14 THE QUEENS COURIER • MARСH 5, 2020 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Voters Guide
Meet the candidates running for Queens Borough President
Costa Constantinides
Elizabeth Crowley
Elizabeth Crowley was
born into a family of 15 siblings.
She followed her passion
for the arts to college,
where she received her bachelor’s
degree from the Fashion
Institute of Technology.
She worked as a restorative
painter on many New
York landmarks including
Radio City Music Hall and
St. Patrick’s Cathedral and
became involved in union
organizing.
In 2008, Crowley became the fi rst Democrat and fi rst woman elected
to represent City Council District 30, covering Glendale, Maspeth, Middle
Village, Ridgewood, Woodhaven and Woodside.
As chair of the Fire and Criminal Justice Services Committee, she was
a powerful voice against cuts to uniformed personnel. She led a citywide
eff ort to save fi rehouses and improve the city’s 911 call-taking system.
As a candidate for Queens borough president, Crowley is building support
for more public transportation options and for policies that will make
Queens carbon neutral and more storm resistant.
She believes that Queens residents pay some of the highest taxes in New
York, yet the borough receives the least in resources in return.
Ctowley founded Friends of the QNS, a nonprofi t advocacy organization,
which calls for the reactivation of the Lower Montauk Branch of the LIRR
for local commuters. The QNS Rail would run from Jamaica to Long Island,
serving nearly 7.7mm riders annually.
In 2017, Elizabeth co-founded the 21 in ’21 Initiative, a nonprofi t dedicated
to empowering women with the tools and resources to run for local
offi ce.
Anthony Miranda
Retired NYPD Sgt. Anthony
Miranda is running for Queens
borough president, not as a
politician, but as a lifelong
New Yorker who wants to
see the borough’s leadership
refl ect its diversity.
Miranda has more than 30
years of activism and organizing
experience, and is the
chairman of the National
Latino Offi cers Association.
Inspired by campaigns like
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and former district attorney candidate
Tiff any Caban, Miranda aligns himself with progressive leaders. He’s raised
more than $40,000 with a grassroots campaign, rooted in the people of
Queens whose voices haven’t been heard.
Miranda believes the education system needs to be fi xed after years of
“wrongdoings,” by strengthening Parent-Teacher Associations, addressing
overcrowding and working with the community. When it comes to transportation,
he believes that it has not improved and that the Queens members
of the City Council have failed to create a unifi ed vision for the system.
The 58-year-old, who resides in Fresh Meadows with his wife and three
sons, believes the Queens borough president’s offi ce needs to make more
of an eff ort to be more transparent and accountable when it comes to community
boards and their lack of diversity and representation of the neighborhoods
they represent.
In terms of developments, Miranda has joined community members in
protesting the LGA AirTrain and the EDC’s Sunnyside Yards project. He thinks
the $2 billion LGA AirTrain project won’t serve western Queens the way the
Port Authority says it will, and that they should instead focus on fi xing the
existing transportation system.
Jim Quinn
Despite being a registered
Democrat, former Assistant
District Attorney Jim Quinn
is the conservative outlier of
the fi eld of candidates running
to be borough president.
After serving Queens
County DA’s Office for
42 years, Quinn made a
last-minute entry into the
platform that predominantly
focuses on protesting recent
criminal justice reforms that city and state legislators have championed
over the past year — laws that do not fall under the discretion of the
borough president.
Quinn has vowed to stop the closing of Rikers Island, to stop Mayor de
Blasio from building jails in Kew Gardens or anywhere in Queens, and
to push back on the bail reform by allowing judges to consider a defendant’s
“danger to society” when setting bail.
His stance on bail reform has pitted him against Councilman Donovan
Richards who has outspokenly denied a connection between the new
law and a spike in crime in January after it took eff ect. When Richards
criticized the NYPD commissioner’s factual basis for publicly making
this connection, Quinn swiftly attacked the councilman asking him to
apologize.
As a result of his views on criminal justice, many of Quinn’s supporters
include Queens’ most prominent conservative leaders like Queens
County Republican Chairperson Joann Ariola, Councilman Robert Holden
and former Republican Queens state Sen. Serf Maltese.
He has also voiced pro-big business policy ideas about wanting to
attract companies like Amazon to the borough and supported development
projects like the Flushing rezoning for their economic potential.
Donovan Richards
A lifelong resident of
southeast Queens and
the Rockaways, Donovan
Richards began his career in
politics after losing a childhood
friend to gun violence.
He was elected to represent
the region on the City
Council in 2013. The following
year he was appointed to
be the chair of the Committee
on Environmental Protection,
which allowed him to address
the decades-old systematic issue of fl ooding in southeast Queens. Richards
secured more than $1.5 billion for sewer infrastructure.
He also served as the chair of Zoning and Franchises where he helped
negotiate a stronger, more inclusive aff ordable housing plan and he
secured $228 million in investments for rezoning in Far Rockaway.
In 2018, Richard started his second term by being named Chair of the
Committee on Public Safety, which ties back to his initial motivation for
getting into politics: losing a childhood friend to gun violence. He is committed
to making the streets safer while working to reform the criminal
justice system.
As Queens borough president, Richards would also focus on jobs
and affordable housing as well as the fight for tenants rights like rent
regulations and vacancy decontrol. He wants to see “NYCHA clean up
its act” and make the necessary investments into its collapsing infrastructure.
Richards vows to fi ght for everyone who uses public transportation and
with nearly half of the Queens population born outside the United States
and is dedicated to fi ghting for immigrant rights and the need to keep ICE
out of the courts and he’ll fi ght to ensure funding continues to provide legal
services to undocumented immigrants.
Dao Yin
Dao Yin is a Queens businessman
and community
activist who has worked
for two of fortune global
500 companies as a corporate
controller. Yin’s platform
in his run for Queens borough
president consists of creating
more opportunities for jobs in
technology, catering to working
families and fi xing the
Queens housing crisis.
Yin, who’s worked for more
than 15 companies in various industries in the U.S., Japan and China,
believes that while Queens should be educating residents for the technology
industry, there is also a need to prepare residents for the many jobs that
don’t require tech, such as carpenters, fi remen and accountants.
He believes he can help the borough do this with his experience in partnering
with corporate and small businesses to advance workforces by creating
and implementing retraining opportunities.
The 56-year-old also believes working families are Queens’ “greatest
asset.” The Bayside resident believes in helping families by demanding
good education for their children, adequate health, adequate health care,
police protection and true aff ordable housing.
Yin sees the “loss of 25,000 decent paying jobs” when Amazon left the
borough shouldn’t have happened, and thinks that the $3 billion in tax
credits would have brought in $27 billion form job holder tax revenues.
Yin, who has a masters of science degree in business from Zicklin School
of Business at Baruch College, also wants to address the housing crisis in the
borough by adding programs that will help fi x the problem.
He advocates for a balance between “redevelopment and the sanctity of
peoples’ homes.” Yin is promoting a 10 percent City Rent Tax Credit, to “help
with the ever increasing cost of living in the borough of Queens.”
In his work in the City
Council, Astoria Councilman
Costa Constantinides never
misses an opportunity
to decry climate change
as an existential threat.
Constantinides has dedicated
much of his tenure focusing
on legislation to making
the city greener — and he’s
had some substantial success
doing so. He had a huge win
in 2019, when the Council
passed the “Green New Deal” that he introduced.
In his bid for borough president, many of Constantinides’ policies
contain an environmental angle, but center on public housing, MTA
reform and diverse representation among the borough’s community
boards.
Most Constantinides made headlines by calling for legislation that
would allow each of New York City’s fi ve borough presidents to nominate a
voting member to the MTA’s board.
Out of the remaining candidates, Constantinides has also distinguished
himself with his readiness to pick fi ghts over transportation and housing
projects that don’t fi t his principles.
He recently joined Senator Jessica Ramos to voice concerns over the current
$2 billion plan to build an AirTrain from Willets Point to LaGuardia
Airport. He also stood with opponents of the major Flushing Waterfront
Rezoning, who claim that the plan will exacerbate the neighborhood’s displacement.
Equipped with a large cash infusion of $476,697 in matching funds,
Constanitinides has also had an opportunity to bolster his get-out-thevote
operation.
Voting starts March 14 ahead of March 24 special election
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