A story with some legs locally --- The "FBBR" -- Marty Golden fight for the streets of Bay Ridge made the local news.....

Bay Ridge's hometown paper saw the political fireworks over the 3rd Avenue Stroll as a big story.....  

Staffer John Quaglione and campaign guru Michael Tobman were prominent in the "Brooklyn Reporter" coverage of Marty Golden's flap with Fight Back Bay Ridge [FBBR]

For those who seem to think that Julianne Cuba and Julianne McShane aren't fair in their reporting of the tiff between "FBBR," and  Marty Golden and his supporters,  how about this report by Meaghan McGoldrick,  "Ridge political divide takes shape beyond Summer Stroll" in a completely different newspaper  ---  the umbrella weekly news publication, "Brooklyn Reporter,"  parent-successor to the Home Reporter and The Spectator.....

According to Meaghan McGoldrick's report  ---  "A Bay Ridge political back-and-forth which erupted on social media in the wake of the August 3 Summer Stroll on Third has led to questions of legality, and it has more to do with just balloons and tote bags.Days before the stroll – where liberal activist group Fight Back Bay Ridge distributed stop-sign shaped fans and yellow tote bags filled with literature detailing state Sen. Marty Golden’s voting and driving record, while the pol’s staff handed out nearly the same color yellow balloons with his name on them – the pol’s re-election rep penned a letter urging the New York State Board of Elections (BOE) to investigate the grassroots group, which, Golden’s campaign claims, had failed to register as an independent expenditure committee despite raising funds to unseat the longtime pol....   Following the stroll, objections to Fight Back Bay Ridge’s campaign were also raised on Facebook and Twitter by Golden staffer John Quaglione, in a post that garnered hundreds of comments as area residents debated whether, as Quaglione asserted, the people at the event for Fight Back Bay Ridge were aggressive in their efforts, a complaint that members of the group flatly deny....   See  "Ridge political divide takes shape beyond Summer Stroll"  by Meaghan MCGoldrick,  8/15/18,  The Brooklyn Reporter   [https://brooklynreporter.com/story/ridge-political-divide-takes-shape-beyond-summer-stroll/]).   

The article goes on to note that:  "The letter, penned by Golden’s campaign spokesperson Michael Tobman, focuses on Fight Back Bay Ridge’s distribution of flyers, as well as its creation of a GoFundMe page to fund the printing of literature as well as 'other ideas that will help unseat Marty Golden.'...  Tobman has also written to GoFundMe in hopes of getting the site to remove the fundraiser. To date, it has raised more than $1,500 towards its $2,000 goal...." 

 McGoldrick also told the FBBR side of the story:

"The group had its own rebuttal. Its attorney, Bay Ridge resident Eugene Strupinsky, sent the pol’s office a cease and desist letter demanding that Golden’s staffers stop 'discouraging and criminalizing' the group’s First Amendment rights to free speech – with Quaglione’s post and subsequent comments made by fellow Golden staffer Arlene Rutuelo, a focal point....  The letter, sent to Golden’s office on August 8, claims that, following the stroll, Quaglione 'stated on social media his intent to prevent the group from participating at future strolls' and that Rutuelo, 'who approves applications for tables at the event, also publicly claimed the group lacked a permit, and so were in violation of event "rules.” '....    'My clients don’t need a permit to engage in protected First Amendment activity, nor do they need to rent a table for an act of protest on a public street,' said Strupinsky, who, with his letter, produced proof of threatening comments from local residents which came in response to Quaglione’s post, which he eventually deleted on Facebook, which stated that Fight Back Bay Ridge was 'creating hostility' at the Stroll....   'I don’t know if he was acting under your authority as your communications director, but to state such things numerous times, and throughout the weekend, only to finally delete many of these comments when some of your purported defenders offered to bring ‘bats’ and ‘riot gear’ to the next stroll, was irresponsible at best,' Strupinsky wrote, stressing also Quaglione’s original wording, which referred to the scene at the stroll as a 'battlefield.'..."   

The article continued with several  he-said, she-said comments by Michael Tobman, a spokesman for Marty Golden, and Mallory and Sally McMahon for FBBR,  all of which are great to get a flavor of the infighting between the two sides....

NOTE:  THE FBBR DEMONSTRATIONS AND DISTRIBUTIONS DID CONTINUE AT THE AUGUST 10TH SESSION OF THE "STROLL ON 3RD" APPARENTLY WITHOUT SIGNIFICANT INCIDENT