Bureaucrat of the Year: In just a year-and-a-half, Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan has transformed New York City's Department of Transportation into the envy of city transportation agency officials across the country (OK, maybe Portland, Oregon where the former DOT commissioner was elected mayor isn't envious). In this Streetfilm, Sadik-Khan shows off and explains some of the most recent developments...

Activist of the Year: With so many outstanding livable streets advocacy projects popping up across New York City, it's hard to single out just one community activist for praise. Transportation Alternatives' Queens Committee Chair Mike Heffron did a great job in 2008 organizing activities and drumming up support for livable streets in a borough where it can often be tough to find allies.

Teresa Toro wins a big honorable mention for helping to organize this summer's Williamsburg Walks event, for winning approval for Community Board DOT's Kent Avenue bike lanes and for her years of hard work as chair of CB1's transportation committee. Working on a Community Board can be a thankless task and Teresa did it well.

This year's winner is Florent Morellet. Proprietor of the recently closed Meatpacking District restaurant that bore his name, Florent was a key instigator and steward of the Gansevoort Plaza project, a leading voice for the protected bike paths on 8th and 9th Avenues, an eloquent defender of the Grand Street bike lane and an important behind-the-scenes political player, in general. Even as he was being priced out of his restaurant of 23 years (rent was going to jump from $6,000/month to $50,000!), Florent continued to work to make his neighborhood and his city better for pedestrians, cyclists and, unfortunately, landlords too.

Favorite Streetsblog Commenter: There's a real glut of worthy candidates for this honor, but we're giving it to "Marty Barfowitz." The deciding factor? It could be the consistently insightful, pull-no-punches mini-essays on topics such as NIMBY opposition to bike lanes and the State Assembly's culpability for killing congestion pricing. Or it could be the pseudonym that appeals to both our outer political cynic and our inner eight-year-old.

Most Effective LSN Member: Honorable mention goes to Dave "Paco" Abraham, whose achievements in 2008 included a successful one-man lobbying effort to sell Duane Reade on the benefits of bike racks. The top spot belongs to Susan Donovan (below), who could be spotted drumming up support for Amtrak funding in a widely read Daily Kos diary, and, in an impressive media coup, leading NY1 through the automobile-clogged sidewalks near Yankee Stadium on game day -- proof that livable streets advocacy and local TV news are a great match.

Best Lenswork: Goes to Jacob-uptown for his photographic documentation of conditions on New York City sidewalks, bike lanes, and bus routes, the best of a bumper crop submitted to the Streetsblog Flickr pool this year.

Best LSN Group: With 47 members, LSN's Inwood and Washington Heights Livable Streets group is doing a great job of making use of our online organizing tools. Let's hope that 2009 brings a redesigned Dyckman Street and some new Community Board members to northern Manhattan.

Most Weirdly Effective and Totally Accidental Online Advocacy Effort: State Farm pulled one of its TV advertisements from the air after a Streetsblog-incited Internet mob told them that their attitude towards bike commuting needed a major adjustment. Here's a description of the ad. And here's State Farm's response. 

Best Advocacy Campaign: Michael O'Loughlin and the crew at M+R win a huge honorable mention for the Campaign for New York's Future. Though they weren't able to bring congestion pricing across the finish line in Albany, the Campaign put together an unprecedented coalition of business, labor, environmental, public health, religious and community groups and won approval for congestion pricing in City Council, something that many said would be impossible.

Honorable mention also goes to Joan Byron and Brad Lander at the Pratt Center for Community Development for their Transportation Equity Project. The idea of bringing together lower income communities to advocate for better bus service is an absolute no-brainer. But no one was doing it until Joan and Brad stepped in to fill the void.

The winners are the Prospect Park Youth Advocates because no other advocacy campaign employed the Brooklyn Steppers Marching Band to such great effect.

Best Livable Streets Education Initiative: After fifth grader Michael Needham, Jr. was killed by a reckless, speeding motorist while riding his bicycle, P.S. 76 in the Bronx might have decided to discourage students from riding bikes (like this New Jersey high school principal did in May). Instead, P.S. 76 began working bike safety, skills and street awareness into its curriculum. With the help of Bike New York, P.S. 76 implemented a month-long, bike-oriented physical education program for students and their parents and even raffled off a brand new bicycle to one student -- a bold move for school administrators and a fitting tribute to Michael.

Best Celebrity Livable Streets Endorsement: Step aside David Byrne. It's Jay-Z.

Best Out-of-the-Box Transportation Policy Thinking: With regrets to Councilman Lew Fidler and his 9 CARAT STONE Plan, we're going to have to give the award to Charles Komanoff for the Kheel Plan and his Balanced Transportation Analyzer. Honorable mention goes to TOPP's own Mark Gorton, for his four-part Smart Para-Transit opus.

The Old College Try Award: Goes to Paul Newell for running a Democratic primary campaign challenge against State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. If nothing else, it forced Shelly to campaign for the first time in ages, and may have provided the nudge that pushed the Speaker to stop obstructing the traffic-reducing Gansevoort Waste Transfer Station. It'd be great to see a dozen Paul Newell's taking on State Assembly Democrats come 2010.

Newell pulled 23 percent of the vote, Henry nine percent. Though the vote tally wasn't close, some pundits are speculating that in mounting the first serious challenge to Silver in years -- reducing him to knocking on doors, of all things -- the Newell campaign may affect the way the speaker conducts business in Albany. That remains to be seen, of course, but Newell had this to say to the Observer early this week:

"I'm running to get the most votes in this election. That said, there's no question we've already brought change. We've already taken on Albany. There's no question about that. And people are scared."

Those scared people, Newell said, are thinking, "Wow, a 33-year-old community organizer can put together a campaign that is going to rock Sheldon Silver with his $3 million in his account, and $8 million in his Speaker's P.A.C. or whatever it is that he's got."

"If we're successful, you're going to see forty or fifty challengers to incumbents in 2010, in both parties," Newell said, adding, "I don't think there's any doubt we had a role in that."

Silver's last primary challenge was in 1986, when John Bal got 20 percent of the vote.  

In the Senate, the talk of the day locally was the defeat of Martin Connor, the 30-year incumbent upended by 28-year-old Daniel Squadron. As Streetsblog readers know, Connor was one of many Albany lawmakers to hold their tongues as congestion pricing went down in April, for which Squadron took him to task during the campaign. What impact pricing had on the race is open to debate, particularly since Connor's Senate District 25 encompasses Assembly District 64 -- home to Sheldon Silver.

In other results, vocal pricing backer Adriano Espaillat held off City Council Member Miguel Martinez in Assembly District 72, which covers Upper Manhattan.

Photo: New York Observer

In the 64th Assembly district, Paul Newell is riding a wave of endorsements from the three major dailies in his campaign against Speaker Sheldon Silver. Newell and fellow challenger Luke Henry have both taken Silver to task over his handling of the congestion pricing vote in April.

Likewise, in the 25th Senate district (which also includes parts of Brooklyn), challenger Dan Squadron has pounced on 30-year incumbent Martin Connor's timid stance on pricing. The back-and-forth battle of endorsements -- Squadron has his mentor Chuck Schumer and Mayor Bloomberg on his side, Connor has fellow Albany Dems on his -- plus Squadron's prodigious fundraising, have made this one of the most closely watched elections this cycle.

Up in the 72nd Assembly district, incumbent Adriano Espaillat faces a challenge from City Council member Miguel Martinez. Both supported congestion pricing, but Espaillat was one of the plan's fiercest advocates. Espaillat also supported the traffic-reducing Gansevoort Waste Transfer Station, which, while outside his district, ran against the wishes of prominent Manhattan Assembly members.

There are plenty of other seats at stake where candidates' views may affect streets and transit. If there's an election with implications for livable streets in your district, or if you've got a story to share from the polls today, tell us all about it in the comments.

Photo: Vidiot/Flickr

With New York City's mostly uncontested primary elections less than a week away, attention turns to the 64th State Assembly district in Lower Manhattan, where New York Times-endorsed insurgent Paul Newell is running a long-shot campaign against Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Facing his first Democratic challenge since the coining of the word "cyberspace," the decidedly analog Speaker has joined us here in the Information Age with a fancy new campaign web site, ShellySilver.org. It features an eye-catching Google map illustrating "What Shelly's Doing Near You" with some of the $3 to $7 million in member items he distributes annually.

Apparently, Silver hasn't caught on to the whole web 2.0 user-generated content thing because there's no way to drop your own pins on his Google map. If, for example, you wanted to stick a pin on Canal Street to make note of Silver's complicity in maintaining that street's never-ending traffic jam and Chinatown's third world-level childhood asthma rates, you'd be unable to do that. If you wanted to point out that Lower Manhattan enjoys some of the city's slowest buses and most dangerous streets, thanks, in part, to Silver allowing Rochester Assemblyman David Gantt to deny New York City the use of red light and bus lane enforcement cameras, you wouldn't be able to do that either. And given that the Speaker is known more for the projects and policies that he's stalled and killed (the commuter tax, New York City's Olympic bid, congestion pricing...) than the projects he's made happen, it seems like there ought to be a map showing all the things that don't exist in New York City thanks to Sheldon Silver's handiwork.

So, here it is. To help create a more complete picture of Shelly Silver's citywide footprint, Streetsblog went ahead and built a more interactive "What Shelly's Doing Near You" map. If you've got a contribution, go ahead and add it to the comments section here on Streetsblog. Pin it on Shelly.

This is the second installment of Streetsblog's interview with Paul Newell, candidate for State Assembly in the 64th District, who's challenging Speaker Sheldon Silver in the Democratic primary this September. In this segment, Newell addresses some of the issues that are fresh in the minds of everyone who followed the death of congestion pricing in Albany without a vote earlier this month. The first part of the interview, about running for office in New York, ran yesterday.

Streetsblog: What made you decide to run? What was the inspiration?

Paul Newell: The inspiration was seeing how Albany's broken and how that impacts
people's lives every day throughout this city and state, and in
particular downtown where I live and work. I've been an organizer for a
lot of years, and increasingly it became clear to me that we are not
going to move forward on new thinking on everything from transportation
to housing and education if we don't have a working system in Albany.
And the reason we don't have a working system in Albany is because of
Sheldon Silver and Joe Bruno.

Why I decided to run evolved over some years. But in 2004, when I went
to my primary polling station to vote, and discovered that I did not
have the option to vote at all. The polling station was closed because
Sheldon Silver did not have a challenger. I was initially outraged
over, I think at that point it was a number of issues -- you know,
rules reform and drug law reform, which he'd killed for the fifth year in a
row. And I went down there -- I was gonna vote against Sheldon Silver.
I said, "If nobody's running I'm gonna write someone in." Well, the
sign on the door said, "Due to a lack of contested elections, this
polling station is closed today."

...And an older woman comes up
and she's also intending to vote, and I sort of give her my rant about
how this is bad for democracy. And she says, "Well, I guess nobody ran
for anything." And I said, "But I wanted to vote against Sheldon
Silver." And she says to me, "Well, you should have run!" So I laughed
it off, and then I looked into the fact that the guy, at that point,
had not had an opponent in 18 years. I do not believe it's possible for
anyone to be responsive to their community, or to the needs of the city
and state, if they do not even have to ask for our vote.

SB: Let's talk about your policy platforms, specifically transportation and rules reform.

PN: I supported congestion pricing, and I don't think it went far enough.

We need to dramatically rethink the way we approach transportation
issues, in New York City, and indeed in the country. From a public
health standpoint, from an economic standpoint, from an environmental
standpoint, and from a quality of life standpoint, we need to be
promoting mass transit as a top priority for our state and country.
People talk about fuel economy standards for cars, and I say that mass
transit beats better fuel economy standards any day.

Now higher fuel
economy standards is more of a federal issue, but what we need to do is
promote the kinds of policies and decisions that are good for the
community at large and our national interest. And that means, yes,
charging people money to drive their cars into the central business
district of New York, and using those funds to subsidize buses, bus
rapid transit, more accessible subways... It's about prioritizing. It's
about using the power of the state to favor one means of transportation
over the other -- and the kinds of communities that that creates.

SB: How do you make this pitch to voters?

PN: I generally start with congestion pricing because it's on people's
minds and you have to always be aware of what people are thinking
about. I say Sheldon Silver's killing of congestion pricing without
even a vote showed contempt for both the democratic process and the
concerns of Lower Manhattan. Of 150 Assembly districts in New York,
none would have benefited more from that bill than the 64th. We have
the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, the Williamsburg Bridge, the
Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and about three blocks outside the district is
the Holland Tunnel. We have dramatically higher asthma rates than the
rest of the country. We have noise pollution.

I was talking with a teacher at PS124, which is across the street from
my apartment on Division Street. Division Street is one of the places
where trucks are using the free Verrazano-Holland Tunnel route, and
she's got 28 third graders in her classroom, of whom 22 do not speak
English at all. She's on the second floor, facing the street. And she's got trucks from 7 a.m. to the end of her school
day outside, honking their horns. People are getting road rage yelling
profanities at each other outside this classroom where she's trying to
teach 28 kids. And those kids are getting a worse education because of
it. She's working hard, but it is detrimentally impacting the quality
of education.

I understand why Brodsky opposed congestion pricing. I disagreed with
him, but I understand where he's coming from at least. His constituents
felt they were going to be paying this fee. This was a bill that was
going to help the 64th Assembly district directly. We needed leadership
and it wasn't there. My question then becomes, "What is the point of
being represented by the Speaker of the State Assembly if he doesn't go
to bat for you?" And then you try to come up with a line that conveys it, like: "Smoke-filled rooms lead to smoke-filled lungs."

SB: What have you been hearing back from people?

PN: You occasionally get pushback. There are people who will disagree
with you on any issue, and that's how it goes. But overwhelmingly, when
you explain to people that the funding was going to support the subways
that they use... all throughout the district these are real
improvements affecting our lives, and Sheldon Silver failed -- not just
failed to stand up for us -- actively killed something very important
to our health and quality of life. The way you convey a message is by
explaining how this impacts us, explaining how the incumbent is
responsible, and explaining why you would do things different.

SB: On rules reform, what are the high-leverage changes that you would put at the top of your agenda?

PN: I would break it down in to two categories, which I would call "democracy" and "ethics."

Lets start with democracy. We need a legislative process that is
transparent, member-driven, and on-the-record. This is the first thing.
As it now stands, almost all legislation is written by three men in a
room. The door to that room is closed, and inside that room, even if
Sheldon Silver and Joe Bruno were judicious, Solomon-esque leaders --
which I don't believe they are -- I don't think it's possible for three
men in a room to govern 19 million people well. Second of all, behind
closed doors, if you have officials who haven't had opponents for
decades, and they make decisions, it's going to be the developers and
the money-makers who are going to get heard. Because if people don't
have to ask for our vote, then they don't have to listen to us.

Furthermore, and this is where it spreads out to the entire Assembly
and Senate, is that if you do not have to actually take a stand on an
issue -- if your legislator does not have to vote on congestion
pricing, then they cannot be held accountable, and there's no way for
voters to say, "I want you to pass this legislation." If the
legislation is killed behind closed doors, [the representative] can
say, "Oh, I would have supported it," or "Oh, I would have opposed it,"
without taking any risks. And it makes it impossible to put any
pressure on elected officials and have an impact.

[Specifically], there should be a limit on the number of bills each
legislator is allowed to sponsor. All bills should be submitted to a
committee within a certain period of time. Committees must report bills
out within 30 or 60 days, depending on the type of bill. Within 30 to
60 days of receiving the bill, they must hold at least one hearing.
That hearing must be public, and then report the bill out to the floor
for a vote within 30 to 60 days. If a third of legislators sign a
release petition, then a bill should be submitted to the floor for a
vote. Thereby saying that a bloc of legislators supporting the bill can
demand that it be voted on.

All debate should be recorded... Legislators are always going to have
conversations behind closed doors, and that's fine. Not everything
should take place in public; I understand that that's how it works. But
all bills should have public debate, and all votes should be recorded.

And then you can get into conference committees. Every bill should have
a conference committee between the state, the Senate, and the Assembly
to work out the differences between those bills in public. This is
standard stuff that's found in almost every other state legislature.

That's the process stuff; that's the democracy aspect... The ethics
stuff is the second thing. We need real campaign finance reform. We
need clean money, clean elections, real public financing of elections.
It's got to be voluntary because of constitutional issues, but this is
already the law in Maine, Vermont, Arizona -- it just came online in
Jersey now. In Maine and Vermont and Arizona almost every candidate
uses it. What you do is you collect a certain number of donations from
people in your district, so in Arizona, if you can get a thousand people in
your district to give you five dollars -- I think for New York, five's
a little low -- the state will fund you enough to run a campaign in
that district. If you are outspent by a privately funded candidate, the
state will, by steps, go up to quadruple [the initial public funding]
amount. Of course a candidate could still outspend you, but you will
have enough money to get your message out and run a campaign. I cannot
believe that any candidate for public office would rather spend hours a
day on the phone begging people for money -- asking Bruce Ratner and
the developers for money -- when they could get it from public
financing. That way, in one fell swoop, you eliminate the campaign
finance influence on our politics.

Number two, legislators should be required to disclose all outside
income. We technically have a part-time legislature. They work about 65
days a year. Many of them have other jobs. Sheldon Silver works for the
Weitz & Luxenberg law firm. We know that he does work for them;
that's the one thing he is required to disclose. We don't know how much
they pay him, how those payments are disbursed. We don't know what work
he does to earn this money. We don't know what clients are involved. In
essence it is secret payments for secret work. We have no idea what
that is, and if that's not a basic recipe for corruption in government,
I don't know what is. People choose to be in public office, and when
you do, you give up some of your privacy rights. All public officials
should disclose all their income, from every source. There's no
compromise on that.

We're running excerpts from the interview in two parts. In this segment, complementing our previous look at what it takes to get on the ballot, Newell shares his advice for potential candidates and sheds light on the mechanics of running for office. In the second part, which we'll run tomorrow, Newell talks about why he decided to run against Silver, and how he believes transportation -- and Albany -- should be reformed.

Streetsblog: What's your advice for someone pondering a run for office?

Paul Newell: A lot of people will say that you can't beat an incumbent in New York. And they're wrong. Incumbents do lose, number one. Number two, times have changed. The times when these old machine candidates just turn out, punch out votes and kill any opposition are over. We do not live in that city.

Running for office is an incredible opportunity. You will learn more about yourself, your community, your state, than you ever could. You will meet amazing people, and you will have an opportunity to dramatically change your community for the better. It is fun. It is hard work, and it is worth doing.

SB: Say someone makes the decision to run tomorrow. Does that give them enough time to get the organization beneath them that they need to mount a credible campaign? If not, is there still something worthwhile that could come out of a challenge to an incumbent?

PN: There's always something worthwhile to come out of a challenge to an incumbent -- just to get them aware of their community again.

I don't think it's too late. It depends on what kind of network the individual has. But it's closing in on too late. June 3rd is petitioning, so by June 3rd you need to have an organization in place with money in the bank and a strategy to do petitioning. That is really the actual deadline.

Honestly, people don't make decisions in elections until shortly before they vote anyway. You see that all the time. So if you can get an organization together in the next month and a half, no it's not too late. But I would get started.

I think it is good for democracy, for our city and for our state, for incumbents to be challenged in every election. I believe that it is not healthy for anybody to run unopposed for elective office, ever.

I would be thrilled to talk with, meet with -- discreetly or publicly -- anybody considering running for another seat in the New York City area, or anywhere in New York State. [Editor's note: Newell can be contacted through his website.]

SB: Walk us through what it takes to get on the ballot.

PN: Well the ballot access process starts in June. The only requirement is you have to be registered in the relevant party and reside in the district for more than a year. If one meets that criteria, then one needs to collect, for State Assembly it's 500 signatures from registered Democrats residing in the district. In point of fact you need a lot more than that, because the whole system is written to prevent challenges.

So you can start collecting signatures on June 3rd. You hand them in the second week of July. And you spend the next four weeks fighting a court battle against your incumbent, who will try to throw you off the ballot. Even if they think their case has no shot, they will try to throw you off the ballot, just to waste your time and money.

The process though, is you break out petitions, you get your team together, you set up stations, you knock on people's doors, you do site-based things, outside of supermarkets and subway stations and what have you, and you collect signatures. You make sure they work, you bind 'em right, you cover all the legal ends, and you'll get on the ballot.

SB: Tell me more about the fundraising aspect and the organizing aspect. What did you have in place, and what did you know you needed to do to mount your campaign?

PN: The first thing you have to do is talk to your family and loved ones and figure out if it's something you want to do. You have to make a personal decision first. And the way you do that is you talk to the people in your life. You also talk to anyone you know who has run for office, and any candidates that you have worked for in the past. I called up some candidates that I had never met and asked for advice. Just asked them what's involved in this, how do you make this decision. You have to learn that first.

Then you start doing the feasibility portion of it. You say, "This is something that I want to do," and determine that I will be able to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish by doing it. Then you say, "Can we do it?" And that is also a process of talking to people in the community, gauging that there is real need for change...

The first official thing you do, in terms of an official legal act, is you have to form a fundraising committee. And that's just filing some paperwork with the Board of Elections -- either the State or the City, depending on the office you're running for. They're very helpful folks up there in Albany, they're actually great. They'll prompt you to open a bank account. I started my bank account with $100 in pre-donated money. Then you start reaching out to people you know. Start first with your friends and your family, who support what you're trying to do, and you call and you ask them for money. And that's a hard thing for a lot of people to do. You have to remember that you're doing this for a reason. You have to believe that them giving you money will improve our community... Otherwise it's very hard to ask people for money.

You need to form a braintrust... There's a couple of categories of braintrust that you need: You need a finance braintrust, you need a policy braintrust, and you need a campaign braintrust.

You need people who can help you think of ways to reach out to raise money. You need people who know the issues facing your community well, and can help you formulate your positions, write them up. You have to believe of course, but work with people to write up these positions so they make sense, so they're cogent. And then you need to start talking to people who you need to reach out to. How does this district break down? How am I gonna reach out to people in the community?

And then, once you're there -- In New York City, if you're running for office, there's nothing you can do better than knocking on doors. I need a few thousand votes. I need, certainly, less than 10,000 votes to radically change the way 19 million New Yorkers are governed. I knock on doors every day. And I'm not knocking on doors because it sounds good... If in an hour of knocking on doors, I have four conversations, that's worth it.

My goal is to be elected Assemblyman for the 64th District. This is not running for President. I can meet enough people to win this race.

Photo: newellnyc.org

In what may be a political first, Paul Newell, who is challenging Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in the 64th District, mentions "livable streets" as one of his three major planks in this campaign clip. Newell and Luke Henry, another Silver challenger, have both voiced support for congestion pricing. The last time Silver faced a challenger in the Democratic primary was 1986.

Streetsblog spoke to Newell yesterday about what motivated him to run against Silver, his stance on transportation issues, and his advice for anyone pondering a run against an Albany incumbent this election cycle. Highlights from the interview are on the way soon.

In the meantime, we grabbed Newell's transportation bullet points from his website -- posted after the jump.

As your assemblyman I will fight for:

• Sound Congestion reduction policies, including pricing.

• Full funding for MTA capital improvements including the 2nd Avenue Subway

• Put our transportation, quality of life and public health concerns at the top of New York's agenda.

• state authorize the city to issue residential parking permits.

• Institute Bus Rapid Transit lanes on major Manhattan bus routes

In a scathing editorial published on Saturday, the Times issued a call for change in the state capital, appealing for more Paul Newells to step forward and run against incumbent pols.

Any New Yorker who is not furious at the mention of their state capital, Albany, has not been paying attention. There are the sex scandals that forced one governor out of office and prompted his replacement to confess more details of his own indiscretions than anyone wanted to hear. The state comptroller quit last year after pleading guilty to misusing public assets. This week an Assembly member was convicted of corruption and faces up to a decade in jail. Angry yet?

The place needs a thorough cleaning -- a giant broom to sweep out the rascals, starting with the State Legislature. We are not in favor of term limits, but the idea gains currency when most people who get elected in New York State keep their seats until they retire, die or go to jail.

The ballot box is still the best form of term limits. So, here is how to change Albany: find and support somebody daring and thick-skinned enough to run against the local legislator.

We are not saying it will be easy. The system is rigged against challengers. It takes money, mostly for lawyers to fight lawyers whose job it is to keep other candidates off ballots. It takes time, energy and patience to fight a system so patently anti-democratic.

One example: the petitions to get on the ballot this year are probably due in early June, but the New York State Board of Elections has not yet posted the official schedule. For the record, state leaders appoint the members of that board.

Still, it is possible to run. And right now is the time to find challengers, especially for members of the Assembly. Albany’s stagnation is at its worst there. The cowardly failure of Democrats -- especially Speaker Sheldon Silver -- to allow a vote on New York City’s congestion-pricing plan was the latest example of why a change, in both parties' delegations, is essential.

At least the competition is intense on the State Senate side where Democrats are challenging the Republicans’ slim majority. Switching to a Democratic majority would at least demote Senate Leader Joseph Bruno, who is under federal investigation and a grand master of Albany’s business as usual. But the Assembly has 150 mostly unchallenged seats, and since this is technically a democracy, each race deserves more than one candidate.

In Manhattan, where the Democratic primary is the election, it is time to challenge even the most established members of the Legislature -- like Assemblyman Richard Gottfried on the West Side or Assemblywoman Deborah Glick. And it is far past time for a serious reformer to challenge Mr. Silver in his Chinatown base.

New York, of course, needs more than a few new faces. The state goes begging for challengers who are genuinely committed to changing Albany’s corrupt ways. Candidates need to promise a real reform of the scandalous campaign finance system, including public financing. And they should pledge their support for a nonpartisan commission to draw legislative districts.

New Yorkers deserve to be mad as hell about Albany, and their best revenge is at the ballot box. All they need now is to find decent candidates.

Streetsbloggers -- know any "decent candidates" you'd like to see take a run at an incumbent next fall?