires to the speaker, tossed dog feces into the back of the truck, and tried to intimidate a worker with a dog.

But residents, who have increasingly complained of the noise blasting from the trucks ahead of the primaries, told a different story.

Inwood local Taina Montalvo-Teller, 29, said she was waiting for a friend when she saw two middle-aged men approach the truck. She said one of the men unplugged the speakers when he found the truck unmanned.

Moments later, two other men who identified themselves as campaign workers confronted the man who had unplugged the sound and a heated argument ensued between the workers and people on the street.

“I tried telling him and another campaign guy with him that this truck is losing votes and turning people against their campaign,” Montalvo-Teller said. “But it fell on deaf ears with those two.”

Rachel Figueroa-Levin, a 24-year-old friend of Montalvo-Teller, called 311 to complain about the noise. She then shot video footage from her apartment window of the truck blasting a man's voice speaking in Spanish. Later, she recorded the aftermath of the argument with the campaign workers.

In the second video, the campaign message has stopped playing. Residents confront campaign workers about the noise. A man has a barking dog on a leash, but the animal doesn't appear to go after any of the workers and no feces are seen being tossed.

Linares' campaign manager Acosta, who wasn't present at the incident, said when the truck came back to the campaign office, the wires needed to be replaced because they had been cut. Acosta also said the campaign is mindful of procuring permits necessary for amplified sound and drivers are instructed to avoid playing music or announcements in residential areas, and near hospitals or funeral homes.

“We are not here to create a negative environment, if anything we care about the quality of life in this community,” Acosta said. “We try to be really sensitive, but there are areas that like the music and others don’t. That’s to be expected.”

Acosta said that although everyone might not agree with the methods, the Linares camp has found what she called a “traditional Latino” campaigning approach to be one of the most effective ways to get the community engaged in the election. In addition to campaign trucks, the campaigns are also regularly sending out robo-calls asking people for votes.

Espaillat’s campaign declined to comment.

Residents noted that the Espaillat-Linares truck is not the only truck adding to the cacophony of Manhattan’s loudest community board district — many political hopefuls play their jingles and announcements up and down the streets of Inwood and Washington Heights. And although some residents would like to silence the trucks, others say the practice helps get out the vote in a district with historically low voter turnout.

“We live in a district where people do not come out to vote, it’s all about getting people out and making people aware,” Acosta said. “I hope that the voters can really see beyond a truck and music."