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West Farms 10460: A City Council Candidate Lightning Round

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. Now we continue our series West Farms 10460. For the past month or so, as many of you know, we've been talking about issues relevant to one specific community in the Bronx, in order to put into context the broader story of the pandemic's devastating toll on the city as a whole, and to really drive at the question of why poor predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods like West Farms have been hit so much harder than other communities.

Now, West Farms is in one of the poorest congressional districts in the country. What is often referred to as the lowest income congressional district in the country and one of the poorest city council districts in New York, district 15, there is currently a special election for the open city council seat there underway. Early voting has begun and then next Tuesday is election day per se.

They're doing this because Ritchie Torres, a name many of you know no matter where in the area you live, just got elected to Congress, and so what was his city council seat is now vacant. Today we're going to wrap up the part of our series with the candidates with one more short interview with a candidate in this city council special election. We should note here that we invited all of the four candidates who we hadn't spoken to yet. We spoke to three previously, but only one of the remaining ones accept our invitation for today.

Joining me now is John Sanchez, and by way of background, he has served as district manager for Bronx Community Board 6, and he was formerly a deputy chief of staff to the New York State Assembly. John, welcome to WNYC. Thanks very much for joining us.

John Sanchez: I'm here, Brian, thank you for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for any connection problems that we were having. A lot of our listeners don't know what it's like to be on a Community Board. I wonder if you could start by describing-- First of all, describe your community.

One of the reasons we're doing the series West Farms 10460 is so a part of New York City that doesn't get a lot of media coverage gets focused on week after week for at least a few weeks. I wonder how you would begin to describe your community to people who might land there from Mars or Long Island or parts of any of the other boroughs, or even other parts of the Bronx, and then tell us what a community board does?

John Sanchez: The 15th council district embodies New York City, we have the restaurants on Arthur Avenue that has Italian tradition. We have Mexican restaurants in our neighborhood. We have a large African-American immigrant community. It's a melting pot of New York City. We have the Bronx Zoo, we have the Bronx River Art Center, we have Fordham Road.

It's a historic neighborhood and it really embodies how New York City is a city of immigrants and people throughout this country and throughout this world that comes to meet and get along and make this city work. Community boards are the most local level of government. I'm proud to be a district manager, but we're the ones that review when streets need to be closed, making sure there's more extra sanitation, street permits, liquor licenses, and of course we weigh in on housing and traffic improvements.

Brian Lehrer: What's the biggest issue that you've dealt with as a community board member and how did you try to wield influence with the city over it?

John Sanchez: As a district manager, one issue that was pressing was when the tragedy with Jr happened a few years ago. I knew a lot of the young people that knew Jr and they said, "We just want a safe place to play sports because our parents aren't letting us out of the home."

We worked with the Department of Education. We had to go through a lot of red tape, but we were able to sponsor, we opened gyms for young people through the summer. We had to sign insurance waivers. We had to get a letter from the precinct, but we made it happen and that was a great summer.

Brian Lehrer: What do you see as the greatest needs for your neighborhood, for your district that city council could help with if you're elected?

John Sanchez: There's two things. One the high unemployment rate that we had pre-pandemic and now post-pandemic. The city council, each council member gets about half a million dollars that they can invest in nonprofits. I think it's important that we use those funds towards workforce development, especially in careers that don't require a college degree, but pay well such as in technology, construction, and the arts.

The second need is the lack of housing. We have an affordable housing crisis. We have a housing shortage, but we have outdated land-use laws which prevent housing from being built in the first place and the city council can change those laws.

Brian Lehrer: This week, THE CITY, the nonprofit news organization, THE CITY reported that your campaign has the backing of two pro-charter school political action committees, including one that's funded by Walmart, Alice Walton. Another group, Voters of NYC Inc funded by real estate firms is also supporting you. You've said that you've neither accepted nor solicited any support from these groups, but to what degree are their priorities your priorities?

John Sanchez: My priorities are determined by the community. The community wants more jobs in the neighborhood, and they want more housing in the neighborhood, and they want great schools. When it comes to charter schools, I'm a proud board member of our charter school in the Bronx, helping young people read and do math at grade level.

In fact, our community has been supportive of charter schools, but I can't speak to their motivations to sending mail, unions are sending mail, other outside groups are sending mail. I think is a distraction from the real issues and I wish we had more forums and debates rather than articles about outside groups.

Brian Lehrer: You're affiliated with a charter school, so you must be pro-charter schools. Do you think the de Blasio administration has been too hostile to charter schools?

John Sanchez: Yes. Charter schools are public schools and they serve the same students in the neighborhood that I live in and I think we have to be collaborative. It shouldn't be an either/or, it should be a both/and.

Parents don't care about the policy arguments. They just want a school that will ensure that their children can read at grade level, they can excel, graduate to high school and go to college or get a great career. That's what they care about. The political debates they don't care about.

Brian Lehrer: Parents who are skeptical of charter schools think that they drain money from the district schools, the "regular" public schools in the district, and also segregate kids in the sense that parents who in some cases might be more organized than other parents. More ambitious about getting their kids into a selective program. I realize it's by lottery, but to apply for charter schools that it winds up with cherry-picking and then the charter schools in some cases have bad reputations for kicking kids out or counseling kids out if they don't fit the mold. Then what you get is another form of relatively elite cherry-picking. What's your response to that?

John Sanchez: We already have a segregated system. We have good schools in wealthy neighborhoods and we have low-performing schools in poor neighborhoods. The only difference is that the wealthy people can use their money to choose where they need to live while people like my neighborhoods in the Bronx don't have that choice.

If you speak to a parent in the Bronx, they want options. They shouldn't be limited. If we don't limit the options of the wealthy, why should we limit the options for people that are low income? No school is perfect, but I think giving that option is what people need. I think limiting options is harmful.

Brian Lehrer: On the real estate, firms supporting you, the group 'Voters of NYC Inc' funded by real estate firms, you said the district needs more housing. I'm sure you would say more affordable housing. How do you think it should be brought? We know different candidates have different plans.

John Sanchez: We really need to speak about what can the city council do? That means expanding zoning restrictions that we have right now. Talking about West Farms, right now West Farms has an area that zoned for manufacturing, yet manufacturing hasn't taken place there for nearly two decades. Why not change the zoning so housing can actually be built there?

Why do we have parking requirements when it comes to housing developments? On the state level, why don't we have a height cap imposed by the state? Why can't we build taller so we can have more affordable units being built?

Brian Lehrer: Sometimes the critique of the taller for more affordable units exchange is that, well, when the zoning allows a developer to build taller, and let's say there's a 20% or a 30% affordable unit requirement or deal, that's still going to mean 70% or 80% market rate. Even though there will be more in pure numbers of affordable units, the balance of the neighborhood will start to change more toward the market rates. How do you prevent that in your opinion, if you're going to allow higher building?

John Sanchez: Well, we need New York City to be a city of affordable housing. That means market rate. That means middle income. That means low-income housing. What we don't want is young professionals feeling that they can't live in certain parts of this city and then going to Westchester or the suburbs.

We need to build on a massive scale not seen by the 1960s, where we were building nearly 360,000 units in the decade of the '60s. Right now we're hovering around 160,000 units. We are not building at the scale we need, but on your other point, yes, [unintelligible 00:10:42] at least more affordable housing, we need to expand vouchers on the federal state and city level to bridge the gap for people who can't afford a $500 a month rent.

Brian Lehrer: When you say you want young professionals to be living in the district, some members of council might push back on that and say, well, the more the young professionals move in, the more that's going to mean gentrification, and everything's going to go up. The people who live there now are increasingly going to be priced out, do you disagree?

John Sanchez: Well, New York City is great in the sense that we have great rent control laws and rent stabilization laws. When you don't build more housing, that's when gentrification happens because you have more people competing over fewer housing units. I would disagree with that. Also, my own staff members who live in the Bronx, they're college graduates, they want to stay in this neighborhood, but the housing stock that currently exist, they don't want to live in the neighborhood and there is nothing for them in their price range, they either make too much or make too little.

Brian Lehrer: Did you just come out against the rent stabilization laws?

John Sanchez: No, I support the rent stabilization laws, which is why there's not as much of a threat of displacement because we have those protections. With those protections, we need to massively build more housing as well.

Brian Lehrer: Last question, as we run out of time, are you aligning yourself with any mayoral campaign?

John Sanchez: I haven't decided who I'm going to vote for, but I will say I'm thoroughly impressed by Katherine Garcia. She has the most detailed plan of any candidate I've seen. I feel like she's probably the most equipped to serve as mayor tomorrow.

Brian Lehrer: There we go, a candidate aligned with a mayoral candidate as he runs for New York city council in district 15, the special election in the Bronx. Folks, if Ritchie Torres was your city council member before he got elected to Congress, this is your special election. Early voting is underway and election day itself is next Tuesday. We've had three candidates in this race on previously and today we've just finished up with candidate John Sanchez. Mr. Sanchez, thanks so much for joining us.

John Sanchez: Thanks, Brian. Have a great one.

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