How the Cuomo Story Affects New Yorkers

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. With us now, Debralee Santos, editor-in-chief of the bilingual community newspapers, The Manhattan Times and The Bronx Free Press. Thanks for coming on, Debralee. Welcome back to WNYC.

Debralee Santos: Thanks, Brian. Good morning.

Brian: The Cuomo resignation is being discussed very much in terms of palace intrigue in the halls of power. How do you think it trickles down to the people who read your newspapers in English and Spanish as it affects their lives?

Debralee: I think like everyone else they're drawn fundamentally to the highs and lows and the very pitched narrative here. People have bandied about the term Shakespearian and the like, and there's a lot there to mine. This reads like nothing short of a tragedy. There's a real relationship in these communities, as across New York, and arguably across the country with Mario Cuomo. There's a bridge named for the family. There's a real connection, and a real sense, if you were to go back with these communities and his family, a sense of Mario Cuomo spotlighted the outer borough ethic and ethnic communities.

In doing so, shed, shown a light rather on the communities that we reach in our papers in Northern Manhattan and the Bronx. There was also that association that was deepened as Andrew Cuomo throughout his tenure, championed, both in legislation and arguably again, in deed and in word, some of the very important issues that these communities are impacted by, including gun violence, including immigration, and including of course, the economy. There was a real affiliation. Many of the elected officials and advocates and stakeholders also were linked to both of these administrations in different ways, so by proxy, there was also that connection.

They followed it to the degree that all of us have to some degree. Again, as invested in the dramatic and the very human elements of it. They've also shuddered at some of what they perceive to be something of a double standard, very much in the telling of the narrative as both Cuomo and his team have advanced in the last week. There's been a sense that there was just a lot of misunderstanding, and a lot of mistakes made, and a lot of just confusion.

Many of them wonder how that's possible when they have been in workplaces since August of 2019, when the administration strengthened sexual harassment laws in the state of New York. They have had to undergo very specific sexual harassment training that has specifically sought to cast any doubt aside as to what constitutes an uncomfortable and toxic work environments.

Brian: Listeners, beyond the palace intrigue, if I can use that term, beyond the right and wrong of should Governor Cuomo have resigned, and what should come next with impeachment hearings continuing or not, those kinds of things, how do you think this transition affects your neighborhood, or the daily lives of yourself or people you know? 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280. For Debralee Santos from The Manhattan Times and The Bronx Free Press. She's the editor-in-chief of those bilingual community newspapers, 646-435-7280 or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Do you think there are equity issues, Debralee that are either getting elevated or getting marginalized by the Attorney General's report, the impeachment process and the resignation in addition to gender equity, which is of course the headline concern here? I wonder if there's a race or class story that's not being told that you might see from the vantage point of the newspapers you run.

Debralee: Absolutely. I believe that they're embedded in an administration that, by and large, has frankly relied upon communities of color, and lawmakers, and again, advocates and stakeholders within these communities to advance the agenda that on the surface, is progressive and liberal, and speaks to some very specific policy initiatives. Yet, when you look at what this report reveals about the innermost circle and the kinds of individuals with whom Cuomo specifically has chosen to surround himself, those people who he considers his brain trust, you see a very clear lack of any individuals of color.

You see people that look and sound very much like himself, and that is who he's come to rely on in this very, very winnowing, narrowing window of time. I think that that speaks to, for many people clarity that's been laid bare, and one that they've spoken about perhaps in whispers, but that when it comes down to it, this administration did not necessarily have very many people in those rooms where decisions are being made, even until the very last moments, that represented them and that look like them. Now, you could argue that who would want to be in those rooms necessarily?

It's a kind of fallout that even some of the individuals, who the report revealed to have been lending counsel and perhaps even engaging in the work of discrediting some of the victims is unsavory, and unlawful, and a number of other things, but at least to the degree that even as we speak today of his legacy and speak to some end as to how to salvage some of the work done, that there were people there that could speak to him honestly as many did and said, "This is not tenable." Clearly, those people did not include brown and Black faces and voices.

I think that's telling for a community that wonders exactly who is in these rooms, who is it that is making these decisions? Not just these last-ditch efforts at retaining power, but who have you relied upon now for many years, who do you really trust?

Brian: Yet the governor's base of support was sufficiently rooted in the Black community, that when these scandal charges first broke in the winter, that's where he ran for solace and political cover, Black churches to make appearances there, things like that. How do you understand the strength and endurance, until very recently, of that support?

Debralee: I think you're looking at the tight rope that any lawmaker, any stakeholder, an advocate, that comes from an underrepresented community has to walk. It is very difficult to manage the relationship with a principal, or an elected official such as the governor, who really is ultimately the chief executive of the state, in such a way that you can only work with him if in fact, the virtue-signaling that is frankly, available to other lawmakers, is not to you.

The funding, the connections and the access that you need often requires a little bit more of a balance and again, of a tight rope act than some others have throughout the state. When you're faced with those kinds of decisions, it's not necessarily that you are advocating or standing as an ally to the man and his alleged behavior, or that you're necessarily anxious or eager to give him cover, as much as you are damned if you do in some way, than damned if you don't, because you really are looking to make sure that the gaps in funding, and again, in access, whatever that need is, is being met.

I'll give you a quick example, not just in the Black community in terms of the circuits that he made with clergy members, and advocates on gun violence and the rest, but he also just recently was in the Bronx at Yankee Stadium. Randy Levine opened the doors wide, and he should be asked those questions as well, but present in that setting were a number of immigration advocates, and lawmakers of the Black and brown communities, and they were there to receive, to be part of a press conference that announced a $50 million allocation to help boost vaccine rates in hard-hit communities.

Now, if you're in that group, and you extended the invitation and you're told, "Hey, tomorrow or in a few days, or whenever that might be, the governor's set to announce that your organization is going to receive X amount of dollars to help make sure that you are funded, and can get out there and conduct this grassroots outreach to help bring these numbers up." You might want to ask yourself, how much of a choice do you have to say, "No, I can't stand the guy. Not going to do it."

Brian: Craig in Jamaica, you're on WNYC with Debralee Santos, editor-in-chief of the bilingual community newspapers, The Manhattan Times and The Bronx Free Press. Hi, Craig.

Craig: Hey, good morning, Brian to you and your guest. I question about Kathy Hochul. She's this person that the governor picked from upstate. From what I understand, at one time she was a county clerk, during when Obama was president, and she refused to process, I don't know if it was driver's license. I'm not sure if it was marriage certificate, but I don't think she's the progressive person for the state. If she does good for the next year and a half, she's going to probably be a front-runner for governor. That's not where, at least us in the lower part of the state, is at.

I don't know her political leanings and I would like to get more information on that. When Jumaane Williams was running for lieutenant governor to try to put check and balance, I was right there with him. When I was listening to your previous caller, I guess it made sense when he said he caucus with the Republicans, and then he brought Kathy Hochul in as a outsider. Cuomo, I met him, as a young person in Springfield Gardens High School. He came to my little small class as a young lawyer and spoke to the class. I thought he was a good guy, a person from Queens.

When it was time to reverse what Pataki did, with not give New York City's fair share of money for the school system, he still pushed the button like it wasn't there. The money is not the problem. I'm like, here's this guy from Queens knowing that we've been deprived, and instead of saying, "Okay, I open up funding but de Blasio need to be more transparent in how schools get the money." I'm for that, but he just carried the line. When January said that he was with the Republicans. I'm like, I'm getting a different view of this guy that I respected from Queens, let alone with all this stuff with the ladies. If this is true, he made his bed he got to lie in.

Brian: Thank you for all that. Keep calling us. Cuomo did rule in part by helping the Republicans stay in power in the state senate while the Democrats stayed in power in the assembly and that split gave him more power. I think that's a pretty widely accepted political analysis over the years. Debralee, to Craig's point about the future. What do you know about Kathy Hochul?

Debralee: Well, I know that she certainly was kept, and given the length of time she's been part of the administration, this was not an oversight. She was deliberately kept at arm's length and made to be very much the individual who was avidly traveling all 62 counties every single year, and made sure to show up for many a ribbon cutting and many a speech on economic development, and/or gender equity, and matters along those lines. She was deliberately kept from the conversations for which, she might be a natural fit.

For which, for that matter, as a former elected official and somebody who was duly elected as lieutenant governor and part of the administration, might have arguably been a better fit, for example, to work on many of the things that Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa who was appointed by the governor, could have been working on. There were decisions there that were made about keeping her really outside of again, the rooms in which decisions were being made on topics that might naturally befit for her portfolio. She has been quite frankly, someone who has been very enthusiastic about the role.

I know that she's chosen to engage, certainly in the Bronx and in Northern Manhattan, with all elected officials. Her press team, and her public appearances, all speak to a very avid enthusiasm for the work, but there's been little import, unfortunately too attached to it. One would hope that the kinds of connections and conversations that she's had with elected officials and she's had many, she's not an invisible member of the administration by any stretch, would have given her a leg up on what is going to be undoubtedly a very difficult job to do in the next year.

Brian: In our last minute, what do you think it'll mean for the state that it'll have New York's first woman governor? What's one thing you would like to tell Kathy Hochul if she's listening right now about the Upper Manhattan and Bronx neighborhoods that your newspapers cover?

Debralee: I'd tell her immediately that she's got a hell of a lot of work to do when it comes to COVID and the concerns around the Delta variant, and schools opening very, very soon. I'd tell her that just like everywhere else across the state, parents are exceptionally worried about what this is going to look like for their children. They are going to be doing so in schools that, by and large, have been underfunded traditionally. In fact, some would argue because of the Cuomos in action, and so that the concerns about the infrastructure, the buildings themselves are paramount.

That the best thing she could do is to get on the ground, listen, visit, and do so quickly because you're going to have that surge. Not just in concern, but potentially in cases on the ground. That's something that I would ask her to address immediately. I will say finally that I hope that we're not subjected to any other press conferences in which any governor tells us how much he or she loves us, loved us, and loved us.

While I doubt that's going to happen with Lieutenant Governor or Governor-to-be Hochul, I would ask all our listeners to wonder what it looks like when a woman expresses love and that kind of intimacy and when a man does it. It'll be interesting to see how it is, that she not just govern, but how it is that she presents herself publicly.

Brian: Debralee Santos is editor-in-chief of the bilingual community newspapers, The Manhattan Times and The Bronx Free Press. Thanks so much, Debralee.

Debralee: Thanks, Brian.

 

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