STRINGER’S GOP CHALLENGER

By Dan Rivoli

Determined not to leave Borough President Scott Stringer unchallenged, local GOP-stalwart David Casavis said he has filed with the city’s Campaign Finance Board to run against the incumbent this November.

Unlike other Manhattan GOP candidates, Casavis will be more than a name on the ballot, even if he has only one campaign message: to eliminate the office of the Borough President.

“The only person who can do this is me; the only one willing to say, “That’s it. Enough,’”

said Casavis.

Casavis, who ran for an East Side Assembly seat last year, said eliminating all five Borough President offices will be his sole goal.

“If I can get elected, it is one step in getting rid of this job,” Casavis explained.

Casavis will follow in the footsteps of 2005 Republican Borough President candidate Barry Popik, who received nearly 41,000 votes against Stringer’s 200,152. Popik also ran on a platform of eliminating the Manhattan Borough President position.

Each borough president receives a salary of $160,000 a year plus millions of dollars in discretionary funds that are given to local organizations and nonprofits. The offices have been criticized as a ceremonial position since the U.S. Supreme Court dissolved the Board of Estimate, which gave the borough presidents a say in land use and budget issues, in 1989.

“There’s no purpose,” Casavis said. “It’s having a captain of the ship with no ship.”

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