(l-r) Al Taylor, Inez Dickens, Yusef Salaam

New York City voters are now heading to the polls in this month’s City Council primary elections, where dozens of districts are home to intraparty contests that will determine nominees for the fall general election. All 51 Council seats are on the ballot this year, though not every district has a primary race, after the decennial Census and subsequent redistricting.

One of the most hotly contested primary races is in Harlem’s 9th Council District, where three prominent Democratic candidates are vying to replace City Council Member Kristin Richardson Jordan, who unexpectedly dropped out of the race a month before the election. The winner of the ranked-choice primary vote will face the lone Republican contender in the general election in this overwhelmingly Democratic district.

City Council District 9 covers Central Harlem, as well as sections of the Hamilton Heights and East Harlem neighborhoods. It is home to about 177,000 people, of whom 49.2% are Black, 26% Hispanic, 15.3% white, and 4.2% Asian, according to data from CUNY Graduate Center’s “Redistricting & You” project.

The full Council is again on the ballot just two years after the previous election cycle in 2021, when Richardson Jordan defeated Council Member Bill Perkins, who recently passed away, by a razor-thin margin in what was a very crowded and competitive Democratic primary. The socialist Richardson Jordan quickly became a lightning rod on a number of issues and controversies, inviting primary challengers who then drove her from the race.

In this year’s election, the 9th District is again seen as one of the most competitive races in the city — the Democratic field includes two sitting State Assembly members, Al Taylor and Inez Dickens, and Yusef Salaam, a member of the exonerated Central Park Five. (Skiboky Stora, the sole Republican candidate, has run for several offices before with little success and does not appear to be running much of a campaign for this seat.)

“Unfortunately I am writing this to inform you that I have decided not to seek re-election and not to commit to another two years,” Richardson Jordan announced to constituents and voters in a May 14 Instagram post. “I want to thank all those who have stood in solidarity and all volunteers for your time and hard work. I look forward to finishing out this term.”

Richardson Jordan’s victory in the 2021 election came as a surprise to many, when as a political newcomer, she narrowly defeated Perkins, a veteran politician who had represented District 9 from 1998 to 2005 and returned to the seat in 2017 after 10 years in the State Senate.

She described herself as a democratic socialist, and won the 2021 race on a platform of “radical love,” defunding the police, and bringing more resources to the community. She had campaigned and raised money for her reelection bid before dropping out, a decision that came amid criticism over her approach to housing development, particularly the failed One45 proposal, her poor attendance record at Council hearings, an apparent lack of collegiality with government colleagues, and other controversies, including comments she made about police officers who were killed in her district and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Given she dropped out of the race so close to the primary, her name still appears on the ballot.

Early voting began Saturday, June 17, and runs through Sunday, June 25; primary day is Tuesday, June 27. Absentee balloting by mail is ongoing. Under ranked-choice voting that was instituted in the city for municipal-level positions in special and party primary elections, voters can rank candidates by preference. If no candidate receives over 50% of first-place votes on the initial round, an “instant runoff” occurs using voters’ subsequent rankings.

With that system in mind, Salaam and Taylor cross-endorsed each other on Tuesday, June 13, asking voters to rank them first and second, in whichever order the voter prefers. Dickens, a former City Council member, responded by rolling out the endorsement of Mayor Eric Adams on Thursday, June 15. The political dynamics of the race are even more complex and interesting — for example, Salaam has the backing of Manhattan Democratic County Party leader Keith Wright, a former Assemblymember whose son is running Salaam’s campaign against two long-time uptown politicians who Wright knows well.

Among other forums and candidate appearances, Dickens, Salaam, and Taylor all appeared at a candidates’ forum hosted by The Greater Harlem Coalition on April 27 that was attended by more than 300 Harlem residents and the three candidates sat for a televised debate on Spectrum News NY1 on June 13.

According to the New York City Campaign Finance Board, the total amount campaign funds raised by each candidate from private donations and the city’s public matching funds program as of June 20 were: $215,033 for Dickens, $212,806 for Taylor, $194,913 for Salaam, and $5,950 for Stora. (Richardson Jordan raised $100,341 before she dropped out of the race.)

District Issues
Dickens served as the Council member for District 9 before leaving her seat early to head to the Assembly just ahead of hitting her consecutive term limit in the Council. She now represents much of the same area in the overlapping State Assembly 70th District. Taylor is the current representative for the State Assembly’s 71st District — located directly adjacent to Dickens’ district and covering the northernmost section of Harlem, as well as parts of nearby neighborhoods.

Unlike other areas of the city, District 9 was minimally impacted by last year’s redistricting process, with total and per-demographic population changes not exceeding a one percent difference from the previous district boundaries. Harlem itself has been changing over the years, of course, and the traditional seat of Black culture and political power has become less Black and more white and Hispanic.

Issues dominating the Democratic primary in this year’s election include housing, gentrification, and development; public safety and policing; quality-of-life concerns; and more. And while Dickens and Taylor pitch experience, Salaam is looking to appeal to voters interested in a generational shift in leadership.

A central topic at the Greater Harlem Coalition candidates’ forum was the presence and saturation of overdose prevention, drug treatment, and shelter facilities in Harlem, which is home to two safe injection sites, the first and only such facilities in the United States. Using data obtained from the city by the coalition, WNYC found that 75% of those visiting overdose prevention clinics in Harlem came from elsewhere in the city.

All three candidates at the forum — Dickens, Salaam, and Taylor — said that while they support overdose prevention clinics, residents of Harlem are being overburdened by their saturation, and that a more equal distribution across the city is necessary. In the State Assembly, Dickens and Taylor have both co-sponsored a bill (A338A), which would fully authorize overdose prevention centers in New York state, paving the way for more centers to be opened across the city.

Other issues brought up during the forum were the impact of homeless shelters on Randall’s and Wards Islands — the islands, home to large shelter complexes, are only accessible by a single bus, the M35, that terminates at the Harlem intersection of 125th Street and Lexington Avenue. According to the forum’s moderators, this has resulted in many unhoused individuals congregating in the neighborhood without having access to the resources they need. All three candidates pledged to work toward bringing more resources to shelters on Randall’s and Wards Islands.

The candidates also spoke about their plans for increasing the supply of affordable housing in the district, the impact of gentrification, and the One45 mixed-use housing development proposal, which was met by staunch opposition from Council Member Richardson Jordan. The site of the One45 project, which was scrapped due to Richardson Jordan’s objections, especially around its levels of affordable housing, was later converted into a truck depot.

The project was recently revived, though, with a new proposal from the developer. Criticism over Richardson Jordan’s failure to negotiate a deal to allow new housing in the district was a major episode in her first year in office and contributor to her eventual decision to not seek reelection. Dickens, Taylor, and Salaam all indicate they would handle such situations better and be able to get to a good deal for the community.

Inez Dickens
Dickens was born in Harlem and has lived in the neighborhood her entire life, the daughter of an Assemblymember and local real estate operator — two roles she would go on to hold herself (and her uncle was an Assembly member and State Supreme Court justice). In 1974 Dickens got a formal start in politics when she became a committee member in the New York State Democratic Party. Prior to her current position representing the 70th State Assembly District, she served as District 9’s representative in the City Council for 10 years.

Dickens took courses at New York University and Howard University, but did not graduate. (Earlier this month, The New York Post reported that Dickens did not receive a degree from Howard, despite claims on her State Assembly biography page—which have since been removed—and in public statements.) In 2014, when she was still a  member of the City Council, the New York Observer named her the city’s “richest elected official,” due to her part-ownership of four residential buildings in Harlem containing hundreds of rental apartments.

She has framed herself as a moderate, positioning her candidacy as a response to constituents’ dissatisfaction with Richardson Jordan’s left-wing approach and ineffective work in the City Council, including her stance on policing. In a statement for the NYC Votes official voter guide, Dickens said that her top three issues are affordable housing, claiming her support for income-targeted projects with 50% affordability; public safety, emphasizing anti-violence, anti-gun, and anti-gang programs; and education, stating a need for high quality technology in schools and renovations to public libraries.

“This is about displeasure with the current occupant,” Dickens said in an interview with the New York Post, referencing Richardson Jordan’s position of police abolition. “The community wants respect from the police and wants to give respect to police. When we call 911 we want police to respond. Who’s going to self police?”

During the NY1 debate, Dickens praised NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell, who on June 12 announced her resignation only 18 months after she was appointed.

“Commissioner Sewell did a great job for the short time that she was here,” Dickens said during the debate. “I think she was thrown into something she had not been acclimated to, she wasn’t prepared for, and it wasn’t her fault…She strove to make changes within the NYPD in order to be effective, and to see to it that if there was a bad apple within the NYPD, they would be pulled out and appropriate action would be taken.”

She has also advocated against the oversaturation of drug programs in Harlem.

“We have people that need these drug programs,” Dickens said at the candidates’ forum, discussing the aforementioned legislation. “But they need to be put everywhere, because right now, Harlem is receiving patients from Staten Island, from Brooklyn, from Queens, from everywhere. It’s not just Harlem residents that’s using the sites that’s here in Harlem. They need to have their sites in their communities just like we have them in ours.”

On housing, Dickens said she would champion the construction of new affordable units, and work to modify income requirements so that they more accurately reflect the residents of a particular area.

“I have a history of successfully negotiating for income-targeted housing. When we talk about affordability, that changes from block to block,” Dickens said at the forum. “In the Assembly lately, I was able to — and it's under construction now — [secure] 177 units of income-targeted housing with an AMI of 40-80%, AMI maximum, which the State of New York has not done in 50 years. I had to struggle to find the subsidy that will help to create it. In addition, there will be retail space, because we've got to understand that the retail space will also help to subsidize the affordability of the housing units.”

“It requires negotiation, it requires the ability to understand how you can build it with the highest number of units and the lowest AMI without killing the development,” Dickens said at the forum of negotiating a deal on real estate projects. “That's what was necessary at the One45, and that's what was not done.”

Al Taylor
Taylor represents the 71st Assembly District, which consists of the northernmost section of Harlem, as well as parts of Hamilton Heights, Washington Heights, and Inwood. He took the position in 2017 — running unopposed in a special election conducted after his predecessor, Herman “Denny” Farrell, under whom Taylor served as a chief of staff, resigned. He was up for reelection the year after, and had to win a Democratic primary before running unopposed in the general election; he’s been reelected in 2018, 2020, and 2022.

A lifelong resident of Harlem, Taylor dropped out of high school before serving in the U.S. Army’s Military Police division, where he received his G.E.D. He later graduated from Lehman College before completing a Master of Divinity degree from the Alliance Theological Seminary. He has worked as a minister, community organizer, and Democratic Party district leader.

Taylor also has a long history of advocacy against gun violence. In 2008, he started a neighborhood prayer walk program to combat gun violence called Man Up In Harlem.

During his tenure in the Assembly, Taylor said he has helped pass a number of key pieces of legislation, including on cracking down on ghost guns, strengthening tenant protections, increasing police accountability, cementing Elijah’s Law, which requires childcare facilities to follow stricter food safety and allergy prevention guidelines, and advancing bail reform. Taylor has also expressed opposition to subsequent rollbacks to those bail reforms first made in 2019 and tightened several times since.

For this election cycle, he said in a statement featured in the city’s official voter guide that his three top priorities are investing in affordable housing; economic and educational opportunity by funding schools, libraries, and small businesses; and community safety by funding community-based and mental health interventions.

At the forum, Taylor was asked a question about his stance on New York’s Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would, among other things, protect LGBTQ people and those seeking abortions from discrimination. He voted against the amendment last year when it came up for a vote in the Assembly, but reversed his stance, voting yes on the final version of the amendment this year.

“I have done it. Look at my record, it is there,” Taylor said of supporting the ERA. “But I didn't get there easily. And I didn't get there for the sake of community. I got there because I had to wrestle with myself, and understand what I personally believe, which is near and dear to me, does not override the thought in the vote of the people that I represent.”

To reduce the impact of drug treatment clinics on District 9, Taylor said he would propose that unoccupied commercial spaces be repurposed into social facilities across the city.

“I would look to use some of the existing commercial spaces there in consideration for treatment facilities,” he said, “so we no longer have to bear this burden in one ZIP code.”

Yusef Salaam
Salaam is a member of the group of teenagers wrongfully convicted of rape in the infamous Central Park Five case. He spent seven years in prison before being exonerated in 2002. Last December, an entrance to Central Park on its northeast corner was renamed the Gate of the Exonerated, in honor of Salaam and the four other members of The Central Park Five, sometimes called The Exonerated Five.

“I'm new to politics, but I'm not new to Harlem,” Salaam said at the candidates’ forum. “I was born here, I was raised here, my family is here. And while I left, I came back, because Harlem for me was always the scene of ‘the crime’…What we are seeing in our streets are sleeping giants. They need to be woken up, and they need to be participating. We don't need to throw them away. We need to recognize their humanity.”

Since his exoneration, Salaam has worked as a criminal justice advocate and public speaker. He is on the board of The Innocence Project, the national nonprofit that works to overturn wrongful convictions, and was a founding member of Justice 4 The Wrongfully Incarcerated. A newcomer to running for office, he says he has been a member of Harlem’s Fredrick E. Samuel Community Democratic Club for 25 years.

“It has been my mission to educate the public about the impact of mass incarceration and police brutality rooted in our justice system, regularly advocating for criminal justice reform, prison reform and the abolition of juvenile solitary confinement and capital punishment,” Salaam says on his website. “I am working to restore humanity denied to those incarcerated and those downtrodden by the spiked wheels of justice.”

Salaam has positioned himself as a political outsider, and has marketed his lack of experience in politics as a positive potential change for the Council. In a recent City & State New York interview, though, he demonstrated minimal familiarity with the most basic aspects of the City Council and its work — he did not know how many members the Council is composed of (51), or the approximate size of the city’s operating budget ($110 billion).

Salaam’s platform, which he has termed an “Equity and Empowerment Agenda,” includes advocacy for affordable housing and protection from eviction, economic development opportunities for workers, entrepreneurs and small businesses, bolstering criminal justice reform, and narrowing the scope of the NYPD.

Under bolstering criminal justice reform, Salaam says he will fight to end qualified immunity for police officers and increase funding for public defenders, and under narrowing the scope of the NYPD, he says he will invest in mental health, after-school, and wrap-around services. He also aims to work toward reversing Harlem’s history as an area with a disproportionate level of social infrastructure — like drug treatment centers, safe injection sites, and shelters — that have had a negative impact on residents.

For the city’s official NYC Votes voter guide, the top three priorities he listed were building affordable housing, reducing pathways to crime, and improving public education.

“We need action yesterday to fix this issue,” Salaam said at the forum of the overabundance of treatment centers and injection sites. “One of the greatest things that we can do almost immediately is perhaps start mobile safe injection sites, so that folks don't have to worry about coming and dumping into one specific space, but that they will get a notice and know where to go.”

Salaam has said he will work to prioritize the approval of affordable housing developments, and work with city officials to create a housing plan for Harlem that takes into consideration the issues of gentrification, development, and homelessness. During the NY1 debate, he added that he would like to see the city adopt elements of its response to the migrant crisis to its housing and shelter policies.

“If they were able to solve for migrants in the way that they did, that also tells us that they most certainly can solve for the homelessness problem that we have in our community,” Salaam said during the debate. “When I think about it, we’re talking about affordable housing and deeply affordable housing that we need, and we need to build it. We need to be about the process of change for all of us.”

Salaam also supports providing sufficient funding for eviction protection services for tenants. He wants to reevaluate the current system by which affordable housing units are allocated, which relies in part on a calculation of the area median income, or AMI, which factors in the entire city and some of its suburbs.

“The rents are too high,” Salaam said. “My plan is to ensure that we get affordable housing, but affordable housing that speaks specifically to people's income levels. As I understand AMI, what they've done, which is very unfortunate, is they’ve pulled in places that have houses and homes and things of that nature, like Westchester. And so now the AMI is around $80,000.”

Salaam voiced his support for a revival of the One45 development plan at the forum.

“We need to incentivize all of the developers that are coming into our community telling us that they want to build and develop,” Salaam said. “Just like the One45 — now it's a truck stop. That's an unfortunate situation that we are experiencing right now, in a place that has the highest levels of respiratory illnesses. We need to correct that immediately, so that we can get the opportunity to provide our constituents with the type of value and life-giving support that they need, so that they can live holistically in our community.”