Here's Where District 36 Council Candidates Stand On Your Issues

BED-STUY, BROOKLYN — In February, four months before the June 22 City Council primary elections, Patch asked Brooklynites in the 36th City Council District which neighborhood issues mattered to them.

Nearly two dozen neighbors filled out the survey, shedding light on what residents are looking for in the five candidates vying to replace Council Member Robert E. Cornegy Jr., who is running for borough president.

Among the takeaways: urban quality of life (public transit, street safety, bike lanes, parks) emerged as a key issue, with 35 percent of respondents naming it as their most important topic. Close behind were housing and homelessness, which got 30 percent of the vote.

The open-ended section of the survey showed that voters were also curious about candidates' plans on addressing crime and specifically their views on the "defund the police" movement.

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Now, with about two weeks remaining until the election, we asked all District 35 candidates to respond to questions based on the survey results.

Four of the five candidates provided responses. Reginald Swiney could not be reached.

Check out the answers below:

1. Do you support the “defund the police” movement? What is your plan for addressing crime in the district?

• Chi Ossé: "There can be no doubt that the police budget is bloated and that the police are spending their bloated budget on harming New Yorkers. Yes, I support defunding from the police every efficient, ineffective, and harmful dollar, and investing them directly into our communities. This will improve our lives in many ways, including public safety, as people benefitting from these programs are less likely to commit crimes."

• Robert Waterman: "My plan to address crime in the district is to support reform that holds police accountable to serving and protecting people.I support re-directing funding from the militarization of the police to fund crime preventative and mental health programming. I also believe that funding should go to roles where civilians are employed to support transparency and accountability in the policing process. In that same spirit, funding should also be directed towards mandated implicit bias training for all police personnel that addresses both individual biases as well as internal cultural nuances of police culture."

• Henry L. Butler: "I support a thorough review of the NYPD budget that includes looking for wasteful spending and a demilitarization of our police force. I support adding resources to our city budget for social workers, crisis intervention specialists, and mental health professionals so that our cops can focus on preventing crime and addressing violent crime and not deal with issues that are better suited for civilian professionals."

• Tahirah A. Moore: "I support responsibly reducing NYPD's budget. Increasing the size of NYPD's budget hasn't brought positive changes to our community. What it has done is criminalize our youth while taking away opportunities for them to grow and explore their passions. When I started talking to the youth at Marcy Houses what they most wanted was to garden. When we overfund the police we take away real opportunities for Black and brown youth. Kids need opportunities. They need chances to experiment and learn about themselves and if we don't provide those opportunities, the streets will. We know that in our guts and it is proven with research. We are long past the point of diminishing returns when it comes to the police. We need to re-fund our community and keep us all safe by investing in our youth, in our seniors, in our most vulnerable."

2. How do you plan to address increasing rents, both commercial and residential, in the district?

• Chi Ossé: "I believe in three doable actions:
  • reimagining the ULURP and zoning process
    • installing a land use expert to support the CBS (3 & 8) and fight for options I, the community and CBS require of developers — especially affordable units, local hiring and using local firms
    • advocate for two members of the City Planning Commission to be elected by the City’s community boards — full body votes or senior committee members
    • use the bully pulpit to influence, inspire or coerce developers to reimagine the AMI influences; even using the Poverty Index or localized modal sets of incomes
  • work with small owners, realtors and banks to
    • plateau tenant rental rates
    • reduce Airbnb units
    • create unified pathways for debt relief for tenants and small owners
  • use discretionary funds and block associations to work on street wellness & safety
    • late clean-ups from local crews to keep traffic high and constructive
    • raise the Sanitation budget to 2019 numbers or higher
    • combat the rodent problem!!
    • reduce non-criminal engagements with police but support the newly created Mental Health Emergency Unit
    • pressure police to concentrate on criminals not criminalizing the district
      • residency requirements
      • community policing
      • brass engagement with block associations and my office

• Robert Waterman: "If elected, I want to ensure a localized AMI to hold developers accountable to the public for creating affordable places to live. A localized AMI would look at rent prices in new developments in 4-8 block radiuses instead of blanket coverage with a number that varies widely across the district. I vow to block the selling of NYCHA properties to private companies and instead empower tenants associations to buy their own buildings. The Covid-19 Pandemic has been particularly hard on Small Business Owners who have been forced to dip into life-long savings, borrowing from family members, or other sources of funds to stay open. As your Councilman, I plan on pushing the City Council to pass legislation which will grant Rent and Utility forgiveness and relief to businesses who continued to operate during the pandemic but are in arrears. I will fight to pass legislation that will increase the transparency behind the MWBE bidding process for contracts as well as working with the new Mayor to find new ways to restructure contracts so that more MWBE’s are eligible. I plan on working with Community Banks and Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI’s) to increase access to loans for Small Businesses in our district."

• Henry L. Butler: "There are dozens of vacant lots in our district that are owned by the city and all of them should be occupied with affordable apartments. As a member of Community Board 3 I was able to accomplish this with 1620 Fulton street and 1921 Atlantic Avenue development. In order to ensure community affordability, all new developments must be in partnership with non-profit developers or a Community Land Trust. Multi-family projects that seek my support must be a mixed income development, and these must be low, moderate, and middle-income developments. I will also require commercial spaces to be affordable for local entrepreneurs."

• Tahirah A. Moore: "Housing is a real, real problem in our District. I want to move us away from using AMI to determine affordability and toward real income. When exercising my land use rights I will only approve projects that are around 50% affordable units, so 40 to 60%. In this district 20% affordable units just isn't right. It's not respectful of the needs of this community. We need real affordability for the people who live here. Affordable housing shouldn't be based on a lottery system. Housing is a human right. When it comes to commercial rents I am still working on that issue. Our district has a lot of small landlords. They own a few buildings and are making a living but if tenants don't pay then they can't pay the mortgage. I support the concept of commercial rent control but I want to make sure that when we do it, we do it in a way that doesn't hurt our small landlords, who are small business owners. I want to make sure commercial rent control doesn't put our mom and pops out of business and further concentrate the real estate market into the hands of developers."

Read More:

• Brooklyn District 36 City Council Race: Where Things Stand

This story was updated to include Henry Butler and Tahirah A. Moore's responses.