Meet City Council Candidate Sylvia Kinard (Again!)

There are four candidates in September’s Democratic primary for City Council Member of the 40th District, and today we give you Sylvia Kinard, who we first interviewed last year during her primary run against Congresswoman Yvette Clarke. You’ve met Saundra Thomas and John Grant, so the only candidate left is the current Council Member Mathieu Eugene, with whom scheduling an interview has proven more difficult than we’d hoped.

So, you ran last year for Congress against Yvette Clarke. What made you want to run for office again, this time for City Council Member?

It’s not just that I ran last year; it’s more that the things I was concerned about last year continue to be an issue. I actually have some synergies with City Council because I was an attorney for the City Council, and one of the big issues in this area is definitely rent regulation/rent stabilization.

Basically, I wanted to serve and I felt like this is another opportunity to serve and all I can do is present my experience to voters and say, “Look, these are some issues that all of us care about and this is a particular expertise I have to address these issues.” What running last year did was give me an opportunity to get out, get to know people, get to understand what some of the real issues were. When you think about last week, the Rent Guidelines Board voted to increase rents on rent stabilized and regulated apartments.

Don’t they do that every year?

They don’t necessarily. The year before it was 2%-4%. This year, it’s a big jump. They could also do a rent freeze, and they have done that when there’s been a recession or people are not working or we have a stagnant economy, which we still have now irrespective of how economists like to massage the numbers.

Now they voted for 3%-6% for one-year leases and 5%-9% for two-year leases. [Note: the exact rates the board actually passed were 4% for one-year leases and 7.75% for two-year leases.] I know people who are moving out of neighborhoods like this, out of state because they can’t afford their rent anymore. Even middle class and professional people – maybe I don’t want to spend all my money on rent. But people haven’t been getting raises, wages have been stagnant…

So how, from a government perspective, do you address the stagnant wage issue? How do you incentivize private businesses to give better wages and benefits to their workers?

I think we’ve got to reduce costs in some respects. That has to do with the way we tax small businesses. With the federal government changing the payroll tax, there are a lot of expenses that are shifted back to the small business owner that we need to really think about from a broader perspective tax-wise.

All the tax breaks really just can’t go to the really big developers, which is what we have now. We have a big-head, little-body kind of situation in New York City. You know, I love Two Trees and Jed Walentas. I know they have a good heart and they love Brooklyn. However, with the Domino Sugar Factory, I think that’s a case in point. All the money can’t just go to these big developments. There’s got to be a balance. You can’t have all your tax money going to these public/private partnerships that have negligible job creation impact.

If you have a balanced tax/regulatory policy approach, then what that does is free up some of that money to support small businesses. City Council also addresses land use and I actually have some experience with land use since I was the Assistant Commissioner for Housing and Development for the state.

You mentioned rent-regulated apartments. We’ve been talking to the Flatbush Tenant Coalition and they pointed out that the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development’s most recent annual report on housing affordability showed that Flatbush is one of the worst areas in the city for elevated child blood lead levels. FTA attributes that to a refusal on the part of landlords to do required repairs. How would you address an issue like that as a City Council Member?

I think it’s a regulatory issue. The city has oversight over HPD. I’ve represented tenants in housing court. I’ve been there. I get it. I’ve had people who’ve been evicted and all of that. It’s a will issue. Are we going to really be about economic justice and parity? And if we are, and if we’re going to say we’re a just society, then we’re really going to have to say, “Look, it’s not just about you.” On one hand, we’re saying, “Yes, you can raise your rents, Mr. Landlord.” On the other hand, we’re not a city doing strict enforcement saying people need a decent place to live.

I have a daughter. I can’t imagine having her in a place with paint chips, rodents, insect infestation… I can’t imagine that. I don’t think any mother wants that. Economic justice is not just about wages. It’s about how do we live as people. I think the enforcement issue with HPD is critical. They’re understaffed and, again, that’s what I’m saying about how we allocate our city budget. The inspector situation at HPD has been rife with corruption.

I think we can’t be saying on the one hand, Mr. Landlord, you need more money for improvements–which is one of their justifications [for rent increases] with RSA and some of the other landlord unions—”You want to enforce building codes against us, but we can’t afford to do that.” On the other hand, we allow them to increase rents and the complaint levels go up. You can’t have it both ways. NYCHA is sitting on over $1 billion in funding – what is that about? Why are they sitting on this money? Why haven’t they done the necessary repairs?

And how does the government pay for, say, increases in staff for HPD?

Having worked in government, I’m not going to say there’s a lot of fat, but there’s a lot of waste. I think what the Council needs to do is really hone in on that–not just at Council hearings, but in ongoing conversations with the incoming mayor, because he’s the executive and it’s his job to run those agencies. You look at CityTime–there’s a lot of waste.

I always compare it to the rabbit ears or the flat-screen TV. If you really can’t afford the flat-screen TV, most families don’t buy the flat-screen TV. In government, there’s always the idea of “We need it, so we’re going to get it.” Really? Ok. If you’re in a situation where you can’t afford your teachers, you can’t afford your firemen, you can’t afford basic services, then you actually can’t afford some of these sexier, consultant-driven projects.

Tightening our budget doesn’t mean that you don’t pay teachers well, firefighters well… it means that some of the other things we’ve been spending money on maybe in our economy and where we are as a city, maybe those are not our priorities. Maybe we can make due with the 911 system we have or the phone relay system we have. Not to say it doesn’t need to be upgraded, but maybe not today.

It’s always difficult running against an incumbent. How do you make the case that Mathieu Eugene shouldn’t be reelected and that you should take his place?

I think there is definitely a sentiment that he shouldn’t be reelected. When I look at the issues, I sincerely think that I’m probably the best person to address them. With affordable housing, access to housing, I’m the only person in the race who’s had any experience representing tenants in housing court and dealing with affordable housing statewide as Assistant Commissioner for DHCR. I can hit the ground running. I think one of the problems we have in government is that we have a lot of people who get in and there’s no real understanding of how the infrastructure works. How to push those buttons and make it work–I already have that. I have a basic experience and expertise base.

What did you learn from your last campaign that might help you this time around?

Have a motivated, energized staff.

You didn’t have that last time?

I’ll just leave it at that, but I think one of the things I’d like to see happen in my district office is a help desk that would link residents to all the different housing resources. On a baseline, people don’t get access to help quick enough.

Since we’ll have a new mayor, what do you think will be some of the challenges and opportunities you’ll have with a new administration? Do you think there are parts of Mayor Bloomberg’s legacy that would have to be undone or strengthened?

I’m a biker, but I gotta say I’m not sure about the bike paths all over. That said, I think part of the biggest challenge facing the new mayor will be the pension issue. Again, it comes down to financial parity and economic justice. How are you going to address those legitimate requests that have been basically back-tabled by the present incumbent in City Hall and deal with it in a way that doesn’t–again, priorities, how do we balance? That’s not to say that firemen, policemen, and teachers don’t deserve retroactive pay, but we already know that pension budgets are killing municipalities.

One of the ways they’ve been trying to do that is to change the ration for people hired in. That’s one strategy. But I think whoever’s in the executive seat is going to have to deal with that in a way that’s not just fair to unions, but fair to the city. So that’s why I’m not running for that job.

But is there anything City Council could do?

At the end of the day, the City Council has to sign off on the budget. Whoever the next Speaker is will be very important because they have to be more than just a rubber stamp for whatever the mayor says. You have to elect people who are going to be in there, speaking up.

Are there any other issues you think would be particularly important to address for the new City Council?

I think just education and parental involvement. The Board of Education has a parent initiative. I don’t think it’s resourced as well as it needs to be. We have a lot of new families in the district–we need to find a better way to engage parents and give them the tools to make their kids successful.

At the end of the day, it’s still what goes on in the home. Teachers do their part. My sister’s a teacher, my aunt was a teacher, my grandmother was a teacher, so I come from a tradition of education. However, I do know that, at the end of the day, we really have to empower families. Some kids are in really dire situations at home. I’d like to see the Beacon schools opened up again in terms of the high schools. We need a place for young people to go in the afternoon–not just to play basketball but to get some skills training and to get some supplementary experiences that they’re not having.

We talk about preparing kids for a global economy, but I think we haven’t figured how to do that in a broad way. Charter schools are great, but they are only dealing with a select number of children. What about the majority of kids who are still in awful public schools and are in schools that actually have co-located charter schools? I don’t know how you do that. How do you have two kids walk in the same door, one goes upstairs and they have computers, the other stays downstairs and has nothing? We’re still avoiding the conversation of how we improve basic public education.

It seems like Mayor Bloomberg maybe feels like he’s had that conversation given the changes he’s implemented during his tenure.

I’ll tell you this about the mayor. I had an opportunity to have dinner with the mayor when he was first elected. And I had the chance to ask him, “What do you want your legacy to be?” This was the first week in his first term. He said, “I want to be the Education Mayor.” Whether he’s gotten there or not is up for debate, but I still think we’ve skirted the issue of improving basic education.

Career educators, a lot of them feel like they’re hamsters on a treadmill–that it’s not about educating citizens, in the classical sense of educating them to be thinkers, to be able to engage the world on its own terms, to come up with creative solutions. We need people who can think, not just people who can follow direct rote, and we’re not doing that. I think career educators do have something to say to us, and what they’re saying is, “We need more resources.”

My sister pays for a ton of stuff herself. She goes into her own pocket on a regular basis to buy supplies–but then, she’s in a co-located school where they don’t have to do that on the other floors. It’s a very complicated issue, but my main point is that educational opportunity is key.

This district in particular is one of the most diverse in terms of population. As a city representative, how do you bring communities together?

I actually work as the Chief Diversity Officer at CUNY, so I deal with diversity issues all over.

The issue of gentrification is one that comes up a lot, especially in our area. How do you encourage growth, new business, etc., but still keep a neighborhood relatively affordable for middle-income people?

That also goes to tax policy. If you look at Fort Greene, you have a number of developments who came in under the 80/20 rule, which is still one of the issues with the Barclays Center. How are they handling that? They came back and said, “Well, we’re going to do modulated units.” You bring in modulated units that you drop in and basically stack in New York with the winters we have, I don’t know if I want to live in something like that. No disrespect to Mr. Ratner, but these are some of the issues. It goes back to tax policy. I think this rubber stamp approach to development has not been helpful.

I’m working with a church on Cortelyou Road and Ocean Avenue. They’re going to do a housing project and want to do single room occupancy building. They want to make sure they’re developing housing the community can afford, but they get into the cost issue, so that’s where the city comes in and can make up that difference.

What affordability looks like in Ditmas Park is different than what affordability looks like in Flatbush than what it is in Midtown Manhattan, Kips Bay, Gramercy Park… it varies across the city. But if you look at the construction that [developers under the Bloomberg administration] have already done, you’ll see that the market is still not supporting it.

That kind of analysis–that’s something City Council could do a report on and develop policy around. That would be one thing I’d be interested in. In terms of gentrification, communities are always in transition, but what you want to say is that you’re not developing policies that force people to move. When you talk about gentrification in the negative sense, it’s about, “We’ve got policies that are favoring one group or another.”

Do you think that landmarking plays into that land use balance?

If it’s really landmarked or are we just–you know, with gentrification, there’s always this issue of changing the name of a neighborhood, how real estate people market. You don’t want to get into redlining, not making neighborhoods open to everyone.

That said, I think there’s something to historic districts, something very helpful and affirming about a community’s tradition, whether it’s their architectural tradition, their cultural tradition, you want to preserve that. But you don’t want to preserve it in a way that’s arbitrary or capricious. To have that housing stock in Brooklyn is wonderful–my grandmother had her home in Lefferts Gardens. I think it just makes it not another city and you want to keep that.

How can people reach you if they want to get involved with your campaign or find out more?

Sylviakinard.nationbuilder.com. I’m happy to come meet people in their homes if they have questions. We’re getting around. We want to have a really inclusive district. We want people to feel like we’re working together to make this community better. We have to talk to each other — that’s step one. So I’m happy to sit down with anyone. I’m happy to meet just for coffee.

Photo via Sylviakinard.nationbuilder.com.