Jeffrey Cole LeFrancois
Jeffrey Cole LeFrancois,
who has served as executive
director of the
Meatpacking District
Management Association,
also known as the
Meatpacking BID, since
early 2019, has a long
history of civic and political
engagement.
Raised in rural Connecticut,
Jeffrey earned
his bachelor’s degree in
political science from
Pace University and
immediately immersed
himself in local LGBTQ
politics, joining the Gay
and Lesbian Independent
Democrats and the Stonewall
Democratic Club of New York
City, where he serves on the Executive
Board.
His experience in working on
political campaigns is extensive.
Though he supported Hillary Clinton
during the 2008 Democratic
primary, during the fall campaign
he was a get-out-the-vote volunteer
for Barack Obama in Bucks County,
Pennsylvania, an important
swing area outside Philadelphia.
Four years later, he was a regional
field director for Obama’s reelection
campaign in Allegheny County,
Pennsylvania, another populous
swing district that includes Pittsburgh
and many suburbs. In 2013,
Jeffrey served as outreach coordinator
for Gale Brewer’s successful
primary campaign to become Manhattan
borough president.
For five years beginning in
2008, Jeffrey worked for Manhattan
State Assemblymember Richard
Gottfried, serving as deputy
chief of staff for the final three
years. In 2014, he joined incoming
City Councilmember
Corey Johnson as his
chief of staff during his
first year in office.
Jeffrey joined the
Meatpacking BID in early
2015, first serving as
director of operations
and community affairs.
In that capacity, he oversaw
capital construction
projects along 14th Street
and also lobbied the city to
re-cobblestone streets, saving
the BID $7 million. As executive
director of the BID for the past
18 months, Jeffrey has managed
budgets totaling almost $3 million
per year and overseen all operations,
including a future public
art program on the organization’s
plazas.
Jeffrey has also undertaken a
wide range of volunteer community
activities. A member since
2016 of Manhattan Community 4,
which represents neighborhoods
from the Meatpacking District
north to Hell’s Kitchen where he
lives, Jeffrey has served as first
vice chair since last year. He is
also co-chair of the Waterfront
and Parks Committee.
Jeffrey has also served on the
board of Housing Conservation
Coordinators – a non-profit that
advances social and economic
justice for low-income and working
class families in Hell’s Kitchen
– since 2017.
Jeffrey has contributed op-eds
to Gay City News and the newspaper’s
sister publications The Villager
and Chelsea Now, as well an
essay for Pace University’s literary
magazine.
Executive
Director,
Meatpacking
District
Management
Association
Jomil Luna
Jomil Luna, who earned
his master’s degree
in Public Health from
Rutgers University, is a
pharmacy specialist at the AIDS
Healthcare Foundation and also
secretary of the New York City
HIV Planning Council, which is
responsible for making decisions
about the allocation of prevention
funds from the federal CDC.
As an out HIV-positive Puerto
Rican gay man, Jomil is a passionate
public health and LGBTQ
advocate. At the AIDS Healthcare
Foundation (AHF), Jomil
is responsible for the delivery of
outpatient medical services and
client education for HIV-positive
New Yorkers, addressing barriers
to engagement in outpatient care,
creating outreach plans targeting
specific areas or populations, and
providing input into the development
of national linkage-to-care
policies.
Prior to joining AHF in 2016, Jomil
was the site director of the Hispanic
AIDS Forum’s (HAF) Latino
Pride Center. There, he developed
new programs, built strategic
partnerships to advance HAF’s
mission, assisted the group’s
executive director in formulating
sexual health-related
policy positions, and was a
member of HAF’s speakers
bureau.
At BOOM!Health in the
Bronx, beginning in 2013,
Jomil served as assistant
director of prevention programs.
Jomil was raised in Camden,
New Jersey, by his
mother and grandmother. The
first in his family to graduate
from college, he earned his master’s
degree in 2013.
Several years ago, Jomil was
profiled in the “Other Boys NYC”
series of iseegaypeople.tv. He
talked about growing up in a poor
neigbhorhood where young men
faced peer pressure to conform to
prevailing norms of masculinity.
He would often head into nearby
Philadelphia to check out the
gay scene, and on one ocassion
ran into a family friend
he was sure would “rat me
out.” Several weeks later,
his grandmother asked
him directly if he was gay.
Jomil now realizes, he
said, that her concern was
due to the fact that “she was
scared for me,” given what
she had heard about violence
facing the LGBTQ community.
His grandmother, who he said
“took it upon herself” to tell the
rest of his family, told him, “At
least you’re not the type to dress
up.” It would be years later, as the
age of social media bloomed, he
said, that his family began to see
how when with his friends, “I tend
to have fun. I become loca.” One
solution to catching flak on that
score, he said with a laugh, was
having two Facebook pages.
Pharmacy
Specialist, AIDS
Healthcare
Foundation
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