Seven candidates compete for Grodenchik’s seat in the pseudo-burbs of Eastern Queens

Seven candidates are running to replace Councilmember Barry Grodenchik in Queens’ Council District 23. City Council Photograghy

By David Brand

Queens’ topsy-turvy political landscape became even more uncertain last year when Councilmember Barry Grodenchik, one of only four councilmembers in the borough eligible for reelection, decided not to run in 2021.

Even before the announcement, a handful of candidates had filed campaigns to challenge Grodenchik, weakened by accusations of sexual harassment and stripped of his role as chair of the Parks committee. His exit plan set the stage for a wide-open primary, with seven people on the ballot and, according to local political observers and insiders, no clear-cut favorite.

The candidates include Grodenchik’s closest aide, Steve Behar; prominent nonprofit director Linda Lee; veteran government official Debra Markell, Sikh community leader Harpreet Singh Toor; and organizer Jaslin Kaur, the first Eastern Queens candidate backed by the Democratic Socialists of America. Two other community leaders, Sanjeev Kumar Jindal and Koshy Thomas, are also running.

The seven hopefuls are vying to represent one of New York City’s oldest council districts, where more than 20 percent of residents are over age 65. It’s also one of the city’s most suburban regions.

Indeed, driving through the neighborhoods of Council District 23 — and without a single subway stop, most people do rely on cars and buses — one would be forgiven for thinking they’ve already crossed into the burbs of Nassau County. 

Detached single family homes take up big tracts of land here, more so than in nearly any other council district in New York City. Major institutions, like Long Island Jewish Medical Center and the massive North Shore Towers co-op complex, straddle the border of Queens and Nassau.

Even neighborhood names give pause: Are you in Floral Park, Queens or Floral Park, Long Island? 

And if all that geographic confusion weren’t enough, there’s an honest-to-god farm here, complete with sheep for shearing and chickens for laying. Granted, it’s nearly 330 years old and preserved as a novel historic site, but still, a farm in New York City. 

But like suburbs across the country, the Northeast Queens pseudo-burbs are anything but homogenous. 

Residents, and candidates, span the political spectrum and incomes vary. In Community Districts 11 and 13, which overlap with Council District 23, more than 43 percent of residents are considered rent-burdened, meaning they spend more than 35 percent of their income on housing. 

Residents also reflect an array of races, religions and ethnicities. 

White New Yorkers, and in particular, Jewish residents, make up a large portion of the population in Bellerose, Douglaston, Fresh Meadows, Glen Oaks and Oakland Gardens, but the district is also home to some of New York City’s largest Asian, South Asian and Pacific Islander communities. In fact, more than 40 percent of district residents identify as Asian, including about 45 percent of the population in Community District 11, which overlaps with much of the council district. 

About 45 percent of CD11 residents were born outside the United States and many more are first-generation Americans. There are also significant populations of Black and Latino residents in places like Hollis and Queens Village, which are located in the northern portions of predominantly Black Community Districts 12 and 13.

“This is a very ethnically and religiously diverse district and is largely a community of single-family homeowners but with sizable garden apartment co-ops in it,” said Glen Oaks resident Ali Najmi, an attorney extremely active in local politics. He ran for the council seat in a 2015 special election and is representing Kaur in this election. “It’s a great place to live and raise a family.” 

But it could be even better, the candidates agree.

Three major goals emerge in conversations with the people running to replace Grodenchik: Increase transportation options in the subwayless “transit desert,” preserve the quality of the region’s well regarded schools and boost services for seniors. They are also focused on healthcare and reaching residents — like immigrants and low-wage workers — whose experiences don’t fit into the district’s comfortable, suburban reputation.

Linda Lee. Campaign photo

‘The way social services are being delivered is not working’

Not only do older adults make up a significant chunk of the population in Council District 23, they’re also reliable voters courted by each candidate.

Linda Lee may have an advantage there. She is executive director of the organization Korean Community Services, which primarily serves local seniors, with a special focus on Asian adults. The KCS building in Bayside recently became a vaccine clinic with a special focus on seniors. 

Throughout the campaign, Lee has touted her experience working with government agencies to deliver services to the older adult community. She said she would advocate to increase funding for the Department for the Aging to provide more culturally relevant programs and offerings.

“Older adults are one of the fastest-growing demographics. And with District 23, there are a lot of ethnic immigrant seniors and older adults and there are not enough services for the different ethnic communities,” Lee said. “The way social services are being delivered is not working,” 

Many seniors, particularly immigrants, remain cut off from key services — a problem only exacerbated by the pandemic, she told the Eagle last year.

“DFTA has the smallest budget of the social service agencies and my fear and worry is that as people continue to live longer, and live in their homes, we’re going to open our eyes and see we have a big issue on our hands with the lack of infrastructure and support for seniors,” she added.

Lee, a former Community Board 11 member and commissioner on the city’s Civic Engagement Commission, leads the field in fundraising with $63,157 in private contributions, and more than $160,000 in matching funds. She also picked up key endorsements from Rep. Grace Meng, State Sen John Liu and the United Federation of Teachers.

Jaslin Kaur. Campaign photo

‘We want them to join a movement’

Another candidate, Jaslin Kaur, is also focusing on the needs of residents too often left behind — especially low income immigrants and people of color living south of Hillside Avenue, a sort of dividing line in the district.

“There’s this affluent, suburban, siphoned-off part of New York City, but south of Hillside Ave is a completely different reality. They feel left out, they can’t name their councilmember, their local elected officials,” said Kaur, a progressive organizer and advocate for survivors of sexual abuse. 

She said the experiences of working class residents like her parents, a grocery store worker and a yellow cab driver, motivated her to enter the race. She said she will take on issues like the taxi medallion debt crisis and the need for hazard pay for low-wage essential workers.

“We talk to voters from Queens Village and Hollis, and they say, ‘You live in Glen Oaks, but we don’t have what you have in Glen Oaks,” she added. “It’s just not just that we want people to come to the ballot box and cast their vote for me, but we want them to join a movement.

Like Lee, Kaur could become the first woman and the first non-white person elected to represent Council District 23. Her campaign also marks a milestone in local politics: She’s the first candidate backed by the DSA in the eastern portion of the borough. 

The DSA is typically conservative in its endorsements, only throwing their volunteer army and organizing power behind candidates who are committed to their cause and who they believe have a strong chance of winning. Endorsements from establishment figures, like State Sen. John Liu, who ranked Kaur as his second choice candidate, and the Working Families Party have only boosted her bid.

Kaur has raised $40,729 and another $160,000 in public matching funds. She has received highest number of individual contributions, but, as with several candidates, most have come from outside the district.

She said she is also focused on increasing transit access, senior services and “education equity,” which demands universal child care, mental health care and bridging the digital divide. 

“School District 26 is one of the shining gems of Eastern Queens, and people want to keep it that way,” Kaur said. 

Steve Behar (right) with Councilmember Barry Grodenchik. Campaign photo

‘A progressive with an MBA’

Steve Behar uses the word “we” when he describes what the district has achieved during Grodenchik’s six years in office, such as the addition of 2,600 seats to local schools. He has good reason. Behar served as Grodenchik’s campaign manager and his counsel throughout his time in the council. He has also served on local Community Board 11 and as a trustee at the Bayside Historical Society.

Behar said politics in Council District 23 are moving leftward, and finally catching up to his own worldview. 

“If you ask anyone who has been involved in Northeast Queens or Eastern Queens politics for the last two decades and say, ‘Who is the most progressive activist?’ People in the know would say, ‘Steve Behar,’” he said. “Barry always says, ‘My counsel is a progressive with an MBA.’”

He cited an economics paper he wrote as a student at University of Albany in 1988. “The only way to fix our healthcare system is to move to a single payer system,” he said he wrote at the time.

“I was for the Green New Deal before anyone was calling it the Green New Deal, screaming at the top of my lungs for the last two decades that we need to move away from fossil fuels,” he said.

Still, he says, he’s also a pragmatist and thus opposes some policies that are favored by leftists unpopular among district residents. Congestion pricing, to name one. He considers the tollhike as a regressive tax.

“I applaud the idea of funding the MTA and building our mass transit system, especially given that Council District 23 is a transit desert, the only district you can’t take a train from,” he said. 

“But there are so-called progressives who are pushing congestion pricing. Who’s going to pay for that? The waitress on the East Village who lives in Astoria, has to be at work at 5 in the morning so she drives; the doorman in a building on Sutton Place, and they’re going to be paying $25 a day, $125 a week, $500 a month,” he continued. “I’ve been a progressive all my life, and I’ve fought regressive taxes and yet a lot of these younger phony progressive don’t seem to understand that you don’t pay on the backs of the middle class.”

He said he backs bus-only and more express bus routes in the district, such as along Hillside Avenue and Union Turnpike. 

He said would also work with state lawmakers, like Assemblymember Ed Braunstein, to push legislation that lowers the property tax rate on co-ops and condos, which are currently taxed at higher rates than other homes.

“I’m running because I just want to help people,” he said. “It’s that simple.”

Grodenchik has endorsed Behar to take over his seat, but Behar has struggled to keep pace with other candidates in terms of fundraising. He has taken in $23,884 in contributions but has not received public matching funds.

Debra Markell (left) with Assemblymember Cathy Nolan. Campaign photo

‘Our city needs someone who really understands good government’

More than anyone else in the field, veteran government official Debra Markell, the district manager in Community Board 2, is courting the moderate vote. 

She’s starting with her neighbors in North Shore Towers. “It’s a big voting bloc,” she said.

After losing previous bids for the council seat, Markell decided to run again at the behest of late Queens Borough President Claire Shulman.

“We were riding in the car and she said, ‘It’s your turn to run,’ and I said, ‘There are no openings,’” Markell recalled. “She said, ‘But promise me you would.’”

A few months later, Grodenchik decided to leave office. Markell said she saw herself as the most experienced option to replace him. 

“Our city needs someone who really understands good government,” she said. 

She said she enabled Queens CB2 to operate in the black even as the city council cut community board funding, and has experience with various government agencies and police as former head of Flushing’s 109th Precinct Community Council.

Markell champions funding for the NYPD to tackle “quality of life” offenses like graffiti, though she said cops need more training to address their biases and work with people experiencing mental health crises.

“I was Community Council president in the mid 90s. I understand what it’s like to have community policing,” she said. “And we need to put money into training and services to make everybody strong.”

She wants to prioritize funding for the Department for the Aging and senior services, as well as local infrastructure, roadways and transit.

“Money is going to be scarce and we have to put money in DFTA,” she said. 

Markell has raised $33,101 in private contributions, plus more than $150,000 in public matching funds. She received the endorsement of Rep. Tom Suozzi.

Harpreet Singh Toor. Campaign photo

The face of NYC

Harpreet Singh Toor is the face of New York City — literally. His photo adorned city buses and subway platforms across the five boroughs as part of a marketing campaign that highlighted the city’s multiculturalism.

As a successful immigrant who serves as an accountant and Sikh community leader, he really does represent New York City and District 23, he said.

He is running to improve services that he says have “steadily declined” for years, especially when it comes to healthcare. Three borough hospitals have shut down for good over the past 15 years, and the state has pushed St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Far Rockaway to downsize.

“We definitely need to restore hospitals, add beds,” he said. “More hospitals spread around, instead of concentrating in certain areas. In Manhattan, on every other corner, you find one of the best hospitals. Why can’t we have those in Queens?”

He said he will also advocate for the needs of South Asian residents, including taxi drivers crushed by mounting debt, and communities that have experienced disproportionately high rates of COVID-19.

His community connections have paid off in terms of fundraising. Toor has taken in $37,050 in private contributions and over $160,000 in public matching funds. He has received more in-district contributions than anyone else in the race.

Toor said he helped oversee the transformation of the Sikh Cultural Society, where he once served as president, into a temporary vaccine clinic, providing shots for 454 people in one day. He said he would use the council powers to do more outreach in similarly underserved communities.

“Whether you are a 1 year old kid or 105 years old, medical services is a basic human right and COVID exposed that,” he said. “It comes down to the basic services were not there and we couldn’t deal with the pandemic.”

Council Countdown is a partnership among the Eagle, City Limits, City & State and Gotham Gazette to provide in-depth coverage of every 2021 New York City Council race.