➤ COUNCIL, from p.6
already worked under out former
speaker Christine Quinn. That experience,
Menchaca said, helped
him hit the ground running once
he took offi ce.
“It was thrilling and overwhelming
and just so full of possibility,”
Menchaca recalled of his fi rst days
in offi ce. “It took awhile for me to
latch back onto the ground. My
fi rst day, I was like, ‘wow, you’re the
fi rst this, fi rst that…’ but then I had
to get to work. I had to build new
schools for families. I had to build
bike lanes. And, of course, with that
experience, I knew how to do it.”
Facing the end of their terms,
the City Council veterans looked
back on some of what they believe
were their most signifi cant achievements
— including their work pertaining
to the LGBTQ community.
Van Bramer said he is proud of his
work to build new schools in his
district and to allocate billions of
dollars for culture, the arts, and libraries,
and he further praised the
work of the City Council to help
fund the forthcoming American
LGBTQ Museum in Manhattan,
among other projects.
“One of the things I also personally
fought for and secured was a
$100,000 grant to The Center on 13th
Street for their archive,” Van Bramer
said. “I worked in the Queens Public
Library for 11 years before I got elected
and I love archives.”
Menchaca, who notably helped
lead the opposition to the Industry
City rezoning, also spoke of his
collaborative work alongside Torres,
explaining that the two joined
forces to bring funding to groups
such as Services & Advocacy for
GLBT Elders (SAGE) and the Hetrick
Martin Institute. Menchaca
also pointed to his work in bringing
psychiatric and mental health
support to young people.
Among other undertakings, Torres
and Johnson both steered related
bills to passage in 2018 that bolstered
shelter services for homeless
youth, including Torres’ bill permitting
shelters for homeless and runaway
youth to serve young adults
between the ages of 21 and 24. Torres
did not respond to a request for
comment for this story.
Dromm said one of his many
proudest accomplishments was
creating the IDNYC program,
which is a city-issued identifi cation
Members of the LGBT Caucus stand with Jason Collins in 2014 — the year he became the fi rst out
NBA player. From left to right: Daniel Dromm, Corey Johnson, Rosie Mendez, Jason Collins, Jimmy Van
Bramer, Carlos Menchaca, Ritchie Torres.
document allowing New York residents,
regardless of immigration
status, to obtain city services and
benefi ts, apply for health insurance,
open a bank account, and
access other benefi ts. Dromm also
pointed to funding for the Trans
Equity initiative and the establishment
of the LGBTQ liaison position
in the Department of Education,
as well as the incorporation of LGBTQ
curriculum in some schools,
though he conceded that much
more work is needed to integrate
queer curriculum across the city.
Some of the councilmembers secured
victories up until the fi nal
weeks of their terms. Dromm’s bill
to create an advisory committee
to review nuclear disarmament,
for example, passed the Council
on December 9 — more than two
years after it was fi rst introduced
— and earlier in the year the
Council passed his legislation providing
intersex-inclusive education
to doctors, parents, and guardians
of intersex children. Menchaca
praised the passage of a bill he cosponsored
that gave non-citizens
the right to vote in municipal elections
in New York City.
Not everything, though, was accomplished
in time. Menchaca,
who drew some criticism among
progressives when he backed the
mayoral campaign of Andrew Yang,
said he led the Council in trying to
pass a universal basic income pilot
program, but never got that done.
Menchaca said there were multiple
immigration-related objectives that
were stymied because he felt the de
Blasio administration was not ready
to negotiate with the Council, including
his 2018 bill to ban the city
from contracting with US Immigration
and Customs Enforcement.
DONNA ACETO
Van Bramer thought the councilmembers
did everything they
could while they were in offi ce, and
he acknowledged that some things
— like the timeline of construction
projects — were out of their control.
Dromm said his “biggest frustration”
as he leaves the Council is
the failure to pass legislation banning
solitary confi nement in New
York City. Dromm’s bill to ban the
practice was backed by 35 councilmembers
— including the entire
LGBT Caucus minus Johnson. It
never got a vote.
“It’s been frustrating because
the last 12 years I’ve been trying
to get rid of solitary confi nement,”
Dromm said. “Unfortunately, the
politics didn’t allow that to happen.
I put the blame on Mayor Adams.”
In December, Adams expressed
support for punitive segregation,
prompting a majority of councilmembers
to deliver a letter criticizing
that approach. The State Legislature’s
HALT Solitary Confi nement
Act, which banned prisons and jails
from putting people in isolation for
more than 15 days and barred it entirely
for some populations, is set to
go into effect in April.
Dromm said he hopes to see Adams
follow through on “the support
he’s speaking about in the LGBTQ
community” and recalled when
he delivered remarks on the State
Senate fl oor as marriage equality
was set to pass in New York.
“I hope he recognizes the intersectionality
of our cause and can help
to promote LGBTQIA rights moving
forward,” Dromm said. “I’m hoping
he will be a strong advocate.”
Like other elected offi cials, the
outgoing lawmakers encountered
political turbulence at various
points during their time in offi ce.
During his fi rst term, Menchaca
was booted from his role as cochair
of the City Council’s Brooklyn
delegation. Dromm faced protests at
his home during budget season in
2020. Van Bramer was embroiled
in two bruising and bitter battles
with Donovan Richards in the race
for Queens borough president.
Johnson, who did not respond to
multiple requests for an interview
for this story, saw his fair share of
highs and lows during his tenure
in offi ce, which included a period
during 2019 when he was labeled
by some as the “de facto mayor”
because he was scrambling to update
New Yorkers on the status of
a summertime blackout when Bill
de Blasio was preoccupied with his
2020 presidential campaign.
Johnson also, however, struck
a nerve with many in the LGBTQ
community that same year when
he voiced his opposition to full sex
work decriminalization. That issue
shot to the forefront of queer
advocacy in 2019 — the same year
that the DecrimNY coalition swept
through the city. DecrimNY, Gay
Men’s Health Crisis, the New York
City Anti-Violence Project, VOCALNY,
and WOMANKIND and other
organizations criticized Johnson
for his stance on that issue.
On the contrary, many of the
incoming Democratic members of
the LGBT Caucus explicitly campaigned
on decriminalizing sex
work — and after the passage of
state-based legislation repealing
the ban on Walking While Trans,
there is reason to believe that those
out members of the Council will
serve as strong advocates for the
decriminalization movement as
well as other progressive causes.
Menchaca is especially excited
about the two incoming LGBTQ
lawmakers in his borough — Chi
Ossé and Crystal Hudson — and he
said they bring a “whole new set of
connections to the neighborhood.”
He said he would have liked to have
another out councilmember in his
borough during his time in offi ce.
The other incoming members of
the LGBT Caucus are Manhattan’s
Erik Bottcher, who is succeeding
Johnson in District 3 and served
as his chief of staff for seven of
his eight years in offi ce, and Kristin
Richardson Jordan of District
9; Lynn Schulman and Tiffany
Cabán of Queens; and Staten Island
Republican David Carr.
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