Councilmember Barry Grodenchik won’t seek reelection, citing demands of '24/7 job'
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City Council Photography
By David Brand
Councilmember Barry Grodenchik will not seek reelection to his seat in Northeast Queens’ District 23, he said Wednesday.
Grodenchik, one of just four Queens councilmembers who are not term-limited in 2021, said he made the decision because the all-encompassing job was taking a toll on his family life.
“I’ve had a wonderful run and I really enjoy what I do. This was the toughest decision of my life, but for my family, it was time,” Grodenchik told the Eagle.
“It’s a rough life. It’s the time you miss away from your family and it’s the time you can’t do other things,” he added. “I don’t walk down the street without saying, ‘There’s a pothole, or there’s a sewer problem,’ and sending a note to my staff. It’s a 24/7 job.”
He said he will serve out the remainder of his term, which ends Dec. 31, 2021.
Grodenchik, a former community board chair, won a six-candidate special election for the seat in 2015 following Mark Weprin’s resignation.
He defeated Republican candidate Joe Concannon to represent Douglaston, Bayside, Glen Oaks, Little Neck and other Northeast Queens neighborhoods in 2017. He had won the two-candidate Democratic primary by 60 percent earlier that year.
This time around, Grodenchik would have faced a tougher primary fight, with three candidates already in the running. Christopher Fuentes-Padilla, Jaslin Kaur and Linda Lee have each filed with the Board of Elections. Grodenchik said he expects many more candidates to file for the vacant seat but declined to give an endorsement Wednesday.
During his time in the Council, Grodenchik has primarily focused on district-specific issues, including the renovation of the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway and the addition of more than 2,500 seats to overcrowded schools in Northeast Queens.
He has more recently worked on addressing COVID-19, which he himself contracted in March. Grodenchik said he lost 24 pounds as a result of his illness. His son was also diagnosed with COVID-19.
His tenure was marred, however, by an ethics probe into allegations of sexual harassment against him last year. Grodenchik agreed to resign his position as chair of the Parks and Recreation Committee in May 2019 after an aide accused him of paying her “unwanted attention,” including hugging her.
There do not appear to be any whiffs of scandal informing his decision not to seek reelection, according to several people working for the council.
Grodenchik also said there were no allegations or improprieties on the horizon.
“There’s nothing like that,” he said. “It was just time. I’m lucky enough, in my mind, to think I made the right decision.”
He said he felt a “little melancholy,” and recalled the words of his mentor, former Assemblymember Nettie Mayersohn, who died earlier this year.
“She said, ‘You’re never going to get rich doing this work and the feeling you get from helping people is wonderful.’ And she was absolutely right,” he said.
