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District 2 candidates make their case at theater debate DISTRICT2 continued from p. 19

ing how he got universal pre-K, and saying that former Mayor Bloomberg was so gung ho for charter schools. However, on affordable housing, she said the mayor is “not doing enough.” Referring to the 421a program, she said, “We should not be giving tax breaks to real estate developers when we could be building affordable housing ourselves — not 20 percent, but 100 percent affordable housing.”

“Where is the Small Business Jobs Survival Act?” Vasquez demanded. “It hasn’t even hit the floor [for a vote]. Enough is enough!” Yet he gave the mayor credit for cutting down stop and frisk and addressing mental illness.

Cho said, “I don’t know what other choice we have for mayor. Unfortunately, we have a system that keeps those in power in power.”

The city should be a world leader in every area, but isn’t, Cho said, noting, “Why isn’t every one of our buildings covered in solar panels and green roofs? We just don’t have the guts.”

Rivera said “absolutely” the S.B.J.S.A. should be approved. And she said racial profiling by police must stop.

All the candidates said that police reform hasn’t gone far enough. “ ‘Broken windows’ theory is broken,” Vasquez declared. “Enough is enough.”

Schindler asked the candidates how they would follow up the district’s past

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three councilmembers — who have all been openly gay or lesbian – in terms of working with the gay community.

“The district remains kind of one of the hometowns for the L.G.B.T. community in New York City,” he noted. All five said they would respect the district’s diversity and everyone’s sexual identity.

“This is still a city that has not passed legislation against gay-conversion therapy,” Cho noted.

All five said they would work as part of “the resistance” against the Trump administration in D.C. On the issue of Mt. Sinai Beth Israel Hospital downsizing and building a minihospital at E. 13th St. and Second Ave., the candidates expressed great concern.

Silver, who noted she gave birth to her third daughter in a taxi, said the district needs facilities that can deliver babies.

(Mt. Sinai has moved its obstetrics unit out of Beth Israel.)

“Seventy beds is unacceptable,” Rivera said of the planned mini-hospital. “And let’s think about the portfolio of land [at the hospital’s current E. 17th St. site]— is it going to be residential? Likely it will be, so that will be more people” needing healthcare.

Cho said the hospital downsizing plan “didn’t even go through an adequate needs assessment.”

“We know there are nonprofit mobile units — why aren’t they in our communities?” Vasquez said, stressing that all

approaches must be explored and used to improve the area’s healthcare.

In audience questions, Susan Stetzer, district manager for C.B. 3, put Cho on the spot by asking why he had opted out of the city’s campaign-finance program, which provides generous matching funds to candidates if they reach a certain level of fundraising and if they have enough indistrict contributions. Cho is actually in debt, in terms of his campaign financing, because he has spent much of his money flying to out-of-state fundraisers.

However, at the debate, Cho answered that he opted out of the matching-funds program because, basically, he felt the city could put the money to better use, “for other people, for other causes.” He went further, slamming what he called “the industrial campaign complex.”

In fact, though, he did not qualify for matching funds because he did not raise funds from at least 75 people in District 2.

Sanchez, too, said she felt that instead of taking matching funds, the city could put it to better uses. However, Sanchez did not raise enough money to qualify for the program.

Rivera said the city’s campaign-finance program is the best in the country.

“If someone gives you $10 and you know that’s worth $70, that’s incredibly powerful,” she said, adding that matching funds “level the playing field.”

A source close to the Cho campaign

later told The Villager, “From Day One, Ronnie has been focused on going door to door, asking his neighbors about their hopes and concerns for the neighborhood and not their checkbooks. It’s clear his message of bringing a new generation of leadership is resonating as evident by the 5,000-plus [ballot] petition signatures collected by our grassroots team and not an establishment political machine.”

At certain points, Sanchez and Vasquez made veiled criticisms of Rivera — Sanchez referring to “the machine” and Vasquez saying that a candidate in the race had taken money from a politician who supported the planned E. 14th St. “tech hub.” In fact, Andrew Rasiej, the head of Civic Hall, the driving force behind the tech hub, has given more than $2,000 to Rivera’s campaign.

Over all, however, observers say the District 2 race has not been as “nasty” as the one in District 1, where three challengers are running to unseat Margaret Chin.

On the tech hub, Rivera she doesn’t want a “glassy building” for people who aren’t connected to the neighborhood.

Cho said he was concerned it would just be for “white dudes.” Vasquez said he supports it strongly because coders’ starting salary is $75,000 and it’s a path to a better life for local youth. Silver said she wants seniors to learn coding there, too.

They all agreed: “No tech hub without zoning protections.”

August 31, 2017

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