DAILY NEWS ENDORSES GREEN

Green for public advocate: The News endorses veteran consumer activist in Tuesday's runoff

Veteran consumer activist Mark Green is the clear choice in Tuesday's Democratic primary runoff for public advocate.

Intelligent, creative, well-tested in the crucibles of New York politics and government, he has more potential than his rival to lead the office into constructive problem-solving.

Green's record as both the city's consumer affairs commissioner and as public advocate when the post was created 16 years ago shows a talent for getting things done.

Accomplishments include prodding the Federal Trade Commission to ban "Joe Camel" cigarette ads aimed at kids and leading a charge that helped drive the mob out of garbage carting. Green also formulated the idea of the 311 help line in the campaign for mayor he narrowly lost to Michael Bloomberg eight years ago.

In this race, Green has envisioned applying "checks and balances" to the next mayor while also offering proposals that come closer than those of his competitor, City Councilman Bill de Blasio, to making the office the agent for quality-of-life improvements that it should be.

De Blasio is without doubt one of the brighter lights on the Council. But he seeks to use the position largely as a platform for advocating broad policy changes on matters ranging from development to homelessness to overseeing the NYPD.

At the same time, de Blasio undermined his claim to independence by accepting $33,000 in consulting fees from a foundation allied with the Working Families Party and by retaining an arm of the WFP to provide services to his campaign.

The entanglements are close enough that voters can fairly ask: Whose needs would de Blasio attend to - those of the WFP or those of citizens who contact the public advocate's office for agenda-free help?

In the Democratic primary, the Daily News endorsed Councilman Eric Gioia. We cited the certainty that Green would reinvigorate the office and gave the thumbs up to ideas like making it easier to plant street trees. However, we had reservations about other thrusts, such as requiring the NYPD to pay damages to anyone held more than 24 hours and battling to reverse a cut from $2.9 million to $1.8 million in the advocate's budget.

Those reservations hold, but in this two-person contest, Green is easily the superior candidate. Vote Green.

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