Candidate Answers to JOLDC: Lindsey Boylan for Manhattan Borough President
Candidate Name: Lindsey Boylan
Office Seeking Election for: Manhattan Borough President
Explain, based on life experiences and accomplishments, why you believe you are best qualified to represent your district
I am running for Manhattan Borough President because I believe I am the right person with the right experience to lead Manhattan through this post-pandemic recovery. The Borough President is first and foremost a job about land use, and about envisioning the future of Manhattan. I spent almost a decade in urban planning and management. I oversaw several of Manhattan’s parks including Bryant Park, and Herald and Greeley Squares. I was responsible for pedestrianizing major segments of Broadway Boulevard and several other public spaces in Manhattan. After that, I went to work as deputy secretary for Economic Development and Housing for the State of New York, the state’s chief economic development agency. While there, I helped bring a $334 million investment from General Motors into upstate New York, bringing 1,200 jobs to the region. I secured millions of dollars for underfunded public housing. I led the state’s efforts to provide assistance for the people of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, working with labor to help rebuild the island. I helped to lead the push to enact a $15 minimum wage and Paid Family Leave policy for New Yorkers. Simply put, this is the job I have been working towards my entire adult life, and I am running to create a more equitable, sustainable and livable city for all New Yorkers. I have lived in and loved this City since I moved here nearly 15 years ago, and I want to make it the best version of itself it can be.
Please identify any openly LGBTQ candidate for public office you have previously or presently endorsed?
N/A
If applicable, what legislation directly affecting the LGBTQ community have you introduced or co-sponsored? (indicate accordingly)
N/A
What LGBTQ organizations have you been involved with, either on a volunteer basis or professionally?
Both my husband and I are very involved with The Door. As a mental health advocate, I am active with NAMI, and I advocated for the Stonewall House when I was working for NY State.
Do you consider yourself a member of the LGBTQ community?
No
Have you marched in Pride? Which marches and for approximately how many years?
I’ve marched in the New York Pride March every year for the last five years, and have attended the New York Pride March since I moved to New York 15 years ago.
Have you employed openly LGBTQ individuals previously? Do you employ any currently?
Yes
What press conferences, demonstrations, rallies and protests in support of LGBT issues, pro-choice legislation, criminal justice issues and the Resist Trump Movement have you attended?
I’ve attended the Women's March, every impeachment rally in New York, No New Jails, No Hate No Fear, and the Climate March which I believe bears an impact on all of these issues.
Have you ever been arrested? If so please explain why and outcome of arrest.
No
Do you commit to visiting constituents who are incarcerated in state prisons and city jails?
Yes
Will you affirmatively seek to hire formerly incarcerated individuals?
When I managed sanitation at Bryant Park, I intentionally hired people from work based programs from the prison pipeline. For me, this is personal - I’ve had close family members in prison who had trouble reentering the workplace after serving their time.
Describe your legislative and policy vision for combatting systemic racism
To combat systemic racism, we must bring a racial justice lens to every decision and policy arena in which we work, because racism is insidious and affects every policy arena. Racial justice means the substantive equality of all races, not just the legal equality. That means getting rid of the racial wealth gap and the vast inequalities in the provision of government services themselves, such as those that lead to predominantly Black schools being underfunded relative to predominantly White public schools. The Borough President office primarily impacts housing and education. On housing, my approach will center on how we can create the most affordable housing for the most people, particularly near transit, in order to create a more racially just Manhattan. First and foremost, I will ensure that rezoning happens equally across the Borough, and not just in lower income communities of color, which is the current practice. Any rezoning in a lower income neighborhood which increases new development must be matched by a rezoning in a high income neighborhood which does the same. I will also focus on the maintenance and expansion of public spaces, particularly in lower income neighborhoods, which are frequently denied the vital benefit of parks and community gathering spaces. Any rezoning effort, particularly those seeking to increase the housing supply, must be cognizant of the need for affordable housing, the need for public spaces, and the needs of the community. On education, my office will invest resources in recruitment for community education councils, seeking to broaden the pool of applicants for appointment, and empowering them to do their jobs well. I will seek to create applicant pools reflective across race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, housing type, and language. I will also use my social media presence to educate on the role of the board and encourage New Yorkers to apply. My office will also seek to ensure that CECs are better resourced and provided with the tools they need, such as child care, and for the electronic participation of members, to allow a greater gender and economic diversity of members. We must consider and understand why people do not participate in order to facilitate participation.
Will you not seek, and refuse, the endorsement of Bill de Blasio?
I will not seek his endorsement.
In view of the fact that Ed Koch has been documented to have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people with AIDS, and was blatantly racist, would you support and sponsor a bill to rename the former Queensboro Bridge?
Yes
What is your position on removing the Christopher Columbus statue in Columbus Circle and if so, what should replace it?
Remove and replace with statues of the indigenous peoples of New York City as a land recognition.
Will you refuse contributions from real estate developers and all law enforcement unions or associations?
I do not and will not accept contributions from developers and law enforcement unions.
Do you support reducing the budget of the NYPD and if so, by how much?
I support reducing the NYPD’s budget by $1 billion.
How would you have voted on the FY21 City Budget?
I would have voted against the FY21 Budget as it failed to reduce the NYPD’s budget.
Are you in favor of removing police from any of the following? a) Schools; b) Mental health response calls; c) Homeless outreach and social services; or d) Traffic enforcement.
All of the above.
Should the NYPD Vice Squad be eliminated?
Yes. The Vice Squad is responsible for a vastly outsized percentage of the City’s excessive force cases.
Should Dermot Shea be fired immediately?
Yes. Commissioner Shea has shown no ability to hold any members of his police force accountable for their actions.
Should the NYPD Commissioner require confirmation by the City Council?
Yes.
How would you recommend police officers be penalized for refusing to wear masks in public while on duty, in defiance of city and state rules?
Officers should be subject to a three strikes program for mask wearing. First a fine, second a suspension, and third violation is a termination.
What reforms would you make to the Civilian Complaint Review Board? Would you support state legislation to make CCRB disciplinary determinations binding?
I would absolutely support making CCRB disciplinary violations binding, but we must go further on reforming the CCRB. Currently, when there is a dispute between officers and complainants about the facts of a case, the CCRB makes a determination of “unsubstantiated” unless there is video corroborating the complainant’s allegation. The CCRB must be empowered to make credibility determinations and findings regarding officers, otherwise it will remain toothless. The CCRB must also be empowered to recommend discipline for false statements made in CCRB hearings, which is a violation of the NYPD patrol guide, and could and should lead to officer termination. Finally, I support directly electing members of the Board, to better ensure the NYPD is accountable to the people it serves.
What is your position on the plan to close Rikers and create four borough-based jails?
I support closing Rikers and I do not support constructing any new borough-based jails, such as the one proposed in Chinatown, which I actively opposed with the community. I supported the bail reform bill in 2019 and I was against the recent partial roll-back of the bail reform. Rather than building new jails, we must focus on reducing the need for and the use of pretrial incarceration and technical parole violations which keep our jails occupied. The path forward on corrections reform is a return to the presumption of innocence. At a bare minimum, less intrusive means for securing return to court and for pretrial supervision should be used instead of incarceration. Incarceration itself is criminogenic, and pretrial supervision can lead people to lose jobs and connection to their communities. Its routine use must be ended, and we should use existing jail capacity without Rikers as a target to meet our goals.
Will you advocate for the Governor to review sentences of incarcerated individuals over the age 55 who have served in excess of 15 years to determine if they warrant release?
Yes.
It’s common knowledge that New York City’s 311 system is not adequately responsive to the public’s concerns. How would you alter the 311 system to combat these problems?
We must improve language and disability accessibility for 311 so that it truly serves all New Yorkers. We must also improve New Yorker’s ability to track their complaints and issues.
Do you support decriminalizing sex work? Will you pledge to oppose the Nordic model?
I support decriminalizing sex work and oppose the Nordic model.
Do you oppose school screening, which exacerbates segregation? Which screens in your school district(s) will you advocate to abolish?
We need to look at every option for desegregating our public school systems, including temporarily ending the middle school screening and seriously considering a permanent ban on the practice. In addition, we need to keep agitating for the full funding of public schools that is owed to our children and families from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity ruling which has directly led to school segregation. Decades of disinvestment in our public school system - including co-locations with charter schools - have contributed greatly to the depressing reality that the majority of Black and Latino students attend schools that have limited enrollment of white students. We need to fully address the glaring lack of diversity in specialized schools with input from parents and stakeholders in every community. Mayor de Blasio failed miserably when it came to engaging the very constituents that he represents. While I'm not ready to entirely eliminate the SHSAT, I would advocate for the doubling of the number of SHSAT schools and expanding the number of SHSAT seats, urging the City and State governments to fully fund universal test prep of the SHSAT exam, consider introducing other criteria for admittance into SHSAT schools, and prioritizing other structural reforms so that more Black and Latino students have every opportunity to be considered for specialized high schools. That being said, specialized high schools only account for the education of around 3% of our public schools students so a comprehensive solution involves addressing the longstanding needs of all of our public schools. In addition to advocating for our public schools to receive their court mandated full funding, we also need to recruit teachers that reflect the demographic profile of our classrooms, pay our teachers more in line with their significant contributions to our society, and ensure that our classrooms are safe workplaces to teach and learn in.
Describe what reforms you would make to the control of the NYC public school system.
I believe we must scale back mayoral control, but there are many ways to get there that I would consider. For example, I would consider: Giving the City Council oversight of the Department of Education similar to its role with other city agencies; directly electing some or all members of the Board of Education; reconstituting the Board so that the majority of member are not appointed by the mayor; and/or involving School Leadership Teams and Community Education Councils in budget determinations and selection of principals.
Do you support public funding of abortion?
Yes
Do you support the creation of safe consumption sites? Would you support the use of NYC DOHMH authority to establish SCSs without NYSDOH authorization?
Yes and yes.
Do you smoke or otherwise consume weed?
Not regularly.
Have you ever supported any of the members of the IDC? If so, who? What did you do to help defeat the IDC in 2018?
Never. In 2018, I was still in government service and did not publicly support candidates. Though I worked for Governor Cuomo, I am happy the turncoat IDC has been removed from New York government.
What will you do to support nightlife in NYC?
The most important thing we must do to support nightlife in New York right now is to help bars and performance venues get through the pandemic so that they can thrive when people can finally return to crowded indoor spaces. I support efforts for small business rent relief and to further expand industry specific bailouts for restaurants and bars. Nightlife is vital to New York’s economy - not to mention its culture - and tourists are responsible for 24 percent of all credit card sales at New York City restaurants and drinking establishments. We must maintain New York City as a nightlife destination for our economy to continue to thrive.
Do you commit to speak with restaurant and nightlife industry representatives before taking a position on any policies that affect their businesses?
Yes
Will you work to place restaurant, bar and club owners on community boards? Will you commit to not appointing or reappointing community board members who are hostile to food and beverage estalishments?
Yes and yes.
Now that the cabaret law was repealed do you support amending the zoning resolution to allow patrons to dance at more venues and eliminate the restrictions against dancing?
Yes.
Did you oppose the de Blasio/Cuomo proposal (and giveaways) for bringing Amazon’s HQ2 to Long Island City?
As Deputy Secretary for Economic Development, my job was to promote New York State’s business development and to bring jobs into the state. As part of that job, I was proud to promote the diversity and talent of New York’s workforce and I supported efforts to bring jobs into Queens, which is also what residents of Queens wanted. However, I was not part of the incentives discussions and I do not support large government giveaways to corporations.
What role do you believe the local member should play in the approval of development proposals before the Council?
We need to move away from district by district approval of development proposals generally. We cannot view New York City on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis but as a unit that works together. In keeping with that belief, I do not support maintaining a tradition of defaulting to member deference in land use matters.
Do you support legislation to prohibit discrimination against formerly incarcerated people in housing?
Yes.
Do you oppose the removal of the nearly 300 homeless individuals from the Lucerne hotel due to pressure from some local residents?
Yes, and I attended protests to do so.
What proposals will you advocate for to protect immigrants and further New York as a Sanctuary City?
It is a disgrace that our existing immigration law does nothing to help immigrants who are trying to make a better life for their families. At the beginning of my career, I interned for a small family-run immigration firm along the El Paso-Juarez border that helped people avoid deportation. It is an understatement to say we need massive policy reform. As a start, we must recognize and protect Dreamers and abolish ICE. I also believe in expanding TPS and the number of refugees we welcome into this country. With regard to refugees, our immigration policy must reflect the fact that climate change is the leading cause of mass migration globally, and will increasingly be so as climate disruption impacts inevitably worsen. More broadly, it is time to acknowledge the reality of our economy, which requires a variety of skills and labor. Immigrants are not ‘stealing jobs’ - they are often doing the hard, thankless, and often dangerous, work required to keep our businesses and homes running. We need a workers-based program that addresses the jobs immigrants do, which are essential to our economy.
Do you support a single-payer universal health care system? Please elaborate on what policy and legislative steps the City can take to expand access and affordability.
Yes. I have some concerns about the feasibility of single-payer programs on the state rather than federal level, given the realities of federal funding for Medicaid. Nonetheless, I believe healthcare is a human right that should be provided by the government and we should strive to provide healthcare for all. We should expand free health care at the point of service by expanding public clinics and increasing services at our public hospitals to reach more people.
Who did you support for office in the following primaries or special elections: A) Mayor in 2013 B) Public Advocate in 2013 and 2019, C) President in 2016 and 2020 C) Governor and Attorney General in 2018?
A) Christine Quinn, Daniel Squadron B) Tish James and Jumaane Williams C) Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden D) Andrew Cuomo, Letitia James
Top 3 issues you aim to address locally and legislatively
I believe the economic impact of our continuing public health crisis is the number one issue facing Manhattanites today. With the central business district empty, Broadway closed, tourism stopped, and indoor dining shut down, Manhattan has been ravaged economically by this pandemic. I will use my platform to advocate for immediate economic relief to impacted workers and small businesses throughout Manhattan. Manhattan’s housing supply and affordability struggles, a key part of longer term economic recovery, is an urgent and long-neglected issue in its own right. I will use the full extent of the Borough President’s authority to ensure that every opportunity to expand Manhattan’s supply of deeply affordable housing is explored, and that we reform the archaic ULURP process so that communities are finally empowered. Last but far from least is the rapidly worsening wealth inequity across our city, acutely apparent in Manhattan, and unconscionably accompanied by the deterioration of public services. I support a tax on New York’s ultra-wealthy, including a tax on pied-à-terre properties, to generate the vital revenue necessary to restore our existing public services - first and foremost our subways - and dream beyond them as we address the unmet need for things like expanded green spaces, climate resiliency, and widely accessible mental health services.
Mayor de Blasio has indicated his intent to call a third Charter Revision Commission, what additional reforms would you support to 1) the budget process, 2) the land use process, and 3) the powers and duties of municipal offices?
1) The Charter should be reformed to increase participatory budgeting in New York.The budget process must also be made more public and less opaque, as this year’s fight over defunding the police demonstrated. I support revisions to reflect the need to make the budget more public. 2) I support revising the charter to fundamentally reform ULURP. The current ULURP process is developer-driven and takes a neighborhood-by-neighborhood approach to a problem that must be dealt with holistically city-wide. When a land use change does or does not happen in the Upper East Side, that decision affects East Harlem and Washington Heights, not just the Upper East Side. Worse, the ULURP process prioritizes the most resourced people in the City at the expense of all others. We must reform the City Charter so that the ULURP process builds housing for everybody, not just the few. 3) Finally, I believe the CCRB and the Public Advocate’s office must be given more teeth and a bigger budget to truly hold our leaders and police officers to account.
Please explain your vision for the present powers of the office you are seeking and how you intend to exercise them?
I intend to use the Borough President’s power to appoint members to Community Boards, Community Education Councils, and the Solid Waste Advisory Board to make political representation truly match our community. That means appointing genuinely diverse members, not just on race, gender, sexuality, and gender identity, but also on factors like age, income, housing type, household type, and disability status. We will not just be represented by older, white, male, homeowners anymore. I will also use the office to ensure that all zoning changes that occur are studied for racial and environmental justice impact in addition to the standard environmental review. We cannot look at environmental impact in a vacuum. The Borough President must be a representative for all members of the community and give voice to all Manhattanites. Finally, I also intend to use my capital budget to help reshape Manhattan as a livable, resilient, and accessible space. I believe the Borough President can and must be much more forward thinking in her use of the capital budget to help create the Manhattan of our future.
Do you commit to working with Jim Owles during your campaign and while in office? What role can the club and the progressive LGBT community play in holding you accountable?
Yes. I expect to be called in if necessary and held to account at all times. No leader is perfect and I want to be pushed to be the best Manhattan Borough President I can be by activists and community leaders.
If you receive the endorsement, do you agree to identify the club on all literature and electronic materials where you list endorsements?
Yes.
What additional information would you like Jim Owles to consider when we are making our endorsement decisions?
So far, I have received endorsements from: Our Damn Time Future Steps US National Solidarity Movement