Meet the 17-Year-Old Politician Getting Things Done in Gramercy, Midtown East

CHELSEA, NY — Sarah Shamoon isn't yet old enough to vote in the presidential election, but that hasn't kept her from spending countless hours making sure everyone in New York who can vote has registered and knows exactly where their polling place is.

"My birthday is in February, so I just missed the vote, which is so annoying," Shamoon says. She's a huge Hillary fan, she clarifies. "In my grade, we have three three people who can vote, and I was talking to all of them today, making sure they knew where they were going and what they were doing and all that."

Shamoon, at 17, is one of the youngest ever members in the country on a community board. She was appointed to Community Board 6 — which represents 14th Street to 63rd Street (Stuyvesant Town, Tudor City, Turtle Bay, Peter Cooper Village, Murray Hill, Gramercy Park, Kips Bay, Sutton Place) — and she's on several of the CB6 committees. Also, she's in her senior year of high school. And she's applying to colleges (she has a few SAT 2's to take this week).

That sounds like a lot to juggle, and she does get stressed, she says, but it's always "helpful stress."

"It's stress that's preparing me for the rest of my life, which I think a lot of teenagers miss out on that opportunity," she says. "So I think I'm really lucky in that respect. … Life isn't just gonna be going home and watching Netflix all night, it's gonna be a balancing act."

Half of community board members are appointed to two-year terms by the borough president and the other half by the City Council Member representing the area. Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer was one of those who championed the state lowering the age requirement for community boards from 18 to 16 in 2014. Shamoon's tenure expires in April 2017. She can re-apply for another term — if she's not too busy with college.

Shamoon is full of endless excitement for public service and improving the future of New York City for her generation.

One of her proudest accomplishments to date is getting $500,000 allotted to her public high school, the NYC Lab School, in order to improve the bathrooms and gym that were, in her words, "atrocious."

She and her classmate spent at least six months writing a proposal during their sophomore year to Council Member Corey Johnson as part of his participatory budgeting initiative. They were gunning to convince him to give money to their asbestos-ridden school infrastructure.

The district under Johnson voted for her plan, and many of the bathrooms at their school were redone by the first week of Shamoon's senior year.

"Every time I walk in, I'm like in awe of the beauty of the redone bathrooms," she says, laughing. "I'm such a nerd that I'm thinking about it this way, but I'm like look what government can do!"

Shamoon has a special affection for her community, Stuy-Town, and wants to do everything within her power to preserve as many units as possible in Stuy-Town as affordable units. She has witnessed Stuy-Town transform throughout her life as families who could no longer afford living in the city moved out to the suburbs, and college kids raced in to empty units, many times five to a one-bedroom, she says.

"A lot of my neighbors I grew up with aren't there anymore, and that's a shame, that shouldn't be happening," she says.
When asked if people her age are as enthusiastic as her about politics, she says "I am an outlier in that way. I'm really grateful that my friends don't say, 'Oh that's so weird.'"

But, she says, it's been especially exciting to see people in her class all of a sudden get into politics during the national election cycle.

"I say, 'You guys are not getting out of politics after this, I'm registering you to vote,'" she says. "This is your city, your life, you get a say in all of it."

Photo credit: Sarah Kaufman/Patch