FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM SEPTEMBER 7, 2017 • PRIMARY GUIDE • THE QUEENS COURIER 29
primary guide
Adams touts community
service in her Council bid
BY ANGELA MATUA
amatua@qns.com
With the arrest of former Councilman
Ruben Wills, the general election could
not have come sooner for the residents of
City Council District 28, which encompasses
Jamaica and parts of South Ozone
Park.
Adrienne Adams, chairperson for
Community Board 12, is running for
Wills’ old seat. Adams, who was recently
endorsed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, said
she wants to restore voters’ confi dence in
elected offi cials.
“I have a stellar reputation and a stellar
record and people in the community
know me,” she said. I think that my
record speaks for itself and people trust
me. I appreciate that trust and I’m not
going to do anything to sully that trust.”
Adams has served on the board of CB
12 since 2009 and was recently elected to
her third term. She said that her experience
serving as the board as part of the
education committee and as the chairperson
qualifi es her to start the job right
away.
Adams cites her advocacy as education
chair and her hand in pushing
for commuter van legislation
as some of her biggest accomplishments.
When a Success Academy
was seeking space at August
Martin High School in Jamaica
in 2009, Adams said she
“attended just about every public
hearing” with the Panel for
Education Policy to stop the
co-location.
Adams called the move
“completely inappropriate and
ill conceived” since the school
has a transitional program for
students who may have had
disciplinary issues.
She also said the community
board was “at the forefront” of
working to regulate commuter
vans in downtown Jamaica and
inspiring legislation to curb the
use of vehicles.
Her “fi rst order of business”
as councilwoman for District 28 would be
to get back discretionary funding for participatory
budgeting.
Adams supports Fair Fare, Councilman
Photo courtesy of Adrienne Adams
I. Daneek Miller’s proposal to provide
discounted MetroCards to low-income
New Yorkers.
“We get no discounts for the railroad
and we don’t really have
equity in southeast Queens
for transportation,” she said.
“If we had the MTA services
we needed we would not
have the big proportion of
vans — legal and illegal going
through our corridor.”
One of the largest problems
plaguing the Jamaica
area, Adams argues, is illegal
dumping. She believes a local
and citywide education initiative
would help decrease
the amount of trash found on
Jamaica streets.
Overall, Adams said she
wants to work with constituents
to replicate the success
she has seen on Community
Board 12.
“It’s going to be a partnership,
not a dictatorship,” she
said. “I’m going to work with
constituents the same way
I work with my board members — I
say, ‘Th ere’s no way I can do this without
you.’ We’re going to have to partner
together to lift up District 28.”
Richard David wants to give
SE Queens district a fresh start
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
rpozarycki@qns.com / @robbpoz
Richard David may be new to local politics,
but he’s an expert at public service.
A native of southeast Queens, David
serves on Community Board 9, is an
active member of the Richmond Hill-
South Ozone Park Lions Club and
has been active for many years with
a nonprofi t group, the Indo-Caribbean
Alliance, which provides various social
and support services to underserved areas
of southeast Queens.
He’s also contributed his talents to several
city agencies, including the city’s
Economic Development Corporation,
where he oversaw $2 billion in construction
projects in a single fi scal year; and
was most recently the chief of staff at the
Administration of Children’s Services.
Now David has his sights set on City
Hall as he seeks to fi ll the vacant 28th City
Council District covering many southeast
Queens neighborhoods.
David’s campaign has a single vision:
to fi ll the needs of a district that
he claims has been long overlooked
as a result of scandals
surrounding its previous City
Council member, Ruben Wills,
who was expelled from offi ce
earlier this year aft er being convicted
of public corruption.
“I decided to run for City
Council because government
has been absent in the community
for so long,” David said.
One of David’s top priorities
is to provide the district with
funding to create new senior
centers and develop youth
programs to empower young
minds. He also wants to adequately
address basic infrastructure
issues from trash
pickups to transportation, while
also looking at ways to boost
economic development district-wide and
tackling aff ordable housing.
“We have so many issues we have to
fi x, and we also have a housing issue,” he
said. “Many people who own a home or a
co-op aren’t seeing any benefi t as homeowners.
I became a homeowner at 25, so
I’m sympathetic to our issues.”
David wants the city to also
stop converting hotels in the
district into emergency or
permanent homeless shelters.
He also pledged to bring to
the district participatory budgeting,
an interactive campaign
whereby residents can
vote for projects they want
funded.
More than anything, David
hopes to set an example for
younger residents of the district
and restore the public’s
trust in government.
“I represent a change. I represent
getting young people
into politics, which has been
thought of as a bad word for
so long,” he stated. “If we
keep saying that politics is a
bad word, and only highlight
the corruption, then a lot of young people
won’t go into politics. And if they’re
out, there’s only one kind of people who
will be left .”