St. John’s senior strives for seat in City Council
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Shaeleigh Severino, an SJU senior, is running for City Council in District 32. Photo via campaign
By David Brand
A progressive St. John’s University senior is attempting to make history by becoming the first woman elected to represent Queens’ 32nd Council District, home to some of the borough’s most conservative communities.
Victory will mean reversing the region’s right-leaning record, but Woodhaven native Shaeleigh Severino said her focus on education and youth services will appeal to voters of every political stripe. The district includes Howard Beach, Ozone Park, Broad Channel and the Western portion of the Rockaway Peninsula.
“A lot of points in my platform are really about basic human rights and even if my district is moderate or some parts conservative, I think they could get behind it,” she said.
Severino is vying to win a seat held for the past 11 years by Eric Ulrich, a term-limited councilmember and the only Republican city or state elected official in Queens. Before Ulrich, the district was represented by Joseph Addabbo Jr., a moderate Democrat who left the Council after taking office as state senator in 2009.
Severino lists environmental justice and addressing homelessness among her top priorities, issues that she says will appeal to leftwing voters while winning over moderate and even conservative residents.
“We don’t live in the same time period as we did four years ago or eight years ago or 12 years ago,” she said. “We have to have progressive ideas and changes in our society to be able to move forward together.”
Severino said she opposed the most recent city budget because it did not adequately fund schools or youth programs.
“Classrooms are over capacity, students don’t have opportunities. We need to change the order of what we prioritize in society,” she said, noting that the vast majority of New York City public school students are people of color.
“We have to be able to fund these activities for education, extracurriculars, art and more teachers to give them an opportunity to advance.”
To accomplish that, she said she would reallocate funding from other agencies, including the police department, to the Department of Education and programs for children and young people.
“There is money there, it’s just about reallocating it to something else,” Severino said. “When it comes to the NYPD, there are definitely some areas inside that budget that can be cut. But there are areas where we don’t want to cut the budget — pensions, benefits; we don’t want to cut the quality of life for officers.”
Severino, the daughter of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, attended public schools in Ozone Park and Richmond Hill before entering St. John’s as a commuter student. Since her sophomore year, she has played a lead role organizing her fellow students against tuition increases and institutional injustice, The Torch has reported. She and another organizer recently drafted a list of demands for the university as St. John’s sought to impose a tuition hike amid the COVID pandemic.
“Going into college, I already had the mindset of ‘What are the problems and how could I fix them?’” Severino said. She quickly became involved with groups like the Caribbean Students Association and the Latin American Students Organization before founding the local chapter of Leading Women of Tomorrow.
So far, four other candidates are also running for the open District 32 seat. Felicia Singh, Ruben Cruz, Kaled Alamarie and Michael Scala have each filed with the Board of Elections.
Severino had not raised any money by the July 15 filing deadline. She said on Facebook that she will reject money from real estate developers, police unions and super PACs.
She said she opposes the city’s plan to close Rikers Island jails and build a new detention center in every borough but Staten Island. She said only people charged with violent crimes should be incarcerated and that the city should address the underlying causes of criminality, particularly poverty and access to mental health treatment.
Severino, 21, declined to compare herself to any other politician in New York City. In fact she bristled at the term “politician” and said she would rather be referred to as an advocate.
Still, she acknowledged some similarities to Khaleel Anderson, who, at 24, ran a progressive campaign and won the Democratic primary for Southeast Queens’ Assembly District 31. The district overlaps with pieces of Council District 32.
“We need more young people in office,” she said. “Most people don’t think young people can lead, but we have been leading the social movement. And it’s time we started making the policy as well.”
Severino said the Black Lives Matter movement and environmental justice initiatives demonstrate the power of young people to spur major change.
“We can’t keep asking people who are oppressing us not to keep oppressing us,” she said. “We need to get into these spaces.”
