Latchmi Gopal and Kenny Agosto, two candidates running in the District 15 City Council special election race, which takes place on March 23, have joined forces and called on fellow candidates to refuse, or return money donated to their campaigns from special interest groups. As reported previously by the Norwood News, a number of “independent spenders” have been spending heavily on ad campaigns in both the District 15 and the District 11 races in support of their candidates, including in the final days of both campaigns, as reported by the New York City Campaign Finance Board (CFB).

 

Independent spenders are organizations or persons that pay out money to produce or distribute campaign materials for a specific candidate’s political campaign, without coordinating with or seeking approval from that particular candidate. One such group, Voters of NYC, Inc., comprises donors, Adam Flatto, CEO of The Georgetown Company, Rosewood Realty Group Inc., Michael Stillman [no occupation provided] and WLZ Properties Inc. Voters of NYC, Inc. is organized by Jeffrey Leb, founder of Capitol Consulting. According to its website, “Capitol Consulting specializes in three fields: zoning and land use issues, budgetary matters, and legislative issues.

Voters of NYC, Inc, whose name is somewhat disingenuous given the few entities behind it, in conjunction with another PAC, New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany, have, according to the CFB, collectively paid out approximately $40,000 in ads in support of John Sanchez, another District 15 candidate. The contributors behind “New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany” are Anthony David, CEO and founder of Inherent Group, Paul Jones, founder and CIO of the Tudor Group, and Alice Walton, heiress of Walmart. New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany received an $800,000 contribution from Alice Walton alone, which was pooled and split among different candidates.

 

Maura Curtin, a spokesperson for the Biaggi campaign, later told us, “Senator Biaggi does not accept corporate PAC money from special interests that do not align with her values. Of course groups like Tenants PAC, Streets PAC, Sunrise and Unions donate to progressive campaigns, which isn’t the same as billionaires funding campaigns to further their own agendas.” She added, “In the case of the CD11 race, the special interest money appears to be tied to big developers and the real estate industry.”

 

Curtin added, “The bigger question for voters is why are those interests spending so much money to ensure Eric Dinowitz wins this special election?” Senator Biaggi is a fierce advocate for removing all outside money from politics.”

 

On March 23, the CFB reported that the Our City PAC spent the following on ads on District 15 candidates: $1,436 on ads for Ischia Bravo, $12,436 on Elisa Crespo, $1,436 on Oswald Feliz, $1,436 on Latchmi Gopal and $1,436 on John Sanchez.

 

On Sunday, March 21, community activist, Latchmi Gopal and Kenny Agosto, who currently serves as district director for New York State Sen. Jamaal Bailey, were joined by a handful of supporters, at an unusual press conference held in limited space on the elevated platform of the West Farms Square / East Tremont Avenue Station in the Bronx to get their point across to voters.

 

Agosto explained, “I’m here with my colleague, competitor and like-minded community organizer, Latchmi Devi Gopal. We are here today to denounce the influence of money in what we consider to be the most important election of our lifetime.” He continued, “We’re here united because we’re asking all the candidates in this election to denounce corporate developers, out-of-state international monies.”

 

Agosto added, “We’re asking the candidates, if you have already received development money, corporate landlord money, multi international conglomerate money, to return it back.” Taking short breaks to allow trains to pass by, Gopal explained, “We are here really to say and this is going to sum it up – the Bronx is not for sale! We are completely denouncing real estate developer monies, special interest group money that is being poured into this district to buy out the Bronx, and disenfranchise and push out the community members who are currently here.”

 

Gopal then said, “Our district is deeply impacted by the pandemic disproportionally and we need to make sure that principled and transparent leadership cannot be more important right now.” Gopal, who was a national campaign organizer for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, added, “When you allow the money of special interest groups and real estate developers to have an influence in our district, you’re saying you are beholden to them.”

 

Gopal said that she believed that the upcoming election, “is going to make or break our community in such a significant way.” Meanwhile, Agosto said of his teaming up with Gopal, “We’re together in this in every single way, beyond March 23. We are going to be going together in our individual campaigns, working together for the June 22 Democratic Primary.”

 

Gopal and Agosto are just two candidates in a crowded field that includes, according to the New York City Board of Elections and Ballotpedia, eight other candidates, all of whom aim to fill the seat of former Councilman and now Congressman, Ritchie Torres, who was elected to Congress in November 2020.

 

The others are Ischia Bravo, Bronx Community Board 7 District Manager, Elisa Crespo, education liaison at the Bronx borough president’s office, Oswald Feliz, tenant lawyer and adjunct professor at Hostos Community College, Bernadette Ferrara, president of the Van Nest Neighborhood Alliance, Jose Padilla, former Independence candidate for both the New York State Assembly and the New York State Senate, Arial Rivera-Diaz, a former finance clerk with the City’s Board of Elections and former official at the Republican National Hispanic Assembly, Community Board 6 District Manager, John Sanchez, and Altagracia Soldevilla, another community organizer.

Candidates were required to gather a minimum number of signatures from local residents in order to qualify for the ballot in the special election. As reported by the Norwood News, that minimum had been 450 signatures until Gov. Andrew Cuomo,  announced on Jan. 7 that he was reducing the threshold to 315 signatures.

 

A Board of Elections public hearing was held on Feb. 4 to assess which District 15 candidates had collated the minimum number of signatures needed to proceed. Troy Blackwell, a former White House and Obama administration aide, and Lilithe L. Lozano, a former district chair of NYCHA’s Bronx North council, did not make the ballot according to the Board of Elections. Julian Sepulveda, an official at the Department of Education, had suspended his campaign in November, endorsing Crespo as he did so.

 

Some City Council candidates had previously raised concerns about the impact on people’s health of the signature collection process, and had called for for the signature requirement to be waived amid fears of exacerbating the spread of the coronavirus through mass person-to-person contact.

 

In the District 11 race, which is also taking place on March 23, candidates, Mino Lora and Jessica Haller, announced at different points that they had each previously contracted the coronavirus. Meanwhile, as reported by the Norwood News, Marcos Sierra and Abigail Martin have withdrawn from the District 11 special election, both citing health risk concerns associated with the virus, though both have said they plan to participate in the June primary.

In terms of campaign contributions, since we last reported on the amounts raised by District 15 candidates, according to the latest New York City Campaign Finance Board (CFB) figures, Sanchez continues to lead with $62,343, now followed by Bravo with $44,225, Crespo with $43,431, Feliz with $32,597, Gopal with $18,573, Ferrara with $10,042, Soldevilla with $8,147 and Agosto with $6,420. There is no campaign contribution data listed for Padilla and Rivera-Diaz.

 

A District 15 candidate’s forum with six of the ten candidates in the District 15 special election race was held on Saturday, Feb. 13, hosted by Little Africa Bronx News, a “Social Impact Strategies” project, an intersection of community relations, issue advocacy and public policy. The forum can be viewed here. Mona Davids, founder and publisher, issued a Facebook statement following the event, explaining that only viable candidates had been invited to participate in the forum.

 

A District 15 debate among nine of the candidates was subsequently organized in partnership between the League of Women’s Voters of New York City and BronxNet with co-sponsors, Dominicanos USA, NALEO Educational Fund, The Bronx Times, The James Baldwin Outdoor Learning Center, and The Riverdale Press. It was hosted by Gary Axelbank, and will be broadcast on Monday, March 15, at 9 p.m. on Optimum 67, Fios 2133, and can also be watched on BronxNet’s YouTube channel here. Soldevilla communicated to BronxNet that she was unable to make the debate.

 

A further candidates forum was organized by the Van Nest Neighborhood Alliance on March 8. This can be viewed here.

 

The Bronx Board of Elections confirmed that it is accepting applications for absentee ballots from voters in District 11 (and in District 15) who wish to vote by mail. Further information can be found here or by calling the Bronx Board of Elections at (718) 299-9017 and selecting Ext. 1875.

 

Polls are open on election day from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Voters must vote at their assigned early voting site. Find your poll site and view a sample ballot here: https://findmypollsite.vote.nyc/.

 

The District 15 race is one of the first two elections in the Bronx which will incorporate the new method of RCV, the other being District 11. RCV is a voting method whereby voters can rank up to five candidates in order of preference, instead of choosing just one. If a candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes, that candidate is the winner. If no candidate earns more than 50 percent of first-choice votes, then counting will continue in rounds. At the end of each round, the candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated.

 

If a voter ranked the eliminated candidate first, then the next highest ranked candidate on the voter’s ballot will be taken into account in the next round of counting. The process continues as such until there are two candidates left. The candidate with the most votes wins.

 

For official information on ranked choice voting, go to the NYC Campaign Finance Board FAQ page or the New York City Board of Elections website.

 

Democracy Journal reported in 2016, in the context of a few different U.S. elections in which ranked choice voting was tested, and weighed up the pros and cons on the approach. Some argue that it splits the vote when there is a perceived “establishment candidate,” making the process more democratic. Backers of the initiative also argue that the new system will discourage negative campaigning because candidates risk losing valuable second- and third-place votes by alienating one another’s strongest supporters.

 

The Bronx Democratic Party hosted an informational session on Ranked Choice Voting which can be viewed here in conjunction with the group, Rank the Vote NYC. Norwood News checked with the City’s Campaign Finance Board about the expertise of Rank the Vote NYC and were advised that the group is a reputable source on the topic and is a voter education campaign that is run by Common Cause NY.

 

Whoever wins the March 23 special, nonpartisan election will serve until Dec. 31, 2021. Future representation in the District beyond that point will likely be determined via a June 2021 primary and a November 2021 general election.

 

City Council District 15 covers Fordham, Mount Hope, Bathgate, Belmont, East Tremont, West Farms, Van Nest, Allerton, Olinville and parts of Bedford Park.