NY Councilwoman in Trini mas costume under attack

A NEW YORK Councilwoman seeking re-election is the target of a smear campaign. A flyer is being distributed around New York with a photograph of her in a costume during Carnival celebrations in Trinidad in 2003.

The Brooklyn Councilwoman is also being accused of sending New York City money to Trinidad for programmes which have been scrapped. She has denied the charge. Her story was carried in yesterday’s edition of the New York Daily News. A flyer showing a photo of the Democrat covered with a large bull’s-eye—set beneath the words “Target Reyna” — has turned up at the Bushwick Houses, a 1,200-apartment public housing complex. The campaign poster appeared as the normally hardscrabble world of Brooklyn politics still reels from the City Hall assassination of Crown Heights Councilman James Davis, who himself was a guest of the Port-of-Spain City Corporation at this year’s Carnival celebrations. Davis was gunned down July 23 by political rival Othniel Askew in the balcony of the City Council chamber. “I felt alarmed, but not intimidated,” Reyna said on Monday about the flyer. “It’s one thing to do a negative piece on someone, but this is almost encouraging violence.” Reyna, who is married to an NYPD sergeant, has filed a complaint with police. “That’s the protocol for all elected officials,” she said. It’s unclear who distributed the flyer, which pictures Reyna in full Carnival dress; a snapshot taken during a privately funded City Council trip to Trinidad this year. The anonymous bull’s-eye flyer accuses the Dominican-born councilwoman of sending city money to Trinidad while summer recreation programmes were scrapped.