She testified before the City Council on Friday, October 17. Click here to read her testimony.

She has been featured on the Web and in the New York Times on August 27th, on October 10th and in Brooklyn's Courier,

In amending the Act, Congress rejected several U.S. Supreme Court decisions that narrowed the law's applicability and created unrealistically high barriers to coverage. As she stated in her testimony, "the ADAAA will do no more than protect those Congress originally intended to protect." Jo Anne was particularly delighted that in the landmark case she tried, Bartlett v. NYS Board of Law Examiners, was specifically cited by the House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce as being the leading case exemplifying Congress' intent. Read her testimony here:  simon_testimony-PDF.pdf.

On September 25, 2008, the ADA Amendments Act was signed into law by President George W. Bush. It was a good day for millions of Americans with Disabilities, their families and friends.

If you'd like to contribute to Jo Anne's campaign by check, please download this form and return it to us with your check or credit card information. Please make checks payable to Jo Anne Simon for City Council, and send contributions to:

Jo Anne Simon for City Council
P.O. Box 21044
Brooklyn, NY 11202

Your help is greatly appreciated!

Below are a few of the key issues for which Jo Anne has a proven record of commitment. Of course, she'll be adding more information as the campaign progresses, so please check back from time to time.

Everybody'sTalking about Term Limits.

Jo Anne believes the voters have spoken.  Read her statement here

Education -- Fighting for the rights of all students.

Jo Anne is a teacher and former college administrator, so education is something she cares deeply about and has continued to work on as an attorney. She:

• Opposes the Mayor's recently proposed education budget cuts.
• Supports real accountability in our schools - from last year's bus route programs to this year's admissions debacles (for Pre-K, Kindergarten and middle schools, especially special eduction), it's clear that accountability is more than just a numbers game. Meaningful involvement of parents and educators is key.
• In a landmark case brought against New York's bar examiners, Jo Anne successfully represented Marilyn Bartlett, a learning disabled women who sought accommodations for her learning disability on the Bar Exam. She was refused and a nine year battle, including a visit to the U.S. Supreme Court, was waged. The case was won, opening doors for students with disabilities to standardized testing. (See articles in the San Francisco Examiner and New York Law Journal about this case.)
  
• Jo Anne regularly speaks to college faculty and administrators across the country regarding higher education, disability and diversity.
• Jo Anne's expertise is held in high regard by her peers and parents alike, serving as President of the New York Branch of the International Dyslexia Association, and the Professional Advisory Board of the Learning Disabilities Association of America.

Development--we know that as council member, she will fight for our communities.

Perhaps no other topic has stirred more controversy in Brooklyn than development. From huge deals to smaller construction of new luxury coops, space has become a hot commodity in Brooklyn. Too often it seems, communities are put in a position of fighting against someone else's idea of what our neighborhoods need.

Jo Anne believes that we can and should determine what our neighborhoods need. Working together we can make that happen. That's why she helped create the Hoyt-Schermerhorn Task Force, a model for community based development city-wide. She has signed a Pledge to Uphold Accountable Development principles. That's why she's organized with neighborhoods and spearheaded efforts to bring the community to the table on issues such as the Downtown Brooklyn Plan, Atlantic Yards, BrooklynSpeaks.net, Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, PLANyc, Greenpoint-Williamsburg Rezoning, the Gowanus Expressway Community Stakeholder Group,Traffic Calming, Brooklyn Greenway Initiative and so many other important efforts to improve our quality of life.

Transportation

In this dense urban environment, Jo Anne believes that transportation should be effective, efficient and safe, environmentally sustainable, flexible, and have as little environmental impact as possible. Transportation decisions should be respectful of the host communities; made after meaningful participation by the affected persons; and based on sufficient, accurate and valid traffic and environmental data.

That's why she led the communities' effort to have a progressive regional response to the NYS Department of Transportation's proposal to rebuild the Gowanus Expressway and has advocated for transportation and transit improvements for 15 years.

Environment and Open Space

It's taken decades for people to realize that the environment is not just the country - it is also our vital urban landscape. Too many urban areas bear a disproportionate share of the environmental burdens associated with power plants, waste transfer stations, diesel fumes, airborne pollutants - all of which severely compromise our health and our students' abilities to learn efficiently. It is a City Council member's job to keep the environment on the radar screen while ensuring that our open spaces - parks, gardens, plazas - keep growing.

That's why Jo Anne has supported increased city funding for community gardens, improved pedestrian pathways in Downtown Brooklyn, renovation and upgrades to City Parks, such as 16 Sycamore, McLaughlin, South Oxford and Cadman/Walt Whitman Parks. She has co-founded Friends of Douglass/Greene Park to steward the renovation of that park through a community-wide, participatory design process and the use of incentive for environmentally responsible development, such as mandating the use of the "Sustainable Design Guidelines" that were adopted for the World Trade Center redevelopment projects.

If you believe that more democracy is better than less democracy, then you believe that community voices must be heard. The more people are involved in the actual decision-making processes in their community, the more likely our communities will reflect our values and priorities for our neighborhoods, our schools, our local economies, and our overall quality of life.

A few key facts about Jo Anne's commitment to our communities:

• President, Boerum Hill Association (1993-1999), Chair: Traffic & Transportation and Land Use Committees (1999-2005); Atlantic Yards Committee (2004-present)
• Co-founder, Downtown Brooklyn Coalition, a confederation of communities ringing downtown Brooklyn
• Founding member, BrooklynSpeaks.net, Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, Friends of Douglass/Greene Park; Hoyt-Schermerhorn Task Force
• Immediate past Chair, Gowanus Community Stakeholder Group and Gowanus Expressway Community Coalition
  
• Founding member, Association on Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD), an international organization of professionals serving postsecondary students with disabilities
• President, New York Branch -International Dyslexia Association
• Member, Independent Neighborhood Democrats, Central Brooklyn Independent Democrats, Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn
• Executive Committee, 504 Democrats, the country's oldest political club focusing on disability issues
• New York State Office of Court Administration, Americans with Disabilities Act Committee
• Chair, Committee on Legal Issues Affecting People with Disabilities, Association of the Bar of the City of New York (2000-2003)

If you will excuse a biblical flourish, the G train is the Moses of New York mass transit. Like Moses, it never made it to the Promised Land. That is, if Manhattan is your idea of divine promise. With its nosebleed-inducing apartment prices and rents, some think of it as flowing not so much with milk and honey as with bilk and money.

In any event, the G train has the distinction of being the city's only subway line that makes no stops in Manhattan, the heart and wallet of New York. It is a lime green squiggle on the subway map, running from Brooklyn to Queens. Much of the day it barely gasps into Queens, making but two stops there. It meanders through Brooklyn neighborhoods like Carroll Gardens, Cobble Hill, Fort Greene and Greenpoint, places that are enjoying grand revivals and impressive measures of cachet among the young and mobile.

At the moment, there are only three Democratic candidates vying to replace term-limited Councilman David Yassky and represent a sprawling district that stretches from Greenpoint to Park Slope.

More candidates are on the way, insiders said.

What those candidates will focus on depends on, well, the candidates themselves.

Click here to read this story in full.