Brooklyn LGBTQ Democrats Host Mayoral Forum
Stringer, Morales to fi ght for Lamba Independent Democrats’ endorsement in runoff
BY MATT TRACY
Members of Lambda
Independent Democrats
(LID) voted to
move ahead with
a runoff between City Comptroller
Scott Stringer and non-profi t
leader Dianne Morales to settle the
club’s mayoral endorsement once
and for all.
The club’s endorsement has
been in limbo ever since Stringer
and Morales each scored the most
votes following a three-day, fourpart
virtual mayoral forum hosted
by LID. A whopping 14 candidates
appeared at the forum, which included
discussions surrounding
housing, policing, the coronavirus
pandemic, LGBTQ issues, and
other topics.
“I do really think it speaks to the
nature of this race given the number
of candidates and difference
of opinions,” Arader told Gay City
News after the fi rst vote took place
on February 26. The runoff will
take place at a to-be-determined
date.
LGBTQ candidates who joined
the forum, which took place from
February 23 through February
25, were Carlos Menchaca, who is
Brooklyn’s fi rst out gay lawmaker,
former Department of Veterans’
Services commissioner Loree Sutton,
who dropped out of the mayoral
race on March 10, and nonbinary
rapper Paperboy Prince.
Housing was among the top issues
discussed throughout the
course of the forum. Former Housing
and Urban Development Secretary
Shaun Donovan boiled down
his housing approach to preserving
both NYCHA and affordable
housing, while also aiming to expand
it, while Stringer stressed the
importance of gathering more data
to pinpoint issues and craft housing
solutions for LGBTQ seniors.
Brooklyn Borough President Eric
Adams and Carlos Menchaca reiterated
their joint calls to convert
outer-borough hotels into affordable
housing — an approach also
backed by Sutton — and Garcia
said she would commit to building
Moderator Crystal Hudson with Dianne Morales, Eric Adams, Maya Wiley, and Scott Stringer.
50,000 “deeply affordable” units
and stabilize NYCHA.
While Adams also sought to remind
club members that he allocated
funds towards SAGE’s Stonewall
House, an LGBTQ-friendly
senior living environment in Fort
Greene, he was asked by moderator
Crystal Hudson — who hopes
to succeed term-limited lawmaker
Laurie Cumbo in that district — to
clarify the controversial comments
he made about that development in
2019.
When Stonewall House opened,
77 percent of residents were people
of color and all residents had
incomes below 50 percent of the
area’s median household income.
Adams, however, said at that
building’s opening event that he
was “concerned about the diversity”
there, describing it as a “pretty
building on NYCHA property.”
“At the opening of Stonewall
House, you made remarks that
were considered to be controversial
and seemed to pit the LGBTQ community
against the Black community
at Ingersoll Houses,” Hudson
said. “I wanted to give you a moment
to clarify those comments.”
In response, Adams said, “You
can’t pit against a community that
is the same community. When
you look at the number of African-
Americans that identify as being
LGBTQ, so when I raised my concerns
about making sure that people
living in NYCHA — where this
great project is located — for people
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to say ‘Eric, you’re pitting the communities,’
that is not the historical
reality.”
On the issue of police reform,
candidates offered varying perspectives.
Menchaca, Wiley, and
Stringer were among those who
voiced desire to get rid of the
NYPD’s vice squad, which has been
sharply criticized for an aggressive
and targeted approach towards sex
workers, while Stringer and Donovan
explicitly mentioned the need
to decriminalize sex work. Other
candidates, including Menchaca
and Morales, previously elaborated
on their support for sex work decriminalization
at a Jim Owles
Liberal Democratic Club mayoral
forum.
Adams vowed to appoint the fi rst
woman as police commissioner
and said he would aim to rebuild
the culture of the police department,
while Wiley said the city’s
top cop must be someone who did
not rise through the ranks of the
NYPD. Sutton called for increased
coordination between the future
mayor’s administration and other
city agencies, community advocates,
unions, and police.
Morales expressed support for
defunding the police — a position
that she attributes to the criminalization
of communities of color,
LGBTQ people, and other marginalized
groups.
“Last year in June I stood and
literally used my body as a marcher
at the Queer Liberation March to
POLITICS
stand between rows of police and
the participants in the Parade,”
Morales said. “That is a symbol of
what I’m willing to do in order to
protect our communities.
Menchaca, who stressed that
homeless New Yorkers have been
negatively impacted by overnight
subway closures during the pandemic,
said he believes social
workers must be responding to
homeless individuals rather than
police offi cers. On a broader level,
he also voiced his desire to defund
the NYPD and crack down on bad
cops.
“We need a mayor that is going to
be an activist mayor around police
accountability,” Menchaca said.
The non-LGBTQ candidates also
spent signifi cant chunks of time
refl ecting on their past contributions
to the LGBTQ community.
Morales recalled an outreach
program she started 16 years ago
for LGBTQ homeless and runaway
youth at Christopher Street piers;
Stringer remembered friends he
lost to AIDS and looked back on
his efforts to help pass marriage
equality in the State Legislature;
and Wiley, who worked to help provide
legal assistance to people living
with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s,
explained that she grew up in an
inclusive environment with out
LGBTQ people, but she realized
once she got to college that the
world was not as friendly as she
thought it was.
Others who participated in the
forum included former Sanitation
commissioner Kathryn Garcia, tech
entrepreneur Edward Cullen, attorney
Aaron Foldenauer, Sykes Capital
Management president Quanda
Francis, banking executive Art
Chang, and Joycelyn Taylor.
Former Citigroup executive Ray
McGuire fi lled out the club’s questionnaire
and was slated to attend
the second part of the forum, but
did not appear. Former presidential
candidate Andrew Yang did not fi ll
out a questionnaire or attend the
forum. A Yang campaign spokesperson
cited scheduling confl icts.
Visit LID’s Facebook page to
watch all four parts of the forum.
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