Sit down. Grab a cup of coffee. Relax yourself. I am going to take you on a ride through East New York politics. After a week of increasingly insistent rumors that Ed Towns is going to endorse Charles Barron for the 8^th Congressional seat, the formal announcement has been made. The endorsement will take place on Monday. I present to you the unofficial backdrop.

Where do I begin?

Political newcomer Nikki Lucas, a resident of Starrett City, is challenging Inez Barron for Female District Leader. A member of the Rosetta Gaston Democratic Club, Lucas was instrumental in gathering strong petitions for retiring Congressman Ed Towns, which we now know was a wasted effort.

(All quotes in the following account are paraphrases. My main source is as close to the events without actually being one of the named parties.)

About a month ago, Towns told Nikki to meet him at his district office in Downtown Brooklyn, and bring 40^th AD Male District Leader Earl Williams with her. Nikki went to Williams and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got a meeting scheduled at Towns office.’ Williams reply was, ‘To hell with Towns. He can’t do nothing for me. He’s out.’ Nikki went to the meeting by herself where she first received a suggestion to leave her team and join forces with the Barron camp. At that time, she made no decision on the offer, preferring to mull it over.

This past weekend, Towns invited Nikki to his house. Towns told Nikki to dump Williams and come join Barron’s club. Nikki would run with Barron, and in the event that Barron won, his wife would go for the council seat. With Inez Barron’s assembly seat open, Nikki would have first dibs. Apparently at the meeting, Towns discussed how Williams dumped Towns after Towns financed Williams’ campaigns. Lucas told Towns she would give the offer some thought.

Williams’ has his own motivations to stay put. The bottom line is that his daughter is a civil court justice; he wants her to go to Supreme Court. Williams knows if he goes messing around with Towns, his daughter is not going to get that spot. (I witnessed Williams’ advocacy for his daughter with my own two eye balls. When Diane Gordon was Assemblywomen, Williams was a member of the Ron Brown Democratic Club. At that time, a decision was made within the club for Williams to run for district leader with club support. The club would also support his daughter for judge. Once both won, the deal was for Williams to step aside and let another member run for the seat. When his daughter won her race, Williams said f*** the club and went back to Rosetta Gaston Democratic Club. An aside: How did the Ron Brown Club form? Williams and Gordon were both members of Rosetta Gaston. At some point, Gordon asked Williams for the club’s documents. Williams refused to relinquish them. So, Gordon formed her own club.)

Back to the story. Nikki Lucas has the run of Rosetta Gaston. She appointed all of the poll inspectors from the 40^th AD. (Although Nikki had not yet had the opportunity to gather one signature for her run for district leader, Williams dropped the job of naming poll workers in her lap. In addition, nothing was said of 40^th AD Female District Leader Inez Barron appointing her own poll inspectors, though it is likely she has.) Nikki has her whole crew in place for petition carrying. How would it look for Nikki to dump her own allegiances to go with Barron at this late date? Her loyalty would be in doubt before her first race.

In addition, if she aligned with Barron, what guarantee would Nikki have that Barron wouldn’t dump her? On this one, I have to say Nikki’s instincts are correct. (When Barron was running for his third term on the council, he was challenged by several individuals, including Regina Powell. During that time, I saw Regina at Brownsville’s Old Timer’s Day and stopped to say hello. Barron came by, excused himself, and then whispered in Regina’s ear. I didn’t care what they were talking about, but when he walked away, Regina clammed up, which was odd because Regina and I had a cordial relationship after having worked with each other on community projects. After pressing her, Regina said Barron told her not to talk to me because ‘he knows me and I am not a good person.’ I told Regina that I am media and can get her message out. Regina said she was listening to Barron because he was her mentor. Yes, Regina actually thought Barron was mentoring her challenge to his council seat. You can’t make this stuff up. Anyway, at that time I was pissed at Barron for interfering with my relationship with Regina. But, she allowed him to do so.)

Back to the story…

Nikki told Williams what transpired at Town’s home. Williams replied, ‘Well, Barron approached me with the same proposition, as well as a suggestion to dump Chris Banks for assembly against Inez.’ In the suggested scenario, apparently the leadership of the club would go untouched. Rosetta Gaston is currently chaired by Decosta Headly. (Detour: DA Hynes is scheduled to address the Rosetta Gaston Democratic Club on Saturday. Apparently, Decosta has decided in advance he will not be there. It was Decosta, childhood friend of former Assembly woman Diane Gordon, who introduced Gordon to the developer who later set her up. To this day, folk in ENY are wondering what Hynes had/has on Decosta and don’t trust him as far as they can see him.)

Anyway, a couple of days ago, Nikki Lucas told Towns she has decided to stay with Earl Williams.

Even without the support of Earl Williams and Nikki Lucas, Towns’ endorsement of Barron, a former political nemesis who ran a close race against him in 2006, and a Barron win against Jeffries would be Towns’ final kiss-off to Brooklyn County Leader Vito Lopez.