Shaun Donovan, seated, with President Obama (photo: The White House, by Pete Souza)
[This article is part of a series on the leading Democratic mayoral candidates' strengths and weaknesses.]
He has responded to major health and environmental crises. He has worked on large and complicated budget matters. He has experience with building housing and reducing homelessness, among the most pressing issues affecting life in New York City. But Shaun Donovan, an eight-year member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet and former department head under Mayor Michael Bloomberg, remains near the bottom in the Democratic primary field in this year’s New York City mayoral race. The bureaucrat with a deep wealth of experience, a dense and detailed policy platform, and monied allies supporting his campaign hasn’t broken through to voters in a crowded field as he seeks to replace the term-limited Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Donovan entered the race banking on the combination of his Obama ties, deep government experience, thoughtful and detailed policy plans, and positioning himself as the “change candidate” best juxtaposed with de Blasio, who is seen by many as having been in over his head as mayor, a bad manager, and too political. But in a deep and diverse field, Donovan’s wonky, technocratic approach and attempts to constantly cloak himself in Obama-ness or as the anti-de Blasio have landed flat, at least so far. Trying to be “the man with a plan” for everything, he has not ‘owned’ any issue, not even housing, his area of deepest expertise, nor has he fully attempted to make his top specific policy promises -- equity bonds for poor children and 15-minute neighborhoods -- really penetrate the public consciousness.
By most measures, Donovan's record and platform make for an impressive, if not ideal, first-time candidate for elected office. His work on housing policy began as early as his time at Harvard University, when he became an intern at the National Coalition for the Homeless. His first job out of college was with the Community Preservation Corporation, a nonprofit affordable housing developer, where he worked between 1995 and 1998. After that came his first stint in government, in President Bill Clinton’s administration, where he served as deputy assistant secretary for multi-family housing at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and as acting commissioner of the Federal Housing Administration until 2001. Following a few years in the private sector managing federal lending and affordable housing investments at Prudential Mortgage Capital Company, he went on to serve under Mayor Michael Bloomberg as commissioner of the Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) from 2004 till 2009. He spent the next eight years working for Obama, first as HUD secretary, then as director of the Office of Management and Budget. He oversaw the federal responses to everything from the housing crisis that caused the Great Recession and the federal relief effort after Hurricane Sandy in 2012 to the emergency health response to the Ebola and Zika virus outbreaks in 2014 and 2016.
But while Donovan’s policy chops are undeniable, he has no political base to speak of in the city and few major allies in labor or among the local Democratic establishment. His connections with the current president, federal cabinet officials, and governors and mayors in other states may prove useful for bringing more resources to the city if elected, but they appear insufficient in swaying Democratic primary voters. Short of endorsements from the likes of Obama, President Joe Biden, or Vice President Kamala Harris, those deep professional connections seem to be of little help, and Donovan often appears to try to shoehorn an Obama mention into any public commentary. It’s unclear if more primary voters associate him positively with Obama or negatively with Bloomberg. Indeed, some of Donovan’s challenges appear to relate to the fact that he’s in something of a political no man’s land. Despite his many progressive positions, Donovan hasn’t been considered among the most progressive candidates in the race – a group including Comptroller Scott Stringer, former counsel to the mayor Maya Wiley, and former nonprofit executive Dianne Morales. He is on most issues to the left of the moderates like Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams and entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who have led the polling, or former sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia, who has been gaining momentum as the race enters its final weeks before early voting June 12-20 and primary day, June 22.
“New York is so deep, so diverse, it’s tough to simultaneously get known enough and to pick up enough support to win when you start with almost zero name recognition from the general public,” said Bruce Gyory,” a veteran Democratic strategist with the firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, in a phone interview.
“Politically, he's the odd man out in this race. And he didn't catch the lightning in the bottle that the editorial boards gave Kathryn Garcia,” Gyory added. “And there’s room for only one of what I call the competent manager technocrat to get oxygen, and she got all the oxygen from that.”
In the final of three “Pulse of the Primary” polls by Fontas Advisors and Core Decision Analytics (CODA) released on May 26, Donovan was in tied for last place among the eight ‘top tier’ candidates with 2% of the vote, the same as former Citigroup executive Ray McGuire who, like Donovan, has spent a significant amount of money in the last few months on TV and digital ads to build name recognition. Donovan has been aided in that regard by New Start NYC, an independent expenditure committee, or super PAC, funded with $6.8 million from his wealthy father.
The Fontas/CODA poll had 50% of voters undecided and Adams in the lead with 13%, Yang and Garcia in second with 8%; Morales received 7%, Wiley got 5% and Stringer got 4%.
Even when accounting for the 23% of voters who were undecided but voiced their leaning towards a potential candidate, Donovan still shared the last space spot with McGuire at 4% of the vote; Adams climbed to 18%, Yang to 13%, Garcia to 11%. Wiley and Morales both came in at 9% and Stringer got 7% of the vote.
Donovon says he is a unique candidate because he has the boldest ideas and the broadest experience of anyone and represents a change from the status quo of the last eight years. “There's no other candidate in the race that combines those three things,” he said in a phone interview on Thursday, following the second of three official televised debates in the mayoral primary held on Wednesday night. “You heard a lot of political attacks last night but what you heard from me was plans, real ideas, and a track record of getting those ideas, making those ideas real that is unlike anybody in the race.”
It’s true that Donovan has plans, dozens and dozens of them. He has repeatedly talked about his “campaign of ideas” reflected in a 200-plus page document with plans on racial equity, health, climate, transportation, jobs, criminal justice, housing, and education, among other areas. On April 13, his campaign began releasing a countdown of “70 Plans in 70 Days” leading up to the primary, highlighting the specific initiatives contained in that massive vision document.
“There's a difference between being a technocrat, and being a leader...This isn't just about competence, it's also about compassionate ideas and leadership,” Donovan said.
Donovan’s signature campaign idea involves creating what he calls 15-minute neighborhoods, providing equitable access to good public schools, fresh food, green space, health care, economic opportunity, and rapid transportation within 15 minutes of each New Yorker’s home. It’s as much a quality of life plan as it is a racial equity one, fixing the imbalance in resources between wealthier white neighborhoods and communities of color. He has also advanced an “equity bonds” proposal that would provide up to $2,000 annually to each child in the city, or more depending on family income, so that they would have $50,000 saved by the time they graduate high school. He has said he would pay for the program through a combination of city and federal funding and private donations. And though Donovan has not specifically embraced the “defund the NYPD” movement, he has pledged to redirect $3 billion in total from city spending on the overall criminal justice system towards underserved communities.
Ingrid Gould Ellen, a longtime friend and faculty director of NYU Furman Center, attended college with Donovan and helped advise him during the early days of the Obama administration. “He’s extremely intelligent,” she said, “...and he's got an incredible kind of curiosity about policy and not only about policy...he also really cares and believes in thinking hard about implementation and management and operational efficiency.”
“He’s sort of got a big heart and big brain,” she added. “He's also very knowledgeable and experienced not only about city government, which is obviously critical, but I think his experience in Washington makes him very savvy and understanding kind of where the levers are and what relationships are important in maintaining. So I think he would be good at bringing resources to New York as well.”
One area where Donovan has of course sought to set himself apart based on his expertise is tackling the lack of housing affordability and the crisis of homelessness in the city. Polls have shown the combination of the two as the most pressing issue in the city, and there are fears of a mass eviction crisis depending on the implementation of billions in federal rental aid that is flowing through the state as the end of the eviction moratorium looms.
On the campaign trail and in the debates, Donovan has repeatedly touted his work at HUD and HPD. He strengthened enforcement of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, including by creating a new rule called “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” to proactively tackle the legacy of housing discrimination. He helped tackle homelessness among military veterans in cities across the country, “ending it” in 80 cities, he often says. He was responsible for the creation of the somewhat controversial federal Rental Assistance Demonstration program, which raises funds and improves living conditions by placing public housing developments under private management. It is now a key component of de Blasio’s plan to rescue the struggling New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA, which needs roughly $40 billion in repairs and upgrades to its crumbling housing stock home to about half a million New Yorkers.
Under Bloomberg, Donovan created a program to provide Section 8 housing vouchers to people released from Rikers Island jails, a policy he often touts on the mayoral campaign trail, citing it as an example of how to shift from a “shelter first” approach to a “housing first” approach. Homelessness did decrease in the city while he worked for Bloomberg, though it drastically increased thereafter when key voucher programs were cut by the city and state amid the Great Recession.
He has promised as mayor to invest $2 billion to build 30,000 units of affordable housing every year, surpassing de Blasio’s record. His housing plan has several other key proposals including increasing emergency rental assistance funding, improving the city housing voucher progran, creating a flexible rental assistance program, expanding free legal counsel for tenants, easing building code enforcement, investing $2 billion annually in NYCHA, increasing enforcement against housing discrimination, creating more supportive housing, assisting homeownership efforts, and more.
But, it appears challenging to try to run as the housing candidate when not only has Donovan not been trying to really make it his signature issue, but New Yorkers see crumbling public housing, a homelessness epidemic, and a deeply unaffordable city. Fairly or not, Donovan’s housing resume may, broadly speaking, actually be a hindrance given how voters feel about the state of housing in New York City.
And questions have been raised about Donovan's record on housing desegregation and his commitment to integration as HPD commissioner and HUD secretary. At the crux is his presiding at HPD over the city's community preference policy, a Koch-era provision that reserves half of all affordable housing lottery units for people living within the district, which critics say preserves racial residential segregation. A group of African-American plaintiffs are suing the city over the policy, which they say violates the federal Fair Housing Act.
“It’s odd what gets you a ‘progressive’ label these days,” said Craig Gurian, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs. “Donovan never tackled segregation when he was HPD Commissioner; he didn’t have the backbone to have the core provisions of the historic Westchester desegregation consent decree enforced when he was HUD Secretary; he still hasn’t stood with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in supporting our challenge to the City’s discriminatory ‘community preference’ policy in housing lotteries; and he hasn’t said whether he agrees with the many civil rights organizations who oppose the secrecy of the coop admissions process.”
"I thought it was an important goal to promote economic and racial integration," Donovan said, speaking broadly, in a 2018 court deposition reviewed by Gotham Gazette. But when asked whether HPD did any analysis of whether community preference caused a disparate racial impact or perpetuated segregation Donovan said he could not "recall specifically whether we would have or did do that kind of analysis" and later said he could not remember "having specific thoughts or considerations that cut against the policy." The city’s Law Department later admitted during discovery that the city had done no such analysis of the community preference policy.
“A jury would reasonably conclude...that his insistence on claiming to having worked to promote residential integration while HPD Commissioner in the face of evidence that he had not done so reflects consciousness of guilt,” wrote Gurian, the plaintiffs’ lawyer, in a court filing.
When asked by Gurian whether he believed "the City had turned with all the purpose at its command to try to reduce and ultimately eliminate racial segregation in housing," Donovan replied, “I did.” But in a discovery response from the city's Law Department in October 2019, he “admits that it did not have a policy specifically and explicitly identified as one to ‘reduce residential racial segregation.’”
Overall, Donovan believes that his combination of policy and passion will hold broad appeal for the electorate, which will be key if he is to garner enough support under ranked-choice voting, which will be in place for the first time in a citywide contest. The new system will allow voters to choose up to five candidates in order of preference, with no winner crowned until a candidate surpasses 50% of votes. It will be essential for anyone with a shot to win to garner a significant number of first-place votes but also many second- and third-place votes. “This is a wide open race right now, with nobody having more than 20% of first place votes,” Donovan said, insisting that he’s been building momentum to sway pivotal undecided voters.
“I think the challenges are really about continuing to reach New Yorkers. This race began with a set of candidates who either were outsiders that had no experience or political insiders that haven’t really changed over the last eight years but they had name recognition,” he said. “And what we've seen is that, as we've made the case, more and more New Yorkers not only know me, they know my record and they're excited.”
His support, he said, is strong among “disillusioned de Blasio voters” in brownstone Brooklyn, where he lives and is raising his children, and in the Bronx, where he began his 30-year career in housing.
But it’s unclear if Donovan can appeal to everyday New Yorkers who haven’t enjoyed the same privileges as him, and whether his campaign can really break through in the places he needs to in order to build the winning coalition he has in mind. He grew up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, attending the tony Dalton School. He has talked about the need for promoting racial equity, closing the racial wealth gap, and appointing a chief diversity officer at City Hall but he’s running a campaign with major outside support bankrolled by his father and appeared at the first debate from his giant Brooklyn kitchen, none of which imply “man of the people.” In a particularly ironic gaffe, in an interview with the New York Times editorial board, Donovan severely underestimated the median sale price for a home in Brooklyn, explaining later that he had misunderstood the question.
Among his staunchest supporters is Bishop Johnny Ray Youngblood, who Donovan met during his time at Harvard and who introduced him into the world of nonprofit housing development. “He has a level of experience that he can bring to this magnificent city of ours. I think he comes, because of that, with the resources that will help him to do the job,” Youngblood said of Donovan, in a phone interview. “He has a heart for it. I don't think Shaun is necessarily jobless and looking for a job. I think that there is a passion in Shaun for the city, not just a passion for the position.”
“The main weakness that Shaun has is he's never been mayor before,” Youngblood said.
He emphasized that Donovan brings a fresh perspective to a city that has seen progress accompanied by pain. Skyscrapers may be going up in Brooklyn but homelessness remains a deep crisis across the city. “It seems that the progress of our city is still intensely trailed by the embarrassments of our city,” Youngblood said.
To political observers, Donovan’s policy bonafides may be commendable, but they might not be enough to win the emotional argument that convinces voters. “Donovan’s got a very difficult way to go because he didn’t start off with a natural base and he hasn’t created one,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran Democratic consultant.
Time is certainly running thin for Donovan to make a big leap. Donovan was among the earliest to go on TV to try to build name recognition and his association with Obama, but it appeared to show limited impact. Now, the leading campaigns, and any outside groups supporting them, are flooding the airwaves with ads. There is just one final televised official debate, on June 16. Early voting will begin just before that, on June 12.
“Donovan is not talking directly to the issue. The issue is crime and disorder, not managing the city,” Sheinkopf said. “People are much more visceral when they get a guy with a gun walking down the street, or they have to step over homeless people, and the garbage associated with that, and the chaos that they feel.”
“Voters tend to vote for emotional jolts, not for rhetoric...There was nothing emotional to Donovan’s argument,” he added.
Donovan has tried to inject some emotion into his campaign. On May 25, the one-year anniversary of the police killing of George Floyd, he joined a Black Lives Matter protest in Downtown Manhattan and was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct for blocking the roadway. He has repeatedly talked about his commitment to civil rights, mentioning how he retraced the route of the Freedom Rides on the 30th Anniversary with civil rights icon U.S. Rep. John Lewis. He has also tried hard to contrast himself with de Blasio, launching and then seemingly-abandoning a sustained campaign of daily critique of the sitting mayor with the hopes that he wins the support of voters who are fed up with current leadership.
While the super PAC behind Donovan may be well-funded, his own campaign has struggled to raise money to the same tune as several better-funded competitors. Of the top eight candidates, he is second-to-last in fundraising when accounting for private and public funds. Most of the candidates chose to opt into new rules of the city’s public campaign financing program, receiving an 8-to-1 match for qualifying small dollar donations. But Donovan is running under the older system (which will be phased out after this election) which gives him a 6-to-1 match on qualifying donations but has higher contribution limits. It was a decision indicative of an expectation that he would rely more on larger donors than smaller-dollar support from a larger pool. In total, he had raised only $2.7 million in private funding, with more than $1 million of that coming from outside New York City, and has received $1.8 million in public funds. As of May 17, the last campaign filing deadline, he had already spent $2.3 million and had about $2.25 million left for the remainder of the race as of the most recent filing. More than a third of his spending has gone to television ads and digital consulting firms.
Though Donovan is a lifelong New Yorker, his endorsements mostly read like a who’s who of who isn’t, though with some big names. He has been backed by the Washington D.C.-based 314 Action Fund, U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx who hails from North Carolina, former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, and former Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin.
He also has the backing of New York State Assembly Members Michael Benedetto and Charles Fall (who also co-endorsed Adams). He is the second-choice pick for City Council Member Fernando Cabrera and the League of Independent Theater and Resilience PAC. Actor Edward Norton lent his celebrity to Donovan’s campaign as well.
“314 Action works tirelessly to elect scientists and candidates from STEM backgrounds because we know — and this pandemic has proved — that our country is stronger with smart, science-driven individuals in the halls of power. We are proud to endorse Shaun Donovan, who has a background in engineering, because we know as mayor he will implement a facts-first, science-based administration that will work smartly and effectively for all New Yorkers,” said Shaughnessy Naughton, president and founder of 314 Action, in a statement to Gotham Gazette.
[This article is part of a series on the leading Democratic mayoral candidates' strengths and weaknesses.]
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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
@samarkhurshid @GothamGazette
Ben Max and Ethan Geringer-Sameth contributed to this story.
Council Member Antonio Reynoso (photo: John McCarten/City Council)
Brooklyn and Queens residents in the 34th City Council District must vote on term-limited Council Member Antonio Reynoso’s replacement in this year’s election. The first and most important round of voting takes place in this month’s Democratic primary, the winner of which is all but certain to become the next Council member in January given the district’s overwhelming Democratic enrollment advantage.
Voters have four candidates to choose from: Jennifer Gutierrez, Reynoso’s chief of staff; Scott Murphy, a self-described small business owner and volunteer healthcare worker; Andy Marte, an ex-substitute teacher and affordable housing specialist with RiseBoro, a community revitalization group; and Lutchi Gayot, a contractor. As far as the candidate fields go in this year's many wide open City Council, borough president, and citywide races, the group of four in District 34 is relatively small, apparently indicative of Gutierrez's stregnth in the race.
District 34 spans Brooklyn’s Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Greenpoint neighborhoods, as well as Ridgewood in Queens. The cross-borough district boasts some of New York’s most quickly growing and gentrifying neighborhoods, with a large influx of newcomers, according to the City Comptroller's 2018 report. The growth and gentrification in the district has led to housing affordability challenges and changing demographics, with many newer white residents, though the district continues to have a large Latino population. As of 2010, according to Census data, of a total population of 158,141 in the district, 55% were Hispanic, 26% white, 9.9% Black, and 7.1% Asian. The NYU Furman Center found a 44% spike in average rent in Bushwick between 1990 and 2014, juxtaposed with a poverty rate 9% above the city average, or close to 30%. The Census data also shows that of the 58,086 housing units in the district, 86.9% are renter-occupied.
Along with the broader questions of a changing district and affordability challenges, specific issues related to housing development, zoning changes, and growth have been at the center of the district debates for much of this century.
The housing and affordability challenges most recently manifested in a Bushwick rezoning battle between Council Member Reynoso, who is now running for Brooklyn borough president, and Mayor de Blasio’s administration that fizzled in stalemate. Reynoso’s calls for community input, residency protections, and more limits on development were refused by the administration, which backed higher-density affordable housing construction. The lack of resolution leaves the next Council member with ongoing questions about the possibility of a rezoning amid the affordability crisis, a growing population, and little new housing development.
Among other ramifications of the housing crisis, the next City Council member will face a community scarred by the pandemic, including the human, economic, educational, and other impacts. Key issues related to housing, schools, and the economy will likely be in a different place when the next Council is seated in January.
As one of the districts with the fewest parks, the expansion of public green space was a focus for Reynoso, as was expanding protected bike lanes, and will be another issue to be addressed by the next Council member. As will other land use questions like extending the popular Open Streets program, decreasing waste hauling capacity, increasing access to efficient public transportation, and the fate of manufacturing space in the district.
Jennifer Gutierrez
A Bushwick native and daughter of Colombian immigrants, Gutierrez is the only woman and the only Latina in the race. With a fundraising lead, most of the important endorsements, and a history of government service in the district, Gutierrez is the apparent favorite in the race.
Gutierrez had filed $41,791 of funding from 596 separate donors and $160,444 of public funds as of June 3, according to the New York City Campaign Finance Board website (CFB).
She is supported by her former boss, outgoing Council Member Antonio Reynoso, and has secured the coveted endorsement of popular Congressional Rep. Nydia Velazquez, along with local Brooklyn State Senator Julia Salazar, and State Senator Jessica Ramos of Queens.
Gutierrez has also been backed by the United Federation of Teachers, Working Families Party, numerous local AFL-CIO and SEIU labor union chapters, New York Immigration Coalition Action, 21 in ‘21, a group dedicated to getting women elected to the City Council, Road to Justice Coalition, which is made up of grassroots organizations such as healthcare workers’’ SEIU who advocate for people of color, the CUNY staff union, and Latino Victory Fund, among others.
In a phone interview with Gotham Gazette, Gutierrez argued that her experiences as Reynoso’s chief of staff and an active community organizer position her to hit the ground running in a system she knows well for a constituency she has organized and defended throughout her career.
On housing, she said her focus is “helping people stay in their homes.” Tenants need expanded access to legal representation to fight eviction and landlord harassment, she argues. Living in a one-bedroom, rent-stabilized apartment with her family, and growing up on food stamps, Gutierrez said she understands the need for tenants living paycheck to paycheck to have a safety net -- something further exposed by the pandemic, she said.
Valuing and encouraging community input is at the center of her approach, she said, and would be “at the core” of rezoning efforts in the spirit of Reynoso’s support for the Bushwick Community Plan. Beginning with ULURP reform to address racial implications in the zoning application process, Gutierrez wants to focus on making sure that “affordable housing” units are actually affordable and kept that way.
Gutierrez is a proponent of expanding participatory budgeting (PB), which dedicates money to district projects voted on by residents. She hopes to increase investment into PB with the mayor’s help and widen the parameters of project eligibility beyond city-owned properties to privately-owned properties and service-related projects, which she argues would allow public input in the creation of more parks and senior spaces.
Beyond housing, Gutierrez’s other top priorities are strengthening schools and covid recovery. She wants to expand the community school model, already in place at schools like Bushwick High School, to the entire city public school system. It aims to maximize the utility of school buildings by making them a “hub of resources for the entire community,” such as offering a dentistry clinic, counseling and eye care -- adding the model’s potential to “[bridge] the health care gap.”
Passing the Small Business Survival Act for commercial lease renewal regulations favoring tenants and supporting a public banking system that lets New York City invest in local communities are among her plans for covid recovery.
When asked how she would deviate from Reynoso, Gutierrez cited her disagreement with his support for the plan to close the Rikers Island jail complex and build four borough-based jails, saying the Rikers jails should close but that by incarcerating fewer people the city should not need new jails.
She also pointed to her perspective as a woman, which she said informs her public safety stance. Beyond combating police brutality, which she hopes to address in part by defunding the NYPD by $1 billion and investing in social infrastructure, Gutierrez spoke of the everyday dangers faced by women walking in the streets and taking public transportation. Recalling the numerous women in Bushwick who were attacked leaving the subway earlier this year, Gutierrez suggested adding better pathways and more lighting as ways that local government can address women’s safety.
Scott Murphy
Murphy, who moved to New York from Chicago ten years ago, volunteers with the ambulance corps and works in safety and planning for scooter startup Revel. Before that, he was an account director for advertising giant McCann. Murphy is the third most-funded candidate in the District 34 primary, with $14,483 from 279 separate donors and $65,672 in public matching funds as of June 3, according to the CFB.
When asked in a phone interview why voters should choose him over other candidates, Murphy painted himself as independent, an outsider from the Brooklyn Democratic establishment, and pointed to the fact that no one in Democratic leadership had reached out or expressed interest in talking with him.
Murphy said that along with his advantageous business skills, getting to know his neighbors and volunteering in the community gave him the chance to directly observe the issues of district residents. From these issues, Murphy put solving the homelessness crisis, police reform, and ending alternate side parking as his top three priorities.
Although he wants to increase the gas tax and pay residents to take alternative transportation (such as Revel, he overtly added), Murphy held up ending alternate side parking, which he claimed is harmful to low-income residents, and the need to “ease the burden of car ownership.”
On rezoning in the district, Murphy said he supports community involvement, saying that while Reynoso’s Bushwick Community Plan “seemed like a good idea at the time,” he questioned the success of its outcome, though he did not provide an alternative aside from “getting together the people who do have the answers.”
A final pillar in Murphy’s platform is police reform, which is laid out on his website as defunding the police by at least $1.5 billion, implementing bias testing for NYPD officers, and splitting the NYPD into demilitarized law enforcement and community-led social services. In the interview, Murphy also aligned himself with mayoral candidate Dianne Morales’ Community First Responders plan, which, staffed by social workers, trauma-responders, and people with medical backgrounds, would respond to crisis calls concerning homelessness, mental health, and substance use.
Like Gutierrez, Murphy is a “huge proponent of expanding participatory budgeting,” and hopes that it can be utilized to create jobs and support small businesses, he said.
But after a devastating year, Murphy said he wants to give residents the option to elect someone who wouldn’t continue Reynoso’s legacy. He hopes to make District 34 a place for testing new ideas, providing relief from the bureaucratic burden of “holding people accountable,” which he claims limited Reynoso’s tenure, though it was not clear what he meant beyond, perhaps, fines and fees from city government.
In a recent statement, Murphy and Marte cross-endorsed each other for the primary election, meaning that each said to rank the other second, in an effort to use the new ranked-choice voting system to their advantage against Gutierrez, a frontrunner whom the two candidates claim would continue Reynoso’s “failed policies," though he again was not clear on specifics beyond mentioning the minimum wage.
Andy Marte
A substitute teacher and Riseboro social service agent, Marte promises on his campaign website to “get past the protesting and get solutions.” Marte positions education and housing as his main priorities, hoping to mitigate “developers and displacement.”
A recent boost in campaign donations according to the CFB brought Marte to a total of $16,670 from 228 donors and $93,351 from public matching funds as of June 3, second most funding in the race behind Gutierrez. Marte said in a phone interview that lifelong involvement in community and politics along with his government and sociology major from college will help him represent the district he grew up in.
Marte ran for the 18th State Senate seat in 2020, and lost to State Senator Salazar in her first reelection bid. During the campaign, Salazar accused Marte of campaign finance violations and criticized his Trump-friendly social media presence. In the interview with Gotham Gazette, Marte rejected Salazar’s depiction of him as a Trump supporter, saying that he publicly endorsed and voted for President Biden in the 2020 election.
While Marte cross-endorsed with Murphy, Marte explained that the two split on police reform: Murphy calls to defund the police by at least $1.5 billion, while Marte sees the ‘defund’ slogan as an under-examined “catchphrase,” and is “totally against the idea.” Marte said that New Yorkers who went through the trauma of 9/11 “don’t want zero protection,” but rather a more accountable, still responsive police force.
There is a lot the two agree on though, such as increased supportive housing to help provide housing for people with mental health challenges and social reentry after imprisonment.
On rezoning, Marte said the de Blasio administration’s plan to upzone parts of Bushwick to create an “extreme” amount of new housing units would have fed into the district’s “rampant development.” But Marte said he is for adding more housing to combat rent increases, but “it needs to be affordable, low-income housing.”
Marte joins Gutierrez and Murphy in his support for the expansion of participatory budgeting, with Marte explaining the need for reform to address the favoritism of some Council members towards certain groups, which he claimed in the interview made PB more of “a facade in [his] experience.”
Lutchi Gayot
Gayot is a Brooklyn-born Haitian-American small business owner who runs a local contracting business. After finding his education in music unmarketable, Gayot fell back on the carpentry skills he acquired in high school, eventually leading him to contracting. This experience, Gayot told Politics NY in 2018, founded his belief that “trades in the schools are very important” for providing “a safety net built right into your high school education.”
On his campaign website, Gayot expresses his support for protection against foreclosure and eviction, and proposes the Open-Up New York Small Business package to create a “property tax abatement for occupied commercial storefronts.”
Gayot ran for Congress against Congressional Rep. Yvette Clark in Brooklyn’s 9th District as a Republican in 2018 and as a Democrat in 2020. During the campaigns, Gayot told Max & Murphy that he supported universal basic income and wanted to make rent tax deductible.
The NYCCFB shows Gayot’s run is poorly funded with only $4,412 in campaign contributions as of June 3.
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by Carmen Vintro for Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette
Council Member Margaret Chin and others (photo: Jeff Reed/City Council)
Nine Democratic candidates are running in the City Council District 1 primary for a seat based in Lower Manhattan. The district includes parts or all of Battery Park, the Civic Center, Chinatown, the Financial District, Little Italy, the Lower East Side, NoHo, SoHo, South Street Seaport, South Village, TriBeCa, and Washington Square. Governors Island, Ellis Island, and Liberty Island are also a part of the district.
The current City Council member, Margaret Chin, was elected in 2010 as the first Asian-American elected in the district. She is term-limited and can’t run for reelection. The fast-approaching primary includes absentee voting, early voting June 12-20, and primary day of June 22. Given how heavily Democratic the district is, the winner of the crowded primary -- which includes the use of ranked-choice voting for the first time -- is all but sure to become the next Council member come January.
With a concentration of public housing on the Lower East Side along with some of the most expensive real estate in the city in the Financial District and Tribeca, the district is extremely diverse economically as well as racially. Though white residents make up the biggest racial or ethnic group, about 45% of the population, there are large Asian-American populations totaling about 36% of district residents, while Hispanic residents are about 12% and Black residents about 4%. The district’s diversity along with the implementation of ranked-choice voting makes it necessary for candidates to garner wide-reaching appeal to win the seat.
The crowded field of candidates running in the Council District 1 Democratic primary include Susan Damplo, an attorney and administrative law judge with the NY State Liquor Authority; Sean Hayes, an international attorney, educator and arbitrator; Jenny Lam Low, who works as Director of Administrative Services at the City Council; Susan Lee, a legal assistant and non-profit grant writer; Gigi Li, chief of staff for outgoing Council Member Chin, who has endorsed her; Maud Maron, a Legal Aid Society Senior Staff Attorney and Community Education Council member; Chris Marte, the New York State director of Arena, a political training academy; Denny Salas, a former stockbroker, researcher and political consultant on behalf of Democratic members of Congress; and Tiffany Winbush, an adjunct professor of marketing at Berkeley College.
According to the Campaign Finance Board’s District 1 summary, as of June 3, the total private and public matching funds for each candidate was: Li with $257,979; Marte with $256,885; Low with $256,239; Maron with $238,062; Lee with $195,134; Damplo with $146,711; Winbush with $90,679; Hayes with $30,647; and Salas with $11,202.
The District
District 1, its residents, commuters, and business, has seen its share of major city crises and catastrophes, including the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the 2008 financial crisis on Wall St., and Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Now the district faces the devastation of COVID-19 and its impacts, especially on families and small businesses. Given its large Asian-American population, the district has also been among the most impacted by the rise in anti-Asian racism and hate crimes. The election to replace Chin is focused on those issues as well as major development projects and controversies, homelessness and housing affordability, and more.
Candidates and voters are looking closely at questions around development, housing, and the planned building of a new downtown jail, meant to replace the existing one in the district as part of the plan to close Rikers Island jails. The Manhattan Detention Complex, on White Street and nicknamed “The Tombs,” would be demolished and replaced with a larger, 29-story jail. Most recently, the New York State appeals court ruled that the city can move forward with its plans, rejecting residents' claims that the process, which was approved through the City Council with Chin’s support, did not abide by local zoning laws.
Additionally, there’s the city’s planned SoHo/NoHo rezoning plan, estimated to add 3,200 housing units and potential retail space to the neighborhoods, and potentially the first neighborhood rezoning of the de Blasio years that would add significantly more housing density to a wealthy area of the city. Other controversies surround the Two Bridges development proposal on the Lower East Side, the Haven Green low-income senior housing project, how to fix NYCHA housing, protecting the area from the effects of climate change, and more.
“Whoever’s the next Council member has a large say in land use through the ULURP process, is going to take positions on and negotiate the future land use decisions, is going to be critically important,” Democratic strategist Trip Yang told Gotham Gazette in regard to the importance of the race and the role of the Council member. Yang previously worked for Chin’s reelection campaign.
The District 1 candidates recently met over zoom for a debate moderated by Gotham Gazette editor Ben Max and hosted by Manhattan Neighborhood Network.
The Candidates
Chin’s chief of staff, Li has garnered high-profile endorsements from not only Chin, but mayoral candidate Andrew Yang, the New York Pan-Asian Democratic Club, and others (Chin has endorsed Yang for mayor).
Li is an immigrant from Hong Kong and first generation college graduate with a masters in social work from Columbia University. She was formerly the director of the Neighborhood Family Services Coalition, a counselor at the NY Asian Women’s Center (now Womankind) and the first Asian-American elected chair of her local community board. Li says she worked on bringing signature de Blasio education programs universal pre-kindergarten and community schools to fruition. She’s been a resident in District 1 for nearly two decades, she said.
Li has pitched herself as a social worker and organizer with a “track record of broad-based coalition building.” She cites top district issues as affordable housing, protecting the social safety net, and the broader COVID-19 recovery. On affordable housing she has emphasized the need for every neighborhood to get their “fair share” of units, and the need for a reassessment of affordable housing eligibility requirements.
In the debate, Li said she favors the SoHo/NoHo rezoning. “It is a neighborhood that has great schools, has great access to public transportation, and really from a housing justice lens, could really be a gamechanger for any family or child that can get to move into that neighborhood and benefit from all of the amenities that the existing neighbors get," she said.
"What you'll get out of me being your next City Council member is a focus and drive towards equity and access,” she said during the debate, where she also said she will be ranking Yang first on the ballot for mayor.
Lam-Low currently serves as the Director of Administrative Services Division in the CIty Council Speaker’s Office, managing internal Council operations. She was formerly the Director of the Community Engagement Division.
At 12, Low immigrated from China and learned English in public schools. She worked as an executive in community relations and strategic philanthropy at JP Morgan Chase & Co. and focused her efforts on helping women and people of color, she has said. She has also been chair of the Board Directors for the Chinese-American Planning Council and Vice President of Eleanor’s Legacy Innovation Council.
Low’s major endorsements thus far include Congressional Rep. Nydia Velazquez, District Council 37, the Jim Owles Liberal Democratic Club, the United Federation of Teachers, and Tenants PAC.
She has pitched herself as a nearly-lifelong resident who knows the district in and out, and a leader in the local nonprofit space. During the recent debate, Low said her top priorities are affordable housing, addressing food insecurity and finding “real investment” in public education.
Low stressed that her guiding principle on housing is “responsible development” and pointed to a Lower East Side luxury residential tower, One Manhattan Square, as irresponsible. “We need to make sure that all the stakeholders are at the table, have a transparent process from planning to deliberation to execution,” she said. “Stakeholders include residents...elected officials, experts, labor unions whose workers will be building those developments should it go through."
After losing to Chin in 2017 by only 222 votes, Marte is running again and seen as a frontrunner. Born and raised on the Lower East Side to immigrant parents, Marte attended public schools and started his career as a financial analyst at IBM. He’s been a legal researcher and board member of nonprofit organization, Defy Ventures, focused on helping ex-prisoners run small businesses. In recent years he has helped run the Arena political training institute.
Marte has garnered a number of endorsements from groups such as the Village Independent Democrats, the Chinatown Working Group, the Downtown Independent Democrats, the New York City Asian-American Democratic Club, among others.
He has pitched himself as a local Lower East Side kid who’s been committed to the district and “already does the work that our Council office should be doing.” Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic Marte helped deliver food and PPE to seniors and healthcare workers, connect women-owned businesses to federal PPP loans, and provide free covid testing sites, he has said.
“Our plan for recovery focuses on three main issues,” Marte said in a candidate statement on MNN accompanying the debate video. “First I would pass community-based land use plans to reclaim the affordability of our neighborhoods, preserve their character and small businesses. Second, I'm running to improve our quality of life instead of cutting the budget for essential services like education and sanitation. And third, we can't stumble from crisis to crisis and must locally address climate change and protect our waterfronts.”
Marte has been staunchly anti-development in his two runs for Council. During the debate, he said he was not in favor of de Blasio’s SoHo/NoHo upzoning plan and pointed to a few alternative locations for building new affordable housing within the district, including a federal parking lot at 2 Howard Street along with two water tunnel sites that are empty lots.
Maron, a long-time public defender and mother of four children, has been toward the top of the race in fundraising and focused her campaign on education and public safety. Maron serves as an elected Community Education Council member for District 2 and has lived in District 1 for the last 20 years, she said. She received endorsements from the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association and Police Benevolent Association, the main labor unions for sanitation workers and rank-and-file police officers.
In the debate, she said her top priorities in office would be getting schools fully reopened and stopping the construction of the new jail in Chinatown. She believes the capital budget for the four borough-based jails would be “better spent” on making public transportation more accessible.
Maron says she is committed to protecting historical districts including South Street Seaport and SoHo/NoHo, both of which are slated for new housing. Although she claimed “we can also bring our zoning into compliance with reality” by updating outdated limits. Unlike many of her opponents she does not support the conversion of hotels into affordable housing, viewing it as a potential blow to the tourism industry’s revival.
During the debate, Maron touched upon public safety stating, "If we think about the shape our city was in eight years ago when Bill de Blasio became mayor and the shape that our city is in now, we're headed in the wrong direction. The fear is palpable from people on the street that New York City is going back to a time when our city was less safe, less clean, and a less reassuring place to be, and I think we need to have a City Council person, and I am hoping to be that City Council person, who will tackle these hard issues and have these hard conversations."
Maron said she favors Kathryn Garcia and Eric Adams as her top choices for mayor. She also said opponent Susan Lee would be her second ranked choice in their City Council race.
A freelance nonprofit grant writer, Susan Lee immigrated to New York at six years old and grew up on the Lower East Side. Lee has repeatedly emphasized her vast nonprofit experience on the campaign trail. She previously worked as a legal assistant at an international human rights law firm and as a program manager for development at the Asian Americans For Equality Community Development Fund. Additionally, she says she has helped homeless youth at the Covenant House International and victims of slave labor and sex trafficking through the Nomi Network.
On February 17, Lee was a victim of an anti-Asian attack when she was assaulted while exiting a local train platform. Lee says she was urged by family and friends to file a police report and did so; she writes about the incident on her campaign website blog.
“I am lucky I was able to walk away from this incident, however, I know many of my Asian-American peers have not been as fortunate,” she wrote. “I stand in solidarity with my community as we continue to fight against anti-Asian hate crimes.”
During the debate, Lee said her primary concern was economic recovery with an emphasis on supporting small businesses. She would propose a property tax freeze and ensure that federal subsidies are allocated to mom and pops before hedge funds or big real estate developers. As for housing, she said she would take a holistic approach to build affordable housing with accessibility to supermarkets, medical facilities, daycares and more.
Lee said she is supportive of Ray McGuire in the mayoral primary and returned Maron’s second-ranked backing in this race.
Winbush is a Financial District resident, originally from Louisiana where she was raised by her very politically-involved family. She has a background in marketing and social media, formerly working as a marketing associate for Acurius, a digital services company and Hiscox, an insurance company. At present she is an adjunct professor of marketing at Berkeley College. Winbush was previously a member of the public policy committee at The New York Junior League and a board member at Manhattan’s Community Board 1 which serves the district.
She said her top priorities include supporting small businesses by ensuring access to ten-year leases, and repurposing vacant hotels for affordable housing and housing for homeless populations.
"When I'm elected to represent District 1 on the City Council I'll bring progress and positive change for all New Yorkers,” she said during the debate. “While I have roots in Louisiana after 15 years, New York City is definitely my home.” She added: “I'll be an inclusive voice for our very diverse district."
Damplo is running on the fact that she “is not a career politician” but “an advocate.” She started her career as a paralegal for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, DC, where she worked for the director of the Employment Discrimination Project, according to her website, and she spent time in law school at the ACLU in its Reproductive Rights Project.
During the debate, Damplo stated her top priorities include housing affordability with an emphasis on finding solutions to the long-standing homelesseness crisis. She also said she believes the City Council should have the power to confirm commissioners at every city agency. On her site she states, “The City Council needs to serve as a greater check and balance. I support council confirmation of department heads.”
Salas, who has had a varied professional career and is running on his lived experience as well, said he’s running for City Council to implement his American Dream Plan. Born to immigrant parents who worked low-wage jobs in the Bronx, he recalls his parents lying about his address to be able to attend a better public school.
Salas quit his job as a stock broker to work as an organizer for President Obama’s political organization, Organizing for America. He also worked as a political consultant and fundraiser for Erickson & Co., a lobbyist for small businesses and then as a development director for a school in the Bronx where he helped raise $1.4 million in school funding.
His campaign promises are listed within that American Dream Plan, which “recognizes the connection of housing, education, and economic policies that must be applied to rebuild and move our city forward.” Highlights include pedestrianizing areas for ‘superblocks’ and a focus on housing development for a wide range of incomes and New Yorkers. During the debate, Salas named Kathryn Garcia as his top choice for the next mayor of New York City.
Hayes has also had a varied professional career, but mostly in international business law. He is an adjunct professor at Seoul National University and the former dean of international relations at a United Nations university called the University for Peace. He works as an attorney for an international law firm based in Korea, and as a managing partner with Hayes & Simon in New York City.
On his campaign website, Hayes says he decided to run after he “looked around and saw that the majority of candidates running for NY City Council and for Mayor lacked experience, centrist viewpoints & pragmatism and were too radicalized to manage the needs of residents of New York City.”
The Battery Park City resident said he’d prioritize education and youth services. He highlighted a paid training and mentor program he’s outlined on his site, which would place young trainees with non-profit organizations, banks, law firms, tech companies and more for a two year program.
During the debate, Hayes said seniors or veterans making under $70,000 per year should not have to pay property taxes. To supplement these efforts, he would place a property tax on wealthy universities and vacant NGO land. Hayes said he was “leaning towards” Eric Adams as his top choice for mayor.
WATCH THE FULL CITY COUNCIL DISTRICT 1 DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY DEBATE HERE
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by Emma Seiwell for Gotham Gazette
@GothamGazette