Borough President

The Borough Presidents are a kind of leftover of City government.  Up til Charter reform in the late 80's, the 5 Borough Presidents had some juice, each with a representative of the substantially powerful and not altogether transparent Board of Estimate, an entity that controlled basically every City contract.  The Board of Estimate died in 1989.  Borough Presidents now serve mostly as cheerleaders:  they disburse some grants to not-for-profits, appoint some community board members, make some zoning recommendations, sure, but not too much.  Hence the office attracts an interesting mix of goofballs who are quite colourful, but not very effective and are not taken very seriously.  Our current Brooklyn Borough President ("BP or "BEEP") is Marty Markowitz, a sort of cheerful, tiny man with a pot belly and a very loud voice.  He loves to in hyperbole about "outrages" and "travesties."  He hates bike lanes.  He just got fined $20,000 for accepting free travel for his wife to make diplomatic trips to Turkey and Holland.  His defense to the press was great," most people get in trouble when they don't take their wife.  I get in trouble when I do!"  Not quite.  She could've gone if he paid her way.  He also claimed that his wife needed to be with him as an official government function, under the principle that she was "the First Lady of Brooklyn," which is a little like a Ditmas Park City Council member saying his wife was the "First Lady of Ditmas Park."