They toasted transitions!
Canarsie political club celebrates new leaders of group and local community board
CELEBRATING SERVICE: (Clockwise from above) Thomas Jefferson
Democratic Club member Sue Ann Partnow, the female 59th Assembly
District Leader, toasted outgoing CB18 chairman Sol Needle, center, who
brought wife Maxine to the bash. Kings County Democratic Party leader
Frank Seddio and Supreme Court Judge Theresa Ciccotto celebrated.
Incoming CB18 chairman Gardy Brazela, left, and Needle. The outgoing
president of the club’s Young Democrats, Mitchell Partnow, right, relinquished
his duties to his successor Steven Patzer, left, at the event.
Photos by Steve Solomonson
COURIER LIFE, F M BR B G EB. 15–21, 2019 3
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
It was a Kings coronation!
Leaders of a Canarsiebased
Democratic political
club fêted the new chairman
of the local community board
at a passing-of-the-torch ceremony
packed with local luminaries.
Politicos with the Thomas
Jefferson Democratic Club —
including 59th Assembly District
Leader Sue Ann Partnow,
who organized the festivities,
and her male counterpart,
59th Assembly District Leader
Frank Seddio, who previously
chaired Community Board 18
— cheered the panel’s newly
elected head Gardy Brazela at
the Feb. 5 bash, where Brazela
ceremonially took the reins
from his predecessor Sol Needle,
who spent the last two decades
in the unpaid position
atop the board.
Attendees included Borough
President Adams, state
Sen. Roxanne Persaud (D–
Canarsie), Assemblywoman
Jaime Williams (D–Canarsie),
Councilman Alan Maisel (D–
Canarsie), Councilman Kalman
Yeger (D–Bensonhurst),
and another former CB18
chairman, convicted felon and
former state Sen. Carl Kruger.
Seddio, the infl uential
club’s president and the Brooklyn
Democratic Party boss,
praised Brazela’s history of
civic service in the area.
“This is a guy who committed
himself to the community
from the fi rst day he moved
in,” Seddio said.
The Haitian-born Brazela,
who moved to Kings County at
12-years-old, is CB18’s fi rst Caribbean
American and black
chairman. And his community
service isn’t relegated to
the panel — the local leader is
also the president of the 69th
Precinct Community Council,
and the founder of civic group
Friends United Block Association,
which he still oversees
after forming it more than two
decades ago.
The new chairman’s experience
spearheading the local
precinct’s community council
provided him with the blueprint
he needed to take on the
role as head of the board he’s
been a member of for roughly
two decades, he said.
“You have seen how I have
transformed the 69th Precinct
Community Council. I am
planning to do just that with
Community Board 18. Together
we will build a community,”
said Brazela, who lives
in Canarsie.
But implementing that
change will require intimate
collaboration with the board’s
top paid staffer, long-time
CB18 District Manager Dottie
Turano , Seddio said.
“It’s just like being married,
just say yes to Dottie,” he
said.
The changeover in CB18
chairman wasn’t the only
transition toasted at the event
— the club also celebrated the
newly installed leadership of
its youth arm, with the 13-year
president of the Thomas Jefferson
Democratic Club Young
Democrats, Mitchell Partnow,
relinquishing his duties to its
new leader, 22-year-old Steven
Patzer.
Partnow — the son of District
Leader Partnow — isn’t
leaving the club entirely, however.
He will now lead the effort
to establish a do-good arm
of the Jefferson Dems, called
the Thomas Jefferson Club
Cares, which will serve inneed
locals in the district, he
said.