He’s running!
BY ROSE ADAMS
Sunset Park Councilman
Carlos Menchaca says he’s
jumping into the 2021 mayoral
race, hoping his experience as
an on-the-ground community
activist will leapfrog him atop
a crowded Democratic fi eld of
candidates.
“In a democracy, the community
is where the power is.
They control the vote, they control
the next leader,” Menchaca
told Brooklyn Paper. “And I feel
that tension with government.
Government has failed to meet
that and refl ect that.”
Menchaca, a Texas native
whose parents immigrated
from Mexico, worked for former
Borough President Marty
Markowitz and City Council
Speaker Christine Quinn before
unseating longtime Sunset
Park Councilwoman Sara Gonzalez
in 2013.
If elected to the city’s top offi
ce, Menchaca will be the fi rst
openly gay mayor in the city’s
history, as well as the fi rst Latino
mayor since 1917.
Menchaca’s candidacy
comes just weeks after he
played an integral role in stopping
the Industry City rezoning
in September, which would
have allowed for a $1 billion redevelopment
COURIER L 14 IFE, OCT. 30-NOV. 5, 2020
of the 35-acre campus
in Sunset Park.
Proponents of the proposed
rezoning lauded the plan for potentially
bringing thousands
of jobs to the area as the city
faces a multi-billion dollar budget
shortfall, but local activists
worried that the revamped
space would accelerate gentrifi -
cation.
Menchaca, who held outsized
power over the rezoning’s
approval as the area’s city legislator,
initially issued a series
of conditions for the developer
to meet before he would support
the land use change — but
ultimately ushered a complete
denouncement of the project
following pressure from advocates.
The term-limited councilman
said he opposed the rezoning
proposal because it
supposedly failed to address
community concerns about rising
rents, and because there
was no enforcement mechanism
to hold Industry City’s
developers to account for their
promises.
Many political observers
likened the death of Industry
City’s rezoning and the adjoining
promises of economic opportunity
to the withdrawal of
Amazon’s deal to build a new
headquarters in Queens —
which would have created an
estimated 40,000 jobs in the city,
according to Amazon.
But Menchaca sees the
death of the Industry City project
as jumpstarting a citywide
movement that prioritizes local
voices over corporate interests
— and one that could propel
him to Gracie Mansion.
“Sunset Park was at the forefront
of the battle that bought a
developer to their knees,” said
Menchaca, who added that the
city’s land use approval procedure,
known as ULURP, must
give locals more of a say in the
development of their neighborhoods.
“ULURP must be different.
It must give capacity to
communities to confront these
global corporate projects.”
Menchaca will face off
against fellow progressives
Maya Wiley, Scott Stringer,
and Diana Morales, as well as
more than 20 others in the 2021
mayoral race. To prove he’s
most in touch with the people,
Menchaca will travel to each
neighborhood to speak to locals
before drafting most of his policy
positions, he said.
“The fi rst thing is listen to
the people. It seems pretty simple,
but it’s one of the most common
things that this administration
hasn’t been able to do
very well,” he said. “My fi rst
phase of this is to engage people
at the most local level, and build
policy from the ground up.”
Councilman Carlos Menchaca says
he will be ‘the people’s mayor’
Carlos Menchaca. Photo by Rose Adams