Policy Positions

Detailed Policy Positions

“My Ideology is Neighborhood”

As an expert on Planning, Zoning and Land Use, I have spent the last three decades helping communities protect themselves through detailed novel approaches. This includes contextual re-zonings and shaping new zoning legislation, landmarking and historic preservation, building and construction enforcement, the protection and creation of new parkland and other important ways to maintain and enhance our neighborhoods. As I have stated,

“It all starts with our homes. If our neighborhoods get ruined, the rest doesn’t matter.”

Some key policy goals:

My top priority is to protect our owner-occupied 1-family and 2-family homes, coops and condominiums, which make up 70% of our Council District. It is extremely important that this Council District (and others in eastern Queens in particular) maintain our high level of homeownership – higher, in fact, than the national average of 66%. By contrast, the citywide average is 30%. In recent years, some of our elected officials have tried to push for more density in our neighborhoods without additional infrastructure – or eliminate one-family zoning altogether. Again – as your Council Member, protecting our homes from misguided and destructive policies that have been proposed by the Governor, Mayor and other elected officials is my top priority.
Hand in hand with a high percentage of homeownership, our quality of life is directly tied to the stability of our neighborhoods, keeping a high level of taxpayer-funded public services and upkeep and maintenance of infrastructure. Sometimes it’s hard to define quality of life in words, but we all know what it means: good homes, safe streets, quality schools, well-maintained roadways and other municipal services. As a large majority of residents in our Council District are property owners and pay additional and ever-increasing property taxes, we must use our status as stakeholders in our community to ensure that the city does its job, and our neighborhoods remain livable. Our Quality of life must be maintained, and as your Council Member, my job will focus heavily on getting this done.
As the father of a 1st Grader at P.S. 209 in Whitestone, education is front and center for me and my family, as it has always been: both of my parents are retired educators with combined teaching experience of almost 60 years. School Districts 25 and 26 – which cover our Council District - have always been two of the best in the city. However, with the consolidation of educational policy under Mayoral Control, many decisions have been made citywide that are negatively affecting our children’s education. For the past decade, it seems that the city has sometimes been much more interested in real estate – building schools we don’t need in locations that don’t make sense across the Council District – than reinforcing positive learning experiences for our children. Making sure that our children receive the best education is critical to the health and viability of northeast Queens, and as your Council Member I will be directly involved – our children’s future depends on it.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the city has experienced a wave of uncertainty precipitated by acts of random and targeted violence, theft and other criminal behavior, including a staggering increase in hate crimes, particularly against our Asian and Jewish residents. In fact, one occurred literally in front of my house in the fall of 2021. Some of our elected officials have stated that we don’t really need the police and that it is only the perception of crime by the public that is driving the concerns of residents across the city. I beg to differ. In northeast Queens, we need more police – and a new police precinct. Only then will we see rates of crime – particularly property theft and grand larceny – lower throughout the Council District. Safe neighborhoods are good neighborhoods; as your Council Member, I will support an increase in policing – and hold the NYPD to the highest level of accountability.
Over twenty years ago, I helped to make Fort Totten into a city park and historic district. Our Council District has over 40 miles of waterfront; some of it is parkland, much of it is private – and in increasing danger from climate change, sea level rise and decades of degradation and pollution. In the last decade, a series of devastating storms has proven how vulnerable our communities are with houses destroyed and lives lost; this will almost certainly happen again, particularly if we are not proactive in protecting ourselves NOW. Throughout College Point, Whitestone, Bayside, Douglaston and Little Neck, sensitive parcels of private land need to be purchased by the city to protect them; other parcels, already owned by the city, need to be reclaimed and restored for both environmental protection and increased public access. The preservation and restoration of our waterfront will significantly protect and strengthen all of our northeast Queens neighborhoods; as your Council Member and land use / planning expert, I will oversee and promote this process from execution to completion.
Let’s talk about health care for a minute. As a two-time survivor of cancer, I know what it means to go through the byzantine process of insurance, hospitals, specialists and other issues in order to stay alive – and healthy. Right now, a battle is occurring between the city government and its retirees, who number over 250,000, over their current public Medicare insurance; the city is attempting to change the terms of their agreement with their retirees by shifting them to Medicare Advantage, which is private insurance with increased costs to the retirees. City workers often get a much lower salary than those in the private sector, with significant health benefits for life as one of the reasons that they agreed to take a position in city government in the first place. I have no problem with our city government negotiating benefits packages with new employees, but to take away rights already agreed to from retirees – many of them our parents and grandparents! – is just plain wrong. If elected as your Council Member, I will always defend the health care rights of our city employee retirees, as the best neighborhoods are healthy neighborhoods.
While my focus has largely been on owner-occupied housing in our Council District, there are a significant number of renters as well. Our legal renters in northeast Queens deserve fair treatment, clean and safe housing quarters and reasonable rates from legal landlords, and our legal landlords deserve good legal tenants who stick to their contracted agreements. Why do I bring up the term legal? Due to the increasing number of illegal – and unsafe – units proliferating throughout northeast Queens and beyond. These units – which are often dangerous and sometimes deadly – are, despite what some elected officials say, not affordable housing and only serve to create burdens on already overstretched infrastructure such as roads, schools, sanitation, sewers and the like. As your legal representative on the City Council, I will always oppose illegal conversions, demand building code enforcement and do everything in my power to ensure that the city government does not try to “legalize” them through the creation of unenforceable ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units), zoning changes and other blanket amnesty schemes.