35th District Candidate Profile: F. Richard Hurley

In the interest of giving locals a clearer view of the community members running for the 35th District City Council seat, The Nabe has profiled each of the five Democratic candidates. Without a Republican running for the spot, whoever wins the Democratic primary on Sept. 10 takes the abdicated seat, representing Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant and parts of Crown Heights.

F. Richard Hurley, an attorney for 23 years, was confident and assertive at a 35th City Council District candidate’s debate in late August, raising his voice at times to make a point. “I’m a lawyer,” he joked before the meeting, explaining his talkative nature.

“The City Council branch is the only branch of the city government that makes laws,” Hurley told The Nabe. “I studied law, I trained at law and I now practice law. So I am trained to be a city councilman because city councilpeople legislate and check the budget.”

Hurley, 52, who has served as a criminal defense counsel and a legal representative for local businesses and churches, said he toyed with entering politics when he was younger, but it took the Barclays Center wrecking ball – which forced longtime locals out as gentrifying neighbors moved in – to impel him into the race.

“People born in Brooklyn should be able to stay in Brooklyn,” Hurley told debate attendees last month, pushing his main campaign issue.

Hurley said he watched outgoing Council Member Letitia James fight Barclays Center developer Forest City Ratner over jobs and affordable housing to no avail.

“The people that have been here all their lives – 30 to 40 to 60 years – they’ve been moved out systematically by the real estate developers,” Hurley told The Nabe.

Affordable housing is not affordable enough to keep low-income families in the area, he said. “So my fight is directly against the real estate developers and their systematic movement of people out.”

He is most concerned about single parents in the district, who may not be able to afford hiked-up rents. “Can they afford a two-bedroom?” he asked. “People with a double-income cannot afford two bedrooms, especially in those districts, Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. How can a single parent survive?”

“I’m talking about a low-income housing,” he added, “housing for those who are single parents or maybe those who are not making a great amount of money and live on poverty level.”

As Hurley sees it, new buildings in the district should include three sections – one for low-income housing, another for affordable housing and luxury on the top.

“There should be room for everybody,” he said. “Don’t just kick people out and make room for some.”

He also believes that developers such as Forest City Ratner should give priority to community residents when it comes to hiring. “I’ve been telling the developers, I’ve been yelling, if you build in Brooklyn, you hire from Brooklyn,” Hurley said.

On the education front, Hurley, who previously served as Assistant Counsel to New York City Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez in the early 1990s, where he worked with the then-president of the Board of Education, H. Carl McCall, opposes running two schools in one building, a practice known as co-location.

“It polarizes the schools with the haves and have-nots,” Hurley told The Nabe. “You have your charter school kids go and walk down the hall and then they see the public school kids. That categorizes kids and could scar kids for life. Certain kids feel privileged and entitled and other kids feel disenfranchised from a young age. I think that image is terrible, it’s counterproductive and I think it’s another example of allocating resources unjustly.”

Hurley said his work with the chancellor, his experience teaching a criminal law class at Medgar Evers College and a math class at Touro College and his sponsorship of the Brooklyn Blizzards, a youth organization that sponsors basketball tournaments in Crown Heights, made him passionate about keeping kids out of jail.

“These children are picking up [criminal] charges before they graduate high school,” Hurley said. “By the time they get to 12th grade, they don’t qualify for a job because they have criminal records. They’re systematically being ousted from the employment scene.”

In addition to his legal work and teaching, Hurley has mentored fatherless boys in a program called Brothers in Growth, counseled pregnant teenage girls and served on the Board of Directors for the Crown Heights Youth Collective and the Bedford-Stuyvesant Boxing Center.

“He is very well-respected in his neighborhood and has been a life-long advocate,” said Kenneth Bedell, a licensed social worker and lifelong friend of Hurley. “He is very much community-oriented.”

Hurley has raised a little more than $8,000, far less than the other four candidates, according to the New York City Campaign Finance Board’s website. Laurie Cumbo has raised in excess of $103,000, Ede Fox has netted around $87,000 and Jelani Mashariki has about $36,000 in contributions.

“I’m proud of the fact that my money came directly from the people – not organizations, just people who want me,” Hurley said of his fundraising efforts. “I’m not beholden to anybody but my constituents.”