City Councilman Domenic Recchia Jr. is quietly telling friends he’s pulling out of the Brooklyn Borough President’s race – paving the way for state Sen. Eric Adams to potentially become the first African-American elected to the post, sources said today.
The term-limited Democratic councilman, instead, is now planning to challenge Republican Rep. Michael Grimm for the congressional seat representing Staten Island and part of southern Brooklyn.
Recchia’s decision to drop his borough president bid leaves Adams, a retired police captain elected senator in November 2006, as the only serious candidate in this year’s election for the largely ceremonial Beep post.
Meanwhile, several sources said some Brooklyn Democratic Party honchos are now breathing a sigh of relief because they were concerned a Recchia-Adams primary fight could’ve split the party up by racial lines.
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz is term-limited from running again.
Recchia spokeswoman Ashleigh Owens declined to say whether Recchia had made a decision, adding he’s “exploring his options” and “consulting with his family, friends, colleagues, staff, and constituents regarding his plans and will make an announcement soon.”
Democratic sources have said that if Recchia ran for Beep he’d have support of Southern Brooklyn, while Adams would have Central Brooklyn’s backing, so the race for the Democratic nomination would have came down to the Brownstone Belt.
Recchia, who chairs the council’s powerful finance committee, had initially wanted to run for comptroller, but party leaders pressured him to drop that bid last year when Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer decided to pull out of the mayoral race and run for comptroller.