Heard Around Town, March 27, 2012

* Cynical pols deliver conventional wisdom that voters don’t care about redistricting, but don’t tell that to New York City Council candidate Benjamin Kallos. The East Side aspirant for Councilwoman Jessica Lappin’s seat is holding a fundraiser next month featuring Mark Favors, lead plaintiff in the Favors v. Cuomo lawsuit challenging the state’s method of drawing new lines. It’s a natural issue for Kallos, executive director of Bill Samuels’ New Roosevelt Initiative, though he acknowledged it’s an unusual draw for an event with a top ticket price of $1,000. Kallos said he’s trying to run “a substantive campaign about the issues that not only affect the district but the city as a whole.”

* The special Senate election in south Brooklyn is still undecided as paper ballots are recounted, but Democratic City Councilman Lew Fidler is already being encouraged to look ahead to the next race and challenge Republican Sen. Marty Golden in the fall. Fidler and Republican David Storobin essentially broke even among Russian voters in the contest to fill former Sen. Carl Kruger’s seat a week ago, but Fidler was trounced in Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods outside his Council district, according to a study by Assemblyman Alec Brook-Krasny. That adds fuel to the idea that Fidler should skip running in the new “Super-Jewish” Senate district this fall and instead challenge Golden, whose new Senate district contains much of Fidler’s Council district.

* New York City wants to make more space for boats along its waterfront – everything from kayaks to ferries to historic tall ships. A new plan put out for public review yesterday would try to make the city’s 520 miles of waterfront open for expanded ferry service, with new piers designed to handle other vessels from small to large that can draw more New Yorkers to riverbanks and shorelines. “The city will change the way that it evaluates and measures waterfront projects,” said City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, who said the new rules would establish 10 policies that proposed waterfront developments have to comply with. “These new revisions will promote climate-resilient designs … [and] increase public access to the waterfront.”

CITY & STATE FIRST READ is our morning email roundup of New York politics and government. Every day before 7 a.m. we deliver daily exclusives, a curated summary of the day’s headlines, editorials, schedules and milestones – and short tidbits like the “Heard Around Town” items above.

Not getting City & State First Read each morning? Click here to subscribe.