Special election set for Richards’ Queens council seat as crowded field forms
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Former District 31 Councilmember Donovan Richards was sworn in as Queens borough president Tuesday. His exit from the council triggers a special election. Photo courtesy of Richards
By David Brand
The special election to replace new Borough President Donovan Richards in Council District 31 will take place Feb. 23, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Friday.
At least nine candidates have so far said they will run to represent the district, which includes two distinct geographic sections: the mainland Queens communities of Laurelton, Rosedale, Springfield Gardens and eastern Rockaway peninsula neighborhoods of Arverne, Edgemere and Far Rockaway.
Richards would have been term-limited at the end of 2021, compelling ten candidates to file for the June primary ahead of Richards’ exit this week. At least one, Richards’ former chief of staff Franck Joseph, told the Eagle he no longer intends to run. Joseph is deputy commissioner in New York City’s Human Rights Commission.
The district is separated into two parts: the Southeast Queens communities of Laurelton, Rosedale and Springfield Gardens and the eastern Rockaway peninsula neighborhoods of Arverne, Edgemere and Far Rockaway. More than two-thirds of the residents are Black, 16 percent are Hispanic, and 11 percent are white, according to U.S. Census data.
Richards first won the seat in a February 2013 special election after receiving just 29 percent of the vote, 70 more ballots than second-place finisher Pesach Osina.
This year, the victor will have to win 50 percent — even if that takes a few rounds of balloting.
The race will be the borough’s second test of ranked-choice voting, following a Feb. 2 special election to replace Councilmember Rory Lancman in District 24. The new process allows voters to designate their top five choices for office. If no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote, the last place candidate is eliminated and the voters who picked them will have their second choice tallied. That continues until a candidate scores a majority.
Whoever wins won’t have much time to relax in office. The special election winner will only complete Richards’ current term, which ends Dec. 31, 2021. The June 2021 primaries and November general election will determine who serves a two-year term through 2023.
Meet the many candidates:
Latoya Benjamin, the economic development director for State Sen. James Sanders, is one of the nine candidates running. In an interview with the Eagle last month, Benjamin said she is focused on criminal justice reform and closing the “digital divide” — the access-to-internet disparity between wealthy and low-income New Yorkers.
“We’re mandating that communities use technology,” she said. “It’s a requirement for families to have internet, and depending on what social class you’re in, that determines if you can afford it or not.”
Shawn Rux, a deputy superintendent of Queens’ School District 29, is also focused on closing the digital divide. “So many of our kids in marginalized communities are already on the other side of the digital divide,” Rux told Queens County Politics. “We talk about preparing for the 21st century, but we’re in the 21st century. The fact that we’re still having an issue with students still having access to laptops and WiFi is kind of absurd when you think about it.”
Veteran government strategist and communications professional Selvena Brooks-Powers announced her candidacy Sunday after filing to run back in July. Brooks-Powers, who received an endorsement from the organization 21 in ‘21, said she plans to focus on increasing access to healthcare in the district.
“I worked at Peninsula Hospital until it closed and when it closed I saw the need,” she said. “We had St. John’s and Peninsula, but the nearest trauma hospital is Jamaica which could be 30-40 minute drive. And that’s the difference between life or death.”
“When we see how all these hospitals across the state are stretched, can you imagine one hospital on the peninsula? Access to quality healthcare should be a basic human right,” she continued.
Richards’ most recent chief of staff Manuel Silva is also in the mix. Silva told the Eagle his experience in the community and his three years working for Richards will enable him to hit the ground running. He said he sees the race as part of a fight “for the soul of our city.”
“Either we're going to continue doing things the traditional way that got us into this fiscal crisis or we're going to be bold and take things in a new direction. I am running a grassroots people powered campaign that's centered around building a City that supports everyone, not just the powerful.”
Silva first announced his plan to run in February, telling The Wave that he was focused on ensuring the city addresses flooding in the district.
Monique Charlton, a nonprofit volunteer, cites her role as a mother of a child under 18 as her motivation for running.
“I see the shortcomings of the schools, particularly when it comes to funding,” Charlton told Gotham Gazette. She is also advocating remerging schools that were formerly divided, saying “It worked for a while but now with several changes that have occurred it’s time to bring schools back together.” She believes this will help with funding issues.
Special needs advocate Nicole Lee says she is running to champion small businesses and people with disabilities.
“For over a decade I have been blessed to organize and create grassroots organizations and businesses to show my commitment to our entire Community,” she wrote on Instagram.
Filmmaker Perri Pierre spent much of his childhood in Haiti before returning to the United States to pursue his education. On his website, Pierre says he will champion access to secondary education for students in the district.
“His goal is to bring the high school graduation rate higher than it currently is. He also wants way more high school graduates to go to college,” his website states.
Nancy Martinez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, runs a successful home healthcare training school. She was featured in a profile on the city’s Economic Development Corporation website, in which she described the growth of her school, which has graduated 20,000 people over the past decade.
“I was inspired after my brother was left paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair due to a car accident, and I took the responsibility of caring for him. I spent over a decade in the healthcare industry learning about regulations, designing patient care standards and learning how to run a successful business in the city.”
Another candidate, Latanya Collins, has been hard to track down. She does not yet have a campaign website.
Only three — plus Joseph — filed their campaigns before the July 15 financial disclosure deadline. Silva led the early fundraising with $7,425, followed by Benjamin with $3,421 and Brooks-Powers with $100.
Another candidate, Pesach Osina, is likely to run as well, though he did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Osina raised more than $10,000 by the July 15 filing deadline, according to financial disclosure reports, but he has not yet declared his campaign for District 31.
He lost to Richards in 2013 by just a few dozen ballots after getting out the vote among Far Rockaway’s Orthodox Jewish community.
Ranked-choice voting will make that dynamic particularly interesting if Osina decides to run and again turn out Jewish constituents while the other candidates split the vote among predominantly Black residents of the district.
Correction: This article previously stated that the 2021 November general election winners will serve four-year terms. They will serve for two years before another round of municipal elections in 2023.
