In June of 2021, I spoke to Antonio Reynoso about why he thought he should be the next Brooklyn Borough President. This month I had the opportunity to speak to him about his goals and outlook now that he has won the election and begun his term as Borough President.
One of the first items on his agenda has been hiring a staff. Many staff members left with previous Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, once he was elected mayor of New York City. Reynoso has hired 18 new staff members in the last three weeks but will need to hire a total of 50 new staff members.
“It’s been a tough three weeks as we look to ramp up, given that we’ve lost a significant amount of folks,” Reynoso said. “But the mayor’s office has been extremely helpful with the onboarding of new employees. They’ve provided resources to us related to land use items so that we can continue to be on the clock and abide by our charter mandated responsibilities on land use. His team is communicating very clearly to us. They’re trying their best to help us.”
Reynoso also explained his responsibilities as borough president.
“The borough president has a few mandated responsibilities,” Reynoso said. “The first one, which is the most commonly known one, is that we’re in charge of the community boards, so we’re tasked with the appointments to all the community boards and their management.
“Another thing that we’re in charge of is making recommendations on land use items within the borough. So while we don’t have the final say, we get recommendations from the community boards and then make recommendations ourselves regarding decisions.
“The last thing we do is that we receive about five percent of the city’s capital budget split between the five boroughs based on geography, population, and poverty rates. We get that in capital dollars, so that tends to be anywhere from $50 million to $65 million to invest in the city of New York.
“Those are three primary functions of the borough president. But I would say that a fourth one that is not a charter mandated responsibility, but is one that Marty Markowitz made very famous, is being the borough’s cheerleader, making sure that you know everything Brooklyn, all the time!”
Though he is just getting started, Reynoso said that he has already been in contact with Markowitz and that he has been very helpful. Reynoso also told me about some of his goals as Brooklyn Borough President.
“I want to address black maternal health,” Reynoso said. “Black women die at 9.4 times the rate as their white counterparts during birthing. And I want to change that. I want to make Brooklyn the safest place for black women to have babies in New York City. It’s something that I care deeply about.
“The first thing we’re doing is we’re spending almost all of our capital money and outfitting every single public hospital in the borough with a state-of-the-art birthing center, and we’ve committed at least $45 million to do that. Coney Island Hospital, Kings County, and Woodhull are going to get state-of-the-art maternity wards. We’re working alongside the mayor on policy-driven work to empower midwives to lead in the birthing process.
“We’re also looking to task our community boards with letting us know where they believe development can happen in their districts. We want to make sure that every single community board is a part of this conversation.
“We all need to contribute to the greater good of Brooklyn and the City of New York, and that includes their development. It’s not only about housing, though we are asking them to find places where we could build housing. We also want to know whether or not they have a need for parks or more schools, for better roads and more transit, and more libraries, community centers, and so forth. We’re going to ask the community boards to lead a process that really engages them in how they want to see their communities in the next 10 years.”
I also asked Reynoso for his thoughts on all of the last-mile warehouses that have moved into Red Hook. These warehouses include Amazon and UPS facilities that bring lots of trucks into the neighborhood.
“This is a part of the comprehensive planning work that I think is very important and that we should be paying attention to a bit more,” Reynoso said. “I think the problem we have is right now there are no regulations set forth that protect communities from being overburdened with facilities that cause harm environmentally to a community.
“I will be advocating for the mayor of the City of New York to pass a zoning amendment that prevents these warehouses from being built one after another after another right next to each other in one community.”
I told him about the efforts of Jim Tampakis of Tampco Mechanical in Red Hook to get last-mile warehouses to use the waterways to transport goods instead of relying so heavily on trucks.
“I’m all in on our waterways as a way to move goods,” Reynoso said. “I want to move away from the use of vehicles and move to barges. We do that with our sanitation work now, and most of our garbage is running through a barge. And it’s better for the streets to get 18 wheelers off of our streets and move transportation to the river.
“The thing is, we just need to invest more in our waterfront. A lot of our waterfront access is in underdeveloped, neglected areas. Should we make small investments and make these bulkheads functional and the piers functional, we could more meaningfully activate the East River to function as a way to move goods in and out of this borough.”
The borough president also had a suggestion to help improve conditions at the Red Hook Houses (and throughout the borough in general.)
“I’ve been a big proponent of containerized waste,” Reynoso said. “And you know, the way to get rid of rats and other infestations is to remove their source of food. We would cut off their main source of food and doing so would reduce the amount of rats that we have in this city.
“We’re one of the largest cities in the country and one of the few that still doesn’t containerize its waste. When you really think about it, the fact that we just allow for trash to be sitting out on our sidewalks for 12 hours in some cases is very, very primitive and it’s an old way of doing things. We need to move to the future and do what other cities have been doing for a long time that actually works, which is to have containerized waste.
“It’s something that I pushed for, but I was a council member and this didn’t get enough traction in the City Council. But I think this is something that could absolutely happen. I’m going to do my part and advocate for it and it is something I think is actually very doable. I think this could be something that is taken on by the sanitation committee very quickly and very early on in the new City Council.”
I concluded by asking Reynoso what he would like to say to everyone in Brooklyn.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Reynoso said. “I’m asking Brooklyn to be a bit patient while we step up and we get the team ready to go, but I’m very excited. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to Brooklyn for giving me this shot, and I’m going to pay it forward and get ready to have fun and bring about meaningful work that is going to affect the lives of people in this borough. I am just very happy and very grateful!”
