WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES FEBRUARY 25, 2021 13
Michael Mulgrew and Vincent Alvarez, withdraw
your endorsements of Councilman Robert Holden
BY RIDGEWOOD TENANTS UNION
We, as members of the Ridgewood
Tenants Union, ask
UFT and the NYC Central
Labor Council to withdraw their
endorsements of Councilman Robert
Holden. These endorsements undermine
working-class individuals and
people of color not just in our district
but throughout our city.
As an all volunteer, tenant-led
grassroots housing group dedicated
to fi ghting displacement and building
tenant power in Ridgewood, Maspeth,
Glendale and Middle Village, we
have seen the eff ects of Holden’s antiimmigrant,
anti-homeless rhetoric that
tailors to middle class homeowners at
the expense of working-class and immigrant
communities.
We are shocked that you have directly
aligned with these hateful ideas,
which include introducing legislation
to repeal the chokehold ban, repeatedly
referring to our immigrant neighbors
as criminals and speaking out against
Black Lives Matters protestors, calling
them “anarchists” who show up
to “stifl e free speech.” His rhetoric is
dangerously close to our former president’s,
prioritizing clean streets and
graffi ti-free storefronts instead of using
his power to fi ght for all New York
City teachers, students and workers.
Robert Holden’s history of peddling
in Trump-style politics dates as far
back as 2002, when as president of
the Juniper Parks Civic Association,
Holden honored Serf Maltese, then a
Republican state senator, as “man of the
year.” Holden likely learned a trick or
two on dog-whistle politics from Maltese,
who proudly campaigned against
low-income housing projects, against
busing kids of color into the district,
and against LGBTQ rights legislation
while complaining of “welfare cheats
taking from the real needy” and “illegal
aliens taking our jobs and housing.”
Last year, he and two other Republican
Council members voted against a
bill that would replace the word “alien”
with the word “noncitizen” in offi cial
city documents and bar the use of the
words “illegal alien” and “illegal immigrant.”
Holden has also aligned himself
with conservative civic groups, such as
the Glendale Property Owners Association,
which once initiated a frivolous
lawsuit against the city to fi ght a school
integration plan in 1959. Holden has
revived white resistance to school integration
in part by employing Charles
Vavruska as his constituent services
and education director. Vavruska has
been relentless in fi ghting the DOE’s
OP-ED
eff orts at integration and a culturally
responsive curriculum, much like in
1959.
Holden makes no attempts to hide
his disdain for homeless people and
immigrants, so what do these endorsements
communicate to your members
and students who are homeless or
undocumented?
When he’s not spewing hateful rhetoric,
Holden consistently chooses to be
complicit in his silence as a response to
right-wing supporters and constituents.
When a woman declared she hoped
someone would burn down the Cooper
Ave homeless shelter, he remained
silent. When his own deputy chief of
staff posts online alleging election
fraud, he makes no comment. Aft er
the Capitol riots and the arrest of one
of his own constituents associated with
a white supremacist group, silence. A
more responsible elected would take
a stand against this dangerous rhetoric.
We urge you to withdraw your
endorsements.
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