When I walked into Purity Diner on Seventh Avenue, David Pachefsky, the Green candidate for the City Council in the 39th district, waved me to the back, where he was sitting. The most casually dressed of the candidates, he was wearing a comfortable looking brown sweater and a scarf and ordered "two eggs over easy. Isn't that a style? No meat."

David, age 40, an extremely disarming and likable person is also fun to talk to. He told me that he grew up in my neck of the woods, the Upper West Side (110th Street and Riverside Drive). As a kid he had a keen interest in the work of garbage men; he and his dad, who was a professor of literature at CUNY, would follow them around the neighborhood. His mom, "a farm girl from Eastern Kansas, studied literature in
graduate school, and worked as a copy-editor and substitute teacher."

When he was 5, his family moved to a house in Patchogue, Long Island, where his mother grew strawberries and David remembers catching toads. His father, who was Bronx-born with a thick Bronx accent, never learned to drive and grew to dislike the suburbs after losing his teaching job during the CUNY budget crisis of 1975.

At Duke University and Hunter College, David studied international politics and became obsessed with the idea of fairness in the world. "Why are some countries poor? Why are some people poor?"

At a summer camp where he worked during college, David met counselors from the Ivory Coast and later visited Senegal and other countries in Africa, a formative experience that inspired him to get a master's degree in International Politics at American University. There he  developed an interest in local governments and the way that they can be a force for the good in Africa and elsewhere.

"There was an anti-government bias at the time," David explained. "Government equals corruption and is controlled by big, greedy elites. The idea was to bypass government and work with non-profits." But David was dubious of  that model. He believed then and still does that  government has a role to play. "You're not going to get sustainable development if you go that route."

To learn more about local politics, David decided to study a local government close to home. "Where better to learn about micro politics than in the city you know." This interest led David to research a project about the 1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville teacher's strike.

To fulfill a grad school requirement, David interned with City Council member Steven D. Brienza, who represented the 39th District at the time and was briefly considering a run in the 2009 race. David learned first-hand how NYC government works as he sat in on oversight hearings on welfare reform and other issues. This was during the Giuliani years and "in the thick of Giuliani's Draconian welfare policies," David told me.

By the time David's fried eggs and my egg and cheese sandwich arrived, we were just getting out of graduate school. That's when  David got a job in the Central Staff of the City Council. He worked in the Finance Division, which keeps tabs on the budget of the City of New York. It was there that he really learned the fiscal impact on legislation. Within Finance, he was assigned to the health, youth and aging committees.

Sometime during his ten years at the City Council, David left for a few months to try out a job at the MTA, which he found to be technocratic and boring so he went back to the City Council.

"So they took you back?" I joked.

"Sure," David replied. "I was good at my job."

I believed him but I wanted to know what made him good.

"I am very analytical. I understand complex financial issues. I can communicate complex things very clearly and I get along with people."

I wondered if these qualifications would be a plus if he makes it to the City Council.  

"Things get done in the City Council not through brilliant analysis but through listening, explaining things clearly to others and nudging policy through."

Clearly David is a smart, progressive thinker who is deeply analytical about the way government works. I enjoyed hearing his well-articulated thoughts on the subject.

"People who are good at getting elected are not always good at governing. Conversely, people who are good at government aren't necessarily good at getting elected," David told me.

Since leaving the council in 2008, David, with his specialization in legislative strengthening, has worked as a consultant for local governments in Africa. He recently returned from Nigeria and Sierra Leone, where he was thinking of moving his family (he has two girls, one in middle school and one in pre-school). But his wife, a pediatrician at Kings County Hospital, just
got a fellowship in emergency medicine in Newark, NJ, so the family is
going to stay put in Brooklyn for a while.

When we pushed aside our clean plates, I asked David to tell me the top drawer issues in his campaign? David took a thoughtful breath and then erupted with this; 

"Education. More good schools. Transportation and jobs. All of this within a framework of what makes a sustainable neighborhood and a sustainable society,"

David, who rides his younger daughter around Park Slope in a bicycle/rickshaw, is also interested in a pedestrian and bike-centric community, which he thinks works well for small business.

As for his qualifications: David believes that his ten year experience in the City Council counts for a lot as he understands that bureaucracy inside and out. With this, he believes, he represents a jolt to the political system as someone, who is fiercely analytical and interested in reform.

"We have the potential to do better at the City Council," David tells me. "The Council should take on the big picture in terms of ecological issues, social justice, democracy and political change."

As a Green candidate, getting on the ballot is one of David's biggest challenges — and his first order of business. In a lot of ways, the system is stacked against third party candidates. While each of the Democratic candidates will be collecting their 1500 signatures in June, David has to wait until July ("when everyone leaves town," David said) to get the 2,700 that are required of the Green Party.

It is important for people to know that citizens can only sign one candidate's ballot petition. Therefore if you feel strongly about the Green Party being represented in this election, wait until July to sign David's petition.

By the end of breakfast, I've learned a great deal about the City Council, NYC politics and the way local politics can be a force for good in the world. David is a great teacher and thinker, and could be a fresh new voice in NYC politics.

If only we could find the check.

After the waiter drops it off we somehow manage to lose it. No biggie, we figure. Except the waiter tells us, quite seriously, that if he loses a check he has to pay $50 to the restaurant owner.

David and I roll eyes. I check my bag over and over as does David who has numerous notebooks and papers in his. Finally, I find that I put the check and the money in a tiny inside pocket in my bag. Duh. Embarrassing. The waiter, David, the cashier, everyone is relieved.

"I'm glad you found the check," David told me as we finally leave the Purity. "$50. Jeez. That doesn't seem fair," he said as we began our walk down Seventh Avenue.