Community News
Hailie Kim Eyes District 26 Seat
Third candidate files to run in race for Van Bramer’s City
Council seat in western Queens
22 FEBRUARY 2020 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
Angélica Acevedo
BY BILL PARRY
Athird candidate has emerged to replace
Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer when he
is term-limited in 2021.
Hailie Kim, 27, an adjunct professor of
English at Hunter College, filed her paperwork with
the Board of Elections last Friday, and she hopes
to represent District 26 which includes Sunnyside,
Woodside, Long Island City and parts of Astoria.
“My family moved from Seoul, South Korea,
when I was six and I really loved growing up in this
neighborhood of Sunnyside Gardens,” Kim said. “As
a student at P.S. 150, I felt I couldn’t get a better
start and I went to high school in Astoria at the
Baccalaureate School for Global Education. I have a
real passion for education and as soon as I received
my U.S. citizenship I decided I would run for office
to make the schools in this district even stronger.”
Kim joins civic leader Brent O’Leary and Giselle
Burgess, the co-founder of the first Girl Scout Troop
for homeless girls when she and her children lived in
a Long Island City shelter.
“I think both are incredibly good candidates and
it would be an honor to run against them,” Kim said.
“Brent and I share a passion for more funding for
education and doing something about the escalating
rents in Queens and Giselle Burgess did an amazing
thing and her story is wonderful.”
Kim believes there is a place for her in the race
because of her immigrant experience. In fact, her name
would appear on the ballot as Heajin Kim, her legal name.
“When I was 12, I got fed up with my teachers at
P.S. 150 mispronouncing my name so I changed it,
which a lot of immigrant students do,” Kim said. “But
when I was filing to become a citizen I didn’t want to
give up my name, officially.”
Kim does not own a car and has suffered with other
straphangers over the years before service on the 7
subway line improved.
“There is much that needs to be fixed at the MTA
and in the meantime I want to stand up for the Triboro
rail line that would connect the Bronx with Queens
and Brooklyn,” Kim said. “Like Councilman Costa
Constantinides says all the jobs are no longer just in
Manhattan. Public transportation that connects the
outer borough is more important than ever.”
Kim said she is interested in learning more about the
BQX streetcar line that would run along the Queens
and Brooklyn waterfront connecting Astoria and Red
Hook, Brooklyn.
“It is crucial that there are connections to employment
centers in Brooklyn and elsewhere are very important,”
Kim said. “But we must be vigilant about displacement
and gentrification going forward.”
Also crucial is the lack of affordable housing in
Queens.
“Someone has to go up against the real estate
developers for the lack of affordable housing,” Kim
said. “I look at rent prices now and they are simply not
accessible. I remember when Queens was all about
the middle class. That is no longer the case.”
She agreed with Van Bramer’s opposition to Amazon
building an HQ2 campus in Long Island City.
“I understand people who talk about the 25,000
jobs, but there were no guarantees that they would
go to local residents and I didn’t agree with the
Courtesy of Hailie Kim
tax breaks the state and city were offering,” Kim
said. “In general, I would say Jimmy Van Bramer
accomplished a lot in improving our neighborhoods,
especially the number of schools that have been
built in the district as well as the extensions to
existing schools. But there are things we can do
better.”
Kim believes it’s great to fund new school
construction but it’s equally important to properly
fund them in the future.
“When I went to Baccalaureate we had a great
teacher that the school wanted to layoff. We started a
petition to keep him but in the end the school couldn’t
afford to keep him,” Kim recalled. “And while we were
laying off a great teacher, the Frank Sinatra School
was getting a huge beautiful building. It’s nice to build
schools but in the end it’s about two people. The one
being educated and the one doing the educating.
We have to keep that in mind when we consider
educational funding.”
Sunnyside's Hailie Kim filed to
run for Councilman Jimmy Van
Bramer's seat
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