[BwayDems] Cheryl Pahaham for City Council

[Cheryl Pahaham]

Broadway Dems, thank you so much for considering my candidacy.

We share the same political values and want a truly diverse community—where people of all incomes, races, ethnicities and religion live, work, play and worship together; recognize each others’ needs and share and create public resources for the common good.

I would like to share with you a little about my background and how I became interested in politics. 

I am married and I live in Inwood with my husband, where we own a cooperative apartment. 

I am the child of Black and White parents who were active in the civil rights movement.  Because of that, thinking and talking about race was always a keen concern of mine as a child. My appreciation for the world’s struggles for racial and economic justice came from my parents and my childhood.

I got my start in organized politics as a teen-ager, when I was deeply disturbed and outraged by South Africa’s apartheid regime and so connected with the global struggle against apartheid. Some of you might remember the June 14, 1986 anti-apartheid march organized by the New York Anti-Apartheid Coordinating Council—I was there, too.

I continued my involvement in the global struggle as an undergraduate at Wesleyan University, where students pressured the school to divest its endowment from companies doing business in South Africa.

I have a deep and abiding concern for social justice and I believe strongly that our government’s practices and law should reinforce and uphold our rights.

That is why I am fighting for good government—if you’re reading the papers these days, you know that New Yorkers need honest, responsible leadership now more than ever.

I’m starting by calling for reforms to our City’s redistricting process, which begins so late that it disadvantages voters and privileges incumbents, allowing them to sway elections.

Everyone should understand and care about redistricting because this process determines who will represent them in elected office.

Good government means that elected officials are accountable to their constituents.

That is why I oppose NYCHA’s in-fill program and have signed a petition opposing the in-fill plan and asking New York City to stop charging NYCHA for police services. This is just a poor-tax -- a double tax on NYCHA residents who already do pay taxes. If elected, I will commit to help find ways to reduce costs and increase revenue in order to preserve our public housing—it’s the anchor of our community against total displacement of long-established residents.

All over the City, big developers and banks are making it almost impossible for the small businesses that we want and need in our neighborhoods to survive. That is why, if I am elected, I will fight to save small businesses that are being gouged by the real estate industry and out-of-control rents. Small businesses employ the majority of New Yorkers and meet our basic needs, but they are struggling to survive in the face of what really amounts to extortion. I support efforts to give small business owners rights in law to renegotiate their commercial leases; to obtain longer lease terms; to find ways to reduce the property tax burden; and to establish an arbitration process to resolve tenant and landlord lease disputes.

I also support more public review of government grants and loans given to new businesses, and greater availability of microloans. We in New York use taxpayer funds to subsidize luxury housing development and high-end retail and franchises, but to keep our neighborhoods viable, we have to do something for small businesses. I will push hard for legislation that saves jobs and saves small businesses.

It is time for a renewed focus on the economy at all of levels of government because it is taking too long for us in the City to feel that things are improving. If I am elected, in every dollar spent, my questions will be—does this create jobs in my community, who will get those jobs, and what will they pay? We’re wasting millions every year subsidizing minimum wage, temporary jobs—we could be doing so much better with the resources for job development. And we’re not listening to what communities want. Communities should have more input on how our employment dollars are spent. 

That is why, if elected, I will be a strong advocate of long-term tax reform at the State and City levels—looking at what corporations pay, what subsidies and incentives they receive, and what high-income earners and high-value property owners pay. I will push for City policies that continuously evaluate incentives for developers and business owners in order to make sure that there is some balance, some benefit for the public, and that we are not forgoing needed revenue.

The goal here is equity, because the needs of New Yorkers will not be met if politicians are unwilling to look at how we can finance those needs—all the while engaging in unneeded financial incentives to developers and wasteful, politically motivated tax refunds, such as the Governor’s idea for a $350 tax rebate to families that will cost taxpayers more than $1 billion over three years.

I have a strong background in our City budget, thanks to my work in State government as a fiscal monitor with oversight of New York City’s finances.  I believe that there are always ways to spend our money more efficiently and to cut waste. I also believe that we should not balance the budget solely by cutting essential services. Investing in public programs and goods is how we in this country can fight poverty and reduce inequality.

My passion for social justice infuses everything that I do, wherever I am. We can positively impact our communities in our everyday lives, and that is the sort of leader that I am. 

On Community Board 12, as chair of the Housing and Human Services Committee, I facilitated the collaboration of Washington Heights’ three largest tenant organizations: Mirabal Sisters, Community Union and RENA in an effort to develop a northern Manhattan housing platform and tenants bill of rights, as part of the statewide effort at rent regulation reform. This effort was the first time these three organizations had ever collaborated.

Our six-month effort culminated in a rally of over 200 people calling for change and a reenergized commitment of northern Manhattan elected officials to tenants and reform. Our platform was endorsed by Community Board 12 and supported by our elected officials.

I also tried to refocus the committee on poverty, and how to better serve poor people in our existing programs. I drafted and the Community Board passed several resolutions calling for improvements to services for the homeless and to people seeking cash assistance. I also invited large citywide not-for-profits to brief the committee on poverty and social services and to suggest how we in northern Manhattan could be a part of the discussion for reform.

In April 2008, I authored tax equity resolution calling on the Governor and the Legislature to raise the personal income tax rate for the top five-percent of income earners and to substantially expand property tax relief for low and middle-income renters and residential property-owners by limiting the portion of household income that pays for property taxes. In 2009, the Governor and the Legislature agreed to a temporary income tax surcharge on high-income earners. 

I hope now that you have a sense of who I am and know that policymaking matters to me very much because I believe that it is how I as a Councilwoman will deliver to you.

I am asking you to take a chance and support someone new to electoral politics. Endorse me tonight!

Thanks for taking time to learn about me.



Cheryl Pahaham 
Candidate for New York City Council District 7

People for Cheryl
PO Box 777
New York NY 10040

cheryl at cherylforcouncil.org
www.cherylforcouncil.org
646-547-6798
Facebook/People for Cheryl
Twitter @CherylPahaham

CONTRIBUTE!




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://eight.pairlist.net/mailman/private/bwdupdates/attachments/20130509/5136ca7d/attachment.html>