Menchaca fl oats mayoral run
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
Just weeks after Council
Speaker Corey Johnson
bowed out of the 2021 race for
mayor, one of his colleagues,
Sunset Park Councilman Carlos
Menchaca, fl oated the possibility
that he would step into
the contest.
Mid-afternoon on Oct. 9,
Ben Max, the executive editor
of the online watchdog publication
Gotham Gazette, tweeted
his discovery that Menchaca
— who has represented Sunset
Park, Red Hook, Greenwood
Heights, and portions
of Borough Park since January
2014 — had opened an account
with the city Campaign
Finance Board for a mayoral
run.
Menchaca did not respond
to a request for further comment
but later in the afternoon
tweeted, “Amigos: These
past months I’ve been thinking
a lot about our City and
how we could do better, we
must do better. Nothing is offi -
cial… will share news soon.”
Menchaca recently garnered
widespread attention
after developers of Sunset
Park’s Industry City withdrew
COURIER L 22 IFE, OCT. 16-22, 2020
their controversial rezoning
proposal following his
opposition to the project.
Industry City’s owners
sought to rezone their 35-acre
industrial complex to pave
the way for a a $1 billion, 12-
year redevelopment of the
campu. Offi cials said the redevelopment
would have created
thousands jobs, but local
activists argued it would lead
to the gentrifi cation of Sunset
Park’s working class, largely
immigrant community without
offering well-paying jobs.
In July, Menchaca vowed
to vote down the project after
tentatively disapproving of it
for months. Eventually, Industry
City withdrew its land use
application from the Council.
An outspoken champion of
the Latinx and Asian-American
constituents he represents,
Menchaca has been a
searing critic of President
Donald Trump’s Immigration
and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) efforts, and last year
took on Mayor Bill de Blasio
after the mayor said the city
to be willing to work with ICE
agents to track down undocumented
residents accused of
certain criminal offenses.
Menchaca also clashed
with several colleagues this
summer over the city’s budget.
He was among 17 Councilmembers
who voted against
the budget Johnson had negotiated
on the Council’s behalf
with de Blasio.
Though Menchaca rose
up in politics as an insider
— working as an aid for former
Brooklyn Borough President
Marty Markowitz and
later for City Council Speaker
Christine Quinn — he has become
independent fi gure in
his eight years on the Council,
at times alienating other
Brooklyn representatives.
In 2017, Menchaca withstood
a primary campaign by
Assemblymember Félix Ortiz
and the county’s Democratic
Party to unseat him after one
term.
Menchaca, who is 40,
was the fi rst out gay legislator
elected in Brooklyn and
the Council’s fi rst Mexican-
American member, having
grown up in public housing
in El Paso, Texas, one of seven
children raised by a single
mother.
In a 2013 interview,
Menchaca credited his mother’s
infl uence in encouraging
his interest in learning, but
he also noted the government
social safety net that was vital
to the family’s well-being.
When he decided to challenge
Sara González, an 11-year incumbent,
he cited the city government’s
failures during the
Superstorm Sandy crisis the
year before as the motivating
factor.
“Government was nowhere
to be seen,” Menchaca said at
the time, as he promised to be
a candidate and legislator who
would be “visible and active.”
One undeniable skill
Menchaca brings to his political
career is his skill as a
community organizer, which
helped him turn out record
numbers of primary voters,
both in 2013 and 2017.
If he jumps into the mayoral
race, Menchaca would
join former de Blasio aide
Maya Wiley, Comptroller
Scott Stringer, and Loree Sutton,
a retired US Army brigadier
general and psychiatrist
who served as the fi rst commissioner
of the city’s Department
of Veterans’ Services,
among other candidates.
Councilman Carlos Menchaca on
Oct. 9 teased a potential mayoral
run. File photo by Rose Adams
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