48th City Council District candidate David Storobin sounds off

Former State Senator David Storobin is running on the Republican ticket for City Council in the 48^th District, representing parts of Coney Island, Gravesend, Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach and Midwood. He attended the Brooklyn Real Estate Board forum, held at the Dyker Beach Golf Club on Wednesday, October 2.

The 34-year-old attorney is running against Democrat Chaim Deutsch for outgoing Councilmember Michael Nelson’s seat.  Deutsch, the president and founder of the Flatbush Shomrim Safety Patrol and a longtime community liaison for Nelson, did not attend the forum, so Storobin got the floor to himself.

“I came to the U.S. 22 years ago with a single mother. My first way to make money was collecting cans at the 18^th Avenue Festival,” he said.

Storobin said that, if elected, he would focus on growing the job market.

“In this economy, one thing that’s more important than anything else is creating jobs,” he contended. “In government now, we don’t have anyone with business experience. I have experience as a business owner. I understand the laws we need to make for the economy to recover.”

He also spoke about how hard it is for senior citizens to survive in the city.

“It’s not fair that 80 or 90-year-olds are struggling to pay rent,” Storobin stated. “The solution is to not raise taxes but to save money.”

When it comes to education, Storobin believes that the city should “give principals more power over schools. The power to demote, promote and fire people because they know what’s going on in the building. They should also be held accountable and teachers should be held responsible, too.”

He also said that not so much pressure should be put on every student to attend college.

“We have to bring back vocational training for everyone at the high school level. If someone wants to cook, fix cars or make jewelry, they have a skill…an actual job in your hands that you can do something with,” Storobin concluded.

Storobin was in the state Senate from June, 2012, through December, 2012, filling out the remainder of former State Senator Carl Kruger’s term, after a narrow victory over Democratic Councilmember Lew Fidler in a special election. Kruger left the Senate after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and two counts of bribery conspiracy. Storobin subsequently ran again for state Senate, against Democrat Simcha Felder, but lost by approximately a two-to-one margin.

Election Day is Tuesday, November 5.