Brad Lander Endorses Antonio Reynoso for Brooklyn Boro President. Reynoso Endorses Lander for NYC Comptroller.
Brooklyn councilmembers Brad Lander and Antonio Reynoso have partnered before, advocating for reforms across the city over the last eight years in the city council. Now, term-limited, they seek to become the city’s next Comptroller and Brooklyn Borough President, respectively, and are endorsing each other, the two progressive legislators announced today.
Lander, who represents Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, and Cobble Hill as well as Kensington and Borough Park, brought participatory budgeting to NYC, and introduced legislation resulting in better tracking of expenditures across NYC’s parks, more effective ways to measure and combat poverty, and improvements to the city’s capital projects management.
Over his three terms in the city council, Lander advocated for living wages for fast-food workers and cabbies, worked to protect freelancers’ rights, as well as improve street safety. He led successful reform efforts in the City Council to ban outside income and get rid of dark money in NYC elections, among others.
Reynoso, who represents parts of Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Ridgewood, served as Chair of the Sanitation Committee for both of his terms and is best known for his work to comprehensively reform the private sanitation industry, and its poor labor practices. He also passed The Right to Know Act, requiring the NYPD to notify civilians of their right to refuse a consent search.
“Antonio is a leader who listens to community concerns and fights hard for systemic changes that both improve the lives of constituents and help build a more fair city. He has deep integrity, and he builds relationships across communities that make city government work better for everyone,” Lander said in a statement. “As Brooklyn’s Borough President, I know that Antonio will work for a just COVID recovery, make our city’s land use process more equitable, and fight for environmental justice.”
Reynoso, for his part, praised Lander’s focus on equity in his work to hold the city accountable to ensure all communities get the resources they need.
“Our city needs bold progressive leadership that will center the communities most impacted by this crisis in NYC’s recovery. Brad has a track record in the Council of winning innovative, data-driven legislation to protect workers and fighting to ensure communities get their fair share, ” Reynoso said. “As Comptroller he will bring both his values and his experience to the work of building a more fair economy, preparing our city for the future, and holding city government accountable to its promises to working people.”
Both Lander and Reynoso advocate for a comprehensive city planning process, arguing that “It’s clear that we need a better way to make infrastructure and land-use decisions that take climate change, affordability, and the challenges of growth seriously. Our piece-meal planning system is not up to the task,” and that ULURP is broken. Both of them have first-hand experience dealing with major rezoning proposals in their districts – Gowanus rezoning is in court and Bushwick rezoning failed.
“The [ULURP] process ensures that decisions are driven by the interest group with the most powerful political connections, creating a planning rationale that reflects and reinforces systemic inequities. If we are going to plan for the future that’s coming, like it or not, we need a way out of the REBNY vs. NIMBY doom loop.”
Both Lander and Reynoso have been endorsed by progressive organizations and leaders, including the Working Families Party, immigrant advocacy organization Make the Road New York, and State Senator Julia Salazar.
“It’s powerful that Antonio Reynoso’s campaign for Brooklyn Borough President and Brad Lander’s campaign for NYC Comptroller have joined forces,” said Salazar. “Antonio and Brad are leaders in our fight for a just recovery from the COVID crisis, for Brooklyn and for all of New York City.”
