TIMESLEDGER | QNS.44 COM | OCT. 9-OCT. 15, 2020
requires a greater commitment.”
In addition to coowning
his Long Island
City-based award-winning
digital marketing
firm, Guttmann sits on
the Board of Directors
at the Long Island Partnership,
the Queens
Economic Development
Corporation and
Friends of the QNS Rail.
He is also an adjunct
lecturer teaching digital
marketing at Baruch
College.
“Baruch is my alma
mater where I met my
future wife,” Guttmann
said. “My students are
just getting started with
their careers and I wonder
what the city will be
like for them. I realized
I can no longer sit quietly
and watch it all fall
further apart.”
During his five years
as a member of Community
Board 2, Guttmann
has immersed himself
in the issues facing
western Queens.
“It’s a fascinating
district, the fastest
growing in the USA,”
Guttmann said. “Every
issue the city is faced
with happens right
here. It acts as a crucible
for how we can save the
city. We have an affordability
and housing crisis,
crumbling transit
and dangerous streets,
sea level rising flooding
our waterfront, packed
schools, injustice and
inequality and squeezed
out artists. These and
every other challenge
facing our city, all of
them play out here,
western Queens is the
whole ballgame.”
The progressive
Democrat is well aware
that the neighborhoods
in western Queens are
the political epicenter of
the “far left.”
“I like to compare my
philosophy with somebody
like Elizabeth
Warren, looking for
structural change and
developing progressive
solutions to big challenges,”
Guttmann said.
“I’m encouraged by all
of the progressive energy
in our city, though
ultimately I want to see
smart, hard-working
people working to solve
problems more than
anything else.”
Guttmann is also
aware that there are
nearly a dozen of his
neighbors running for
Van Bramer’s seat.
“I’m happy to see that
there are this many people
interested in making
this district better,”
Guttmann said. “I know
several of them and I’m
looking forward to joining
the conversation
with them.”
Reach reporter Bill
Parry by e-mail at bparry@
schnepsmedia.com
or by phone at (718) 260–
4538.
BY BILL PARRY
A western Queens
tech entrepreneur
has joined an already
crowded field of candidates
vying to replace
Councilman Jimmy
Van Bramer, who will
be term-limited out of
office in 2021.
Ben Guttmann, a 31-
year-old Long Island
City resident, is the cofounder
of Digital Natives
and a Community
Board 2 member. He
launched his campaign
for City Council in District
26 which represents
Long Island City,
Sunnyside, Woodside
and parts of Astoria.
“This is a unique moment
in New York City
history where it feels
like the promise we’ve
experienced in the last
several years is now
slipping away from us,”
Guttmann said. “One
out of five of us is jobless
and one in three of
our small businesses
may never open their
doors again and we
have the greatest homeless
problem since the
Great Depression. The
COVID-19 pandemic has
exposed what is broken
in this city but it didn’t
cause everything that
is wrong, it just pulled
back the curtain. I realized
it was time to get off
the sideline and help because
this is a time that
Community Board 2 member Ben Guttmann is running
to replace Jimmy Van Bramer in the City Council.
Courtesy of Guttmann’s campaign
Tech pioneer joins crowded race for
western Queens City Council seat
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