Borough president candidates spar at forum
BY MAX PARROTT
The borough presidency
may be be considered
by some as an open-ended
“cheerleader” role, but the
four Queens borough president
candidates stuck to a
few consistent themes during
a recent Rockaway candidate
forum: transit, labor
and their relationship with
community boards.
The Good Government,
Regular Democratic Club
held the forum on Nov. 14
in Beacon Rehab & Nursing
Center in Rockaway Park,
where Councilmen Jimmy
Van Bramer, Costa Constantinides
and Donovan Richards
and former Councilwoman
Elizabeth Crowley
each took turns giving the
peninsula residents their
backstory and responding to
concerns.
One might have expected
Richards, the Rockaway City
Council representative, to
have the home court advantage
in the forum, but the
timing of the event would
have it otherwise.
Earlier in the day, the City
Council voted in approval of
the Edgemere Commons, a
transformative 11-building
mixed-use complex with
over 2,000 units of belowmarket
rate housing in the
heart of the Rockaways — a
project that the Rockaway
Community Board had voted
against.
One member of Community
Board 14 who was present
at the forum took it as an opportunity
to test the candidates’
loyalty to community
boards across the borough,
asking each candidate to
sign a written pledge to back
“any and all” community
board recommendations as
borough president.
In the course of addressing
the crowd, Crowley and
Van Bramer signed the
pledge.
And, based on a previous
conversation with Constantinides,
the community
member took the liberty of
signing the pledge for Constantinides,
who arrived
late. But once the councilman
got there, he made no
objection.
Confronted with his recent
friction with the community
board, Richards, on
the other hand, refused to
sign and criticized his opponents
for doing so.
“It’s very important you
Councilman Donovan Richards addresses his constituents at the Nov. 14 borough president forum in Rockaway Park.
Photos: Max Parrott/QNS
look at the record of individuals
before they sign a
pledge like this. There is no
council member who agrees
with a community board 100
percent of the time,” said
Richards. “At the end of the
day, we should be mature
enough to sit at a table and
make plans together.”
During the course of his
speech, Richards billed himself
as a fiscal leader and
dealmaker with a history of
bringing economic development
projects into his district
and access to the levers
of power.
“Leadership is not about
a popularity contest … Leadership
is about being able to
cultivate relationships because
relationships cultivate
results and then leverage the
opportunities that come,”
he said after declaring his
strong relationship with the
mayor and governor.
Richards also went on the
offensive over Van Bramer’s
stance on the Amazon HQ2
deal. After Van Bramer left
the forum, Richards called
him out for signing two letters
of support for Amazon
to come into Long Island
City before pushing against
the project.
Former Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley signs a pledge to follow
“any and all” community board recommendations as borough
president.
In his speech, Van Bramer
framed himself as a
union-raised dissident who
has used his position on the
council to stand up to those
in power and fight for what
he believes is right.
“What happens when the
mayor and governor reach
an agreement to the exclusion
of any CB involvementbypassing
ULURP altogether?
Bypassing all elected
officials together? … What I
said is that it is not going to
happen,” said Van Bramer.
Like Van Bramer, Crowley
touted her union roots as
a member of the D.C. 9 International
Union of Painters
and Allied Trades from her
previous career as a restorative
painter. She described
the recurring theme of her
campaign as the fight for
Queens to receive its fair
share of resources.
Constantinides highlighted
his environmental
platform, explaining that
his motivation to run stems
from being attuned to the
climate crisis.
“I don’t have to tell anyone
on this peninsula what
Hurricane Sandy brought.
I don’t have to tell anyone
here what climate change is
doing to our communities —
what this could potentially
mean for us in the borough
of Queens,” Constantinides
said.
In addition to their positions
on the community
board, all of the candidates
said they would be open to
exploring the reactivation
of a long-closed Rockaway
branch of the MTA. Even
Crowley, who has made
the reopening of the Lower
Montauk Branch of the
LIRR a pet project, said that
she thought the two projects
could work in concert
together.
After the meeting, Constantinides
and Van Bramer
responded to QNS’s reporting
to clarify that they had
not meant to agree the exact
wording of the pledge, but
that they had only meant to
indicate their willingness to
consider community board
recommendations.
Reach reporter Max Parrott
by e-mail at mparrott@
schnepsmedia.com or by
phone at (718) 260-2507.
TIMESLEDGER,4 NOV. 22-28, 2019 QNS.COM
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