Here's Where Long Island City Candidates Stand On Your Issues

LONG ISLAND CITY, QUEENS — 16 people are vying to represent Long Island City in NYC's City Council, and Patch asked them all to respond to the issues that residents care the most about.

We went through neighborhood groups, forums, and Patch comment pages, and found three main issue on locals' minds: small business recovery, rising rents and affordable housing, and hate crime response.

Now, with early voting beginning on June 12, and the election ten days later on June 22, we asked all District 26 candidates to respond to those issues.

The issues

Five candidates responded to the questions we asked: Glennis Gomez, Denise Keehan-Smith, Badrun Khan, Brent O'Leary, and Ebony Young. Here are excerpts of each of their responses (their complete platforms can be found on their websites):

1. What will you do to help small businesses rebound from the devastating impacts of the pandemic? Please give a concrete example.

Brent O'Leary will "pass the Small Business Job Survival Act which will give small business the rent stability they need to survive and grow. I will also push for rent relief for small businesses which were ordered to close or restrict their hours during COVID."

Denise Keehan-Smith will provide "amnesty to small businesses facing crippling fines, and I will advocate changing the fines associated with minor infractions within small businesses."

Like Keehan-Smith, Glennis Gomez will also focus on getting businesses grants from the city. She would also focus on unemployment by "connecting the unemployed with small businesses using a reformed Workforce1 program. Workforce1 Career Centers used to be a successful city program that connected City Contractors and other employers to those that are unemployed. Today, the program maintains very low rates of placement. These two issues go hand in hand."

Badrun Khan will "continue to provide grants for small business owners, many of whom have invested their life savings and energy in their communities." She would also help small business owners figure out how to apply for loans: "There are serious language barriers that prevent many immigrants from seeking assistance. I see this problem in my district all the time. I would make sure language services were available to those in need."

Ebony Young will "sponsor legislation to designate parts of the district as an arts district" which would connect displaced garment workers with LIC's "under utilized warehouses."

2. What will you do to tackle rising rent costs and access to affordable housing in your district? Please give concrete examples.

Keehan-Smith, Young, and Gomez would all work to recalculate the Area Median Income rules for mandatory inclusionary housing. Keehan-Smith and Young both said they would do this by making the calculation based on a ZIP code-specific data, in an effort to make it more equitable.

Khan and Young said they would work to reform existing rent-stabilization laws.

Khan will also work to "end vacancy decontrol; eliminate the vacancy bonus; make sure that the preferential rent lasts for the duration of tenancy; and make changes to rent control increases." She would also work to provide more housing vouchers to families and try to have the city impose fees on landlords who refuse these vouchers.

O'Leary and Keehan-Smith both said they will work with Community Land Trusts and non-profit partners to develop affordable housing.

O'Leary will also "prevent the privatization of NYCHA and strengthen our tenant protection laws. We will abolish the Economic Development Corporation, a front for the real estate lobby and empower our City Planning agency so we can have community led development not real estate industry led development."

Gomez will continue to "build affordable housing under the current tax-break model for developers, while ensuring that the affordable housing loophole is closed so that the housing is truly affordable."

3. What would you do to address the rise in reported hate crimes citywide and in District 26 specifically? What do you think the NYPD’s role should be in hate crime response?

Every candidate condemned hate crimes, and said that they would work with the NYPD to respond to hate crimes.

O'Leary will organize meetings with NYPD officers and community members in different languages so that "officers understand the community needs. I will do this with all the communities of our diverse district as shown by my website which is in Chinese, Tagalog, Bengali, Turkish, Romanian and Spanish."

Keehan-Smith will work with the NYPD to "add security cameras" and "increase patrols with officers based on similar backgrounds and language skills" in areas where hate crimes are most often occurring. She will also work to "add more uniformed and plainclothes officers to our transit system overall."

Khan said that people who are found guilty of hate crimes should be required to "complete a program that may include training or counseling sessions directed at hate crime prevention and education." She added that the NYPD Hate Crime Task Force needs "several avenues to report hate crimes" in "different languages, as well as trained personnel who can assist victims over the phone and in person."

Young would make sure "everyone is educated on hate both police and constituency. In light of that need I will host forums that few others are qualified to host as they have not experienced racism as I have, a Black woman in the corporate world."

Gomez will aim to bring communities together to "practice socially responsive policing. This includes having social workers work with the police, promote diversity in hiring, and ensure prompt and efficient service. We have the build bridges with the NYPD to make sure we're on the same page."