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Suozzi addresses Bed-Stuy voters

BY SID CASSESE | Newsday Staff Writer

March 30, 2006

New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is seen after a fundraiser at the Glen Oaks Country Club in Old Westbury. (Newsday / Karen Wiles Stabile / February 15, 2006)

Campaigning in Brooklyn, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi told an audience comprising mostly black health care professionals yesterday that there is no easy answer to curing the disparity in medical care between racial minorities and whites.

"It is a complex issue and speeches are not enough," said Suozzi, a candidate for governor. "It will require a coalition ... of various people to put a better system in place. There's no one answer."

Speaking to an audience of about 50 at the Akwaaba Mansion, a bed-and-breakfast in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Suozzi, the only white among six panelists, pointedly displayed his knowledge of the issue. He touched on racism, poverty, education, cultural differences among patients and providers, and even mass marketing.

"There is this mass marketing of food that may taste good but is bad for you, often leading to obesity and diabetes," Suozzi said. "What we have to do is figure out a way to market a healthy lifestyle."

"I'm running for governor of the State of New York," he said, "and I want you to know about me and what I've done. If you want to change things, you'll sign up today to join my campaign, and you'll tell your friends to do the same." Suozzi added, first in Italian, then in English, a saying he said was his mother's: "Watch the hands; don't look at the mouth."

"He makes sense. He's logical, and we need change," said Catherine Richardson, of Brooklyn, a retired physician's assistant.

Julia Brathwaite and her husband, George, both of them 30-year residents of the borough, said they would consider voting for Suozzi. "He sounds genuinely concerned, and he's not just listening over his head. He really understands," she said.

Cynthia Cooper, a Suozzi supporter from Lakeview, said: "He will do things in Albany that will help us in Nassau and Brooklyn."

Suozzi, who toured a Haitian community center and a hospital in the morning, beamed as he arrived for the afternoon panel.

"My support has increased by 75 percent," he quipped - referring to a Quinnipiac poll released yesterday that showed a jump from 8 percent in January to 14 percent this week of those who would vote for him in the Democratic primary.