Dick Hubert’s Worldview: Local Democrats provide fodder for journalists; Panama Canal drying up

September 6, 2023 at 11:10 p.m.

A heavily loaded container ship in the Panama Canal in January 2022. Ships this size are having to reduce their cargo weight to make it through the Canal in 2023. (Dick Hubert/Westmore News)

Whether it’s at the County or Congressional level, our regional politics is nothing short of rich material for journalists.

Let’s start at the County level.

For that a tip of my hat to my prime reason for subscribing to Gannett’s Journal News—the superb investigative reporting of Tax Watch columnist David McKay Wilson.

Wilson is on a tear.

He forced the resignation of Democratic County Legislator Chris Johnson from Yonkers’ 15th District. Wilson reported that Johnson, who theoretically lived in an affordable apartment in the 15th District, had purchased a home for $770,000 in the 16^th District—and moved in! He noted that Board Chair Vedat Gashi thanked Johnson for his service when Johnson handed in his resignation.

Last week it was Gashi’s turn.

As Wilson reported Sept. 1:

“Another day, another Westchester County legislator with an apartment purchased through an affordable housing program that he's using as an investment property. This time, it’s Board of Legislators Chairman Vedat Gashi, D-Yorktown. … Gashi and his wife, Vjosa, since 2015 have owned a four-bedroom affordable co-op at West 88^th Street and Columbus Avenue on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The apartment should be Gashi’s primary residence, according to the co-op’s regulatory agreement with the city of New York. .. The co-op board, however, can offer an exception in writing. 

Gashi, who serves as the co-op board’s secretary, said he has such written approval, but has declined to provide it…Meanwhile, Gashi lives with his family in a five-bedroom, four-bathroom Yorktown home with 4,000 square feet of living space on Rustic Ridge Court, which the town values for $968,000. Gashi lists the affordable apartment in Manhattan as a business venture on his financial disclosure statement filed with Westchester County.”

    The Vedat Gashi family (from left): wife Vjosa, Vedat, son Leka, daughter Hana.
 File Photo 

This is worse than embarrassing. Gashi beat out our District 6 Democratic County Legislator Nancy Barr for chair of the County Legislature after former Democratic Chair Catherine Borgia was forced to resign for her own ethical reasons.

I’ve interviewed Gashi for this column when he ran for Congress against Jamaal Bowman in the 2022 Democratic primary. In my view, this tax cheating episode kills his career as a politician, whether he resigns promptly or not. I’m sure Wilson will never let up on Gashi, and rightly so.

If there’s anyone County politicians should fear in the media, it’s Wilson.

He’s our local answer to the late and legendary CBS News Correspondent Mike Wallace, who brought terror to the hearts of anyone who had something to hide whom he called (or showed up in person with a camera crew in tow) with the words “I’m Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes.”

Meanwhile, keep an eye on Barr, who’s still vice chair of the County Legislature. She may just wind up as chair, finally.

The Democrats go to war
in local primaries

A few weeks ago, I noted that News12’s Tara Rosenblum was reporting that Democratic County Executive George Latimer was weighing requests of local Democrats to primary challenge our 16^th Congressional District Congressman Jamaal Bowman, the far-left member of the “Squad.”

Latimer has so far remained silent about that political possibility.

I always wondered as a practical matter whether a White politician could challenge Bowman in the 16th without charges of “racism” being batted about.

There’s nothing, and I mean nothing, that’s current on the Internet about potential Democratic challengers to Bowman, who nonetheless is sending out e-mail requests for donations naming unannounced rivals.

So far, his New Deal Strategies team, which represents his campaign, has not responded to inquiries on the matter.

Over in the 17^th District, where the Westmore News circulation area used to be prior to the 2020 redistricting, the Democrats are in a battle royal, with Mondaire Jones, our former Congressman, facing off against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s sister, Liz Whitmer Gereghty.

She has been endorsed by the powerful Emily’s List Political Action Committee, which seeks to put more women in power in federal, state, and local government throughout the country.

Also having announced is MaryAnn Carr, a former town official from Bedford, who served a year as town supervisor in 2021 after five years as a councilwoman.

I don’t expect Jones to cry “racism” for having White women opposing him, not do I expect 17^th incumbent Republican Congressman Mike Lawler to get involved in that battle cry either.

But if Jones should win against either of his female opponents, he can expect a no-holds-barred response from Lawler, who on Thursday, Sept. 7 was raising campaign funds in Rye Brook at the home of Matt and Mary Rettner.

As Lawler campaign spokesman Chris Russell said of Jones in the New York Post of June 21, he’s known for “far-left views on defunding the police and cashless bail, being endorsed by AOC and ‘the squad,’ abandoning the people of this district in 2022 in a desperate attempt to cling to power, and being a hyper-partisan rubber stamp for his party.”

I saw the horrible future of the

Panama Canal in 2022; it’s here now

Back on Jan. 20, 2022, in these columns, on my first and only trip through the Panama Canal (quarantined in a cabin with COVID on the MS Zuiderdam), I wrote this:

“...the Canal only works with fresh water from rivers and lakes. The locks on either end raise ships like ours 85 to 90 feet above sea level to make the trip from ocean to ocean on fresh water. But if that fresh water is drying up, and not replenishing, what then? Panama is faced with spending billions on reservoirs and new systems to guarantee that the supply of fresh water keeps the Canal open. The Wall Street Journal reported this past June that every time a ship like ours traverses the Canal, it uses between 350 to 400 million gallons of fresh water in the process of filling and emptying the locks. That water pours into the ocean and is not recirculated. Thus, if there is no plentiful supply of fresh water, there is no functioning Panama Canal.”

    The MS Zuiderdam on Jan. 12, 2022 passing through locks in the Panama Canal. All the fresh water in the locks flows out to the ocean in the process of raising and lowering ships. How much longer can the Canal tolerate cruise ships as opposed to more needed cargo ships?
 By Dick Hubert 

Guess what? Climate change has arrived less than two years later, and the Panama Canal is in trouble.

The Journal reported Aug. 13, 2023 that “A flotilla of ships are stuck on both sides of the Panama Canal, waiting for weeks to cross after the waterway’s authorities cut transits to conserve water amid a serious drought.

Vessel-tracking data show more than 200 ships currently waiting to transit, a figure that has been climbing since the canal capped daily transits to 32 last month from an average 36 under normal conditions. 

The waterway’s entrances on the Pacific and Atlantic oceans are dotted with ships that are backed up for more than 20 days. Most are bulk cargo or gas carriers that are typically booked on short notice. Some shipowners are rerouting traffic to avoid the backlog.”

They added:

“Ships normally cross the canal at an average 50 feet of draft, which has been reduced to 44 feet. To match the lower water depth, big boxships have to cross with fewer containers aboard. Smaller ships are added to move the remainder of the cargo.

Vessels that aren’t on fixed routes like bulk and gas carriers that are booked to move cargo in short notice face the longest delays.”

The article didn’t mention cruise ships. But as this crisis goes on, and fresh water becomes even more in demand, with crucial shipping lanes squeezed and critical goods delayed or sent elsewhere, I can’t imagine that cruise ships would have any kind of priority.

When the Panama Canal formally opened for business on Aug. 15, 1914 during the Presidency of Woodrow Wilson, no one, and I repeat NO ONE, dreamed this day would ever come.

But we’re here, and it happened with startling rapidity.

The next time you hear a politician (especially Republican) say climate change is a “hoax,” tell them to go to…(not there) … the Panama Canal.