Bob Turner.

GOP primaries are not the norm in New York City, but this Tuesday, registered Republicans have the chance to pick a nominee to challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in November.
Of the three candidates, U.S. Rep. Bob Turner seems to have the best experience and is the one most ready to represent all New Yorkers in the Senate.
We realize that the thing that stands out most to us about him, his openness to compromise with Democrats on taxes, will not be seen as a plus by many Republican voters. And admittedly, many may not put much stock in the endorsement of a paper that endorses Democrats much more often. But these voters may want to look less at ideological purity and more at who has the best chance to win. Our interest is in having the two strongest candidates.
Many Republicans feign interest in the national debt when it comes to government programs they don’t like but ignore it when it comes to taxes or defense spending. Turner’s interest in the debt is sincere and he is at least willing to listen to Democrats, rather than closing the door to any real negotiations.
It is clear to us that he would be better than most Republican senators, as well as his two opponents, Wendy Long and George Maragos. He deserves the chance to try and make the case that he is also better than Gillibrand. We endorse Bob Turner in Tuesday’s Republican primary.

HOSPITAL APPOINTS LGBT HEALTH LEADER
Beth Israel Medical Center announced this week the appointment of nationally recognized LGBT health expert Barbara E.Warren, PsyD, as director of its newly established LGBT Health Services program.
Warren will work to develop partnerships between the hospital and local LGBT organizations and continue to advance Beth Israel’s nationally recognized efforts to meet the health care needs of New York’s LGBT community in a respectful and compassionate environment.
“Beth Israel Medical Center has embraced a unique opportunity to lead the way in establishing and sustaining LGBT affirmative hospital-based and outpatient care,” Warren said in a statement.
Warren served most recently for two years as director of the Center for LGBT Social Services and Public Policy at Hunter College. Prior to that she served for almost 20 years in progressively responsible positions at the LGBT Community Center in the West Village, the last seven as director of government relations, planning and research. She also consults on a number of federal, state and citywide initiatives to eliminate LGBT health disparities and to establish health equity throughout the health care system.
One of Warren’s principal assignments in her new position at Beth Israel will be to develop and implement ongoing, in-house educational programs to ensure that the hospital staff is attuned to the particular health care needs of the LGBT community.

UES RAPIST SENTENCED TO 22 YEARS IN PRISON
Kentrel Whitaker, 33, was sentenced this week for the assault and attempted rape of a 73-year-old woman on the Upper East Side. Whitaker attacked the victim last summer as she was walking on the East River promenade near East 111th Street at 6:40 a.m. He approached her from behind, threw her to the ground and hit her repeatedly before attempting to rape her. A passerby helped tear Whitaker away from his victim, but police were still able to collect DNA evidence they used to achieve a conviction. Whitaker was sentenced to 22 years in prison, followed by 15 years of post-release supervision.

ST. PATRICK’S DAY AT CARNEGIE HALL
This Saturday, March 17, Carnegie Hall will host a St. Patrick’s Day concert featuring Irish band The Chieftains with Paddy Moloney accompanied by folk-rock band The Low Anthem. The six-time Grammy Award-winning ensemble will be performing as part of their Voices of the Ages 50th anniversary tour. As Ireland’s musical ambassadors, The Chieftans are credited with bringing traditional Irish music to the world’s attention. The event will take place in the Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage at 8 p.m. Tickets are from $29 to $88, and are available by calling 212-247-7800 or visiting carnegiehall.org or the Carnegie Hall Box Office, 154 W. 57th St.

SENIOR ROUNDTABLE ON CARETAKING
The next session of State Sen. Liz Krueger’s senior roundtable discussions will be held Thursday, March 22 from 8-10 a.m. at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House. The topic, “Beginning the Conversation: Redefining Aging and How We Care for our Elders,” will cover how seniors can begin asking questions about their future care and planning who might be able to help care for them if the time arises when they need assistance.

Ahigial Lee Zhou plays chess at the P.S. 6 Chess Tournament 2012 on March 11.

Alice Fisher, Krueger’s community outreach director, and Frederic Riccardi, director of programs and outreach at the Medicare Rights Center, will be on hand to lead the discussion and answer questions. A light breakfast will be served. 331 E. 70th St. RSVP required at 212-490-9535 or by emailing doremann@gmail.com.

GROCERY STORE AIDS TORNADO VICTIMS
All Fairway locations are continuing a donation and matching drive through this Sunday, March 18 to aid those affected by recent violent storms in the Midwest. At any Fairway in the city (the Upper East Side store is at 240 E. 86th St.), customers can make cash donations of $1, $3 or $5 or purchase a case of water to aid families devastated by the tornadoes that ripped through Alabama, Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, Illinois, Nebraska and Missouri. Fairway will match all money donated up to $25,000 and coordinate shipping truckloads of water, canned goods and other nonperishable items to distribution centers in the affected states.

CATHEDRAL HIGH STUDENT VIES FOR POETRY PRIZE
Cathedral High School student Dionne Muyalde is among the top 10 finalists in the Poetry for Peace contest, a competition that has used the power of social media to gauge the power of student poetry. The contest asked students to respond to the stories of atomic bomb survivors from Japan, known as hibakusha, by writing verse poems. In the monthlong competition, 741 poems were submitted and people voted for their favorites on social media sites.
Muyalde’s poem, entitled “Hiroshima Hibakusha,” was selected as a finalist based on criteria, including the poem’s connection to a hibakusha testimony, its relaying a message of peace, the structure of the verse, the overall impact of the poem and the number of “likes” the poem received.

Candidates running to replace Eric Schneiderman in the State Senate laid out their plans to bring reform to a dysfunctional legislative body and constituent services to a geographically large, diverse district.

Adriano Espaillat, Mark Levine, Anna Lewis and Miosotis Muñoz sat with the West Side Spirit to discuss their agenda and why they are the best candidate to represent a district that spans the Upper West Side, northern Manhattan and parts of the Bronx.

Adriano Espaillat, Miosotis Muñoz, Anna Lewis and Mark Levine.

Espaillat is an Assembly member running in a year where the theme in Albany’s legislative races is “throw the bums out.” But Espaillat embraces the 14 years he has spent in the Assembly.

“I have a strong record, one that I’m very proud of,” Espaillat said.

He touts his legislative record in the Assembly and the constituent work he does in his district, which covers Washington Heights, Inwood and Marble Hill.

In Albany, he supported congestion pricing and co-sponsored pro-tenant housing legislation. In his district, he takes credit for boosting enrollment in CUNY and assisting constituents with landlord problems.

In the State Senate, he wants to help West Siders with similar housing issues, ensure marriage equality is passed in New York and help designate West End Avenue as a landmark district.

For this State Senate race, Espaillat has tapped support from Upper West Side elected officials. Schneiderman endorsed him as his successor in the State Senate. Rosenthal and Borough President Scott Stringer, an Upper West Side resident, also support Espaillat. He also has labor endorsements, including most recently the teachers union endorsement.

Even though the support of incumbent politicians might turn off voters sick of Albany, Espaillat boasts of his reform credentials by co-sponsoring Schneiderman’s ethics legislation, supporting independent redistricting of legislative seats and an independent commission to police the Legislature.

He pushed back against claims from his opponents—chiefly Mark Levine—that he will not deliver on reforming the State Senate.

“If anybody sits here and tells you, ‘I’m Don Quixote, I will kill the windmill, and I will reform Albany single-handedly,’ they’re lying to you,” Espaillat said. “It’s going to take some consensus building and someone that really knows the institution and won’t walk around for two years looking for the bathroom.”

But Levine believes voters want a new perspective from their state senator, even if it means looking for the bathroom.

“I see this seat—the Schneiderman seat—as actually a part of a statewide strategy for bringing change,” Levine said. “This seat has to stay in the hands of someone who is independent, aggressive, progressive and reform minded.”

To Levine, there needs to be campaign finance reform before progressive legislation can pass. For example, without public financing of campaigns, state lawmakers are influenced by contributions from industry groups, which killed initiatives like the soda tax or gun control.

As for Espaillat’s support of reform measures as an Assembly member, Levine called them “fig leafs.”

“Very, very weak proposals for reform have won some traction in Assembly and people are running on them as proof of their credentials as reformers,” Levine said. “But they’re pretty easy to see through.”

He also criticized Espaillat after the New York Post reported that a nonprofit the Assembly member funds hired his political allies.

Levine, a Washington Heights resident, won a Democratic district leader position in 2007. In that unpaid party position, he supported and organized for Barack Obama’s presidential primary campaign against New York’s favorite daughter, Hillary Clinton. He turned that network of supporters into the Barack Obama Democratic Club uptown.

His campaign is backed by Democratic clubs and fellow district leaders in the Upper West Side. His campaign was also endorsed by Ronnie Eldridge, a former West Side Council member, and Ruth Messinger, also a former West Side Council member, borough president and 1997 Democratic nominee for mayor.

Outside of politics, Levine, a former educator, was the executive director of Teach For America and a nonprofit that trained staff for after-school programs. He also started a community credit union that gave loans to small businesses.

In the district, he wants to help constituents navigate a difficult state government, which has authority over health, housing and transit issues.

“The legislative battle in Albany, day to day, is incredibly important,” Levine said. “But it doesn’t always touch people’s lives in the way solving a landlord dispute or getting them resources they need from the state would.”

Anna Lewis, an attorney, is the only Upper West Side resident in the race. She is running on her state government experience but says she doesn’t have the baggage of being an incumbent legislator in Albany.

As former counsel to the Assembly’s oversight and investigation committee, she helped draft legislation and reports on abuses from trade schools and contractors that underpaid union workers.

Being a prosecutor in the state’s Health Department, Lewis wants to pass laws that inform consumers of their rights. She wants to make it mandatory for doctor’s offices to have a sign that tells patients they can file a claim online.

“Most people don’t know that exists,” she said. “Being an attorney means I know about the law. I’ve done regulatory law. I know how to read the law, draft the law and that’s a big part of being a legislator.”

Lewis is the only attorney in the race and believes she can be as effective a state senator as Schneiderman, who was a public interest lawyer before entering politics.

Lewis, a former Democratic district leader, said she has community organizing experience like Levine and a legislative background like Espaillat.

“I bring both those things together,” Lewis said. “And I include my experience as a lawyer for the past 25 years.”

Miosotis Muñoz, a former aide to Rep. Charles Rangel and former borough presidents C. Virginia Fields and Messinger, says that, as a parent, she wants to tackle identity theft and Internet predators.

She plans to improve transportation options for seniors and educate them on the rent increase exemption.

“I’d like to give an extra legislative push making sure that there’s enough senior housing,” she said.

Muñoz wants to help immigrants get on a path to citizenship.

For gay rights, she supports same sex marriage but believes there is a lack of attention on hate crimes and bias attacks.

Ruth Messinger and Ronnie Eldridge, two former Upper West Side elected officials, endorsed Mark Levine for his State Senate bid.

“Mark is a person of unwavering integrity, with a long history of service to the community,” Messinger said in a statement.

Messinger ran against Rudy Giuliani for mayor in 1997. Before that, she served in the City Council and was Manhattan’s borough president.

Eldridge, who served in the City Council representing the West Side from 1989 to 2001, called Levine a candidate with “new ideas.”

“His spirit and record of creative solutions are what we need to revitalize the Democratic Party and the legislature of New York,” Eldridge said in a statement.

Levine, a Democratic district leader from Washington Heights, has mainly gotten support from Upper West Side Democratic clubs and its district leaders.

“These two endorsements, along with my other endorsements, reflect the kind of independent, principled and substantive support that is the backbone of our campaign,” Levine said in a statement.

The district covers parts of the Upper West Side, all of northern Manhattan and parts of the Bronx.

Levine’s main rival, Adriano Espaillat, has the support of current Upper West Side elected officials such as Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal and Borough President and Upper West Sider Scott Stringer.

Espaillat, an Assembly member from Washington Heights, also has the support of Eric Schneiderman, the out-going state senator who is running for attorney general.

Other candidates include Francesca Castellanos, Rafael Figuereo, Anna Lewis and Miosotis Muñoz.