Andrew Gounardes Announces Senate Run in District 22

BAY RIDGE – As of this morning, journalist Ross Barkan is not the only Democrat challenging State Senator Marty Golden’s (R, District 22) seat in next year’s elections.

Attorney Andrew Gounardes, Counsel to Borough President Eric Adams, announced his Senate run in an email earlier:

“After months of community conversations, I’m excited to officially announce that I’m running for the New York State Senate.

Over the last few years, together, we have built a true neighborhood movement. We organized, we mobilized, and we fought together to fix some of our community’s long-standing challenges:

• We fought to keep children safe on our streets by successfully advocating for speed cameras in local school zones.
• We rallied against and petitioned the MTA to restore bus service cuts and demand subway service improvements.
• We wrote a new law to combat illegal home conversions and continue to work towards helping those who are displaced from dangerous living conditions.
• And since Superstorm Sandy, we’ve helped friends and neighbors put their lives back together and helped provided emergency assistance to those among us facing extraordinary need.

While we celebrate these victories, we remain frustrated by the unending dysfunction in Albany. For far too long, politics in our state has valued big-money interests over working-class families, leaving us with underfunded schools, a failing transit system, and worse. Our current senator thrives in this culture of corruption. It’s time we put a stop to that.

We deserve better. We must do better. That’s why I’m running.”

A Bay Ridge native, Gounardes started in politics as an aide to outgoing Councilman Vincent Gentile, and co-founded Bay Ridge Cares after hurricane Sandy along with incoming Council member Justin Brannan. They both are currently on the non-profit’s board. He has been an outspoken advocate for the R train riders (formed the “Concerned R Train Riders”), speed cameras by schools, and fighting illegal conversions, and his platform reflects those issues, with transit, education and housing taking priority.

Gounardes is Fort Hamilton High School alum and holds degrees from Hunter College and the George Washington University Law School. As noted, he serves as Counsel to Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, and is also a trustee of the New York City Employees’ Retirement System (municipal pension funds). Previously he worked for Citizens Committee for New York City and served on Community Board 10.