The upcoming election for the city council seat between Joann Ariola and Felicia Singh in the 32nd Council District—OURS—is a little over a month away.
While standard practice of this newspaper is not to make endorsements until the week before the election, as the old adage teaches us, there are exceptions to every rule.
In this particular case, the exception is more of an urgent reaction to the potential disaster-the type that homeowners, business owners and all residents face- if this particular election goes the wrong way.
Joann Ariola comes to the table with roughly thirty years of experience within the district and has served it in a professional capacity, as a community activist and advocate, a civic leader and as Chairwoman of the Queens GOP.
Ariola’s accomplishments are well documented by newspapers, community awards and television interviews. It’s no secret that her focus remains on the communities she has called home for over fifty years.
Her campaign language is replete with words like, hard work, patriotism, education, children, hospitals and health care, property taxes, equality, opportunity, unity, bi-partisanship, improved policing and escalation of the quality of life.
Felicia Singh seeks a seat at the same table and has introduced herself to voters as a teacher and the daughter of working-class immigrants who wants to bring equity and justice to District 32.
Her campaign language is replete with words like white supremacy, racism, erasure, inequality, public assistance, Islamophobia, homeless shelters, the abolition of safe schools, facilities to safely inject heroin, reduced funding for police and the reliance on Internet charity fundraising sites.
Fundraising for both campaigns in this race have a decidedly telling origin. Ariola’s campaign has been funded largely through donations of district residents, while monies amassed by Singh’s campaign have come from political PAC funds, one of which is that of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and contributors out of the district and the sate.
Keen political acumen is hardly a requirement to determine that the Ariola campaign is funded by the people and Singh’s by the ideology of the radical left-wing.
Endorsing Joann Ariola in this election is the proverbial no-brainer and under normal circumstances would have been the primary concentration of this editorial. However, endorsing Ariola is pale in comparison to what we seek as the optimal take home message here.
The spotlight shifts rapidly and moves in a different direction away from the Ariola endorsement to outwardly denouncing Felicia Singh.
What Singh calls her platform is nothing more than a rabid regurgitation of a movement promoting racial tension, seeking empowerment and encouraging anger between diverse cultures as a means to bring the justice and equity she falsely claims is lacking throughout our district. Her candidacy is an insult to every voter whose support she seeks.
Singh bills herself as a Democrat, but looking at the support Ariola has within the Democratic party and the endorsements she has garnered, clearly the Dems see Singh as nothing more than a dangerous imposter.
We implore you to recognize that it is in your best interest to view Singh’s candidacy exactly as it presents itself: a perverse attempt to erode any and all semblance of safety, unity and the life we have known and preserved within our community and our families.
It is an attempt to cast the lure of socialism with the promise of prosperity, equality and security. But socialism has proven itself to be the biggest lie of the twentieth century delivering nothing but poverty, misery and tyranny. The only level of equality that was ever reached under the rule of socialism is that people were equally miserable.
On November 2, your vote for Joann Ariola does more than elect her. It saves us all.
