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Bernie-Inspired City Council Candidate Kicked off North Shore Ballot

By Nicholas Rizzi | August 4, 2017 9:49am
 Phil Marius was kicked off the ballot to run on the Democratic line for the North Shore City Council seat after the Board of Elections found he didn't have enough valid signatures.
Phil Marius was kicked off the ballot to run on the Democratic line for the North Shore City Council seat after the Board of Elections found he didn't have enough valid signatures.
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Facebook/Phil Marius for New York City Council

STATEN ISLAND — The progressive candidate who was inspired by Bernie Sanders to run for the North Shore City Council seat was kicked off the ballot after the Board of Elections found he didn't have enough valid signatures.

Phil Marius had 774 of his 1,216 invalidated for his petition to appear on the ballot, leaving him only eight short of the required 450 to get on the Democratic line. The BOE officially kicked him at a Tuesday hearing, the Staten Island Advance first reported.

"We are considering our options to make sure that our progressive agenda against disastrous overdevelopment and devastating wealth/income inequity becomes the agenda of the next four years," Marius said in an e-mail to DNAinfo New York.

► READ MORE: Queens Race Narrows to Moya and Monserrate as Challengers Booted Off Ballot

Marius officially entered the race in March to face off against incumbent Councilwoman Debi Rose and community activist Kamillah Hanks in the Sept. 12 primary.

He said he was inspired by Sanders' campaign to seek office and hoped to fight for long-term residents in the face of million dollar developments like the New York Wheel heading to the area.

"While many of the economic elites on the North Shore have been celebrating the development that's happening here, calling it the 'North Shore renaissance,' on the streets, people are grieving," Marius previously told DNAinfo New York. "People are afraid of being pushed out of their homes, their places of small business."

In July, the wife of Hanks' election lawyer, Richard Luthmann, filed an objection to Marius' petition claiming around 50 people lived outside the district and other had incomplete addresses, the Advance reported.

Hanks and Rose will face off in a primary to run on the Democratic line for the seat against Republican Michael Penrose.