By Harold Egeln
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

BAY RIDGE — Call it the Brooklyn GOP’s “Grand Young Party� generation. Stepping forward with its own political action platform, the Brooklyn Young Republican Club unveiled its first-ever annual public policy agenda, setting the stage for “true reform while re-affirming principles that work.�

“This is an exciting day for Brooklyn Young Republicans who have far too often been left out of the public policy discourse on issues that matter to all New Yorkers,� said Club President Jonathan Judge of Bay Ridge on the report’s release.

In a borough where registered Republican voters are outnumbered seven to one by Democrats, the GOP’s younger members are regrouping to help re-vitalize the party’s base after the 2008 Democratic Party elections sweep.

That being on his mind as well as the current city council campaigns, Judge noted an influx of new and younger fresh faces in the GOP. “With young Republicans running for public office throughout Brooklyn and many seeking party positions as Brooklyn County Committee members, Brooklyn Young Republicans are stepping up to the plate to lead our communities to a better tomorrow.�

The agenda, which Judge said could guide Republican Party members and office-seekers, covers several issues. He said, “We hope this document serves as a guidepost for candidates who want to know what are the policy priorities of young Republicans at the city level.�

Adding to the upbeat tone, Judge mentioned the hot news possibility that former Mayor Rudy Giuliani may run for governor, especially with a weakened and unpopular Democratic Governor David Paterson. Judge referred to the recent N.Y. Republican Strategic Planning Commission’s reform report with nearly 100 recommendations based on interviews with party leaders and members throughout the state and Giuliani’s favorable response to it.

“Giuliani has already argued for many of these reforms to be made at the state level in his June 24 op-ed piece, ‘Putting New York Back Together.’� Up-and-coming Republican activist Michael Allegretti of Bay Ridge, who is rumored to be considering a run for an elective office, a trial balloon as yet unconfirmed, was a member of the state GOP’s reform report commission.

Public Policy Agenda Outlines Action And Reform Points

At the top of the Young Republican’s platform agenda is public safety with “ensuring proper funding for Operation Impact� which is a crime fighting and prevention program started under Mayor Giuliani and continued under Mayor Bloomberg, an ex-Republican and now an independent.

Education comes next, with a call to “expand charter schools and pay-for-performance systems (and) enacting a flexible school voucher or tax credit program.� It also wants to “promote agenda-free education to ensure academic freedom.�

Under social policy, the Young Republicans want welfare reform that promotes “work first� to continue without any major changes, calling it a policy that works and that must continue.

On the economy, the agenda re-affirms GOP policy of low taxes and keeping them that way, not hiking the sales tax and rejecting congestion pricing and river-bridge tolls that they label “quasi-tax schemes.�

It calls for streamlining small business regulations, “opposing increases in marginal income tax that drive families and businesses out of the city,� and conducting full independent “audits of city agencies to reduce waste and privatize services whenever public sector services are more costly.�

Among democracy reforms, the agenda states that term limit changes must be made through initiatives or referendums and gerrymandering must end and be replaced by a nonpartisan independent redistricting commission. It also promotes petition process equality.

“These policy proposals are realistic and clear cut,� said Marco Castillo, the club’s policy committee chair. “They are focused on improving the day-to-day lives of the people in our borough and city. We are interested in not just pointing out problems but offering solutions.�

Judge, in a previous interview with the Brooklyn Eagle, praised the work of Brooklyn GOP Chair Craig Eaton and the Kings County Republicans’ “forward momentum� on party reform, grassroots work and steadfastness to basic party principles.

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