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TJH Speaks with Joann Ariola, Candidate for Queens Borough President
A Borough President For All TJH Speaks with Joann Ariola, Candidate for Queens Borough President
BY SUSAN SCHWAMM
Joann, you’re running for Queens Borough President, a position vacated by Melinda Katz when she won the Queens District Attorney race. I know that you’ve been involved with politics for a while. Tell us a bit about yourself.
I’m a Queens resident. I’m a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. I currently work in the healthcare industry, and I’m the Queens chairperson for the Republican Party. I’ve had a 30-year career in working for elected officials. I’ve worked for two city council members from both parties – Noach Dear and Al Stabile from Howard Beach. I worked for Giuliani, for and with, and I worked for Mayor Bloomberg. I’m the president of my civic association. I sit on Community Board 10. I’m involved in various civics throughout the borough.
I love Queens. I think it’s the best place in the world to live because it’s the perfect combination of urban and suburban living.
You’ve worked with many politicians. Any lessons that you’ve learned from these politicians?
What I learned early on in politics was that you have to remain a public servant. If you become a government bureaucrat, you’re no longer serving the community that elected you.
And that’s what I try to do. Even in my job in the private sector, I work for a large hospital network. I do all their government and community outreaches. It really is, in a way, serving the community.
The politicians I’ve worked for also taught me that if there isn’t public safety and law and order, you cannot have anything. One of the biggest divides between the people in our city right now are the ones who want safe streets and the people who want anarchy. My opponent, Donovan Richards, made it clear which side he’s on. That’s part and parcel of why I’m in this race – I know what good government is. I know what good public servants are. I’ve worked for them and with them.
What I’m seeing happening now is the complete destruction of our way of life, our public safety, our quality of life, and our schools. Everything is deteriorating. I honestly don’t want my grandchildren to have to move. I want them to be able to stay here. I don’t want them to leave because it’s too dangerous or too expensive to stay here. Unless we make a change, then they will be forced to move. We cannot put Donovan Richards in a position as the borough president because his voting record and the policies that he implemented as a city councilman – such as the closing of Rikers Island, the homeless shelters within communities, not really serving all of the people in the communities that he serves – tell me that he was part of the problem and not the solution. I don’t have any confidence that he will become the solution if he became borough president.
Can you tell us what defines the role of the borough president?
The borough president is an advocate for the borough.
A borough president can advocate for the borough on the state-level and can also introduce legislation with city council members on a city council level. There’s so much power within the borough presidency that people don’t recognize because nothing happens in the borough without an okay from the borough president’s office, especially when it comes to land use and zoning. I think that’s been abused over the last few years in that some communities have gotten lower-income housing or affordable housing but that not all communities have benefited from it. That’s something that I want to look into when I become borough president.
As the borough president, I will advocate for the NYPD to receive funding back. The NYPD should never have been defunded.
With the NYPD being defunded and Rikers Island being systematically empty, with Hotel de Blasios popping up in our communities, shelters, halfway houses, community prisons…. Donovan Richards won’t be opposing that but I will. I’m going to say no to that because I want to stay in Queens. I want my kids to live here and my grandchildren to be able to live here. But more than that, I’m a public servant. I have always been an advocate. I’m not looking at my next position like Donovan Richards is, wanting to become the borough president because he’s termed out of being a city council member.
And then where will he have his eyes next? Certainly not on us, and certainly not in our favor.
When you speak with Queens residents, what are the top two or three issues that are on their mind?
Number one on their mind is public safety.
Number two is taxes. We’re being so highly taxed that it’s almost impossible to live here in Queens anymore, and yet, we get the smallest portion of the budget back in Queens and the least services.
The third issue they are concerned about is that our schools are being targeted.
The fourth issue on the list is small businesses, which are being shuttered. They need so much help to recover.
When you become borough president, what are the three most important things that you want to work on?
What I want to first do is restore public safety to this borough. That’s number one because without public safety, we have nothing. It doesn’t matter if I want to fund parks or cultural societies or do a vote on development or new businesses. Nothing will work if we don’t have public safety. We will not be able to live here. We won’t be able to sell our homes; we won’t be able to open businesses. Developers will not want to come here and invest in our borough if we don’t have public safety. So that’s number one.
And then we have to try to lower taxes for our residents. Right now, there’s forgiveness for tenants, yet our property owners are still being overtaxed. They’re losing income and possibly losing their buildings. A lot of two-family homes are owned by senior citizens. The rent they receive provides them with funds to pay their mortgage or to pay their taxes. So must address those issues.
I also want to look at our schools. The entire back-toschool debacle of Mayor de Blasio is unconscionable. He had six months to decide on how to get kids back into school safely in the public school system, yet there was no plan. He targeted parochial and private schools and closed them for COVID reasons and then opened up the city to tens of thousands of looters and protesters, and they were, by no means, wearing masks or following the guidelines. So I understand why people have no confidence in de Blasio. But Donovan Richards is in lockstep with de Blasio. They don’t care anything about the middle-class neighborhoods like the ones we live in.
I get the feeling now that government doesn’t care about my quality of life. I think the Democrats have been lying to us. They’re pandering so far to the left now just so that they can maintain their position that they’re allowing BLM to run wild around our cities, and yet the Orthodox Jewish community can’t pray and neither can the Catholic community. They’re closing schools and churches. It’s insanity. It’s anarchy. We need to get back to the values that we had.
We need to back our “blue.” I have the endorsement of all the law enforcement unions. They realized that the Democratic Party is the party of anarchy. The Democrat Party is no longer the party of law and order. They’re putting handcuffs on cops instead of criminals. And now it’s even worse because now, because of the bail reform, a criminal knows that they can commit a crime in the morning and be out in the afternoon to commit another crime. It’s unconscionable what’s happening.
We have to take a stand. And that’s what I’m doing. I want to send a message. And I want the Jewish community to stand with me with this message that the Democratic establishment cannot continue to take us for granted.
You’re the Queens chairperson of the Republican Party. In general, the demographic of Queens is more Democrat than Republican.
Yes. It’s 7:1, Democrat to Republican.
That’s a big discrepancy but you need to take two things into consideration. In this particular climate, voters are not as stupid as the Democrats think they are. People are fed up. They’re no longer voting for their party. They’re voting for the person running. They’re getting informed and saying, “Well, what does this person stand for? Is it what I stand for?”
I’m running on three lines: I have the Republican line. I have the conservative line. And I have an independent line which is called Save Our City. It’s never been more important for our city to be saved. So people have three options to vote for me on.
Additionally, we’ve seen a tremendous volume in changes of enrollment, people switching parties from Democrat to Republican, and many of them switching to independent because they’re sick of parties in general.
People are also telling me that even though they may be a registered Democrat and are voting Democrat in the presidential election, they are voting Republican in the local elections because they see that there needs to be a change locally.
What happens locally affects you directly. If you walk out and you trip into a pothole, you know that your local government official is not doing their job. You can see it, feel it, touch it, smell You want to look for a person who’s going to be a public servant and not a government bureaucrat. If there ever was a time when people are going to wake up and look for change, this is the year. And that’s why I’m so confident that we’ll win.
There’s going to be a big turnout this year because it’s a presidential election. Do you feel that’s going to hurt you or help you?
I think in a normal cycle, when all points were equal, yes, that could have hurt me
as a Republican candidate, it. It affects you personally.
but not now. I remember just before Giuliani was elected, there were all these riots in Crown Heights. People were fed up then. I believe we’re at that point again. The Democratic Party has moved so far to the left that they cannot be trusted to do the right thing for the constituents and bring back law and order.
The voter deserves to know they have a choice. And that’s why I’ve gone to every community, whether it was
Laurelton, Cambria Heights, Springfield Gardens, areas that would not typically be an area where a Republican could win. You know what I’m hearing from people? I’m hearing this: “You know what? I’m a taxpayer. I don’t want less police. I want more police. I want police who are better trained. I want more neighborhood policing, youth officers on the street to mend and garner relationships.” That’s what I’m hearing. And that’s what I want to do as borough president.
Queens is the most diverse borough. Do you see yourself as someone who can unite all those very different, diverse communities?
What you have to do is make yourself present in those communities. During this campaign, I’ve met with so many different communities. The Greek community, the Italian community. The Guyanese community. The Bangladeshi community. This is a very diverse borough. But I’ll tell you what. If you take the time to meet with people and talk to them and find out what their issues are, then they know you care. People want to know that they’re cared for. And I’m a dedicated person who has everyone’s best interests at heart.
Have you encountered any interesting customs when you met with people in all these communities?
Yes, very wonderful customs. There’s nothing more interesting than learning about other customs.
I worked for Noach Dear for years. When I worked there, after some time, people were wishing me a good Shabbos because I embraced the people and culture.
When I meet with the Punjabi community, I’m very respectful. I cover my head when I go into their gurdwaras [place of worship] as well as in the Bangladeshi community. In the Greek community, I know you have to eat something. But that reminds me of the Italian community, right, or the Jewish community. So there are many differences. But there are so many threads of similarities, too.
It sounds like you’re extremely busy. What do you do to relax?
My grandchildren call me Gogo because I’m on the move 24/7. But I always make time, during the course of the day, to pray. We have a chapel in the hospital that I work in, so I make time for that, and that’s when I really center myself. But I’m on the move. I’m an active participant in my community. I’m an active participant in my family. And I get great pleasure doing good things for others.
I love this borough, and I believe that it’s worth fighting for – for us, for our children, for our grandchildren. If elected on November 3rd for borough president, I would be a borough president for everyone.
THE MENSCH ON THE BENCH ELECT Judge Gary KNOBEL Supreme Court Justice
A Life Dedicated to Justice!
PROFESSIONAL Found "Well Quali ed" for Supreme Court and by the Nassau County Bar Association
District Court Judge for 12 years.
Former Acting County Court Judge presiding over Guardianship and psychiatric retention hearings. Law Clerk to Supreme Court Justices for over 20 years. Professor of Law, Hofstra University School of Law, teaching New York Civil Procedure for 15 years. Lecturer on behalf of the Judicial Institute, instructing judges on civil procedure and consumer debt litigation. President of the Jewish Lawyers Association of Nassau County, President NYS District Court Judges Association. Honored in 2011 by Fraternal Order of Court Offi cers. Graduate of New York University School of Law. Delivers food weekly to Seniors in Hempstead for the last 25 years on behalf of Island Harvest. Member of Young Israel of Oceanside and Great Neck Synagogue and Congregation B’Nai Sholom in Rockville Centre. Devoted husband to llene, and father to Laurence and Lily.
