Crowley is back for another Queens borough president try
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Former Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley is once again running for Queens borough president. Campaign photo via Facebook
By David Brand
Early voting in a special election for Queens borough president was well underway when the undeniable impact of the coronavirus became clear to New Yorkers and their leaders. The pandemic compelled Gov. Andrew Cuomo to shut down the special and kick the race into June, buying time for some candidates and challenging the prospects of others.
If the special election were scheduled a week or two earlier, Elizabeth Crowley might very well be sitting in Borough Hall right now, her name on construction signs and the highway placards that welcome motorists to Queens.
At least that’s the thesis informing Crowley’s latest bid for beep.
“We had the momentum,” she said Monday of the race. At the time, she had far outraised her opponents, but the abrupt cancellation allowed then-Councilmember Donovan Richards to catch up, she said.
In the ensuing months, Richards, the chair of the committee on public safety emerged as a go-to voice against institutional racism in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. He also railed against COVID treatment and testing inequities in his hard-hit council district and worked to secure funding and supplies for local medical centers. The two calls to action further buoyed Richards, who had already received the backing of the Queens County Democratic Party.
Crowley, the former District 30 councilmember, finished second to Richards in the June primary, despite tallying the most votes in 11 of the borough’s 18 assembly districts. Richards won by staying close in most of those districts and by trouncing the field in his Southeast Queens and Far Rockaway strongholds.
In the end, Richards received about 36 percent of the vote compared to Crowley’s 29 percent. He went on to win the general election and took office in December 2020.
Five months later, Crowley is trying to eject him from Borough Hall. Richards, she said, has done little in his tenure to warrant a full term in office, particularly when it comes to education and public safety.
“I’m a true fighter and he seems to be OK with the status quo,” she said. “I straight up disagree with defunding the police and he hasn’t shown a plan for our schools and the children who are still not in school full time.”
Crowley’s “defund” comment was a reference to Richards’ vote against last year’s city budget, which he said did not trim enough money from the NYPD. Richards has resisted the “defund the NYPD” slogan, however. The third high-profile candidate in the race, Councilmember Jimmy Van Bramer, also voted against the budget because he said it preserved too much money for the police.
Richards has the largest campaign chest in the race, with nearly $460,000 in private and public funds, financial disclosure reports show. Van Bramer also has a sizable sum, with $319,968 in recent contributions, matching funds and cash rolled over from his previous bid for borough president. He dropped out early on in last year’s race and held onto a few hundred grand for his current bid.
Crowley has $109,289 on hand after raising $128,814 between Jan. 30 and March 11, according to her most recent campaign filing.
Her policing perspective illustrates her attempt to appeal to a moderate and more conservative bloc of Queens Democrats, the middle-class homeowners, predominantly white, who came out for her in last year’s race.
In reality, the borough president has no power over city budgeting or school policy, but the office does provide its occupant with a significant platform for describing and championing their priorities. Borough presidents also control a sizable capital budget from which to fund projects, like school upgrades and expansions.
Crowley has focused her campaign on improving life for public school students and their families. She has promoted the safe and stable reopening of buildings and continued to call on the city to address the overcrowding that has plagued the borough for generations.
“We need someone to stand up and fight for our fair share and fight for the infrastructure that is needed to meet our growth,” she said. “We need to look at someone who has the record to produce outcomes.”
She pointed to the construction of new schools in her district during her two terms representing Ridgewood, Glendale, Maspeth, Woodside and Middle Village in the city council. Crowley narrowly lost her 2017 bid for a third term to Robert Holden, then a civic leader running on the Republican line.
“When I came into office in 2009, I had the most overcrowded school district,” she said, referring to the School District 24, which overlaps with Council District 30. “When I left, we had created 6,000 seats.”
Crowley is also focused on the centerpiece of her last campaign: improving transportation in the borough.
She has long advocated for the resurrection of a discontinued rail line linking Jamaica and Long Island City, with stops in Middle Village. She has also called for the creation of the Triboro, a rail line connecting South Brooklyn with the Bronx by way of Queens. The line would stop in Astoria.
New large-scale development projects must come with corresponding transportation and infrastructure upgrades, she said.
And that brings up a truly tangible responsibility of the borough president: weighing in on land use projects. On that issue, Crowley said she would do things differently than Richards.
First off, she said, she has continued to reject contributions from real estate developers. She said developer money fosters the perception that an elected official who issues influential recommendations on land use projects is beholden to the people behind those projects.
“I think it’s important to not take from developers that are the same landlords who are trying to push people out of their apartments right now, and who are getting significant tax breaks and not truly building affordable housing,” she said.
“There's going to be a lot more development happening in Queens and we need to make sure the BP has the people's interest first, not the developers who fund the campaign and put them in office,” she added in a jab at Richards, who received significant real estate cash last year and in the current campaign cycle.
Crowley, however, has avoided taking clear positions on specific projects, like the Special Flushing Waterfront District luxury project, a massive complex proposed for Hallets Point in Astoria or the Sunnyside Yards development plan.
She said she would defer to affected communities and community boards, and seek to ensure transit and schools keep up with the rising population.
She also said she would appoint more young people to community boards, a demographic she said Richards did not prioritize enough in his first set of new appointments last week. About 15 percent of the 110 new appointees are between ages 16 and 25; 31 percent are between ages 26 and 35; and 31 percent are between ages 36 and 45 according to data shared by borough’s president.
Last year, only about a third of members were younger than 55, the Eagle and MOA reported; just six were under 25.
Crowley said the newly appointed young members still represent a just sliver of the 700 total community board seats across the borough.
“I don’t think there are enough young people on the community boards,” Crowley said. “We need a leader that’s going to go into high schools and colleges and teach civics from a young age.”
Maybe this is when the so-far staid race for borough president begins to heat up.
In a statement Monday, Richards’s campaign spokesperson Thomas Musich blasted Crowley’s criticism of the borough president’s record on public safety and education during his short time in office.
"It's hard to take these attacks seriously when Borough President Richards has once again received the support of the United Federation of Teachers and fought tirelessly in his first 100 days to secure millions of dollars in funding for local schools to upgrade technology, build green roofs, and ensure a safe return for students,” Musich said.
He said Richards had continued to work with the NYPD including at a Queens Borough Board meeting Monday that featured Police Commissioner Dermot Shea and other leaders to implement anti-violence programs.
“These meritless attacks didn't work last year, and we're confident that as our campaign leads the field in union support and fundraising they won't work this year either,” Musich added.
Just a few months removed from the last contest, the current race for Queens borough president has failed to generate much attention. With 11 council seats in Queens up for grabs and a brand new mayor on the horizon, voters have tended to focus on other elections.
But this primary will certainly look different than any other. For the first-time, Democratic voters will rank their choices for borough president.
Richards, Crowley and Van Bramer all bring out distinct bases of support. But where do they overlap, and might Crowley try to appeal to voters as a second-best candidate?
She said she’s not really considering that strategy.
“We want to get everyone's number one vote,” she said. “It's not going to happen, but the widespread support is true based on the numbers that came in last year.”
