While the next mayoral election is still more than a year away, candidates are already beginning to position themselves, and speculation about the relative strength of their prospective campaigns has already begun.
Christine Quinn is trying to leap from her position as City Council speaker to the front of the pack. And while she has managed to retain the support of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the speaker seemed to be looking to step out of his shadow during her own State of the City address a couple of weeks ago.
With Bloomberg nearing the end of his decade-long reign, politicians are looking to publicly establish themselves for the 2013 mayoral run as quickly as possible.
Quinn pointed toward education, housing, unemployment and education as targets that needed to be addressed to improve the city– and the members of the city themselves.
“Now more than ever, we need to tap into the power of our communities,” said Quinn.
“We need to restore the promise that everyone can succeed in New York, no matter how humble their origins, with a bit of help and a lot of hard work.”
One of Quinn’s ideas is for the city to use federal tax credits to help small businesses hire people in areas with high unemployment rates. The City Council would also work with the website Kickstarter to highlight community fundraising and businesses in need of funding.
“We’re going to work with Kickstarter and Council Member Al Vann to help
people raise money for creative businesses and projects in neighborhoods with high unemployment,” said Quinn during her address. “Every month, the City Council will highlight a new set of people working to transform their communities.
“Like a group in Brownsville that wanted to start an urban farm on an abandoned lot and teach kids about healthy food,” Quinn continued. “Kickstarter helped them raise $25,000, and investors got invited to harvest some veggies or name one of the chickens.
And who wouldn’t love to name a chicken? “A couple of entrepreneurs are looking to start a new restaurant in Clinton Hill.
They’ve already raised $1,400, and if they hit $10,000 by the end of the month, they’ll be creating dozens of jobs.”
In addition to Kickstarter, Quinn discussed the federal New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program and how it could apply to small businesses. Typically used for construction credits, the NMTC was established in
2000 to spur investment in operating businesses and real estate projects in low- income communities.
Quinn said the program could also be used to “help a moving company buy more vans and hire more movers or a local restaurant open a second location and create new jobs.”
Quinn announced that she planned on partnering with Inez Dickens, the Economic Development Corporation and Small Business Commissioner Rob Walsh to create a $10 million small business fund exclusively for businesses in low-income neighborhoods.
While the city does provide affordable housing unit applications and lotteries
for newly developed spaces around the city, the problem is how long those places stay affordable. Sometimes they are only affordable for a set number of years, after which the price is immediately raised back to market rates.
Quinn addressed that during her speech as well. “Right now, when the city negotiates deals with developers, we provide incentives in exchange for affordability,” said Quinn.
“The problem is that affordability has a built-in expiration date, usually 30 years. So homes we built three decades ago are now in danger of losing their affordability, which means families get pushed right out of their homes and the working class gets pushed out of entire neighborhoods.”
Quinn also talked about working with Council Member Annabel Palma to create a new rental assistance program that would help families cover rent in private buildings. Continuing her focus on those who need it most, Quinn also discussed tackling the problem of homelessness, something that
Bloomberg has been accused of sweeping under the rug. “We need to prioritize homeless New Yorkers for NYCHA apartments and Section 8 vouchers so we can get even more families into long-term, stable housing,” said Quinn.
“By the way, this isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the fiscally responsible thing to do. The average cost of a rental subsidy for a family of four is $800 a month. To house that same family in a shelter? $3,000.”
So what do others think of her track record as Council speaker and as an overall politician?
“I’ve seen some of the things she’s done as a City Council [member],” said New York State NAACP President Hazel Dukes. “We’ll have to see what she’s going to use her platform for and what she can do.
Being the mayor is different than being the speaker. “
“I know she’s been vocal on the homeless and some of the human resources, such as fingerprinting people who get food stamps, so she’s stepped up to the plate on a few different things. But we’ll see.” Dukes told the AmNews that while she was sent a copy of Quinn’s speech, she hadn’t yet taken the time to read it all the way through. Councilman Charles Barron didn’t hesitate when it came to his opinion of the speaker.
“Her State of the City address was a campaign speech,” Barron said to the
AmNews. “The devil is in the details. When it comes to budget time, where’s all the money for all of these things? If there’s no money attached to what’s she’s saying, it’s all political.
“She’s like the deputy mayor. She couples with Bloomberg every year around budget time and cuts programs even when we have surpluses in the budget.
“You can tell it’s political when she mentions 20 or 30 council members by name,” continued Barron. “[She’s] probably trying to get their support. I don’t think she’d make a good mayor for us. I hope that Blacks and Latinos in the City Council don’t drink the Christine Quinn Kool-Aid. I hope we’re strong enough to stand for our people and for those who are for us.”