By Curtis Brodner
(NEW YORK) Primary elections for the New York City Council will be held June 22.
The New York City Council is responsible for proposing and voting on legislation for the city. The 51 councilmembers wield an immense amount of power in deciding how the city manages housing, development, policing, education and other elements of city bureaucracy.
The Council negotiates a budget with the mayor every year and councilmembers control a discretionary budget for their own district, which means they decide which projects will be funded in your neighborhood.
District 38 covers Red Hook, Sunset Park, Greenwood Heights and portions of Windsor Terrace, Dyker Heights and Boro Park.
Incumbent Carlos Menchaca is not running again due to term limits that prohibit holding office for more than two consecutive four-year terms.
To find out what district you’re in, use this tool:
Below is a list of candidates and the policies they are prioritizing in their campaigns.
- Alexa Avilés: Education organizer, Program Director for the Scherman Foundation, PS 172 PTA president, Community Board 7 member
- Education: Increase funding for schools, expand language services for parents who don’t speak English, reduce class sizes, hire more social workers, remove police from schools, rezone to desegregate schools, make CUNY free, expand after school programming, free public internet, unlimited student metrocards
- Housing: Renter relief package, right to counsel for all tenants, deprioritize rezoning that benefits developers
- Police: Defund the NYPD budget by half and redirect to social services
- Immigration: Immigration integration centers, language services, municipal voting for resident immigrants
- César Zuñiga: Commissioner for the Board of Education, Chair of Community Board 7
- Housing: Expand Mitchell-Lama housing, start landbank to repurpose underused properties, expand section 8 vouchers to count toward mortgage payments
- Education: Says he wants to advocate for equitable access to education, special needs programs and teachers
- Workers: Social services for undocumented people, says he wants to include workers in the conversation about coronavirus work policy
- Environment: Says he wants a “climate-resilient waterfront,” acknowledges air pollution is a problem
- Jaqui Painter: Healthcare organizer, county committee member, communications for Lambda Independent Democrats of Brooklyn
- Environment: Full decarbonization of NYC by 2030, no new fossil fuel manufacturing plants or pipelines, implement hurricane resilience plan, public ownership of utilities, build green energy infrastructure
- Housing: Rent stabilization and rent control, tie up-zoning of residential space to affordable housing, income tax credit for renters
- Immigration: Stop cooperating with ICE and other immigration enforcement, kick ICE out of NYC, free legal representation for immigration court defendants, city-wide food and financial support system for undocumented workers, city-wide citizenship rights, expand language access
- Police: Defund NYPD by 50% with ultimate goal of abolition, empower Citizen Complaint Review Board to fire the officers it finds guilty, law that mandates officers who don’t intervene in another officer’s illegal act will also be liable, fire all officers with brutality findings, settlements should come from police budget instead of city budget, ban facial recognition software
- Rodrigo Camarena: Director of the Immigration Advocates Network, former Executive Director of the Mixteca Organization
- Housing: Fund NYCHA, expand social housing and community land trust, seize vacant properties, include racial impact study in land-use process
- Pandemic recovery: Municipal benefits program, regulate delivery apps, universal childcare, create a public bank, green career training
- Accessibility: Expand Access-A-Ride, fund accessibility modifications in homes, subsidies for people with disabilities, free admission for disabled people and caretakers to city-controlled cultural institutions
- Welfare: Add cash assistance to EBT, pressure food vendors to give discounts for EBT, free access to city-controlled cultural assistance for EBT cardholders
- Yu Lin: Entrepreneur
- Pandemic recovery: Expand vaccination infrastructure, speed up pandemic reopening
- Police: Increase police budget, more surveillance cameras
- Business: Reduce bureaucratic limitations for businesses, develop Industrial City
- Infrastructure: Fund schools, increase waste management funding, build more parking lots, privatize buses