Now, she's got a challenge for her position as a district leader. Sears, who's been a district leader as long as I've been alive (literally!), is facing a challenge from Jessica Ramos, a local union organizer.

Ramos told me, "I am running for District Leader in the 34th Assembly District--Part A--because we need change. The incumbent has failed to live up to the values of the party."

There's also a racial undercurrent to this race that can't be ignored. Sears is white, Ramos is Hispanic, and the demographics in the neighborhood are trending away from Sears and more towards Ramos.

Just another fun race to watch in Jackson Heights.

Voting in favor of it was Helen Foster of the Bronx , Alan Gerson of Manhattan, Letitia James of Brooklyn and Helen Sears of Queens.

Liz Crowley of Queens abstained [corrected]. The issue now goes before the full City Council where things may get interesting.

UPDATE: Vinny Ignizio, a Republican from Staten Island, said he opposes the renaming of a street in Queens after Sean Bell.

The spokesman, Will Sweeney, said they are currently figuring out which lawyer to retain in order to deal with the matter. Dromm, a district leader and teacher, ousted incumbent Helen Sears of Jackson Heights in November's election.

Melinda Katz, the outgoing chairperson of the Land Use committee, abstained.

The sole dissenter, I'm told, was Helen Sears, a member from Queens who lost re-election this September.

The failure of the bill to pass the committee means that when the full City Council meets later today, supporters will most likely not be able to generate enough votes to pass it.

"This is a real precedent-setting move," said Lipsky, who noted that critics were motivated by the developer's unwillingness to guarantee "living wages" for jobs created at the site, and that other legislation dealing with "living wage" jobs will be coming before the City Council in the future.

A reader passes along a flier that's being circulated criticizing Bill de Blasio, who is in a run-off for public advocate against Mark Green.

It’s the same design as another flier that went around Jackson Heights recently, where incumbent City Councilwoman Helen Sears implied that her opponent, Danny Dromm, had something in his past he was trying to hide.

In the public advocate’s race, Green has hammered away at de Blasio for giving taxpayer money to local community groups while some employees and board members donated money to de Blasio’s campaign.

On the back of the mailer, it says de Blasio is "up to his knees" in "shady money."

In the small universe of New York City politics, this kind of attack is unseemly but not uncommon. There’s no evidence that de Blasio steered money to a specific group in exchange for a specific contribution, or that other, more deserving groups, lost out.

The ad also includes part of a Times editorial calling for an "immediate investigation by the Campaign Finance Board." De Blasio is mentioned in the editorial, but it's not really about him, it's about whether the Working Families Party is skirting spending limits in a way that benefits candidates they endorse The Times later endorsed de Blasio.

City Councilwoman Helen Sears has put out this flier about her opponent, Danny Dromm.

Sears, who represents Jackson Heights, was having an easier time when she faced three challengers, who could have diluted the anti-incumbent vote against her. But one opponent, Alfonse Quirroz, dropped out and endorsed her, leaving her with one major opponent, Dromm, and one newcomer, Stanley Kalathara. Each has raised more than $100,000.

Dromm is a district leader, is openly gay, and has the support of the Working Families Party. He's a pretty well-known commodity locally, and he handles himself well for a candidate of his experience level.

Sears, who was a district leader before her election, voted to extend term limits, isn't much of a policy wonk and has a tendency to ramble. But she’s attentive to her district, and has and has the support of the Queens County organization, which still means something in that part of the county.

The district is among the most ethnically diverse in the city. This would be the place for a candidate like Kalathara to make a mark, but his accent is thick and could deny him the cross-over appeal candidates from emerging communities often need to win.

Much of the political fighting has been between Sears and Dromm.

Sears got into some hot water for not denouncing a whisper campaign that brought to light Dromm’s arrests when he was young, including one for “prostitution” when he was a teenager. The Empire State Pride Agenda, Council Speaker Christine Quinn--not normally one to provoke the Queens machine--denounced the whisper campaign against Dromm.

Sears did too, but not loudly or quickly enough for critics. This flier suggests that maybe she was never all that bothered by it in the first place. The manila folder covering Dromm’s face and the black-and-white Polaroid of him paper-clipped to the front of it resembles the kind of police files voters will have seen on cop shows, vaguely alluding to the whisper campaign that nobody ever took responsibility for.

But it may not work out that way. In fact, only a handful of the more than two dozen incumbent City Council members are in anything that could be considered a serious race.

Today, The Post identifies four incumbents worth watching: Diana Reyna, Maria Baez, Helen Sears and Kendall Stewart. All voted to extend term limits. To that list, I’d add Alan Gerson and Darlene Mealy. More on those races shortly.

Citizen Union's executive director, Dick Dadey, said if every incumbent City Council member is re-elected, “I’m not sure you can take much stock in it because it’s a low turnout election. There’s not much excitement about the top of the ticket. And low turnouts always favor incumbents.”

In the comptroller race, Citizens Union is backing John Liu. Two other leading candidates, David Yassky and Melinda Katz, both voted to extend term limits, and the other candidate in the race, David Weprin, opposed the term limits extension, but is seen as having less of a chance of winning.

In the public advocate’s race, C.U. announced they’re backing Bill de Blasio, despite his close association with the Working Families Party, which is under scrutiny for the creative way it has found to coordinate expensive field operations with chosen candidates. (The WFP is also backing Liu.)

C.U. wrote that De Blasio can boost the “office’s effectiveness and visibility” and act “as an effective counter to a strong mayor and active council.”

According to the editor, Mike Schenkler, her campaign apologized and said that it was a scheduling mishap. Schenkler said that she's not necessarily disqualified from getting the endorsement, but that the appointment will not be rescheduled.

Sears in a running in a three-way primary against Danny Dromm and Stanley Kalathara.

In a July 30 interview with the Times Ledger, City Councilwoman Helen Sears defended her vote to extend term limits, saying, "You can’t decapitate communities by leaving projects that you wish to move along after they start,” and, “When I’m out of office, nobody’s picking up my initiatives.”

Sears also told the paper that "she would have preferred to see the decision go to a voter referendum."

But, as opponent Danny Dromm noted, Sears voted against an amendment to do just that. In a public statement, Dromm's campaign manager, Melody Lopez, slammed Sears for her comments.

"Saying that she actually wanted to leave the decision up to us when she clearly voted not to is just insulting," said Lopez.

A spokesman for Sears' campaign, Joe Reubens of the Parkside Group, emailed an explanation:

“The Council Member voted against the amendment because holding a special election on the referendum would have cost taxpayers between $10-15 million, public monies that could better be used to improve our schools, hospitals, parks, libraries, fire and police departments. Given the dire economic circumstance our City has found itself in due to the national recession, holding such an election would have been fiscally irresponsible.”