Brooklyn Borough President Candidates, Khari Edwards and Antonio Reynoso

Disclaimer: This is not an endorsement of any candidate. Mr. Edwards and Mr. Reynoso were the candidates who responded for an interview.

As summer approaches, thoughts about the last election start to fade and the thoughts of the next election creep closer. On June 22nd, the primary for the Brooklyn borough president will take place. Once the borough president is elected, the candidate will have to take on many tasks to fulfill their position. Some include advising the Mayor of New York City, appointing officials and community board members, and focusing on borough needs while working with the annual budget (which reaches just above $100 million).  As of now, 13 candidates have opened campaigns and joined the race for the “by far the most competitive of the boroughs”. Among those candidates running for borough president, include Khari Edwards and Antonio Reynoso, whose interviews follow.

What vision do you have for Brooklyn in the future?

I wanna improve the borough, and I know that sounds a little strange, but you know Brooklyn is probably one of the best places on Earth, but it really lacks balance and equity. So, my real vision for the borough is to make sure that communities that don’t have are able to have and that communities that are doing well can maintain. Top 3 priorities are healthcare, roofs over people’s heads, and education. 

 What would be some ways you would improve the borough? 

The borough president has a lot of great things. He’s in connective communities, he’s an advocate for the borough to the mayor’s office. One of the ideas we have to reform the community boards [is] to add students to the community boards, people who are 16-18, people who are trying to find their own way. 

Do you have any projects in mind, or what do you plan on doing?

The borough president gets 5% of the city’s budget as their discretionary budget. Some of the things we want to do is support our hospital systems. What happened during COVID we never want to see again, so definitely gonna use some of that money to support the hospitals who are in need of masks, PPE, and new beds and wheelchairs, and the things we don’t think is a necessity but during COVID we really needed them. […] I really want to retrofit some of our schools who are older buildings who didn’t have proper wifi, who don’t have those kinds of abilities, I want to make sure those resources are in place. The borough president can introduce legislation in partnership with a city council member. So what I’d really like to do going forward is all new city buildings, funded with city and state money, that they maintain, that they have 3-4 bedrooms. 

I just want to go back to hospitals for a second. As part of your work as vice president of external affairs in Brookdale hospital, I imagine that must’ve been pretty stressful. How do you think that prepared you to become borough president?

It was actually the genesis for me running. When I first got to Brookdale, it was very uncommon to work next to people for 18 hour days who had benefits, who had healthcare, but were living in their cars and were living in shelters because there was no place they could afford. And so for them to talk about they have to live in a shelter and they can’t do overtime because they had to be back in enough time to make sure their bed was maintained really changed the way I looked at things. And from the healthcare standpoint, going through COVID was probably one of the worst things I’ve ever gone through as a human being. […] I realized that there was this lack of preparation in our healthcare system across the board. It didn’t matter if you were in Williamsburg or East New York, it was just a matter that we weren’t prepared for that. And so the genesis of me running is really working in that community, and understanding that as much as we’re different, we’re all the same, and we really require all of the same resources to make sure we get through our day. 

How do you plan on getting Brooklyn residents to vote for you? 

We’ve been door knocking, we’ve been out in the community meeting people. I am not an elected official so it is a little hard to walk around and spread my word across the borough, so I had to quit my job in order to do that. We’ve been everywhere from Williamsburg, to Sunset Park, to Coney Island, meeting voters, learning things that are important to people, because I think that is the biggest thing that an elected official needs to do is communicate with the community, and find out how things are moving. 

Do you have any goals for your term? 

One of my #1 goals is to put a roof over everybody’s head. It may seem like an ambitious goal, but I think that having the years of experience in government that I’ve had, and healthcare, I think we have a great plan to put those pieces in place, to kind of reduce the unaffordable apartments, to negotiate with those folks, etc. The real goal is to reduce homelessness in the borough by 15% and get our workforce families out of those transitional shelters into permanent housing and get the folks who live on the street into transitional shelters to give them a sense of dignity. 

If you could change one thing about Brooklyn, what would it be?

The fact that we can’t afford to live here, man. It’s crazy that I’m a healthcare guy but my number one priority at this point is to make sure we all have a roof over our heads. My number 2 priority is healthcare, and my number 3 priority is to make sure that we’re safe. 

If I was a voter, how would you convince me to vote for you? 

I have 20+ years of experience of public service, and I am the only candidate running that has borough-wide experience.  I worked for two governors as the Brooklyn regional rep, so what that meant was that my portfolio was Brooklyn. I also became the director of state senate initiatives for the New York State democratic conference, which my portfolio was healthcare. I’m the only candidate in this race who has worked with the entire borough, not just a district. 

Those are some very good points. Lastly, why do you think you would make a good borough president? 

Because I believe that being selfless is the best part of being selfish. I think that when you put other people’s needs first, or you’re even empathetic to other people’s needs and understanding is the best way to be a leader. I know sometimes leaders have to be strong and stern, but I do think that you can only lead if the people who you’re leading, you take care of them. Everyone from the baby that’s not born yet to the senior who’s just happy living their life are the people I’m paying attention to. I know they say you can’t save everybody but lord knows I’m going to try. I think that differentiates me from a lot of the other candidates. I’m really making this my life mission, I really had a good job at Brookdale hospital, but what ended up happening was that I needed to leave that job in order to take care of the people I care about the most, and that’s why I think this is the right move for me. 

What vision do you have for Brooklyn in the future? 

My ideal Brooklyn is one that is more equitable, so the work that I’m trying to do, speaks to asking the people that have more to take a step back and allow us to spend more time and more resources in areas that have been marginalized and not represented in a long time. My future Brooklyn is one where the entire borough is benefiting through high quality of life because of those investments that we made in these particular areas that don’t tend to get a lot of resources. 

What do you plan on doing, or do you have any projects in mind?

The idea is to spend more time on resources. I think a big part of building equity is spending time in neighborhoods that traditionally don’t have representatives that pay too much attention to it because they might not have a lot of political capital, or they might not necessarily be communities that have a lot of votes, so they end up getting ignored. So, first thing I want to make sure is that they’ll know I’ll be there, so I’ll spend time in these communities. The next thing is resources, and to be honest, it’s just money. We need to throw money into the infrastructure and the work that’s happening in these communities, and I’ll give an example: we’re working on one initiative that specifically addresses black women’s health. Black women in the city of New York are dying at 8 times the rate during childbirth, than any other woman in New York. So what I want to do is give money and funding to public hospitals so they can have a state of the art hospital or state of the art birthing center, and start addressing the issue of black women’s morbidity or black women’s health during childbirth. This is an example of how I’m building equity, by making sure that the places these women go to or black and brown women go to, are places where they have state of the art facilities that they can be proud of and safer in.  

You were born in Williamsburg, correct? 

Yes, I was born in Cumberland Hospital, and born and raised in Williamsburg, the southside, yes. 

And do you have any plans for the neighborhood you were born and raised in?

I do want to say that I think Williamsburg has more resources than many other communities in Brooklyn but there are pockets of poverty in Williamsburg that also need a lot of assistance. Especially public housing is an area I really want to focus on, and have that conversation. And then education is a big part of my want-to-do. There are areas in my district, Williamsburg, where students are reading, or doing ELA work, and math. Those are the two, park space and education.

How do you plan on getting Brooklyn residents to vote for you? 

People are attracted to and vote for people they feel inspired by, that they feel have a message that compels them. My goal is to make sure that I have a platform that motivates people to come out to vote for me. It’s about having a strong message, but also having a good theme. I got a group of people in the streets that are knocking on doors and getting my name out. It’s about having people showing up to events with a strong message, and I expect to do it all, competing at a very high level right now, and hopefully the outcome will be that I am the next Brooklyn borough president.

I read online that you were Chair of the Sanitation Committee for two terms. Do you think your role in the city’s maintenance influenced your decision to run for borough president, and if so, how? 

I think that we were doing a good job with garbage all the way up until COVID when the mayor decided to cut the budget of the Department of Sanitation, so I know that it had a lot to do with money than anything else, and the COVID crisis. But it didn’t motivate me to run for Brooklyn borough president. I want to run for Brooklyn borough president because I love Brooklyn. Brooklyn has given everything to me, and I want to make sure that I give everything back.

What are your main goals for your term?

So, we talked about equity and black women’s health, which is part of what I want to get done, but I want to allow an opportunity for Brooklyn to let me know what they think they want me to do. I want to have a participatory way of allowing for the communities to tell me where they want me to spend my time and energy, so that the community and the people of Brooklyn can dictate what they want me to do. 

If you could change one thing about Brooklyn, what would it be? 

I love Brooklyn, so it’s hard to see anything change. I guess the inequities. I wish that regardless of your zip code, regardless of where you live, that you have the same opportunities to succeed in Brooklyn, and that’s not the case. Where you’re born and what zip code you’re from is more of a determining factor of your success than who you are as a person, and I’d love to change that. 

And lastly, if I was a voter, how would you convince me to vote for you? 

I’ll give you a bit of my story. I’m young and had very little, so food stamps, section 8, medication, gives me an opportunity to stand here before you as a council member and a candidate for Brooklyn borough president. I know what a government can do for the people in need and what works. I want to do cheerleading, I want people to know that we have the best bagels, best pizza, that the Brooklyn Bridge belongs to us and not Manhattan, and I want to make sure that I can maintain Brooklyn on the map as the greatest city in the world, but I also want to do some policy work. There are a lot of smart ideas coming from different parts in the country on progressive policy, and I want that to change. I think that a lot of these models and these places should be taking ideas from us on how this city should be run, and how this country should be run. I’m also going to cheerlead that we are the progressive capital of this country and that people should come here to see how we’re living and passing policy. That’s what I’m pitching to post, and I hope that with my experience and background, and how I made it out, I was able to succeed, that people give me an opportunity to be their borough president. 

Other candidates:

Robert E. Cornegy Jr. is a democratic Brooklyn borough president candidate representing Bedford-Stuyvesant and Northern Crown Heights. Mr. Cornegy is a 55 year old councilman from the 36th district.

Jo Anne Simon, born in Yonkers, NY, is a New York State Attorney and member of the New York State Assembly representing the 52nd district, based in Carroll Gardens.

Kimberly Council is a Brooklyn BP candidate coming from the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in Brooklyn. Reducing economic disparity is one of Ms. Council’s main goals.

Robert Elstein is a liberal arts teacher at a Brooklyn public high school. He has many policy proposals to offer concerning schools if he is elected.

Mathieu Eugene is the New York City council member for the 40th district. Dubbed the “Haitian Sensation”, Mr. Eugene was born in Cap-Haitien, Haiti.

Having served on Brooklyn’s Community Board 17, Pearlene Fields “looks to advocate for two-year trade apprenticeships at public schools, a small business incubator, and improving Brooklyn’s infrastructure”.

Anthony Jones is the district leader for the 55th Assembly District. Mr. Jones ran for Assembly in 2014, and hopes to change zoning laws and take illegal firearms off the streets.

Shanduke McPhatter is a community activist in Brooklyn. Founder of an anti-gangs & guns non-profit and former Bloods gang member, Mr. McPhatter hopes to focus on community safety for the borough.

Robert Ramos Jr., previously president of the DC37 Local 205 Daycare Workers Union, is a lifelong Brooklyn resident. Mr. Ramos plans to retrofit NYCHA complexes with solar panels if elected.

Lamor Whitehead-Miller is a Canarsie-located bishop with the Leaders of Tomorrow International Churches. With a large social media following but little fundraising, Mr. Whitehead-Miller wants to address police, domestic, and youth violence.